They took a few hours off after that, spending time to recuperate. Korith and Reysha needed good sleep and Apexus needed to regenerate his whole body.
The door of the Mobile Estate stood open. Past their morning activities, they were willing to sacrifice the feeling of privacy to catch other adventurers approach. It would be an awkward moment if another group found the Healing Fountain while they were inside and then they stepped out of the previously invisible door. This could still happen while they were asleep. For now, that was not too much of a worry. The Expedition had not been going on long enough for people’s sleep schedules to majorly deviate from the outside. Another week would change that.
Even then, the party was quite a bit ahead. They had picked an unorthodox route and then, courtesy of Apexus’ vibration sense, moved with more certainty than most parties. They left behind corpses that marked the pathway as explored. Adding to that the Spawning Pools that crowded even cleared corridors with fresh monsters and they were unlikely to have anyone following in their footsteps. Best to look for fresh pastures for everyone involved.
The mere potential of it happening was enough to make Aclysia and Korith put on clothes. Apexus and Reysha, meanwhile, took another skinny dip in the Healing Fountain. Hot water was nice, as was making out while running one’s hands all over the other’s curves.
“If we go for another round, you’ll have to be gentle,” Reysha purred.
“An unusual request,” Apexus noted.
“I’m a sturdy gal, but I like feeling my legs when I’m fighting.”
“Aclysia can fix that.”
“Yeah, but she’s gonna be berating me while doing it.”
Reysha ended the conversation with another deep kiss. Seven minutes and a straightforward bit of missionary on the warm stone ground later, they went back into the Mobile Estate to find Aclysia reading and Korith maintaining her equipment. Her armour had been polished and oiled. Her hammer was currently in front of her, the uneven surface resting in a shallow, broad bucket, the kind usually used for foot baths. She was using a clump of matted wool as a sponge to give it a thorough cleaning.
“You should give your stuff a second look,” the kobold advised. “Specifically, the bodysuit.”
“Guh…” Reysha groaned and gave her man a pleading look.
Apexus was in a good mood and, the terrible smell on his fingers aside, it wasn’t the worst meditative exercise out there. Leaving the redhead to double check her weapons, something she had a much easier time caring for, he took her two-piece leather armour off the shelf it had been folded on. He stopped, it in hand, and tilted his head.
Squatting down, he put shoulder and arm against the shelf. He gave it a careful push, not to imbalance the variety of books and other items stacked in it. Audibly, wood scratched over wood. The back of the shelf hit the wall with an audible clack.
The sound grabbed the attention of the women in the room, who then scanned the Mobile Estate for any little sign of gaps that they could find. There were a couple, especially around the walls. “Ooooh, is it finally expanding?” Korith asked.
“It appears so,” Apexus confirmed. The Mobile Estate was not subject to all the usual effects of a moving world that could have caused things in it to shift. Any changes to the way things were positioned inside it could only come from them moving things about or itself growing larger. “Is the change gradual or is this the precursor of a larger evolution?”
No one could answer that, so they instead dedicated themselves to the remaining equipment mending.
__________________________________________________________________________
They stood before the entrance of the vault.
It had only taken them another half day of searching after leaving the Healing Fountain behind. Apexus had already noticed the vibrations while looking for the flower. Once they knew they were on the correct elevation, they could concentrate on scouting in the horizontall. That was, generally, much easier.
“As described, a metal door with a central keyhole,” Aclysia said, her voice raised to overpower the nearby sound of swinging mechanisms. “Reysha, if you would?”
“Already on it, sweet cheeks.” Grinning, the Rogue pulled out her lockpicking set and squatted down to be on level with the keyhole. It was a large one, surrounded by a copper plate that stood out heavily from the otherwise dark colour of the metal of the double-door. Above the door were three slots framed in silver. All of them showed a grey panel at the moment.
Reysha grabbed one of the larger utensils among her collection. It was a piece of metal about as thick as a knitting needle, curved at the end, and with a wooden handle to keep a nice grip. To the uninitiated, it looked like an odd construction or sewing tool. Carefully, Reysha brushed over the inside of the mechanism, attempting to feel out the individual springs. When she felt nothing but bumps, she switched to a smaller tool.
“There we are,” she hummed when she felt the resistance of a coil. Her cat ears turned, completely locking in on the sounds of metal. A tiny click was her sign that she had succeeded. Even without any further tools, the cylinder stayed put. “This will be easy,” she purred, then went down the length of the mechanism. “Nothing on two… click on three… click on four… click on five… nothing on six….”
CLUNK!
One of the panels above the lock switched to green. Reysha drew her hand back. Something behind the keyhole went down, sealing it completely. Then, something inside the door spun at a high speed, creating an unpleasant whistling sound.
“Ya ever think that it’s kinda weird the gods encourage us to learn thievery?” Reysha asked while they waited for the mechanism to reset. “Aren’t they supposed to be the good guys?”
“They test us in many ways, albeit that I cannot tell you why this specific one is so heavily encouraged,” Aclysia answered.
“Does it make a difference?” Apexus asked. “In the course of rising through the ranks of adventurers, we become powerful enough to wipe out entire villages, then towns, and finally cities of regular people. Is encouraging us to learn how to break locks any less moral than testing us on how to break spines?”
The conversation came to a temporary halt when then the mechanism slotted back into place. All were quiet so Reysha could concentrate on her task again. “They got smaller?” She grabbed a finer tool, then went through the process again. “Binding on one… nothing on two… click on three… nothing on four… nothing on five… nothing on six… going back to two…. Nothing… nothing… nothing… the fuck…?” Reysha went through two more times, then started from the beginning. “…Urgh, one got loose!” She realized her mistake and fixed it.
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CLUNK!
The second panel switched to yellow. Reysha clicked her tongue at the rating of her performance. Even if she could have argued with the door, she wouldn’t have had much to say in her defence. She pulled her tool out and the keyhole sealed itself again.
“You can use violence for many purposes,” Aclysia spoke, “few of them need be malicious.”
“Same is true for subterfuge and covert action,” Apexus answered. “If an ant queen were manipulating a swarm of moral followers to evil ends, would it not be most moral to sneak in and kill her alone? If there was an item unjustly held in a place difficult to reach, is it not better to steal it unseen?”
“I surrender to your wisdom, darling.” Aclysia bowed her head, a light smile on her pale pink lips. “The gods present us with many paths to grow our powers. It is upon us to prove we wield it properly and that we are worthy to join their ranks.”
“Anything ya wanna add, squishy?”
“O-open the door already!” Korith stammered in anticipation. A singular chest with an item worthy of the effort and level 30. It would have to be something tremendous! “Hoard wills it!”
“Ya didn’t listen to any of that talk, did ya?” Reysha purred, amused, and turned back to the lock.
She scouted out the lay of the mechanism with her tool again. The size of the cylinders had stayed the same, but the number of them had increased by two. Meticulously, she went about her task – this time, she made no mistake.
CLUNK!
The last of the panels switched to green. Two perfect and one flawed but successful attempts were all that door needed. Once Reysha drew her hand back, the lock turned slowly five times, then the door swung inwards.
The party stepped into the Blade Chamber.
Before them was a parkour course, marked all over by dangerous obstacles of sharpened metal. Slicing pendulums swung over spike pits, the only way across manifesting as stone platforms. In other segments, whirling blades travelled from wall to wall, forcing a swift run across an even field. There were arrow traps and statues that would swing if someone stepped on a pressure plate. All the usual stuff one would expect in a high-level treasure chamber. Every segment was a corridor, its end leading onto the next part, all the way to the treasure chest prominently displayed at the end.
Apexus led the way. Directly behind the door was a safe area, ending at a ledge that led to the first jumping segment. Testing, he delivered a punch to one of the many translucent walls that made just skipping sideways impossible. The ceiling was too low to make regular flight possible.
What this design did not account for was effortless flight. That kind of movement was not regularly available for their level, so the god that made it could not be faulted for not taking it into account.
Aclysia hovered upwards and made it across the first segment. Once a lever there was pulled, the pendulums in the previous segment stopped swinging and the spikes retreated into the floor. Crossing, then, was a simple matter of just jumping across a few divides.
The next two segments went much the same. Aclysia hovered across a landscape filled with whirling blades and the pressure plates that would activate traps all the same. The fourth she had to leave to Korith, as a boulder required to be pushed while weathering arrow fire. The Warrior cleared it without injury. On the last segment before the treasure chest, all previous challenges were mixed together in a lessened form. Aclysia had to dodge the occasional arrow, otherwise she just moved the smaller stone to its socket and then pulled the lever that allowed everyone else to follow unharmed.
“It is time!” Korith declared and pulled out one of the Favour Papers.
Reysha visibly struggled to withhold her sassy remarks. She wanted to tease the kobold more and she NEEDED to know what that Favour paper did. ‘Do not say anything or she might snap and not show!’ the redhead warned herself.
“Hoard, great pile of sparkles and shinies and such, your humble servant asks you for good fortunes,” Korith prayed, paper slip in hand.
It caught silver fire in an instant, consuming it all before Korith could do as much as react. No ash was left behind. Another sign of the god’s favour manifested. The chest before them, an ornate thing of metal and gems, had its outline glow first blue then purple. Korith squeaked in excitement.
“What does that mean?!” Reysha needed to know. “What just happened?!”
Korith turned to the tiger woman with the smuggest smile she could muster – which was quite smug. “Whaaaaaaaaaaat, I’m sooooooorry, are you pleading to learn what my ‘scam god’ just bestowed on us?”
“…Yes…” Reysha surrendered. “Yes! Please just tell me before my brain collapses!”
“Do you know the Loot quality table?” Korith asked, still sounding very smug.
“…Uhhhhh, I know it’s a thing? Trash, Rare, Legendary, something like that?”
“Why yes, yes indeed!” Korith declared. “Trash, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythical, those are the broad categories that enchantments have to represent power differences between items in a or outside all the level brackets. A Common item appropriate for someone of level 50 will still be superior to even a Legendary item of level 10, but we still differentiate between those things.”
“It is quite important when taking into account what one can wear to avoid Equipment Sickness,” Aclysia added.
“Yes – and each rarity level has its colour associated with it. Grey, White, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange, and finally Red. Now, since the chest has flashed Blue first and then Purple, what do you think this means?”
“…Hoard upgraded the item from Rare to Epic?” Reysha asked.
“Yes… why do you not look impressed?!”
“I mean, that sounds pretty cool and everything, but I can’t really gauge how great that is when I just get told that I now get a better thing than what I would have gotten originally?” Reysha shrugged. “It’s like someone tells me that I’ll get a shit ton of money instead of a ton of money. One is higher, intuitively, but both are just abstract.”
“Urgh!” Korith stomped her clawed foot. “You have no sense of gratitude for the Hoard.”
“Scam god.”
“Before you tease Korith into breaking your kneecaps,” Apexus weighed in. “Aclysia, you cleared most of this, the honour of opening the chest is yours.”
“Thank you, darling.” Aclysia sashayed across, in a good mood despite the usual fighting between Reysha and Korith, and lifted the lid. As per usual, the inside of the chest was a colourless darkness, hiding its true content until the guardian angel reached in and pulled it out.
It was a crystal with eight smooth sides that came together in two points, like two elongated pyramids joined at the base. Its colour was that of a greyish blue and a spherical light glowed within. It was large enough that its points jutted out while Aclysia held it at the centre.
Instinctively, the angel knew what she was holding. She poured mana into it, to activate its effect. The item flared up, the light within it seeping out and filling the entire crystal with radiance.
“Oh hey, didn’t we fight that thing, but bigger?” Reysha asked. “In… uh…. Something about light?”
“Myrlight,” Aclysia reminded her, as the awakened crystal hovered upwards. It spun in mid-air for a bit, then found its place above and behind Aclysia’s right shoulder. “This is indeed a personal version of that boss. A miniature angel that will occasionally cast Ray spells at my targets and erect short-lived crystal walls to protect my allies.” She hesitated for a moment. “I presume it will be in my possession. Keeping it up has a mana cost that may be difficult to sustain for you. I can draw the necessary mana from the environment.”
“It does suit you best,” Apexus agreed.
“Also, if it has an emergency barrier, that’s pretty neat,” Reysha added.
“Do you see now the glory of Hoard?”
“Again, I don’t know if the Rare item we could have gotten wouldn’t have been as cool.”
“It couldn’t have been!”
“How do ya know, did ya see it?”
“…You’re impossible!” Korith launched herself at the Rogue.
Apexus let them fight it out. A bit of roughness and tumbling about was good team building.