by Aaron Oster
Aika’s cheeks flushed red at the praise and she quickly dipped her head to hide her embarrassment.
“Best of luck to you both,” she said, then extended both hands.
Blackness billowed out of them, and before Roy could even say goodbye, the world vanished, darkness engulfing them both and swallowing them whole. Roy felt suddenly nauseous as the floor seemed to tilt beneath him, his head spinning. Then, he fell hard onto his side, his head smacking into the ground as the world settled.
He was on his feet in an instant, looking around wildly and trying to find his mother. It was only when he paused for a moment that he realized the world of blackness was no longer there. In fact, they no longer appeared to be inside the crystal cavern at all.
The air was damp, and his breath steamed before him. Wind whipped at his face and clothes, the ground beneath his feet feeling damp and sodden.
“Where are we? What happened? What did you do?”
Geon’s voice, panicked and agitated, sounded in his mind. Roy was still disoriented, so for the Dungeon Core, who’d heard nothing of their conversation, it had to be far worse.
A low groan from beside him made Roy look down. Aika was slowly sitting up, clutching at her head. A dead leaf, damp and brown, clung to her cheek and one of her arms was streaked with dirt.
“Here,” Roy said, extending a hand.
Aika, still looking a bit dazed, took it, Roy pulling her to her feet and keeping a hand on her shoulder as she swayed unsteadily.
“Where are we?” she asked, clutching her head and wincing.
“That’s what I want to know,” Geon said, all but yelling into his mind.
Roy took another look around. Clouds hung low in the sky, and thunder rumbled in the distance. They were in some sort of forest, with walls of mossy stone rising thousands of feet before them and vanishing into the clouds above. However, right in their path, lay an opening, a split in the stone with an obvious trail leading in.
“Wherever we are,” Roy said, “I have a feeling we’re supposed to go that way.”
“What happ-?” Geon began again, only for Roy to cut him off.
“I’ll explain as we walk. Stop being so impatient.”
“I’m the most patient Dungeon Core in the world,” Geon said. “You’re the impatient one.”
Roy pointedly ignored that, turning his attention back to Aika, who seemed to be steadier on her feet.
“Come on,” she said, picking the leaf from her cheek. “We better find somewhere to camp for the night. It looks like a bad storm is coming, and I don’t much feel like being soaked through.”
With that said, she took off at a run, Light Qi flashing around her body as she used her Movement technique. Roy, who still had some Qi left, despite his brutal test, followed quickly after, keen to avoid the rain.
11
Hermit and Duncan sat together in his throne room, both of their brows furrowed in concentration and sweat pouring down their brows. They had been trying to reach Roy for well over a day. But no matter what they did, whether it was trying to pull him through space back to them or open a portal or even try going there themselves, they both found themselves blocked off from reaching them.
At some point, both Roy and Aika had even changed locations, traveling all the way to the northern edge of Safaia in a matter of seconds. It was at that point that they both realized that something was interfering with them, blocking them from accessing Roy or Aika.
They’d redoubled their efforts, but by now, Hermit realized that it was an effort in futility. His eyes flickered open as he relaxed his power, drawing it back into himself with a gasp and wincing at the pain from his strained channels.
Duncan’s eyes opened a moment later, though he looked less exhausted and more furious.
“Who in the hell is preventing me from bringing my son back?” he snapped, getting to his feet and beginning to pace.
“Whoever it is, they must be extremely powerful,” Hermit said, dabbing at his forehead. “Who do you know that has the power to keep the two of us from reaching him?”
“The Cavern Beast?” Duncan asked, alarm sounding in his voice.
“Well, yes,” Hermit said. “But there is someone else I know who’s shown a vested interest in Roy. I haven’t seen him in quite some time, but I have the feeling that if anyone is interfering with his retrieval, it would be him.”
“Who would keep me from my son?” Duncan asked, his expression growing dark.
“I don’t know much about him,” Hermit admitted. “I only know that he calls himself Azure and that until the point where I reached the rank of Sovereign, I could not even sense his presence.”
Duncan’s brows came down, his lips hardening to a thin line.
“You know where they are right now, correct?” Duncan asked.
“How could I not?” Hermit replied, getting to his feet and stretching his arms over his head. “The moment they entered that place, they were out of our reach. No one needs to keep us from retrieving him now, because neither of us can get to him.”
Duncan’s hands balled into fists, and for a moment, Hermit wondered if the man was going to blow his compound to pieces. But, after a couple of tense moments, Duncan seemed to calm down.
“Nothing seems to be going our way lately, especially around my clan,” he muttered, slumping back into his seat.
“How so?” Hermit asked, clasping his hands behind his back and looking out in the direction from which Roy’s presence was emanating.
“Marrie hasn’t spoken to me in days — I think she’s still upset I won’t let her join the battle. Additionally, I haven’t heard from several of the adopted members of my clan. Kaido is nowhere to be found, and Doragon may as well not exist anymore. Several others have just disappeared, and no matter how hard I look, I can’t seem to find them. I was hoping Leroy’s return would at least soothe Marrie a bit, but now someone is stopping us from even getting him home.”
“Do you think they’re dead?” Hermit asked.
“If they were dead, I’d be able to find their bodies,” Duncan said. “They’re missing. It’s almost as though someone yanked them off the face of Buryoku and hid them somewhere else.”
“That is odd,” Hermit admitted. “I won’t pretend to know what’s going on, but I can assure you that if Azure is the one who sent Roy away, he did it for a good reason.”
“This Azure person,” Duncan said, clearly wanting to change the subject. “Do you think he can defeat the Bringer of Fire?”
He thought about it for a moment. Hermit didn’t really know much about Azure other than the fact that he was far more powerful than anyone he’d ever met. Could he defeat the Ancient Cavern Beast, though?
“I believe he can,” Hermit finally said. “But before you ask, I very much doubt we can depend on his help. The way he speaks leads me to believe that he wouldn’t interfere, even if the world itself were on the brink of collapse.”
The corner of Duncan’s lip twitched, but he didn’t say anything else, instead sitting back down and crossing his arms. The two remained silent for the next few hours, Hermit contemplating and Duncan trying to think up some way around whatever was keeping Roy away. However, by the time the knock came on the door, he hadn’t come up with a viable solution.
“Enter,” he said, sitting up straight and composing his features into a neutral expression.
The door slid open, and the five Sovereigns who’d met with them just a couple of days before strode in. Thankfully, Ikari used the door this time instead of the wall, though by the look she shot Hermit, it seemed as though she’d rather have been anywhere else right now. This meeting, though, was a bit different.
In addition to the opposing Sovereigns, Makura Amber, the previously unaffiliated Sovereign of Flashing Bloom, and Itami Ha, the Sovereign of Cloying Darkness, entered soon after. Amber proudly sported a slim, silver band on the ring finger of her left hand, inlaid with a glittering diamond, showing for all to see that she wa
s engaged.
Duncan had agreed to marry her back when he’d been a Sovereign, both for her support and because he’d thought she would both strengthen the position of their clan and be a good mother figure to his adoptive daughter, Marrie. In addition, she was powerful, and if they decided to have a child together, it would only strengthen the clan further.
She’d been away for most of the past month but now strode purposefully over to him, a beaming smile stretching from ear to ear. She was oddly bubbly for a Sovereign and had no qualms whatsoever about planting a kiss on his cheek before plopping down into the chair next to his.
It was shorter than Duncan’s, of course, but sitting at the side of a Scion and clan head sent a strong message to those who were gathering here.
Itami Ha made a far less conspicuous entrance, moving to lean against the far wall, where he glowered at anyone who came too close. Others began trickling in then. The current leader of the Sanshoo, the one who’d escaped the Burning Hills with Hermit and had come to warn the others of their impending doom was in attendance.
Various powerful members of the clans entered soon after, moving to sit near the back of the room, behind their various Sovereigns. Hermit, as usual, chose to remain in the back, gaining only glares from Ikari and being mostly ignored by everyone else who entered.
Duncan did take note of Tonde Kaeru and Itachi Violet as they entered, the two moving to join the ranks of the Herald clan instead of the Itachi clan. He already knew they were on his side, and having a prodigy like Violet willingly leave Ikari to come to him gave him no small sense of satisfaction.
The man who claimed to be the leader of the Tonde clan was still a bit of a mystery to him. The man was a 4th Dan Gold-Belt, and Duncan could already feel the stirrings of a true Path within him. If this man didn’t end up as a Sage soon, he would be shocked. According to Hermit, the man was the leader of the clan that Aika, the girl his Leroy was interested in, came from.
His eyes followed the two of them for a moment, lingering a bit longer than usual as an idea sprang to mind. But, as the doors closed, sealing off all sound to the outside world, Duncan dismissed the thought, saving it for when this meeting was over.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here so soon after our last big meeting,” Duncan said, interlacing his fingers and leaning forward in his seat.
No one answered, but that was fine. This would go faster if there were no interruptions.
“I won’t keep you guessing,” he said, feeling a small smile creep onto his lips. “Hermit and I have been planning, and we believe we’ve found a way to strike at the enemy forces in a significant way. Yes, we’ve lost a lot of ground, and yes, we’ve also lost a lot of Martial Artists, but the plan we have will compensate for those losses many times over.”
“Oh, please, enlighten us, oh wise Scion,” Ikari said, the sarcasm in her voice clear.
No one dared to so much as crack a smile, some of her clan members even shuffling back a bit for fear of the Scion’s wrath.
Duncan, though, only smiled.
“I’ve gathered you all here to discuss a plan that will see an end to one of the enemy Sovereigns.”
That proclamation got everyone’s interest, and even Ikari seemed stupefied as Duncan continued to speak, laying out his plans.
About an hour later, the meeting ended. After a lot of planning and answering questions from the other skeptical Sovereigns, Duncan had finally convinced them all that his plan was viable. Of course, he could just have forced them all to go along with it, but when carrying out a plan to end someone as powerful as a Sovereign, having reluctant allies was not ideal.
As Kaeru and Violet moved to leave the room, Duncan motioned to them with his chin, and Hermit, getting his meaning, moved to intercept.
“Will you be joining me tonight for dinner?” Amber asked him as she rose lithely from her seat.
Truthfully, Duncan didn’t want to, but he often did things for the good of his clan, even if they were distasteful. In all honesty, as far as distasteful things went, spending an evening with a beautiful woman wasn’t the worst thing in the world. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t get something out of this.
“Only on the condition that you speak with Marrie,” Duncan said. “She’s been ignoring me for days now and I don’t know how to deal with teenage girls.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Amber beamed, then leaned up to kiss him before drifting off to the far side of the room, sliding through the door to his personal living space.
Marrie already knew Amber was going to be joining the family, and although Amber had been away for a good portion of the last month, she had made sure to spend time with Marrie when she could. As far as Duncan knew, the two of them were getting along fine, which was better than he could say about the two of them at the moment.
Duncan waited for the room to empty out. The last to leave was Itami Ha, the ragged and emaciated-looking man slinking out and looking for all the world as though he were about to pitch over and die. Then again, that was how he normally looked, so Duncan wasn’t too concerned about him.
“You wanted to speak with us?”
Duncan’s eyes flicked to the pair of approaching Martial Artists. Itachi Violet had been the one to speak, her Red-Belt, still a solid color, drifting slightly as she moved. The woman seemed tense, as though expecting to receive bad news or be attacked. Their time in the Burning Hills hadn’t gone as well as Hermit’s.
The two of them had been captured by the enemy and had spent some time being tormented. The mental scarring seemed to have affected her worse than the Gold-Belt at her side. Tonde Kaeru seemed to be perfectly fine, if a bit tired-looking. Still, the look on his face told Duncan that he was curious about why they were being summoned.
“I’ll be blunt,” Duncan said as they stopped before him. “There’s something I want you to do.”
“And what would that be?” Kaeru asked.
“My son, Leroy, and the girl Aika from your clan, have ended up in a place where we cannot reach them. We do not know why they’re there, but we would like some extra assurance that they’ll be safe. So, I would like to know if you would be willing to be sent there.”
“Depends on where exactly this is,” Violet said, although it was obvious that Kaeru had wanted to agree right away.
“Nowhere safe,” Hermit said, without preamble. “It’s a place on the very edge of Safaia. So remote that there are some who don’t even consider it as part of the continent. Most Martial Artists avoid it like the plague.”
“Will you stop being so dramatic and just spit it out then?” Violet asked, starting to sound annoyed.
“The Weeping Darklands,” Duncan said grimly. “Home of the Wild Clans. Worse, we won’t be able to send you directly to them. Only to the border. It’s an odd place, and spatial travel between the rest of Safaia and the Darklands is all but impossible.”
There was a pause as Violet considered the proposition.
“You only want us to find them, is that correct?” Violet asked.
“That’s it,” Duncan said, reaching into his robes and removing a small silver device. “This is a communication construct, one that will allow me to speak with whoever is holding it. I have been unable to reach my son and would like to be able to at least speak with him to find out what’s been happening. As we are in the midst of a war, neither of us can spare the time to go searching ourselves for fear that the enemy Scions will swoop in the moment we abandon our posts.”
Violet hesitated for just a moment more, then reached out and took the construct.
“I take it there will be a reward for this?” she asked.
“I can’t offer anything concrete at the moment,” Duncan admitted. “But let’s just say that I will owe you each a favor.”
“That’s good enough for me,” she said, tucking the construct into her robes.
“Good enough for me as well,” Kaeru said.
“Then keep me in
formed of your movements,” Duncan said, extending a hand and reaching to the fabric of space.
Hermit tossed them a bag, even as Violet’s eyes went wide. She barely managed to catch it before they both twisted in on themselves, vanishing in a flash of silver light. They emerged an instant later, thousands of miles away, at the entrance to the Weeping Darklands.
Duncan relaxed.
Now that he knew someone was going after his son, he could concentrate on the task at hand. Killing a Sovereign was never an easy thing, especially since neither he nor Hermit could become directly involved.
The Weeping Darklands was an extremely vile and dangerous place. Wild Clans roamed the area, and the rule of law almost didn’t seem to apply there. With a Gold and Red-Belt backing Leroy up, he was confident they’d make it out of there in one piece.
12
Roy sat inside the shallow cave, a small fire crackling next to him. Their cooking pot was suspended over it, water bubbling as the rice within cooked. The sound of the bubbling water was drowned out by the sheeting rain and the rumbling thunder from outside.
Aika sat beside him, her legs folded under her and her eyes closed. She was cultivating, cycling the meager Light Essence thrown off by the fire and weaving it into Qi. A heavy blanket was thrown over her shoulders to ward off the cold, and her hair hung loose down her back, out of its usual ponytail.
The two of them hadn’t quite made it inside before the rain had started and were drenched as a result. Thankfully, they’d managed to find some firewood that was mostly dry as they’d been running and had thought to store it in their pack for later.
Entering into this area had been a bit strange. The path hadn’t been bare, per se, with small patches of grass growing up between the stone, and the walls, towering high to either side, had been hung thick with lush vegetation. As they made their way deeper through the winding path, the landscape had begun to transform.