Okay, but how? Scouring a vast city alone, how was Devon supposed to find the throne at all, much less locate it before the demons obliterated her people? She didn’t even know where to start.
Stonehaven has been captured. The settlement’s status is no longer contested.
If the forces of Archdemon Gaviroth remain in control for forty-eight hours, their claim to Stonehaven will be considered confirmed. Thereafter, any who wish to challenge for possession must first contest and then capture the settlement.
Devon closed her eyes and shook her head. She’d known this was coming now that the ziggurat was complete, but still, the confirmation was a gut punch. Back when she’d told Jeremy to stop teleporting strike teams into the hamlet, she still believed she’d find a way to keep the settlement’s ownership contested until she could reclaim it. Despite the odds, she’d imagined she’d unlock Ishildar’s secrets and ride to Stonehaven’s rescue. But now…now she expected the loss would be just the first of many today.
Devon had never been a quitter, though, and she certainly wasn’t about to give up now. Focusing the eyes of one of her Stone Guardians, she peered out over the savanna, her vantage improved by the golem’s height. Unsurprisingly, the gates of Stonehaven were now open. A column of demons marched from the settlement, the orderly procession passing under the heavy portcullis at the main palisade gates, along the corridor between the settlement’s inner and outer walls, through the curtain wall gate, and over the drawbridge to the open fields in front of the walls. There they were forming large companies and standing in strict formation. Looking at the rigid order, the flawless discipline with which the demon army now conducted itself, Devon couldn’t help but wonder if all the screeching and howling and apparent chaos among the ranks had been some kind of trick. Had the disorder been designed to make her and her followers believe they stood a chance? Or maybe the completion of the ziggurat and the capture of Stonehaven had allowed the army to level up in some fashion.
Anyway, with dark pennants flying and an aura of evil blanketing the demon force, the scene was enough to make Devon want to log out and give up. But she would never forgive herself for abandoning her people in the face of that horde, so she clenched her jaw, straightened her shoulders and sank her awareness deeper into her connection with the Stone Guardians, commanding them to stand firm no matter what came.
That’s when she felt it, a faint pulse that flowed into the guardians. Energy surged into the golems in a regular cadence like the slow throb of an ancient heart. Devon grasped after the sensation, trying to wrap her human awareness around something that was distinctly other. Bringing all her concentration to bear, she tried to put herself into the mind of one of the stone giants, and when she did, she perceived that the pulse was rejuvenating the guardian’s animating essence. Each infusion was like a jolt of caffeine or maybe a sugar rush from too much chocolate. Only not so jittery. But anyway, she got the sense that, without the steady influx, the golems would slowly wind down and then simply stop, returning to the inanimate rocks from which they’d once been formed.
And that, at least, explained why the constructs remained vigilant and strong within Ishildar’s boundaries, but once they had ventured into the savanna during the first battle with the invading demons, their energy had quickly begun to fade.
As she focused, she could sense that the pulses traveled from somewhere to each of the golems. Abruptly hopeful despite the odds, she closed her eyes and followed the paths of energy, groping after them with a sense that seemed to be anchored at the very base of her skull. It felt as if the awareness sprang from the same place where shivers originated before traveling down her spine and out through her body. The harder she concentrated on the sensation, the faster her perception traveled along the lines of energy, and where they converged near the center of the city, she felt the place as a fizzing, popping tingle, a nexus bursting with potential.
Quest Updated: Do I need to spell this out for you?
Objective Complete: Locate the Throne of the Ancients.
New Objective: Actually, this one probably doesn’t need to be spelled out, either. Godspeed.
Still huddled together and speaking in desperate tones, Devon’s friends turned and stared expectantly when her eyes flew open, and her spine went rigid.
“I know where to go. It’s probably four or five miles. Did anyone bring a bike during the evacuation?”
Everyone shook their heads.
Damn. If she had to make her way on foot, even at a run, it would take too much time, and her Fatigue might hit max before she arrived at the throne. And she couldn’t pull her golems away from their position on the front line. She really needed a mount or a speed buff or something.
All at once, the solution came to her. Gritting her teeth, she waved to her friends. “Never mind. I got it.”
She whirled and ran for Temple Square, and once she reached the open area, she veered for the quadrant filled with Skevalli refugees.
“I need your best nut oil,” she called.
Chapter Forty-Three
VAGUELY, CHEN WAS aware of the activity around him, the panicked shouts, the scrape of steel against scabbards, the calls of archers from their platforms asking for tallies of arrows and updates on the demons’ approach.
But the information that lay open before him, right now, was even more alarming—or at least, it was more horrific because the threat didn’t come from some distant demonic AI. If Chen was right about this, Devon had been betrayed by one of her closest friends, someone they’d both known and trusted for half a decade.
Splayed across Chen’s vision were spreadsheets of user handles, correlated forum comments, and the real trove, a dump of logs off a private server that had been scrubbed just minutes after he’d managed the download. And no matter how many ways he analyzed the web of data, the spider in the center was his guildmate, Jeremy.
The thread Chen had followed to this point started with a single comment from someone using the handle Devious. Posting on a forum catering to the PvP and griefer communities, the commenter had asked for contact information for the player group that had attacked Stonehaven a few weeks ago. The message claimed that the poster had information that would be of high interest to the group. A posted response said that someone would be in touch via private message.
After that, the trail disappeared into PMs for a few in-world hours, but then it popped up again in the chat log from the private server.
Devious (guest) has joined the chat.
Devious: Thanks for the invite.
Nil: Well, don’t get too comfortable. I assume I don’t need to introduce myself. But just in case you’re clueless, I’m leader of the Blood-soaked Blades.
Devious: Good for you. What I care about is finding the people that attacked Stonehaven.
Nil: … You’re here by invitation, dude, and your IP address has been recorded.
Devious: Does that mean it was the Blood-soaked Blades who attacked? Help me out here.
Nil: Not like I have anything to hide. Yeah, we’re the raiders. So what do you want? We’re not taking applications from random shits on the internet.
Devious has changed his name to Jeremy.
Nil: lol. Well, whether that’s your real name or not, you’re still a random shit. Nice try, but you still aren’t getting in. Applications are by invitation only. We recruit based on in-game talent.
Jeremy: I’m not looking to join.
Nil: Oh? Come to make threats, then? Because that’s a pretty stupid move. Remember what I just said about having your IP address?
Jeremy: I came to propose an alliance. A deal, really.
Nil: hahahaha what?
Jeremy: Actually, it’s more like me telling you how to actually win against Stonehaven.
Nil: You think you can tell the most powerful PvP guild in the game how to fight?
Jeremy: There’s a reason I switched my name. I assume you’ve seen the livestream th
at Hailey made of our fight against the bog serpent queen back in Avatharn Online, I mean. I know you guys found out about Stonehaven from following her stream, so I assume you’ve seen her highlights reel.
Nil: If by following, you mean we were telling that bitch exactly what we thought about her in the comments section.
Jeremy: …
Nil: Anyway, I guess I’m supposed to recognize you as Jeremy, the planar priest from that recording. Or at least, that’s who you’re pretending to be.
Jeremy: I don’t expect you to believe me just based on my handle. Messaging you a sensory stream clip I took from inside Stonehaven recently. I’m talking to Devon. You know that sense streams can’t be forged, I assume.
Nil: Not yet anyway.
Nil has marked himself as away.
Here there was a break in the chat log of perhaps five minutes during which Nil was likely immersed in the sense stream.
Nil has marked himself as active.
Nil: Okay. Seems legit. I still don’t see why your information will help, though. Unless you know something about demolitions that we don’t. Planning to plant a charge under Stonehaven’s wall for us?
Jeremy: Let’s just say that Devon is vulnerable right now. Extremely vulnerable. I can give you information on her weakness and help coordinate your attack.
Nil: All right, cough it up.
Jeremy: Sorry. First, we’ll need to talk about what I get out of the deal.
Nil: Let’s take this to a PM. This channel is visible to all my lieutenants. You’ve still got some trust to build here, but if we come to an arrangement, I’ll decide who needs to know the details.
Chen’s jaw tightened as he reread the exchange. He almost felt like he was going to puke due to the disgust he felt for Jeremy. Yeah, Chen’s relationship with the man was complicated. As tank and healer in their previous game, they’d spent enough time together to get plenty annoyed with one another. The responsibility they’d shared for the group’s safety had honestly become too much for Chen, leading him to choose a non-tank build for this character. Just being around Jeremy sometimes made him flash back to that overwhelming feeling of stress.
But they’d also worked side by side for five long years, sharing a burden that people outside a virtual-reality MMORPG would probably never understand. They’d always, always had each other’s backs, sharing the blame when the group got wiped out as easily as they’d shared the credit for a successful dungeon crawl.
But now, Jeremy had turned traitor on all of them. After the exchange on the chat server, there was additional evidence to indicate that Nil and Jeremy had reached an agreement. Scattered messages in the private chat and oblique references on public forums sketched out a history of the griefer guild’s march through the Skargill Mountains.
Sometime yesterday, they’d dropped off the plateau and into Ishildar’s basin. After that, they seemed to have adopted a strict policy of radio silence, because he couldn’t find a single post from one of the handles he’d identified as a guild member, not even an unrelated comment.
They could be anywhere in the vicinity.
With the demon army marching in from the south, it might not matter whether the player raid added to his allies’ troubles. But if Devon found a way to activate Ishildar’s power, fulfilling the prophecy that she would make the city a beacon of light, she might be able to control the demon threat.
Chen doubted the prophecy accounted for a group of shithead griefers led to them by a friend-turned-traitor.
The only way they could prepare for the player offensive was to learn their attack plan. And to do that, Chen needed to find Jeremy and extract a confession.
Banishing the spreadsheets and chat logs, he stood and surveyed the square while pulling up a messenger window to update Devon. It sucked to tell her this way, but she’d recently left the square at a dead run—much to the shock of everyone present—stripped down to her underwear and slathered with glistening nut oil.
Even if Chen could catch her, it honestly wasn’t the sort of situation where he’d be able to keep a straight face while explaining.
He started sub-vocalizing a message while pushing through the tumult in the square in search of Jeremy.
“Devon, I have bad news…”
Chapter Forty-Four
DEVON ARRIVED, BREATHLESS, outside a stone building with the jagged stubs of spires standing like broken teeth from the roof. A massive pointed archway opened in the front of the structure, granting a view of a dimly lit interior with shafts of light falling through holes in the ceiling. Inside, a square-cut pair of steps looked as if they ascended to a platform.
The sensation of power was a hiss at the base of her skull, impossible to ignore now that she’d discovered it.
As she stepped beneath the arch, a message from Chen flashed. Devon wanted to ignore it—emerging from the shadows as her eyes adjusted, the throne was a massive presence—but she remembered the tasks she’d set the teenager on. He wouldn’t message unless it were important, so either he’d found out something about the player raid on Chasm View, or better, he’d picked out an exploitable demon weakness from the combat logs of players who had fought them.
She opened the message, and a dagger of ice plunged through her ribs. Jeremy had betrayed her? She couldn’t quite believe it, but she knew Chen wouldn’t make that kind of accusation without solid evidence. She thought back to all the responsibilities she’d offloaded on the bard. He was supposed to be helping Jarleck construct the best defenses for a base battle, building an overall strategy for the conflict, and disrupting the ziggurat construction. Had he even tried to make the attack on the glass supply effective? If he’d deliberately sabotaged the effort, would any of the players on the mission have realized it? She would have assumed so, but maybe she’d underestimated his skill in deception.
Ultimately, was the completion of the ziggurat her fault for delegating to the wrong person? If this throne didn’t work a miracle for her side, would she always know that she’d made the critical error that led to Ishildar’s downfall?
Devon suspected that yes, she would bear the guilt. No amount of rationalizing would make it go away.
Chen claimed that he was going to raise a posse to drag answers out of Jeremy. After, he would bring the traitor to her for punishment.
Devon inhaled deeply through her nose. All right. Done was done. She couldn’t let the man harm her efforts any further by distracting her here. She composed a quick message asking Chen to keep her updated and suggesting that they seek out Jarleck and review any defense decisions that had been made with Jeremy’s contributions. If there were known weaknesses in their fortifications—other than, of course, the status as a barely qualifying Fortified Camp—they could be certain the player raid knew about it. Just changing up the plan might help a little.
Then she brushed aside the messenger interface and stared up at the throne.
Carved from what appeared to be a single, massive block of gold-veined white marble, the chair towered over the room. Just the seat itself was waist-high on her, and the back rose to about twice her height. The legs ended in carvings of dragon’s feet, and a row of sculpted sea birds perched on the rim of the chair back, staring down with eyes that were somehow bright despite being carved of nearly featureless white stone. Marble vines climbed the legs of the throne and twined around the arms and back, occasionally sprouting roses with petals nearly as delicate as those of their living counterparts. Between the foliage, faces peered, animal and human, draconian and felsen.
The sizzle in the back of Devon’s skull rose to a boil, and she fought the urge to fall to her knees before the throne. Somehow she knew that, long ago, vassal races and travelers and residents of Ishildar came to this place to pay fealty and ask for boons from the Keeper. It didn’t seem right that she should climb onto that lofty seat, even if the hall she presided over were currently empty with dust motes swirling in the shafts of light.
&nbs
p; She didn’t feel worthy, but Veia had chosen her and tested her, and in the end, she’d come forth from the Vault of the Magi with the Raiment of the Keeper, proving that she indeed deserved the honor.
As she climbed the short flight of steps leading to the throne’s platform, an inspection window popped up in her vision.
Artifact: Throne of the Ancients
Carved by a master sculptor of the Age of Philosophy and imbued with power by a cabal of Ishildar’s greatest magi, the Throne of the Ancients is the locus for Ishildar’s light. For centuries, the city’s Keepers have sat upon it as both a symbol of their reign and a focus item for working their greatest magic.
Requires: Keeper of Ishildar title
Requires: Level 50
Wait, what? Devon reread the description.
“Requires level 50?” she said aloud.
This didn’t make any sense. She was only level 27. Why have a quest chain ending at this throne, the only hope for saving the mortal realm, when she was weeks or months away from achieving the requisite level to use it?
She sank slowly to her knees, then dropped onto her butt. When she planted a hand on the polished floor tiles, her palm slipped across the stone due to the stupid nut oil that greased her body. After recovering, she stared up at the throne.
Was she missing something?
Was the game just broken?
“Help me out here,” she said to the air. “What am I supposed to do?”
If Veia had a response, the AI didn’t seem interested in sharing it. No message popped up in Devon’s vision, and the only answer to her question was a rustling of pigeons in the vaults of the ceiling.
Throne of the Ancients: A LitRPG Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 6) Page 25