The last week was a whirlwind of planning and execution that culminated in the world recognizing Vina and her work. Her entire life was being scrutinized by hundreds at this very moment, including her sister. Much to Vina’s relief, Adir had requested approval from Hakim for an extended stay of thirty days in the city, signaling the desire for one or both of them to obtain the full benefits of her masterpiece.
She finally had enough time to sit down and finish her map compendium.She felt somewhat strange looking at it. She had already seen a map of the surrounding area back at the library. It was somehow different seeing her map however. The areas she had visited personally were lit up bright and fresh, but they were dotted across a massive grayed out and occasionally blackened world. She had used so many portals, she had rarely ever traveled in a straight line for long. All along the way, she saw a line of her movements from the last ten days in The City of Halos. Even more distressing for her, she could see how close her arrival in the world at the six eyed prison had been to the gloom she had pointed at earlier. After she had scanned the map to her satisfaction, she closed it and felt a bit more anchored in her new world.
Vina had continued her classes with Seassa every spare moment she had and the benefits were clear. Her skill had climbed four levels and she had begun to combine movement, attack, and defense with the twelve attack lines.
Skill Level Up: Thrusting Swords has reached level 10. Thrusting swords ignore 9% of armor and inflict 18% more damage. You have earned 375 experience points from leveling skills. You have gained a skill point.
Where would you like to spend your Thrusting Swords skill point? Option 1: Unbreakable stance: Your stance is 25% harder to break. Option 2: Thrusting weapons gain 25% more durability. Option 3: Flourish: Your weapon is 5% harder for an opponent to track.
Vina had shared her options with Seassa and she had recommended Unbreakable Stance. According to Seassa, “Any time your stance is broken, you will be open to attack. Having your stance broken can be a death sentence. If there is a situation where your opponent thinks they broke your stance, you can act like it happened and fool them.” So Vina had selected the skill, hoping it would serve as a strong foundation for her future.
Three days after the unveiling, Vina, Parin and a group of twenty guards stood before a red swirling portal. “The assembler beyond this portal is controlled by The Adventurer’s Guild. We are being given temporary access to inspect it for research purposes. There will be other adventurer groups around. We are going to give them lots of respect and avoid interfering with their operation”, Parin said. He gestured toward the portal and, to Vina’s delight, the soldiers began to step through.
After half of the soldiers passed through, Parin went through and Vina followed shortly after him. On the other side she quickly walked forward to not obstruct the portal ring. More soldiers filtered in behind her and they assumed a protective position around her.
Vina could see they were on the edge of a small town, but she had not been told the name. Behind her the whole area was bustling with activity similar to what she had seen in Termily. In front of her was a massive hole that she could only describe as a crater. Wooden walls had been built entirely around the ring and people of all ages were milling around it. Some people were shooting arrows and other abilities into the pit. She looked down into the crater and saw it was extremely deep with a single creature trying to scale the edges. Before it even got halfway up, it was shot down. In the center she saw something squirming.
“Quiet!” Parin said. “We’ll be going to the center in six more generations. This assembler is a slower one. It spits out a creature roughly every five minutes, but sometimes there is a mass birthing event. We will be entering at the beginning of one generation event. We will be leaving before the second generation event. Get prepared.”
While they waited, Vina looked around the town, but didn’t stray far from her guards. Two remained at her side at all times. Occasionally her blood sense skill would warn her when a vibrance strayed near her that was different from the ones she normally felt in The City of Halos. She recognized them however. The people here were mostly Stigandorian. She saw one stigandorian man in the distance lock eyes with her. After a moment he began to walk toward her and she backed away. “Guards”, she called out. She was not scared, but Parin had been clear on the protocol. Her guards immediately recognized her avoidant behavior and moved in front of her.
The stigandorian man wore extremely well made light armor. Vina could see he wore a bracelet around his wrist and three blood red aspects embedded in it. His demeanor and vibrance made it clear he was an adventurer. “I’d like to speak with you, Asharaina”, he called out. “I mean you no harm.”
Vina continued to back away and the rest of her guard retinue ran over with Parin calling out orders as well as warnings to the man in the distance. Three guards ran to block his approach and Parin pulled Vina back, whispering in her ear, “No one should know you are here. The fact he recognizes you from this distance is strange. The cloak is hiding your title.”
“He sees my eyes”, Vina whispered back.
The guards started to escort the man away, but he called out, “E knows where you are! She says to stay safe behind the disabled gates until she finds her way to you!”
Vina flinched at the mention of her sister’s initial. “Wait! Please, bring him forward.”
Parin gave her a look, but gestured to the guards. A guard secured each of his arms, and two more guards stood between him and Vina.
“What do you know of E?” Vina asked.
The man nodded to her respectfully, “I am sorry, but I do not know much Asharaina. There’s a quest out on nearly every bounty board in The City of Randar. Whoever finds you first and delivers the message gets a hefty reward.”
Vina stared at the man for a moment longer before asking, “Are you able to send E a message from me?”
“I cannot. E provided no means for us to send her your response. Besides, how could she trust it truly came from you?” he asked.
She frowned at the man in frustration, but admitted to herself that he was right. “Thank you for your efforts in getting this to me”, she said. She turned away from the man and walked back toward where Parin had assembled them to wait. Her blood sense felt the man being dragged away by her guards.
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Parin touched her armored shoulder gently as she passed him, “Lady Esca?”
“Huh?” Vina asked when she turned to him.
“If your sister is in The City of Randar, I will recover her after our missions are completed. That is my promise to you”, Parin said.
Vina received a window notification of Parin’s promise, and she accepted it. She considered for a moment how Parin addressed her using her family’s name. It was no different from how others addressed Hakim. “Thank you Parin. It will be nice to have my family together and safe again.” She gestured toward where the man had been, “Are all adventurers Stigandorians?” she asked.
“Not all, but many are. Some of our own kind also call themselves adventurers and are recognized by the guild with a seal. The vast majority of adventurers are from Stigandor, however. They have a hunger for that kind of thing that cannot be described”, Parin answered.
Vina caught sight of a man waving a greenish flag in the distance and Parin caught her gaze. “We’re cleared to enter”, he said. Parin signaled to the guards and Vina moved to the edge of the crater where she knew they would descend.
Vina looked down at the mass in the middle of the crater. “Okay let’s go”, she said.
As one they dipped over the edge and began their descent. When they had descended about half way, the mass quivered, and she saw it stretch. Its sides split open and something with too many legs squeezed itself partially out. The mass shook itself like a wet dog. There was a weird squelching sound as the two separated from each other, and then the creature took its full shape. Vina quickly examined it.
Creature: Isofarnim Level: 22 Rare Isofarnim are nocturnal carnivorous creatures that hunt larger prey. Their legs are capable of rapid regrowth and contain a dangerous poison.
Vina pulled her thrusting sword from her hilt, but Parin stopped her with a touch. “We expected this. Wait.” Six of the soldiers pulled bows from their backs and immediately filled the creature with arrows. It squirmed about on the ground before it finally stopped moving. Several guards ran forward with weapons to ensure it was dead while Parin pushed the rest of the group forward toward the assembler. “Your five minutes start now, Vina. Do what you need to.”
Vina rushed forward with the team and quickly closed the distance between them and the assembler. She could run faster than everyone else, but she almost stopped when she realized something. “Parin, it’s in pain.”
Parin looked at her, “Four and a half minutes, Vina. Then I’m pulling you out.”
Vina ran forward and quickly reached the quivering mass. “Any danger in touching it?” she called out over her shoulder.
“None that we know of!” he shouted out to her.
She reached out with a hand to the mass of flesh. It quivered beneath her palm and Blood Sense made her feel the pain it was experiencing. The blood within it cried out for relief from the constant torment it was being subjected to. “I’m trying”, she whispered to it. She searched the mass with her eyes and saw it was covered in golden and black flowing lines as well as red and blue veins.
This close she could sense the mixture of different vibrances that had been forced to coexist within it. She felt two distinctly paliternian vibrances that had been mashed into one, but they were the ones in constant agony. A third vibrance that was like cold and immoveable metal that covered the two vibrances like a sheet of iron. The final vibrance she felt wrapped up the entire thing. It felt like an emptiness to her. It didn’t only not have vibrance, but it felt like the opposite of every vibrance she had felt yet. There was a great expanse of nothingness that she knew needed to be filled. It held the other three in dark chains that made escape impossible.
She felt her own emotions stir at the endless struggle unfolding before her. “Who did this to you?” she asked.
“Vina…” Parin warned.
“The two on the inside are like mine…” she said out loud, but her voice trailed off as she tried to figure out what she was sensing. “The cold one separates the positive from the negative. Is it a buffer to keep them apart? What happens if they touch?” she wondered.
“Physical and elemental damage don’t seem to have any effect on it. It’s been tried countless times”, Parin said, trying to help.
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about vibrance. This thing has four different vibrances. Two of them aren’t even from our world. I think someone intentionally designed it to not be destroyed by normal means”, Vina said. She blinked in realization at her own words. “Someone actually made this.”
I want to try something”, she said. She created a thrusting blood sword from her blood and stabbed it into the mass up to the hilt. The assembler didn’t even flinch from her attack, but that wasn’t her intent. “One of these vibrances feels like the opposite of our own. I wonder if I can cancel it out.”
She dissolved the sword into her own blood and watched the vibrance that was once contained in her weapon melt into the mass. It was quickly overcome by the power of the assembler, but Vina felt an immediate difference. Everyone else could see one as well. The black snaking veins on the mass thinned and the whole thing shuddered as it battled her blood.
“I think I can kill this. I just need to bleed to do it”, Vina said with a grin when she felt the two paliternian vibrances experience some relief.
“We’re leaving!” Parin shouted, and he grabbed Vina’s shoulder. He dragged her upward and out of the pit.
“Wait no! I can save them!” she yelled, but she didn’t resist. She allowed herself to be hauled out by Parin. She knew this part of the mission was a success. They just needed to deliver the knowledge now. Still, her heart hurt knowing she was leaving behind two vibrances still bound in torment. She didn’t know what they were, but she would remember their pain.
At the top of the pit, Parin wrote a letter, “Asharaina, can you take care of the second part of our assignment. Guards, privacy curtain.” Her guards pulled cloth from their belts, and soon she was fully enclosed in a private area while each guard facing outward. Vina took out Trina’s Aspect of Life and held it up once more. Trina’s vibrance blinded her once again, but she saw it was further in the distance. She sighed. “We’re closer, but she’s not here. She’s not at the assembler.”
“We’re heading to the edge of the gloom then”, Parin said with a sigh.
“You can take down the curtain”, she said.
Parin finished writing his letter and handed it to one of the soldiers. “Vina, I’m going to need a portal back to the City of Halos. These findings will need to be reported before we move on.”
Vina cringed when she realized what he had asked her to do, “Oh. If I do that it will convert this portal ring to blood runes. I think everyone here is going to be really unhappy if I do that.”
Parin gave her a grin and she couldn’t help but smile in return despite her sad mood. “It’s already been negotiated with The Adventurer’s Guild. They believe they can learn how to make blood runes from it after we have gone.”
Vina looked at him with new understanding, “This is why it took so long to prepare? And you chose this one in particular because of the infrequent spawn rate. Safety first, right?”
Parin grinned at her, “Yeah.”
She shook her head at his smugness, but opened the portal ring with her blood. After the soldier had gone through, she closed it and prepared to open the next portal. “Next stop, the outskirts of the gloom. Then we get Etana.”