----------------------------------------
Renlas crested the largest cliff thus far and was huffing in deep breaths of air. Reaching down, he helped Bellor up the last bit of the way. “Thanks,” Bellor grumbled. The two laid down and sucked in air. A message popped up in Renlas’ vision.
<<<<<>>>>>
[Your inquiry has resulted in the following information:]
[The entity you saw is an Aspirant named Flicker.]
[Cosmic Power: Unknown.]
[Faction: Unknown.]
[Tier: 2.]
[Threat assessment: Proceed with caution. Ambush if possible. Try to capture for interrogation.]
<<<<<>>>>>
Really? They want us to capture him? Renlas sighed and cursed the System for the third time since they started their climb. It would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to go through our data analysts.
Becoming a Signer for the Black Hole Conclave meant that, in the end, they were at odds with a mysterious individual named X who ran The Cosmic System. If the universe was all fed to oblivion, as Renlas, Bellor, and their faction sought – then the System would end as well. And this X person could recall Wayfinders. So, they had done so.
Renlas and Bellor – and every other Conclave Signer or Ascendant – had no Wayfinder. They had to interface the old-fashioned way: someone sitting at a computer and manually searching. This X couldn’t lock out their faction’s access, but she made life much harder.
If I had a Wayfinder, I could use these Boons and find the Complex entrances. He could only use Boons while in The Cosmic Corridor or The Eternal City, and even then he had to go through one of the Conclave’s Civilian contacts to interface with the System. The same went for spending Stardust to level up.
“Brother? Did you get that?” Bellor asked.
“Yes,” Renlas replied as he sat up from his brief respite. “Top of the mountains seems the best place to get the lay of the land, and maybe spot this Aspirant we have to capture.” He stood up and offered his brother a hand up.
“Unknown faction, unknown Cosmic Power…I will not lie, I am concerned.”
Renlas jeered, “Scared? That’s not like you. Are you going to forsake oblivion?”
Bellor pushed him back and growled in response, “No.”
“Good. We climb.”
----------------------------------------
Jace shot his grapnel up the mountain face. Why do most of the entrance have to be on the far side? he thought. I came at this from the wrong way. Planting his feet and shoving a hand into the mountainside, he re-launched the grapnel and continued his rapid ascent.
All the Complexes for this volcano tile had their entrances on the non-sheer and more-filled-with-lava side of the mountain – the Western side. Up to the top. Maybe I’ll spot the World Pillar up there. And probably another guardian like the last one. Let’s take stock.
He only had Archmage Hydromancy and Starfire Stride for his once per day Skills. Starfire Stride is useless on a volcano, but the hydromancy is going to be valuable. As he kept ascending, he took mental stock of his supplies. At this rate, I’ll have enough food but will need to find a new water source. I can always use hydromancy to fill it up if needed.
Ollie popped out of his collar as they got atop the highest of the mountain peaks. The gold and silver skies above the two was almost within reach here at the top of the world. Below the two was an enormous caldera – easily a quarter-mile across. And in the center was an enormous stone platform with a World Pillar atop it.
<<<<<>>>>>
[Warning! You are about to enter a Complex!]
[This location has been marked by The Cosmic System as Tier 3.]
[Number of foes to clear out: 1.]
<<<<<>>>>>
[Quest: Defeat the World Pillar Guardian.]
[Time Limit: N/A.]
[Reward: Epic (Secret Cache) Boon.]
[Sender: The Cosmic System.]
<<<<<>>>>>
“Fire dragon,” Ollie stated. “The strongest of its species here on Nihilethelea-”
“Not sure how you say it perfectly every time,” Jace muttered as he scanned the environment.
Ollie chuckled and swam around in front of him, “Well, it is easy when you are an AI and cannot make speech mistakes.”
“Any suggestions on dealing with this?”
“You can recall your sword from any distance. I would use Dark Matter Cloak (Rank 3) and just hide up here, throwing your sword over and over until the [Rending] effect kills it.”
“Smart play,” Jace replied. “Especially given the Tier difference.” That, and I really do not want to get near that lava during a fight. Jace did not know much about science or how the heat would react to his body if unshielded – but he knew that his armor would be no match for the flaming pit. “Dark Matter Cloak (Rank 3), Dark Matter Blade (Rank 5) [Rending].”
He pulled back his arm and prepared to throw – but stopped. A pair of burly, armored people came up over the lip on the Northern side of the caldera. They were speaking – Jace could barely make out the slight noise. Zooming in with his prosthetic eyes, he could clearly make out the Black Hole symbols on their hands – and the telltale black fingers that marked them as Signers for the Conclave. “Ollie, you see them?”
“Yup.” Ollie frowned. “Black Hole folk.” He grinned devilishly, “Want to be really dastardly?”
----------------------------------------
“Look at that,” Bellor said breathlessly. “A whole lake of liquid flames!”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Renlas smirked, “The goddess looks upon us favorably! And look! A flame-serpent! This must be a sign!”
Neither of them were affected by the heat, having grown up on a just-as-hot desert world.
Their religion foretold sacred places where naught but pure destruction was produced – and this lake of flames surely fit the description of those sacred grounds. And the existence of a flame-serpent curled around a stone pillar – almost like it was protecting its clutch – was a sign from the goddess. This was a place that should not be harmed. It was sacrosanct.
“Come, let us seek the blessings of the flame-serpent,” Bellor said reverently. He backed up and leapt – fueling his leap with a gravity-shifting Skill. Renlas jumped after him, and the two approached the enormous creature.
A screen flickered across both of their vision warning them of the Complex’s existence; but neither heeded the instruction to slay this proud, mighty creature. As it raised its head and looked down upon the brothers, they both knelt and bowed their heads. “Almighty serpent! We see you!”
“We see you!” Bellor said right after Renlas had finished the statement.
“Grant us your gifts, almighty servant of oblivion!” Renlas continued.
“Provide us with your mastery over flame, that we may wreak destruction.”
The serpent stood up and towered over the two – the shadow from above was proof enough of that. And it roared.
Bellor slapped his hands over his ears – but Renlas was unmoving. A rock amid a stream. “Forgive any trespass!” he shouted as he shuffled backward and signaled for Bellor to do the same.
He did so, and the two moved away on their hands and knees. The flame-serpent settled down and curled back up around the pillar. “It does not look like it is interested in granting us a blessing,” Bellor whispered. “This place is sacred. The creature is not. Or else it would see our devotion and reward us.”
Renlas nodded, “We should lea-”
Both were cut off as the flame-serpent roared and jolted upright as quickly as its bulky and scale-covered mass allowed. It reared up and looked at them, opening its maw. What is that? Bellor thought as he saw a trickle of purple and crimson light from atop the flame-serpent’s head.
“Incoming! Black Hole’s Embrace!” Renlas shouted. A sphere of solid black appeared in front of him, and the torrent of flames that would have surely slain the two was sucked into the singularity. The flaming stream became a river, and then a tsunami – more and more liquid fire shot out, and the event horizon around the edge of the singularity began to fill to its brim. “Brother! Quickly!”
Bellor nodded, “Black Hole’s Embrace!” His singularity appeared next to and merged with Renlas’, and the black sphere grew as the new gravity well was added to it. “We can outlast this assault!” Bellor shouted over the roaring blaze as he felt exhaustion slowly began to wash over him.
Renlas reached down and pulled a large, spiked mace from his waist. “This may be a sacred creature, but it seeks our destruction! We cannot submit to oblivion before we bring it to others!”
“Oblivion awaits!” The fanatic Bellor shouted in response, reaching back and stringing his large bow. “Let us slay the beast!”
----------------------------------------
“Well, look at that. It did work,” Ollie stated.
Jace nodded and his sword warped into his hand. He had prodded the beast with a sword-throw to get it angry. He saw the dragon’s flame run out, and the two squat men engaged with it in combat. The one in front had a spiked mace and was swinging it with force; shattering scales, bones, and pulverizing the meat underneath. “It’s amplified,” he muttered.
The other squat man was drawing back a bowstring, and a singularity appeared on the tip of his arrow. Loosing it, the shaft flew forward and impacted the dragon, causing it to roar in pain as local space warped and began to suck some of the flesh in.
“Can’t let them win,” Jace muttered as he thought of how best to word the effect. “Just weaken the dragon for me.”
----------------------------------------
“Duck!” Bellor shouted. Renlas complied, ducking as an arrow imbued with the power of oblivion sailed into spot where cracked scales provided a gap for the projectile. “Now!”
Renlas slammed his spiked mace on the back of the arrow, driving it further into the creature. The monster roared and tried to swipe down at him. “Oblivion’s Ward!” he shouted as a sphere of material accumulated by his earlier singularity was returned from beyond and formed a disc-like barrier that the creature crashed into.
The barrier held, and Renlas dashed forward underneath it, getting under the beast as he swung up into the softer belly. He could see the slight indent where the singularity from the arrow had worked its way to.
The creature screamed, and then the world began to grow hot. And harder to see. Foggier. And breathing became more difficult. What in the-
----------------------------------------
“I want to dump as much water as possible into this lava pool. Hydromancy – activate.” Jace ducked back behind the rocky outcropping as a geyser of steam erupted from the caldera. He could feel the heat despite being out of the direct area and had to move himself further down until the temperature stabilized.
“That should cook anything up there,” Ollie stated. “The fire dragon might be fully immune – I don’t know. Fire and lava? No effect. Superheated air filled with liquid? Maybe.”
Jace saw the enormous plume ascend, and only when it had faded into the sky above did he retract his grapnel and peer over the edge. The sight that he saw was not surprising given the information that Ollie had just provided.
The two stout men had been cooked alive; steamed while in their armored shells just like the foul crabs that Jace was occasionally able to pick out of the polluted rivers he swam in during his youth. The dragon was unaffected – but was obviously very, very weak.
And the caldera was still steaming – but only a little bit. The top-most layer of lava had hardened into rocks, and Jace could see parts of it bubbling upward as the insatiable inferno continued under the surface. Let’s quickly kill it! He threw the sword over and over again, scoring hits that built up the [Rending] effect.
Within a minute, the damage had accumulated enough, and the monster collapsed.
<<<<<>>>>>
[Quest Completed: Defeat the World Pillar Guardian.]
[Time Limit: N/A.]
[Reward: Epic (Secret Cache) Boon.]
[Sender: The Cosmic System.]
<<<<<>>>>>
Jace worked his way down and dashed across the heated rocks. “Ollie, dust the whole lot.”
<<<<<>>>>>
[Stardust Acquired: 2030]
<<<<<>>>>>
“2000 for the dragon, and 15 for each of those Aspirants,” Ollie stated as the forms turned to shimmering starlight and flashed into his paw. “2150 Stardust is what you currently sit at.”
Jace nodded. “Let’s see how many dungeon cores they had,” he replied. Walking to where the corpses once were, he picked up the golden orb. Judging by the size, and using his own knowledge of his dungeon core in the bag, he knew that there were 10 more cores to add to his. Puts me at 39. I’ve blown the record out of the water.
After putting it into his bag, Jace walked up to the pillar, “If you’d do the honors.”
Ollie bowed slightly and swam over, “My pleasure.” He tapped his paw to the pillar right next to Jace’s hand. There was a surge of red light that pulsed and then raced into Jace’s palm.
<<<<<>>>>>
Archmage Pyromancy - Enables a Pyromancy spell of the highest order.
<<<<<>>>>>
“Same activation phrase?” Jace asked.
“Yup!”
“Alright. Let’s move on to the next Complex.” He rushed over the starting-to-crack-apart, hardened shell of obsidian over the caldera. Making it to the lip, Ollie pulled up the map. “About two-hundred feet below us there is another Complex.”
Jace planted his hand, extended the grapnel, and let himself down the phantom cord.