Ascend Online
Page 33
“Okay, go on.”
“We arrived in this area a few weeks ago, deigning to start our search much further to the north, then make our way southward. Our plan was to investigate a number of ruins that the Surveyors Guild had noted in the surrounding area. However, we did not anticipate that their maps were based on poor observations and a great deal of guesswork.” The way that Donovan described the Surveyors Guild was one filled with scorn and derision. “Their maps proved to be near useless in the field and we were forced to search the area ourselves.”
“Why didn’t you just go back and get better maps?” I asked.
“One does not return empty handed to the House when it sponsors an expedition,” Donovan said sternly. “It is bad, for your health.”
“House? I thought the Guild sponsored it?” I asked, my interested piqued.
“Huh? They did,” Donovan replied, realizing that he had just misspoke.
“You just said a House sponsored it.”
“Did I?” Donovan said slightly nervously. “I meant Guild, my apologies… I am quite tired.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” I responded flatly, meeting the mage’s eyes and staring at him intently. “What House?”
Staring back at me, I could see a number of emotions play across Donovan’s face before he sighed. “I guess it’s no real harm to tell you this far from civilization. House Denarius sponsored the expedition through the Mage’s Guild.”
Your Wordplay skill has increased to level 3!
Huh, that’s the same House that sponsored Aldwin’s founding of Aldford.
“Interesting.” I nodded at Donovan, sensing that the rest of the party had turned their attention to our conversation.
“Occasionally, when a Noble House needs to have something taken care of or… acquired that they cannot officially take notice of, or be associated with, it is usually handled through one of the Eberian Guilds in exchange for a… monetary donation.”
“They bribed you to do their dirty work.” Drace entered the conversation bluntly. “No need to dress it up.”
Donovan winced at Drace’s brutal assessment but nodded. “Yes, at its heart that’s what it is.”
“Okay.” I began, realizing that there was a huge can of worms surrounding this mess. “Leaving aside the fact that the Guild allowed itself to be bribed, why does House Denarius want control over a Ley Line?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Donovan replied, honestly this time. “My directive was to find it and secure it. Then report back to the Guild for their disposition.”
Donovan took a deep breath before continuing to explain. “But… once we arrived to this area, I noticed that there was something wrong with the Ley Line, and seeing it here confirmed it for me.”
“Noticed?” Halcyon spoke up for the first time. “How? You couldn’t even find the place.”
“True.” Donovan nodded, “But we brought tools with us in hopes of being able to locate the Ley Line, finely tuned Mana Dowsing Rods, Ætherscopes and so forth.”
“And they were supposed to help you locate this place?”
“In normal circumstances… yes,” Donovan spoke with calm patience now that he had started talking. “However what we found was an extreme abundance of magic permeating the area for countless miles around us. It made our tools next to useless.”
“Why?” Halcyon asked, genuinely interested in the theory of magic this world used.
“They were too sensitive for this type of work, no matter where we pointed them, all they would detect was magic. I hypothesized this was because Æther was somehow leaking into the ground, outside of the regular channels a Ley Line should run. Seeing the Ley Line below, has confirmed it.”
“So the Ley Line is ruptured then,” Halcyon stated.
“Yes!” Donovan nodded empathetically. “Very seriously so.”
“As fascinating as this detour is…” I cut back into the conversation. “That doesn’t tell us how you ended up trapped here… in your nightshirt, with an angry goblin after you.”
Donovan’s face fell as he looked to the ground. “Well…”
Fixing my gaze on Donovan, I waited quietly, letting the silence weigh him into speaking.
“It was late,” he began. “We found a clearing in the woods and set up camp, where it is in relation to here… I don’t know.”
But we do, I thought to myself.
“I was about to bunk down for the night after speaking to one of the Scoutmasters when balls of fire struck from the woods.” Donovan’s eyes glazed over as he relived events that had just happened a few hours ago from his perspective. “They caught us completely unprepared having evaded our night watch. Before I knew what was happening dozens of goblins had broken into the camp… there was nothing I could do.”
“I saw one of our scouts take off into the woods in an effort to escape and tried to follow…” the Eberian mage shook his head. “I barely made it a dozen steps into the woods before I was ambushed by a pair of goblin shamans.”
“They chased me through the forest for what seemed half the night.” Donovan sounded tense as he continued his story. “Eventually, we ran into spiders… large spiders. I had no idea any inhabited the forest this far south…”
Donovan let out a sigh. “We had dozens of spiders on our tail as we ran through the woods and I used the opportunity to land a paralytic curse on one of the Shamans chasing me. His companion didn’t even stop to help him…”
“Brutal,” Caius whispered while glancing at a pale Halcyon.
“After that, the second Shaman was too crafty. He maintained a shield for the rest of the chase, waiting for me to tire as we circled through the woods.” Donovan shook his head as he indicated the ruin around us. “As if an answer to my prayers I saw this mountain ridge bloom with magic, the irony that I would find the ruin I was looking for as I was sprinting wildly in the dark. Anyway, I had gained enough distance from the goblin to climb the scree and break the ward covering the entrance in hopes of hiding and ambush-“
“Hold on,” I interrupted as a spark of anger kindling in my stomach. “There was a ward on the entrance?”
“Yes, a primitive one, barely strong enough to protect a favorite privy stall, let alone anything valuable. Anything stronger and the Shaman would have caught up with me.”
“Would it have kept the spiders out?” I asked, trying to carefully hide the anger in my voice.
“Spiders? Oh, certainly! A good thing too, otherwise, they may have become…” Comprehension dawned on Donovan’s face. “Oh, gods, what have I done?!”
“You survived,” Sierra soothed, shooting me a sharp look. “And as I understand, no great harm has been done.”
“Only, through dumb luck that the Temporal Lock caught most of-”
Sierra dug her elbow into my side. “No great harm done.”
“Thank the gods!” Donovan sounded relieved. “Don’t worry, I can ward this place once more and ensure that nothing else makes its way inside. At least until we can get members from the Guild up here to properly assume control of this place and perhaps repair the Ley Line.”
“Donovan,” I grunted brusquely. “You seem to be mistaken. I’m not turning over this place to the Guild.”
“What?!” Donovan shouted, anger crossing his face. “Why not?! You don’t have the skills to repair the Ley Line! What use would it be to you all?”
“Because I don’t fucking trust you, your Guild, or House Denarius,” I told the mage bluntly. “And I’m not about to let Eberian politics dictate what I should be doing with a ruin that we fought, bled, and nearly died for.”
“What right do you think you have to-” the mage started to shout before Sierra cut him off with a sharp slice of her arm.
“Shut up, and wait here,” Sierra told Donovan. “I need to speak with Lyrian.”
“Lyr, are you sure about this?” she aske
d me with concern, after taking a moment to lead me out of Donovan’s hearing range.
“Do you remember what the magic voice said when I poked those crystals?” I asked countering Sierra’s question with my own. “It said ‘Translocation Grid Inactive.' Translocation. This place has to be a hub of some sort, a method of fast travel.”
“I remember.” Sierra nodded, a thoughtful look on her face “You think the House Denarius or the Mage’s Guild has a way of repairing this place? Fast travel sounds like a good thing.”
“Maybe, but under the control of someone we don’t know about?” I asked. “Someone who Donovan openly admitted takes and gives out bribes?”
“Shit. Good point,” Sierra conceded. “Okay, what’s your plan?”
“Stall. I need to talk to Aldwin about something.”
“Oh?”
“He founded Aldford based on coin lent by House Denarius,” I whispered.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Sierra hissed.
“Not even a little bit.”
“Okay,” Sierra said after taking a deep breath. “I’ll follow your lead.”
Sierra and I rejoined the party, who had stayed behind to keep Donovan company. “We’ll discuss more about what will and will not happen with this place later. As I’m sure you can understand, we’re not about to give this place up without considerable recompense.
“That’s very… prudent of you,” Donovan said carefully, his anger fading slightly.
“In the meantime. Halcyon and I are going to watch you carefully ward this place to make sure nothing else can get in here.”
“And then what?” Donovan asked.
“Then we’re going to take you to your camp.”
Chapter 32
Despite the failings Donovan had displayed so far, thankfully a sense of responsibility for the members of his expedition was not among them. The exhausted mage nearly cried with joy after we told him that Natasha had survived the goblin attack and was safe in Aldford at the moment. Almost instantly his demeanor changed to one of gratitude, despite the argument we just had and having been told we didn’t trust him.
He isn’t cut out for this, I realized while carefully watching Donovan ward the entrance of the Ruin as the sun began to set along the Ridge.
I leaned heavily to one side as I paid attention to Donovan’s warding, my foot resting on the rather large, fossilized skull of the Spider Queen that I had taken as a souvenir. I had no idea if it was because the Spider Queen was a boss creature that it had left something behind, or if it had something to do with being so drastically warped by magic. But I figured it would make an appropriate statement when we returned to Aldford. The only downside was that for whatever reason the skull didn’t register as an item, so I wasn’t able to magically stuff it into my inventory. I would have to lug it back by hand, one step at a time.
Donovan seems competent enough when it comes to magic, even battle, but as a leader or speaker, he is lost. He doesn’t have the temperament or presence for it. He’d be better off to be given a technical task to do without interference.
I understood the majority of Donovan’s work as he wove thick strands of magic across the ruin’s entrance, building the ward that would keep any interlopers out, unfortunately though, complete understanding was beyond me. It was like being able to read a programming language and vaguely understand what it was trying to do, yet not understand it enough to be able to code something useful myself.
In the end, I was confident enough that if I had to break the ward I would be able to figure out a way to do so, though it’d likely be an exhausting and time-consuming process, akin to breaking down a cement wall with a sledgehammer.
Donovan was quiet as we walked through the abandoned forest towards the ruined camp, his eyes flitting from every scarred tree we passed. It was obvious that the destruction and silence weighed on him heavily.
“So Lyr, we finished that quest.” Constantine slid beside me as we walked.
“Oh?” I exclaimed with a bit of confusion before I caught on. “The Spider Quest!”
I remembering that I still had one more alert pending that I had yet to read, I quickly brought up the quest update.
Quest Complete!
Cleansing the Webwood. (Unique) (Group)
You have successfully thinned the spiders infesting the Webwood and killed the [Ætherwarped Webwood Queen]! Return to Bann Aldwin for a reward!
Spiders Slain: 1000/1000
Ætherwarped Webwood Queen Slain: 1/1
Difficulty: Very Hard
Reward: Experience, Reputation, 100 gold pieces. (Reward proportional to percentage contributed)
Bonus: Unknown
I quickly scanned over the quest details, a smile breaking out on my face. Finally! We’ll have some gold to our name!
“-don’t know exactly what they are, but I’m sure they are used for crafting.” Constantine had continued to speak while I was looking over the quest details. “Plus we also found that bone wand that the Shaman was using, which Halcyon claimed. He said that it had pretty decent stats on it.”
“Here’s all the loot,” Constantine finished, handing me a bunch of goods. “There really wasn’t much…”
[Colossal Mana-Infused Spider Claw] x2
[Massive Mana-Infused Spider Carapace] x4
[Mana-Infused Ichor] x200
[Vial of Raw Æther] x 50
“Uh… thanks,” I replied, catching on, then juggling to add everything to my inventory while carrying the massive skull. “If nothing else I can use it for repairs and maybe something neat with the Æther.”
“Hopefully,” Constantine said. “We have a raging river of it after all.”
“Yeah… I guess we do,” I said thoughtfully.
As we walked towards the abandoned expedition camp, Caius and Constantine caught me up on the end of the Spider Queen fight.
“After you fell into the Ley Line with the Puma, I was able to take care of the Queen’s heart without any problem,” Constantine said.
“It went berserk with pain at that point, though,” Caius added. “It really gored Donovan and Drace took a few more hits too.”
“Soon as the heart stopped beating, I lit out of the cavity.” Constantine mimed a leaping motion with his hand. “A good thing too, since the entire thing just, kinda, caught fire.”
“Well… caught Magefire?” Caius tested the word. “It was blue fire, the same sort Halcyon conjures.”
“Yeah, we didn’t know what was happening, and with you gone, we grabbed Donovan and ran out of the room to heal.” Constantine continued to explain. “A few more seconds and the Æther Sickness would have done Donovan and Drace in.”
“After a while, the Queen must have burnt herself out,” Caius finished. “Because we got a thousand experience for the fight! Plus a small bit for the hundreds of spiders caught in the trap! We’re almost halfway to level 11!”
“Sweet!” I exclaimed, happily summoning my experience bar. “Compared to what we’ve been getting before, that’s amazing!”
Current Experience: 1303/21,300
Hang on… that’s not right. I frowned looking at my bar. Oh, shit! I left Leadership Experience on!
You have 8 Leadership Skill Points Unspent!
“Well, shit.” I sighed with conflicting emotions. “I left Leadership Experience on, now I have eight points.”
“Ouch!” Constantine winced but then shrugged. “Levels can always come later, though. The Leadership buffs are pretty powerful!”
“I suppose…” I said as I opened the Leadership menu and split my newly gained Leadership points between Increased Health Regeneration and Increased Mana Regeneration. I quickly looked over the final point assignments before committing the changes, noting that all future increases to ‘Health Regeneration’ would now require 2 leadership points per rank.
Increased Health Regeneration – Increase amount of Health Regenerated by 5. 5/10
Increased Mana Regeneration – I
ncrease amount of Mana Regenerated by 4. 4/10
Increased Movement – Increase mounted and unmounted speed by 4%. 4/10
“Well… maybe that’ll curb just a little bit of the loss in mana recovery,” I grumbled to myself as I waved the menu out of my vision.
When we arrived back to the expedition camp, I was somewhat surprised to see that very little had changed since we rushed away in a hurry. I could see a number of disturbances in the fallen branches that vaguely lined up with what I remembered from the pitched battle against the Predators earlier in the day today.
That battle feels like it was ages ago. The exhaustion of a long day suddenly hit me like a truck. Was it this morning the Webwood Horror invaded Aldford?