by Dakota Krout
Trying not to act in a suspicious manner and completely failing, Dale led the guards out of the dungeon. I performed my version of rolling my eyes, then opened the portals on the sixth floor. Wind rushed into the dungeon, fresh air flowing through the hallways and twisting pathways of the deep. The Goblins smiled as they felt the cool breeze, a few of them even shouting their thanks to me. I smiled; it was good to be appreciated.
I examined the ground below me, comparing it to what maps I had been able to acquire. We were getting close to the Amazon’s territory. Soon I would have Dani back. Thankfully I had created a manual option for the flight controls, so I was able to leave steering to Bob for now. I started actively cultivating, working hard to glean even the slightest hint of enlightenment about my law. Who knew if a single extra rank would be the line between victory and defeat? I sighed as I remembered the simple days, the early part of my life where all I was doing was trying to survive. Now I was a flying island. Maybe someday I would even be able to enjoy my newfound freedom.
~ Jasper of the Clan Azguardia ~
“What a joyous day this has turned out to be!” Jasper shouted as he flew a loop in the air. “A dungeon, Cores, and we met ‘Nez the Thundering’! He even gave me a spear as a keepsake! Truly, we will have tales to tell at our Father’s table this night! I am also infernally grateful that flesh Mage joined our clan this year. My eye socket itches something fierce!”
“Almost back now.” Muninn’s monotone voice sounded almost happy. “I agree, we will have-”
The sky seemed to form cracks around them, and their forward momentum could not have been arrested faster if they had hit a wall. If they hadn’t been in the B-ranks, they would have been pasted across the barrier in their path. Locked in their position in defiance of gravity, they could only watch in horror as the Essence and Mana filling the clouds condensed. The perpetual thunderstorm was swirling lower than the brothers had ever seen. A river of fluid streamed down from the shrinking thunder clouds, touching the center of the city.
Unbeknownst to the horrified Mages, a flaw had appeared in a ritual created under their fair city. The ritual was now trying to compensate for the damaged Rune in its pattern by drawing in and adding extra ambient Essence and Mana from the environment. Draining the sky of energy resulted in a massive pressure as the thick power trapped everything in range like flies in a web. The human who had been mining with a powerful pickaxe he bought from the Adventurer's Guild was the first to die as his body became a conductor for elemental lightning. Unfortunately for the people above, his death was only the first of far, far too many.
Unable to move, the trapped Mages watched as the energy swirling over and within the city collected to the point that it went out of control. The resulting detonation was similar to a volcano in that it threw thousands of tons of earth into the sky. Instead of flaming gases and lava from deep in the earth, lightning raged unchecked through the epicenter of this disaster. The earth and air mixed together, generating even more lightning Essence. Eventually turning to liquid as plasma raged through the area, the minerals and stone fell to the ground as a rain of liquid earth and metal. Under a city’s worth of molten slag, the destroyed spell formations reformed layer by layer, powered by the ritual safely housed in a flying dungeon far away.
Now created and appearing without interference–as well as being steeped in ambient Essence–the brand-new ritual activated. The raging, uncontrollable Essence and Mana in the area gradually sank into the earth. Like water in a dehydrated riverbed, the power flowed away along the newly established ley lines. For a day after it started to drain, the energies swirled and thrashed in the sky. A point finally came where the power calmed enough to release Jasper and his brothers, and they fell from the sky changed by the power that had suffused them.
Huggin was the first to awaken, but as he opened his eyes, all of the brothers did the same. Turning to them, Huggin tried to persuade them that they should look for whoever may have possibly survived the calamity, but all that left his mouth was a single sound. “Caw!”
Muninn turned in confusion, how had a crow survived that hurricane of force? Everything in the area should be dead! He tried to ask if they had seen what had happened, but all that was heard was a resounding… “Caw?”
Jasper opened his eye painfully, looking at his siblings in horror. “Brothers,” his voice trembled with raw emotion, “is that you?”
“Caw!”
“Caw!”
Somehow, their words translated perfectly into Jasper’s mind, and he nodded. “I don’t know exactly, but I agree that we should save those we can before hunting whoever did this. From this point forward we seek knowledge, we hunt the destroyer of our people, and we give ourselves to rage. Until such a time as this debt is repaid, I cast aside my name and assume the mantle of responsibility for this hunt. From now till eternity if needs must, until this quest has been completed, I shall bear the name of Odin.”
Odin grasped his spear and looked into the sky, watching as Essence and Mana continued to stream into the ground. “Let’s go.” He took a step forward and collapsed onto the still cooling ground, unconscious. Two exasperated *Caws* accompanied his fall.
~ Chapter Thirty-Seven ~
Watching Tyler’s team strip the enormous Manticore’s corpse of every material was a wonder to behold. Especially because they never got close to it, not trusting their ability to avoid every drop of its dangerous blood. With practiced motions, the skin and scales were flayed off by directed Mana. The meat followed, with the blood being collected in large vats. All of the organs were separated out, and the bones were greedily stacked for later usage. Tyler looked back at Dale, still unable to believe his outstanding luck. “You are sure I can have everything that remains, just by making armor for your team?”
“Yes. Well, first let me know what those Runes on the spikes do. I may need to take them. I want anything that will help us in the coming days.” Dale watched as the hide and scales were put to good use, floating in the air while being forcefully tanned. “You are sure it will make decent armor, yes?”
“Of course I am!” Tyler laughed uneasily. “While not as potent as it was when connected to the Beast properly, the leather and scales are still infused with Mana. They will be tougher than almost any other armor you could find and far more flexible than anything else. I suppose dragonhide would be better, but I wouldn’t be able to form it into anything. Too stiff.”
“How do you have all of our sizes again?” Dale mumbled his thoughts as the leather was shaped into fashionable armor.
Tyler coughed abruptly and had the grace to look embarrassed. He had never had them here to be measured. “Let’s just let the men work, shall we?”
They moved to the front of the shop, discussing changes in the dungeon and the usefulness of the items created by Tyler’s shop of oddities. Dale made sure to swear him to secrecy for the time being and told him about the secrets contained on the sixth floor. Tyler was quite pleased to have this information and made a deal with Dale to map out the paths… eventually.
Carrying large sets of leather armor, a few of Tyler’s employees walked into the room. Bypassing Dale, they handed the garments to another employee, who directed Dale to the next sectioned-off area. Tyler began to follow, but Dale shook his head. The merchant had to stay behind for this part; it was too sensitive to allow a third person to know the secret he was about to reveal. A Dwarf was waiting for them, and he almost snarled when he was handed unfinished leather armor. “Is this some kind of sick joke? Who bothers to wear animal hide into battle?”
“Not my team.”
Dale tried to appease him. “Not after you finish these, anyway. I need you to swear not to reveal the details of the job I am offering you. If you can complete it, you will be greatly rewarded.”
The Dwarf looked at Dale coldly. “If I am swearing a binding oath, it abyss well better be lucrative. I reserve the right to cancel the oath if I am not paid enough for the job. You still fine with that?”
“...yes?” Dale gulped at the murderous stare. “As long as you let me offer more if I fail to meet your requirement, to the point you are satisfied?”
The Dwarf grunted and made his oath. Dale reached into his bag. “I need you to create threads out of this metal and create a fine mesh throughout the entirety of this armor.”
“That’s it?” The Dwarf snorted in fury. “Chainmail armor would be lighter and cheaper. There is no reason to do this job! You made me swear an oath… Mithril!” The last word was gasped through clenched teeth, the shift from anger to incredulousness creating an odd tone. “But why? How? If you have enough Mithril to fill all of this armor, why not just wear it proudly?”
“Just aluminum, it’s not Mithril yet. Listen, my team is still too low ranked and we could never hold onto the armor if it were public knowledge that we had it.” Dale slowly piled the bars of aluminum higher, watching the reactions playing across the normally stoic face of the Dwarf. “Will you take the job?”
“And…” The Dwarf swallowed the saliva building in his mouth. “The pay?”
“How much of this metal is required to complete the job?” Dale fired back a question.
The Dwarf wanted to lie, Dale could tell. Because of this, he had gotten an approximation of doing it with copper wire. It shouldn’t take too much more aluminum to do the same job. To his credit, the truth fell from the Dwarf’s lips. “At least… seven ingots. Possibly part of an eighth bar; I am uncertain what the joints will need.”
Dale nodded, smiling at the staring Dwarf. “Then I want you to use a full eight ingots on this project. Reinforce areas that need extra protection and create a masterpiece that we can reveal to the world when we are powerful enough to protect it.” He placed ten ingots on the counter. “Keep the change. That work for you?”
Dropping to a knee the Dwarf intoned, “I swear that I shall create the best armor I possibly can and will use these materials to the best of my abilities on your behalf. I will never tell another soul about your armor until you choose to reveal it.” The earth around him shuddered, showing that his oath was accepted.
Dale helped him stand, laughing. “I appreciate the sentiment, but that was a little overdramatic for me. So long as I get the armor in a timely manner, I’m happy.”
“Give me but a day.” The Dwarf made his joyful promise, pocketing two bars of the rare material right away. “I will make you impervious to your enemies.”
~ Cal ~
I snorted as I looked at the never-before-seen bug I had created. Sadly, it had almost zero combat potential. I had intended for it to eat people, but I had messed up somewhere. It flew slowly and was very loud. It did drink blood, but… I’m going to have to label them a failure. I couldn’t bear to kill them all off myself, so I opened a small portal and dropped all of this type of bug into the world below. They had decent survivability, but against the much more dangerous creatures in the wild, I didn’t expect my Mosquitos to last long at all.
My golems were very powerful within their own territory and powering them during combat was fine, but they took too much Mana to maintain for any real length of time. Plus, it took over a day for them to be rebuilt if they were destroyed! I had to hope that diplomacy would win out in the end and the Amazons would help us wipe the necromantic threat from this world. The threat was growing in their own home! I was already getting furious, certain that they would deny us the help we desperately needed.
A surprising amount of auras were beginning to appear upon my surface and I felt the need for a break, so my mind drifted upward to lazily listen in on the hurried conversations. “Get Frank! We need to talk to him at once!” Oh? At least this sounded interesting.
Dozens of people were pouring through the portal that connected cities. They seemed haggard, and many of them were bleeding. A scream alerted me to something else that had come through the portal on the heels of the latest… refugee?
A huge, clawed hand grabbed the entire torso of the bleeding man. He was saved as the portal was redirected to another location, severing the arm. Frank–who had sprinted into the area–caught the man, shock evident on his face. “Prince Henry?”
“I… I think it is King Henry now, for what little the title is worth,” King Henry bitterly stated. Bleary eyes looked up at the assembled masses, hardly seeing them through tear-filled eyes. “The Kingdom of the Lion has fallen.”
“As has the Phoenix,” another heart-wrenching moment played out as a female voice broke the horrified silence.
Henry looked over at her, and any composure he had been able to maintain was eradicated. “Princess Marie!” He ran to her, catching her in a desperate embrace.
“My title has changed… it is now Queen Marie for me as well.” She began to sob, as did Henry. The loss of their families had been sudden, terrifying. For so many people that could theoretically live forever to die in a single day heralded terror on the horizon. My full attention was on these people at this point, and the drama involved made me wish for a snack as I watched. Dozens more people charged through the portal, some with things chasing them. Soon, far too soon, the tide of refugees stopped entirely.
On the plus side, the bodies didn’t stick around to further traumatize the poor fleeing people. *Bur~r~p* Whew, pardon me. I guess my wish for a snack was granted. I watched as Amber–the High Magous of the portal Guild–ran over and recalibrated the portal manually. I was fairly impressed, the power and control needed to do something like that on the fly showed how exceptional she was. She muttered something about ‘removing fallen cities from the network’.
The new King and Queen were ushered into a meeting with the council, and even a slightly charred Dale was found and dragged in. Henry began speaking, his voice full of sorrow, “They came out of nowhere! Undead suddenly started pouring into the streets, into the castle. They were everywhere. A man in a black robe walked into the throne room and spoke to my parents. He walked in midway through a session where the entire court was gathered! At least twenty Mages were present, and the man killed all of them! He had weapons and access to power that I have never heard even hinted at! I am only alive due to my guards hastily removing me before he started the killing.”
Marie picked up the conversation, “A similar man, possibly the same man, came to our throne and made impossible demands. When he was denied and asked for proof of his power, he produced…” she looked at Henry with great pity, “...he produced a pile of heads.”
There was affronted murmuring around the table. “He told us that he was going to every seat of power in the world and ‘unifying’ all of us. The heads were from leaders that refused him. My… my father’s head joined the pile soon after. The dark power… it was completely overwhelming. Unstoppable.”
Silence reigned supreme for a long minute, eventually broken by Frank. “Well, abyss. The rulers of countries a
re considered some of the strongest cultivators in their respective countries. The last line of defense against the destruction of their people. For this person to kill multiple rulers in a single day… we aren’t even talking about S-rank anymore. He must be at or approaching double S-rank. Possibly triple S.”
“Do we have any clue, any hint of his identity?” Amber looked around the defeated faces in the room.
“He called himself ‘The Master’.” Henry spat out the title like a curse.
Chandra’s face blanched, and her eyes gazed at nothing. “No… it can’t be. The Master is dead. I know this for a fact! It was my responsibility to… this must be a copycat.”
“If you have information about who this man is, or who he is pretending to be, you need to tell us right now,” Father Richard intoned impatiently.
“We need to warn the others.” Chandra stood up hurriedly, her chair flying into the wall behind her and being reduced to kindling. “The Amazons especially! The Elves! Oh, God!” She flickered, running from the room at speeds too great for the non-Mages to follow.
“Cal, I am really busy right now.” Dale was commiserating with the Royals, but his habit had been to speak aloud for his team’s benefit.
Dale had little trouble convincing everyone to join him. Direct intervention from me was rare, and he urged them quite intensely. They hurried to get to a point where they could see over the edge, and as they stood high on the walls my fear became theirs.