In the Ash Heaps

Eva let out a cry of relief as she finally gained the essence necessary to ascend to Tier 3. The dungeon runs had blended together into a nightmare of monsters and endless tunnels, but now she was free. Emerging from the dungeon, she raised her hands to the welcoming sunlight, and basked in her success. Mire was now in reach. She threw her spear up into the sky, and then summoned her elemental energy as it came down, bathing the weapon in it. It came to a stop in the air, and she leaped up, landing on it. The spear shuddered slightly, but it held.

With a whoosh, she took off, flying back towards the Ashen Citadel. The wasteland below was starting to recover slightly from the depredations of Granath, and she saw patches of green beginning to emerge from the ground. Granath had forbidden the widespread cultivation of crops, so that he could maintain a monopoly on the food supply of the realm. Now however, the bones beneath the surface of the ash were being put to good use as fertilizer.

It would take time, but one day the Ash Heaps would return to being the verdant wilderness that they once were. It could never become a paradise, that was for certain. The Hells would still be the Hells, but they would become somewhere more livable, closer in theme to Telvaria than a place designed for punishment. Those who wished to live peaceful, mortal lives would be able to spend their days in the Ashen Citadel without fear of dying to a monster. Those who wanted to break free of the constraints that Granath had placed upon them would be able to fight the creatures of the realm, and grow stronger.

Eva reached the Citadel some time later, and dismounted her spear in front of the swirling portal. What looked to be a city hall was being built where the ruins of Granath’s palace stood, but she paid it little mind. Instead, she found a piece of paper and a pen, and wrote down a short message for Jonathan in case he came back here. It would have been wiser for her to wait until he had returned to ascend, but she could stand the Ash Heaps no longer. Anyone with power would rather die than be forced to live without it.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the purple light, and was transported to Mire. To her relief, Jonathan had added her to the whitelist for the portal. Otherwise, she would have had to wait.

She stepped out into the middle of a ruined town, marred by the scars of recent battle. Shattered walls of obsidian could be seen stretching across it. It seemed as though somebody had tried to remove the evidence, but to her enhanced sight, it was all still there. Jonathan and the others had been here recently, but had been forced to flee by someone or something. Before chasing after them, Eva had something more important to tend to. She hid within a small building, and ascended to Tier 3.

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In a nearby city

Counterintuitively, the safest place to be for the Jonathan and the others was in a city, as it was the last place for Slothari to expect to find them. Although it might have seemed like hiding out in the wastes was a better idea, when people could travel at thousands of miles per hour, distances began to become less of an obstacle, and more of an annoyance. Instead, they had concealed themselves within Jonathan’s Void cloaking skill, and entered the city. While there, they had removed their armor and anything that made them noticeable, storing it in Jonathan’s spatial device.

He was relatively certain that this would be safe, given that nobody had seen him out of his armor in the realm save for those with him. In fact, it was probably a better disguise than wearing it, to be honest.

Once suitably disguised, wearing simple clothes and devoid of weaponry, the group of three headed deeper into the city. It was a bit different than one of the fortress towns that were all too prevalent. They had passed by a few of those on the way, but this was the first real city. It was called Miremount, which was quite an unimaginative name, given that its only claim to fame was its situation on a hillock of mud rising out of the swamp.

It was a decent sized city, about ten miles in width, and ringed with a wall of solid stone. However, the security was quite lax to say the least, at least on the outer walls. They had simply been able to walk past the guards, who were all nearer the low end of Tier 3. Though whether that was due to the strength of Jonathan’s cloaking power or the weakness of the guards was uncertain.

For the first time, Jonathan spotted a sizeable population of lower Tier individuals in the city. Children played in the streets, none of whom were over level 20. There were few opportunities to level in such a place anyway, and it was nice to see that it was safe enough that most did not have to. Still, even a level 20 ten year old would be stronger than most people to have ever lived on Earth. It really put things into perspective.

“Where would be a place in this city that nobody would expect us to be?” Jonathan asked.

“Probably in the lower level district. We could set up a base there, and use Tartarus to boost our levels while planning how to rescue the others. Sadly, we are still too weak for an assault on Slothari’s stronghold, which is their most likely place,” Edgar said.

Hushar sighed. “I wish that were not the case, but it seems that after ascending to the heights of power in the previous realm, we have been cast down with the dogs in this new one.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say cast down-” Edgar began, but stopped at a warning glance from Jonathan.

Hushar was taking this harder than they were given the fact that his brother might be dead. The only thing preventing him from going into a depressive spiral was the fact that he could check through the faction interface. However, that was a vague sense at best, as all he could see was a number.