Being indestructible for the moment, I took the chance to turn and run up to where Kayla was materializing her Ancient Lykos Amulet into her hand, dissipating her staff into her inventory. Our respective glows lit up the back of the cave nicely now and at first glance, it looked like what you’d expect. More sandstone, broken rocks, and jutting chunks of clear crystal, nothing remarkable. A second or two of looking made it all clear, though.
The crystals weren’t arranged in some natural fashion. They formed a rough archway in the stone, the portal Kayla was talking about obviously, and cracks in the stones weren’t actually cracks. They instead were the strange, harsh marks of the unreadable script the Cultist’s Note was written in. As I took it all in, she held the hole in the amulet up to her eye and leaned in to read while the wind things bit into my skin again, doing exactly zip.
“Six seconds of Last Stand left,” I noted unnecessarily. Kayla knew how long was left as well as I did. “What’s it say?”
“This is the way to the Vale, our ancient home,” she read carefully. She wasn’t being slow but the ticking tenths of second by the Last Stand buff icon by my Health arc made every word seem to come out in slow motion. “Those that come in supplication will know where to place their eyes.”
There was a beat of silence that was only disturbed by the rushing wind that pelted uselessly against my body before she glanced back at me helplessly. “I have about zero clues about what that could mean. Well, I guess we’re supplicants, right, because we want to get it …?”
My thoughts raced back to the note. “Okay, and there’s two of us. We’ve got that down pat.” Three more seconds of god mode, good for one more strike before the pain would be coming in again. “Place our eyes … what are our eyes and where do we place them?”
Kayla shrugged her shoulders and her eyes were growing desperate. Yeah, the calculations were obvious to the both of us. We couldn’t hold out indefinitely once the damage started rolling in again, not to mention it was mighty hard to figure out a riddle when the air was trying to cut you to ribbons.
It took all three of those seconds for it to hit me. I was staring at the wall, looking for any little thing that could stand out, when it hit me. It was obvious that the ‘eyes’ the inscription mentioned weren’t referring to actual eyes, but maybe they were talking about the amulets.
Maybe I was crazy but it made sense by the split-second. The amulets were the thing that let us ‘see’ the truth about these inscriptions, so in a sense, they were acting as our 'eyes'. Also, it was obvious the cultists needed them just like we did to go to and fro. That only added to the idea that they would be critical to the operation of the portal. It was insane but it also felt like the only answer.
“The amulets,” I cried. “The amulets are the eyes!” I only hoped I sounded more confident than I actually was. “Is there a place to put them? Like sockets or something?” With a mental nudge, I brought my own trinket into my hand in exchange for my banner. Every gaming instinct screamed at me for being stupid; without the banner and its Gems equipped, the last big defensive ability I had in Strength of the Earth was now offline.
Still, if I was right, we might only have seconds to activate the thing before I died. I had to trust Kayla and be ready.
“That’s brilliant, Shale!” Kayla spun back to the irregular portal and worked frantically, feeling out the nooks and crannies, searching for any place her amulet would fit. Between the encroaching gloom and the ticking clock, she didn't have an easy time with it. Normally EO was good about pointing out interactable items or places where items were meant to be inserted for quests, but this one was being extremely obtuse.
Meanwhile, I had to endure. The pain filters on the NSAF headset open up bit by bit as you approach death, adding a visceral reminder to keep your avatar alive through every means possible. That was just another of dozens of reasons why good tanks were hard to come by. Who wanted to get hurt on a regular basis in a game?
Masochists, I supposed. That didn't say any great things about me, did it?
I really didn't know at the time. What I did know was that I had endured a heck of a lot worse in real life. The accident that took away my parents, the countless surgeries that saved my life, and the painful process of grief and recovery, that had all inured me to pain. The winds bit into me two more times, each time somehow finding parts of me they hadn’t chewed into to make fresh wounds. Gritting my teeth, I didn’t announce that I had maybe two attacks left before I died, an event that would no doubt trapped Kayla here to get torn apart myself. I wasn’t going to let that happen, no sir.
Kayla let out a cry of joy, hopefully as she made a discovery that would save our collective bacon, as I pulled a Grade A Health Potion out of my inventory. Thankful that consumables didn't take up a hand slot to use, I tore the cap off with my stone teeth and threw it back. Health Potions were no substitute for a real healer but they were one more of the last-ditch tricks any good tank had at the ready.
There was a distinct click as Kayla shoved her amulet into a vaguely triangular hole while my Health spiraled up just a bit, enough to give me one extra smidgen in the tank to take one more extra hit. "There," she shouted, pointing frantically at an equally rough-looking hole, a mirror image of the one her amulet was set in. The empty hole in the socketed one was letting off a pale blue glow so she had to be doing it right. I was already reaching out for that socket with my own amulet as the winds sliced into me again, the agony cutting deep enough that the edges of my vision went gray.
Unseen creatures hit you 1 time, (critical) 2 times! You take a total of 410 (-40 resisted) Air Damage and 182 (-112 resisted) Fire Damage! HP 182/3560
It didn't stop me from slamming the artifact home as I almost stumbled into the wall. There was another loud click as I collapsed onto one knee. Kayla was already starting to chant another healing spell with feverous speed but she was cut off when my amulet let loose a vibrant green light. The brilliant display of light left us both speechless, even as the glow shifted and changed.
As we watched, the two colors, blue and green, mixed in the air and their intensity redoubled, painting the jaws with their multicolored hue. Whatever had raised the winds to bite at us was quelled by that brilliant display and the combat UI fell away in the blink of an eye. After a moment, the light calmed to a degree, letting our eyes clear to see the crystal archway filled with that same multicolored swirl, lazily rotating like the eddies of a mountain spring, Dynamic quest ‘An Answer of Violence’ updated!
Objective updated: Enter the portal to the Vale of the Three Wolves!
Quote 6
In the wake of the Sundering, much of the knowledge we possessed was destroyed in the calamity. What fewer and fewer people each generation realize is what else we lost, the harmonic balance in the world between the various elements. Would you believe the tales that, before our world split, creatures of Fire dwelt in peace beside Earth creatures? That Water Fronds grew in the same bed as Wind Puffs? They are true, my friend, they are all true.
Alizhard Forshan, philosopher to the Fire Sultan's court
6
System Alert! You have 10 minutes before you will be automatically logged out of Elementalis Online and the deep dive Internet! We apologize for the inconvenience!
As if I needed any more prompting to get going. I pushed myself up my feet, thankful for the out-of-combat regeneration kicking in to soothe the worst of my pain. Better still, Kayla was right there, helping me up. Despite being a bit entranced by the slowly whirling colors of the portal, I noticed the definitive lack of the jaws opening back to the Hills outside. If the quest objective hadn’t already made it clear, the only way out was to go forward.
“Do you want to wait a moment?” she said, a hint of distraction in her voice as she kept a sidelong stare at the portal. “I know we don’t have much time but we’re both low on EP and we should really let Wazif know we're okay …”
What she left unsaid was that we had no idea if this w
as even the end of this quest. What if there was something even crazier beyond the portal? Still, the nagging timer weighed on me. I wanted some closure, even if it was only the very first bit of the Ring quest, and I sure as heck didn’t want to have to repeat an encounter or something because we couldn’t finish it before we were force-bumped out of the ‘Net.
“No, we’re good.” I straightened up and started forward. “We have to be close to, well, some kind of stopping point and we can message him as soon as we know we're good.”
Kayla didn’t stop me. Instead, she nodded slowly, moving in step behind me. “True. They build all these quest chains around the time limit, after all, raids included.” She sounded confident enough as I stepped into the portal proper. “There has to be a teleport point, a Life Crystal, a return portal, something on the other side.”
And then I couldn’t hear her. The light became ooze-like and slurped over my body in the blink of an eye, blotting out everything but a cool, strangely comforting blue-green nothingness. I couldn’t move, but I didn’t want or need to as it pulled me in. There was a sense of movement, fast like being in a hypervelocity grav-train, along with the familiar stomach-twist of a typical teleportation spell.
Though the cooling numbness made the experience feel timeless, the countdown timer at the corner of my vision to log-out had only ticked down three seconds.
The goop pulled away from my eyes, ears, and everything else as I stepped through into the dim light of a heavily shadowed forest clearing. The trees were remarkable.
No, what was truly amazing was that they were all here. Everything from the petrified evergreens that were native to the Dominion Mountains in the Earth Kingdom to the seemingly weightless fronds that were found in the Shallows of the Ocean Mother’s Domain. They were all mixed into one forest, trees and plants from every corner of Elementalis. Despite the Sundering and the constant ravages of the Elements of Wrath, in this place, the elements seemed to exist in harmony.
The air was temperate and perfectly balanced, neither too dry nor too humid. Multicolored moss and leaves covered the ground, spongy under my weight. Around me, there was the constant faint rustle of leaves and sounds of wildlife and insects, a chorus of life you could say. The faint glow of the portal behind me added a little more color to the rainbow on display and made the stone archway at the opposite end of the clearing all the more visible. Ancient and weather-worn, any gate that had been there was long gone, and a clear path was visible beyond it. On the keystone of the arch were the sculpted heads of three wolves clustered into a triangle, forming the same general shape as the amulets we had left behind.
As I took the entire scene in, Kayla emerged behind me. Almost immediately, she caught a gasp in her throat, as awe-struck as I was at the dense tangle of nature before us.
Dynamic quest ‘An Answer of Violence’ complete!
You have managed to discover the lost Vale of the Three Wolves!
You gain 50,000 Experience!
Dynamic quest ‘Harmony Lost’ initiated!
Objective: Seek a dweller in the Vale who can reveal its secrets to you!
Reward: 50,000 Experience and Grade C Broken Ring of Promise
“We found it!” Yeah, that was me, and I’m not ashamed to be so excited about it. Above anything else, even if the something Kayla and I had was actually nothing, this was something few people saw in EO, something so on the hush-hush that the game itself kept people from talking to others about it. “This is really it!”
Kayla was practically beaming as I turned to look at her. “We did.” She gave me an abrupt if brief hug. “But we better not rest on our laurels. We’ve got nine or so minutes to see if we can find a way back and forth.” Stepping back from me, she thumbed at the portal which was now completely dead. “That thing ate the amulets and I have a Crucible match to attend tonight.”
With no obvious threat here, Kayla had shifted back to rush mode apparently.
“Yeah,” I conceded. “I should probably be hunting for work or tending to our little fan club later myself. We should get going.” Taking a deep breath, I led the way through the clearing and under the unmoving gaze of the three wolf heads.
The real truth was that I was a bit torn. Most of me wanted to do exactly what we were about to do. Not being one-hundred percent tied to this zone and quest was necessary to keeping money flowing into my bank account. While the prize money from being a Firster had given my family breathing room, I certainly couldn’t take jobs from the Bermuda Triangle. There was a small part of me, though, that didn’t see the problem with that. Wasn’t the big deal about relationships commitment? If I wasn’t willing to commit multiple game sessions in a row to try to forge something with Kayla, wasn’t that petty of me? Maybe it was, my family could be on the line here, especially if I couldn’t find a way to balance it all out. And maybe that was the answer, to find a balance to things. Couldn’t I find a way to be happy in a relationship while also taking care of my family?
Then I swiped the thoughts out of my head. The timer was ticking, after all, and to mess this up by having my head in the clouds would suck big time.
The path we were on had once been paved with cobblestones, judging by the firmness under my boots and the occasional smooth, white stone that still poked through the moss. Though the darkness pervaded, our way was lit only by the thin shafts of light that pierced the canopy and our own glowing armaments, it wasn’t the oppressive gloom of the Tangleheart Forest back ‘home.’ Maybe it was the heady scents of the flowers or the perfect temperatures but this was more like being in a warm and comfortable bed with the lights out. At least that’s how I remembered they used to be before the accident had crippled me, anyway.
Kayla stayed close behind me the entire way and if I was any judge, shivered with both lack of patience and overflow of wonder.
It wasn’t more than thirty paces or so before the way opened onto a much larger clearing than the one we had initially landed in. Here, the moss was thinner and the sky overhead was clear, letting the sun cast warm rays down onto the large slabs of what was now obviously marble that covered the ground. Weeds and grass of every element poked through cracks in the stone all the same, especially around the base of the raised dais that dominated the center of this, well, plaza for lack of a better term.
Despite the myriad paths leading off into the forest from here alongside the distant mountains I could see all around the Vale, it was that dais and everything atop it that caught my immediate attention. The platform itself was tiered with steps, split by three cornerstones each in the shape of a wolf’s head. There were dull, lifeless gemstones in place of eyes for the heads that almost seemed to suck in the light around them.
Rising up from the top of the stairs was a Life Crystal, glowing and humming with power. In fact, it was certainly the tallest one I had ever seen, dwarfing even the large Crystals in the capitals of the Elemental Kingdoms. What’s more, it seemed … pristine, as if it were brand new or at least perfectly maintained, a bit different than the ancient relics modern Elementalis relied on to reincarnate its citizens.
Most importantly was the man sitting forlornly on the steps of the Life Crystal. Certainly an Ember (the fiery red skin and shock of orange hair were dead giveaways), he was dressed in well-worn, silken robes, much in the style of the Fire Sultan’s court, rich purples and reds trimmed in gold.
Judging from the crudely mended tears in spots, the guy had seen some action since leaving Kalaam. Beside him was an ornate walking stick set with Gems with a capital G, if you catch my drift, and a traveler’s pack that had seen far better days. The edge of a few bound scrolls tucked out of the top flap and several ivory scroll cases were tied down to the exterior of the bag.
At the sound of our entry into the plaza, the Ember raised his head to look upon us. Both time and worry had lined his face. The usually fiery eyes that Embers had were more put-out coals than blazing light. What I figured had once been a properly trimmed Van Dyke beard and must
ache now grew wild on his face. A green outline lit up around him, immediately marking him as a friendly and interactive NPC.
With six minutes on the clock, Kayla and I ran across the plaza as I mentally targeted the man, identified only as ‘Weary Wanderer.’ The Ember looked surprised to see us, rising to his full height of five foot ten as we skidded to a halt in front of him. Before he could even spit out any generic NPC idle chatter, I nudged open the NPC interaction interface with him.
The world went fuzzy around us, pulling out of focus save for the two of us and the Wanderer before us. Though his eyes didn’t blaze up as he looked upon us, the sadness in them melted away, only to be replaced by a maddening urgency. “By the Prime, you two must not tarry! Attune to the Life Crystal quickly, before your connection to the Vale and Elementalis fades!” To punctuate the point, he pointed madly at the Crystal behind him. “Hurry!”
The focus shifted to me first as group leader and I was taken aback by the rapid-fire commands coming out of the Ember’s mouth. Did this NPC actually know how long we had to auto log out? And what would be the harm if we did? We would just log back into this zone when we returned, right? Though that was the norm, I had the sinking feeling that this was different.
“What’s the hurry, good sir?” I managed to get out. “What bad could possibly happen if we don’t attune to the Crystal?”
We had five minutes and change on the clock as he replied, increasing urgency in his educated words. “You won’t be able to come back! The wards around the Vale will reject you and” – there was a shudder of existential despair that ran through him – “perhaps even separate the two of you if only one binds their spirit.” He seriously seemed on the verge of grabbing me by the shoulders to shake the sense into me. “Now, go!”
The Vale of Three Wolves: A LitRPG Adventure (Elements of Wrath Online Book 2) Page 7