by Ivan Kal
C’mon, Vall, I know that wasn’t enough to kill you. Morgan watched as the manticore shied away from the oil, but then Vall stepped out and swiped his sword at the manticore, sending a wave of flame across the ground. It hit the oil and it ignited, traveling over to the manticore’s paws and setting them on fire. It screamed and Morgan put another arrow in it before firing another Binding Arrow, tying up its back legs. It fell down but managed to lash out in the process, hitting Ves in her chest and sending her flying. It rolled over the ground, attempting to stifle the flames.
Then it stood up and looked at Morgan, its fur on fire, and fury in its eyes. It charged at him, and Morgan was certain that he had seen his death in its eyes.
Then, from the shadows, Lucius jumped out onto its back and stabbed both of his gladiuses through its skull and into its brain. The manticore fell and skidded across the ground, its momentum throwing Lucius off.
“About time!” Morgan said.
“You said to wait for the kill shot,” Lucius told him from the floor with a grin on his face.
They cheered for a moment, Morgan pumping his fist in the air, and Vall laughing with relief and joy.
Then Morgan remembered Ves. Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead… Morgan jumped from the rock and ran to Ves, who was lying on the ground. He approached her and saw blood and holes in her upper torso. He knelt next to her and put his ear to her chest. Oh thank god, she’s still breathing.
“Did we get it?” Ves asked weakly.
“Yeah, we did,” Morgan said as he moved her and laid her down. Vall and Lucius approached.
“It’s all right,” Ves said as she groaned in pain. “The ice armor took most of it. I think that the punctures are shallow.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Morgan said and then slowly took off her armor. Lucius turned around, giving them some privacy, but Vall stayed. Right, elves aren’t all that modest.
It turned out that Vestella had been right: the punctures were shallow, but Morgan still put his poultice on her wounds and cut a strip of his cloak to bind them. All the while, Ves was looking at him affectionately. Looks like I have a real-life girlfriend now. It only took me dying to get one. Woo-hoo!
After he finished and helped Ves to her feet, he turned around, only to see that the body of the manticore was still there. “Uh… Why isn’t it disappearing?”
“It’s a beast-monster class. They usually leave behind bodies that can be harvested for rare ingredients,” Lucius answered.
“Really?” Morgan grinned and took out his skinning knife. He approached the beast and started cutting, asking Ves to give him one of her smaller bags for him to put things in. He noticed that one of Lucius’s gladiuses had broken when the manticore had rolled, but he pulled the other one out and gave it to the Roman.
“Why are you even bothering?” Vall asked.
“What do you mean?” Morgan grimaced as he cut through one of its horns.
“We aren’t getting out of here,” Vall said.
Morgan stopped for a moment. He looked around the large room—there didn’t seem to be another way out. “We haven’t looked around yet. And besides, I plan on exacting my revenge on that wicked Saruman orc.”
Vall opened his mouth to say something, but then gave up and just shook his head in defeat before turning and walking away. Morgan looked back to the corpse. Sure, it might be pointless, but the gamer in him was a compulsive looter. Not like I have anything else to do. He continued cutting. He got its horns, the tip of its tail with the venom sack, a few of its claws, and a heart before Vall called out to them.
Morgan put all his new ingredients into Ves’s bag and then into his own BoH. Then he stood up and started walking toward the voices. The three of them had left him to his work while they explored the room. He found them behind a large rock—actually, the exact rock where the manticore had been sleeping. And there, on the ground, was a large chest surrounded by what looked to be trash.
“Whoa, looks like we got loot!” Morgan cheered as he looked over it.
“Not like it matters,” Vall said.
Morgan shot him a look. “No need to be such a downer.” The loot surrounding the chest didn’t look like anything special—and Morgan belatedly realized that it must’ve been what was left from the groups that had tried to kill the manticore before. Still, Morgan looked through it. He found a quiver with several arrows, which he took, as he needed more of those. The rest looked like junk to him; it had all been there too long.
But then there was the chest. There was a lot of loot inside—Ves had taken out a small chest that had been nested in it and was holding it in her hands, and it was filled to the brim with golden coins. There was a short sword with a scabbard, too—Morgan used his Inspect on it.
Short Sword of Flowing Blood LVL 10 (requires 20 agility) — applies a lesser bleed effect to wounds, preventing them from clotting.
Huh, that’s cool. Morgan pulled it out and threw it to Lucius. “There ya go, to replace the one that broke.”
Lucius gave him a weak smile and then admired the weapon. Morgan could tell that he, too, didn’t think that they would get out.
He looked more, and saw ten small greenish crystals. Ah, upgraded ascension crystals. I wonder how many days of life these ones give. He plopped one in his mouth and looked at his character screen. Holy shit, three whole months? This is so great.
He divided them and gave Vall two, took one for himself, and gave three each to Ves and Lucius. Fair was fair—they had each done the most dangerous part of the job.
Lucius picked up another smaller chest and opened it. “Look at this!”
“What is it?” Morgan asked as he peered over Ves to look inside. He saw about three rows of six stones: two rows of white stones with symbols on them, and the last one was a row of jade-colored stones.
“These are ability stones,” Lucius said excitedly, pointing at the white stones. “And these are class stones. And I think that these are second-tier classes!”
“Whoa, so we could upgrade our classes on level 10 with these?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah, the problem is that we don’t know what classes they are,” Lucius said. “Not every class stone would be compatible with the classes we already have. If you pick one that is not compatible, it wouldn’t do anything. You would be wasting it.”
Morgan tried to use Inspect on them, but it didn’t work. Crap, need to increase my Inspect skill. Morgan looked away and back to the large chest. There was one more thing down there, and Morgan reached down and picked it up.
“What is this thing?” It was palm-sized rock with a symbol of a tower on it.
Ves stepped closer and he showed it to her.
“That is a hearthstone!” she exclaimed, Vall and Lucius both gathered near to look at it.
“A what now?” Morgan asked.
Lucius extended a hand to it almost reverently, barely touching it. “A hearthstone is the core of every Guild. It is required to create a Guild Hold. All you need is the power and materials, and the hearthstone can construct a hold for you. What kind of hold it is depends on the hearthstone, of course—and it gives power to those who are a part of the Guild, as well as a few other benefits.”
“That thing…” Vall paused—even he seemed to be in awe of it. “It is worth a fortune, enough for anyone to be set for life. No need to hunt, you could just buy all the ascension crystals to live for a thousand years.”
“Really?” Morgan was surprised that it was so valuable.
Lucius nodded. “There are only so many of them in existence. The great Guilds are the only ones that have multiple ones. It is what makes them powerful. Each hearthstone gives a unique buff to everyone in the Guild; joining several hearthstones gives more powerful buffs.”
“Huh, cool,” Morgan said as he put the hearthstone in his BoH.
“Too bad that we won’t be able to sell it,” Vall said. Downer!
“We haven’t checked the room for any hidden
exits yet, as I told you before, so keep your thoughts to yourself. You’re making me depressed, and I am planning how I’m going to kill that heinous Emily. Ah… I will dance on her corpse,” Morgan said. The rest of the group looked at him like he was crazy, which he probably was. Morgan was smiling as he was thinking on his revenge, and he took off searching for an exit. Lucius and Vall stayed where they were, but Ves followed him.
“You really think that we will find another exit?” Ves asked slowly.
Morgan glanced at her. “I have hope. My nemesis awaits. Oh, how I shall cheer when the green-skinned harlot dies by my arrows…” Morgan got lost in his thoughts.
Ves just nodded and they walked around the room together. They looked behind rocks, on the walls, almost everywhere. But they didn’t find anything.
Then Morgan noticed something in one of the rocks. “Hey, what’s that?” Morgan asked.
Ves looked at where he was pointing and they headed in that direction. As soon as they reached it, Morgan recognized what it was.
Ves just sighed in defeat. “It’s just a spawning point.”
“How do these things work, exactly? Where do the monsters come from? Will it open if we wait long enough?”
Ves shook her head. “No one knows how they work or where the monsters come from. And no one has ever seen one open. It happens only when there aren’t any people around.”
Well, fuck me sideways. Morgan was starting to feel defeat crawling in. He had refused to let it get to him, but his hope that they would find a way out was evaporating quickly.
I’m not ready to die. Not yet! I need to kill me an orc! Morgan slammed his fist against the metal doors of the spawning point. As soon as his fist connected with the metal, it started to collapse, turning into dust and leaving an opening in that led down.
“Uh… What did I do?” Morgan asked, looking at Ves, who was looking at the opening in astonishment.
“What did you do?” she asked wide-eyed.
“That’s what I asked!” Morgan looked down into the dark—it seemed like there was a light somewhere deep below. Morgan looked over to Lucius and Vall. “Hey, guys!” he called. “Get over here!”
The four of them looked at the hole in the wall with equal parts suspicion and hope. Their weapons were ready, just in case monsters started to appear from it; but it had been ten minutes at least, and nothing had happened.
“So, are we going down?” Morgan asked.
The three didn’t respond.
“I mean, it’s not like it can be worse than being stuck in here?” Morgan said nervously.
Lucius nodded. “You speak the truth, friend. We should see what fate awaits us down in the place where no ascendant has ever walked before.”
“At least none had come back alive to tell the tale,” Vall clarified.
“Seriously, dude,” Morgan said, “way to crash everyone’s spirits.”
Vall rolled his eyes. “Are we going or not?”
“Of course we’re going,” Morgan said and stepped forward. Goddamn secret tunnels.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They walked slowly and carefully. The only light sources were those behind them and those far in front of them. There were no stairs, only an angled walkway which was wide enough for all four of them to walk side by side. It seemed like they had been walking for ten minutes and the light had barely gotten any bigger.
In the end, it took them about an hour to get to it.
“Well, this is a long way underground,” Morgan said as they reached the end of the tunnel and exited into a large room. They froze as their eyes adjusted to the light.
Morgan couldn’t believe his eyes. One side of the room was showing what he was certain was a map of the World—of the entire World—with labels and graphs shown on the side next to the large round continent. There were also four other continents, each about the same size, and each round. They all had something at each of their centers, which he figured was the Tower—or rather Towers.
“Holy shit,” Morgan said as he walked forward and looked around. There were large tubes on the other side of the room, and in them were creatures. One even held another manticore.
“What in the name of the Great Lord is this place?” Lucius said.
“Uh…” Morgan’s eyes were glued to the tubes and the creatures being grown in them. “A lab, I think?”
“A what?” Vall asked.
Before Morgan could explain, a voice spoke from behind them. “My, my, what do we have here?”
All four of them turned around only to be met with a tall woman who was floating just a hand’s breadth above the floor. Her long dress and her hair were made out of fire, and her eyes were deep and unfathomable. His three companions dropped their weapons and dropped to their knees as soon as they recognized the woman.
Morgan recognized her as well, but he was just too stunned to react.
“You are not going to bow?” the woman—or, rather, the Guiding Force—asked.
“Uh… I’m new around here?” Morgan said lamely.
The woman laughed. “Ah, a chosen. Perhaps you can tell me then how you managed to find yourselves here?”
“Well… I kind of punched the door for the spawning point and it disappeared,” Morgan said quickly. He glanced at his friends on the floor, who were looking at him like he was insane for speaking to a god. Tough luck—she’s not my first god.
“Hm… That is impossible. There are safeguards in place for that kind of thing.” The woman floated closer to him, then put her hand over his head. Morgan’s eyes followed her palm until it touched his forehead and his eyes crossed.
“Ah… I see now. Well, this is unexpected.”
“What is?” Morgan asked as she pulled her hand back.
“Nothing that you should be concerned with. Now I have a problem. What to do with all of you… You cannot leave this place with the knowledge you now possess.”
“How ‘bout we promise not to tell anyone anything?” Morgan offered.
The Guiding Force smiled. “I’m afraid not. I will need to take care of this…”
“Can you do it without…like, killing us?” Morgan asked.
She chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t kill you, I’ll just adjust your memories a tiny bit.”
“Whew, that’s a relief. Wait, you aren’t just going to return us back up there to die, are you?” Morgan asked.
“Hm… Well, you have defeated a monster which had stood undefeated for a long time. I guess you have technically finished the dungeon. I think I will send you somewhere outside.”
“Oh, thank God,” Morgan said, then quickly met the woman’s eyes. “Uh… I mean, thank Oxy? Or thank you?”
The woman shook her head in amusement. “Go,” she said, and raised her hand.
Everything went black.
The Guiding Force watched the place where the four ascendants had been just a moment ago. Their arrival had been an unexpected development, but she had work to do. She disappeared from the small laboratory and appeared in another, one far larger, with holograms and screens surrounding the room. The intruders had been very lucky. The ascendants were forbidden from knowing too much; it might’ve been easier to just eliminate them. But in the moment she had seen them, she had reviewed the records of their last few hours. They had been betrayed, and so she had taken pity on them. She took away their memories of coming down here such that they wouldn’t remember anything after walking into the tunnel. Instead, she had teleported them somewhere where, if they were smart, they would be able to make a really interesting choice.
She shook her head and then turned toward one of the holograms in the room. She composed a message and then sent it immediately. She didn’t have to wait long. A moment later, a tear in space appeared in front of her and a man stepped out.
“You know…” she started. “You could’ve told me about him.”
The man, dressed in what looked like a skin-tight wetsuit with a coat over it, shrugged. “There was
no need.”
“No need?” the woman said. “Because of who he is, he gained access to one of the labs.”
“Oh,” the man said, surprised. “I did not anticipate that. I apologize.”
“Of course you didn’t anticipate that! You rarely stop to think.”
The man rolled his eyes. “Really? This again?”
“Someone has to keep you in line,” she replied crossly. “Otherwise you would be out there antagonizing who knows who or what. You remember what happened with Chaos and Order?”
The man sighed in defeat. “Fine, I’ll tell you if I ever do something like this again. Deal?”
“That will do. He seems like a nice boy,” the woman noted.
The man looked at her with a dull look on his face. “He got hit by a car because he crossed the street on a red light. He’s not the brightest star in the sky.”
The woman grinned. “You did some pretty stupid things, too.”
“I never died.”
The woman shrugged. “Still, I did not think that you were so sentimental.”
“I’m not. He will live or die on his own. Whether he achieves enough power to survive and become useful to me is all on him.”
“You did save him upon his death.”
“I gave him a chance, that much I owed him.”
“Some might say that this is crueler than just letting him pass on,” the woman said.
“The strong survive, and the weak perish,” the man said simply. “He could’ve chosen to go to the light.”
“If he has even a tiny bit of you in him, I doubt that he could’ve ever chosen that.” The woman smiled at the man.
“We’ll see how much he takes after me in time,” the man said.
“So you don’t want me to help him out?”
“No, I have no need of those who are too weak to stand on their own.”
“As you wish, then,” the woman agreed.
The man nodded and then turned around, tearing another rift in space and walking through. The Guiding Force watched him walk away. This experiment of theirs was yet to provide them with any real successes, unlike the experiment that they were attempting to replicate; but perhaps young Morgan would prove to be their first. She had a good feeling about him.