Chapter 50 - The Corruptor’s Realm IV

The tunnel opened up before the Llystletein rogue as she approached its far end. Beyond the path lay a summit crater that almost seemed too spacious for the mountain sporting it. It was equal parts long and wide, a circular basin with room for the entire Cadrian capital. But the size of Valencia the settlement was not.

Presented within the caldera was a veritable mess of ice and fire. Half of the stony walls were covered in crystalline sleet, with the rest featuring streams of lava, red hot tears that oozed from gaps in the rock.

There was a clear effort to mitigate the risk that came with the burning magma. The molten rivers were redirected through a central pipeline that ran along the edges of the subterranean city. Just like everything else, the conduit was made of ice. And just like everything else, it was completely unaffected when exposed to heat. The tubing showed no signs of melting, even when filled to the brim with fiery rocks. There was no steam produced, nor any drops of water flowing from the points of contact. Strangely enough, it wasn’t just the ice that failed to react. The lava was just as unaffected.

Bits of scaffolding, thin tubes and large frozen plates, could be seen all over the town, glimmering beneath the light of the stars. The locals seemed to consider the sight the norm; they were casually walking across the shoddily constructed platforms as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Not a single individual was batting an eye at the multi-layered highways. The only building that lacked the supportive structures was a glacial pyramid, a triangular construct tall enough to double as the mountain’s summit.

She didn’t need a guide to know that she had finally arrived. The sight that lay before her was Borrok Peak, the destination she was meant to destroy.

What gave it away was not the architecture, but rather its inhabitants. Over three quarters were obviously borroks. The bug-monkeys were walking around like they owned the place. There were hundreds if not thousands of them gathered in the city’s wide open spaces, chattering away with a mix of insectoid buzzes, monkey-like squeaks, and owlish hoots.

Of the remaining residents, the vast majority were still at least debatably borroks, with the corrupted watcher Claire had slain serving as the perfect example. In life, the freshly dismembered corpse had sported insect-like features alongside its mammalian base. The bats, wolves, and even bears mingled in with the crowd were cut from the same cloth. They were all corrupted, all living in harmony with the freakish cat-bugs.

Only a select few individuals—like the centaurs—were completely devoid of any insectoid body parts. Oddly enough, the pair was no longer held prisoner. Their restraints had been undone and they were casually trotting down the street alongside their supposed captor. Their humanoid features made them stand out, but much more eye-catching was their clothing. They were the only ones wearing garments made of leather and metal. Everyone else was either naked or robed in simple linens, pieces of cloth that covered them from head to toe.

Tearing her eyes from the populace, Claire examined the scene for anything that seemed to resemble an important landmark. She didn’t know much about the roles played by the sentinel and the lifegiver, and asking would likely prove too suspicious. If she wanted information, she was going to have to snoop around and find it on her own.

Not too far from the pyramid was another noteworthy building, a large circular structure at the center of town. She couldn’t discern its purpose from afar, but it vaguely reminded her of a small arena. It was well fortified, surrounded on all sides by tall walls made of bricks of ice.

Another obvious point of interest was a manor isolated from the rest of the city. It sat on a piece of elevated ground near the back wall with a fence wrapped around it and an inordinate number of corrupted watchers patrolling the premises. All signs seemed to hint that it was a high security location in desperate need of an uninvited guest, and the rogue was more than inclined to oblige.

Claire didn’t head towards any of the three landmarks right away. She walked instead down the sloped path that led into the town square while her eyes darted around. It had been a long time since she had had the chance to wander about a settlement. Though she technically lived in Valencia, the floating manor was its own distinct ecosystem. The clouds that often gathered beneath it obscured the capital, and though there was a magical device capable of transporting her to the ground, the trips she made were infrequent. She was only allowed to descend to attend formal events. And even then, she would be kept under strict watch, both for her safety and her father’s sanity. It had been nearly half a year since she last escaped her guards and explored the city unsupervised.

After hiding her leg-spear just outside of town and confirming that she had over a hundred hours to complete her quest, she set out to see the sights. Her heart was pounding with excitement. Excitement that didn’t last. Ice-based structures aside, there was very little about the borrokian settlement that stood out to the less-than-entertained observer. It was just another ordinary town with ordinary things and ordinary people. The only real distinction to be made was that it was technologically backwards. All the artifacts Valencians often used to better their everyday lives were missing.

Given the insects’ primitive, barbaric nature, she had expected there to be criminals wandering the streets and violent brawls around every corner. But try as she might, the only degenerate she could find was a corrupted watcher passed out in the middle of the road, an icy bottle of liquor still held in its fuzzy paw.

None of the city’s denizens seemed to think of it as anything out of the ordinary. They didn’t react or bother themselves with moving the individual out of the way, opting instead to step over or around it as they would have any other roadblock.

Despite seeming to understand the concept of money, hardly any borroks were engaged in the exchange of goods or services. There wasn’t a single shop or stall in sight, not even in the city’s central plaza. Nearly every building was either a residence or a lodge. The only exceptions she found were storage facilities and factories, housing rectangular rocks and their creators.

They’re only about as civilized as the veabers.

Claire tried to better her understanding of the semi-mammalians by eavesdropping on their conversations—a valiant effort that ended in failure. They appeared to be communicating with each other through a series of gestures and miscellaneous noises, but deciphering their language proved outright impossible. She couldn’t grasp it, no matter how long she listened. In fact, she found herself coming to the exact opposite of an understanding.

It didn’t make sense for the multi-racial city to use its own language. Unlike Marish, the common tongue, the local dialect was anything but race-agnostic. The watchers were unable to make the same noises as the tiny cat-tailed gorilla beetles and vice versa. Their biological differences made it outright impossible for them to mimic each other’s words.

Though Marish was universally present, it was not necessarily applicable to all. The most common example of the odd phenomenon was the pet dog. Domesticated canines could relay their feelings to their owners through their barks and body language, but they remained incapable of learning the standard parlance; their attempts at communication went unrecognized by the pantheon, regardless of any time or effort invested. Lest they ascended, which most pets did not, they simply could not obtain the skill associated with the language even if they learned to recognize commands spoken in it. Knowing that particular bit of trivia was what led Claire to assume that the veabers were incapable of speech. Their squeaks and chatters reminded her more of barks and howls than anything intelligible. Evidently, she was wrong. The oddball that she had met earlier had proven her assumption false.

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Do any of the other veabers speak Marish? Or is it just him?

Any creature with a language skill could understand the common tongue. Marish would grow alongside whatever other vernacular the individual in question spoke, at least until it reached its fifth level. Having five completed milestones in a language skill provided the ability to more or less comprehend it, but that was all it did. It took ten to sound fluent both on paper and in person. With only five, the resulting sentences were often broken, primitive, and barbaric, like those of the watchers.

Wandering over to the edge of town, Claire finally found a group borroks engaged in something beyond the standard fare. Unlike the others, who were chatting and running around, the individuals hanging around the suburbs were eating. The storehouses that littered the city’s outer limits were filled with what she could only presume to be food. The pea-coloured goop was thick and slimy, sticking to the hands of those that consumed it. Again, no currency was exchanged. It looked to be an all you could eat buffet where any member of the settlement could partake in as little or as much as they desired. Some of the more conservative individuals were only eating small blobs, while others were out to consume half their body weight in a single sitting.

I should eat too.

The thought spent a few moments echoing in the back of her mind, but it was soon dismissed as she spotted a point of interest along the side of the road. To her right stood a triangular building with its pointy tip capped by a sphere. Unlike all the others, it was more purple than blue with thick walls that verged on the edge of opaque; seeing through it was as difficult as seeing through a dozen layers of stained glass, difficult, but not impossible. Three blurry borroks were stuck within the circular prison that was its second floor, unmoving, fully encased and frozen in time.

Its sole entrance led to a room containing a massive pitfall nearly as wide as a watcher. There was a ladder running up the side opposite her, illuminated by the soft red glow that came from the underground. Its rungs were impossible to climb. The individual bars had a full halfbreed’s worth of height between them. Wafting up from the pit was a foul, sulfuric scent. It reminded her of the time she had hidden a dozen eggs beneath her father’s bed and forgotten about them for the better part of a month.

A series of hoots and howls came from behind her as she moved closer to the hole. Spinning around, she found herself greeted by an eldery borrok with white fur and a full beard tucked underneath its thorax. The monster continued to grunt at her for a bit, but she couldn’t figure out what it was saying. And apparently, staring at it with her head tilted and her eyes blinking didn’t exactly make that clear. It took half a rant for the bug monkey to finally switch to Marish.

“You, what want?”

It was glaring at her with its eyes narrowed suspiciously and its tail curved down and bristled, no doubt in part because she was an obvious foreigner.

“I was curious,” she said. “I don’t know what this is.”

“This?” The borrok gestured towards the hole. “This toilet.”

Claire slowly looked between the senior and the hole. Why is there a ladder in the toilet?

“If no use, then go. Me use.”

The halfbreed nodded, excused herself, and vacated the area. That part was easy. Ignoring the sounds that came from the building, however, was not.

The trickling is just my imagination. It isn’t real. And neither is the sizzling. Wait… Sizzling? Claire nearly perked her ears up. Nearly. Maybe it’s better if I don’t find out.

As a member of the truly enlightened, the force mage had no need to dabble in the affairs of mortals preceded by their physical urges. Her efforts were invested instead in vacating the area with her ears held close to her head. Along the way, she nearly asked herself how borroks used the bathroom in the first place, but the thought was purged from her mind right before it was fully formed. She knew better. Curiosity killed the catgirl, after all.

Escaping the uncomfortable noise took the not-catgirl to a completely different part of town. The area right next to the crater’s wall was effectively a landfill. The buildings were filled not with food, but garbage. Rotting corpses, broken equipment, and splintered bits of wood extended as far as the eye could see. Even the borroks were much fewer in number, with only the odd individual or two sleeping in the streets.

“Borroks! If you do not return the Staff of True Ice, then today is the day you die!”

Claire was about to dismiss the dump and move on when an ear-piercing screech brought her eyes to the night sky above. Though it was dark, she could easily make the intruders out from the starry backdrop. Their dark ashen bodies were highlighted with a fiery red glow, an inner flame burning within their cores. Classifying them was much more difficult than perceiving them. She couldn't tell if they were supposed to be gargoyles, sea-creatures, or both. Their frames resembled dolphins, but they were clearly made of once-molten stone. Each time they moved, their bodies would undulate, as if to swim through the air.

The only wings they possessed were made entirely of flame. They were almost like halos, physically detached and floating directly above their dorsal fins.

Following soon after the declaration was an attack. The supposedly aquatic creatures opened their mouths and fired pillars of flame, dying the city a bright shade of red. Though unaffected by magma, the icy buildings melted as soon as the fire made contact. It seemed like the citizens would be slaughtered, but oddly enough, the damage they suffered was inconsequential. Not a single bug-monkey fell to the initial assault. Those that were hit, even dead on, were only lightly singed.

Such an attack was typically a formula for panic, terror, and hysteria. But none of it was anywhere to be found. Borrok Peak’s residents didn’t seem to mind that their homes were under attack. Even those that were awoken by the commotion were so indifferent and uncaring that they went right back to sleep.

Claire was confused, outright bewildered by their behaviour. But an explanation soon came in the form of a defensive barrier. A dome of ice, dyed a lighter shade of blue than any of the other constructs, appeared right as the lava dolphins launched a third wave of attacks. The fire and ice clashed head on. And this time, nothing melted. The raging flames were quelled by the frosty defence.

The dolphins didn’t recoil. They reared their heads, sucked in deep breaths, and kept up the assault. But they weren’t left to hammer on the protective shield for long. Bats and borroks flew from holes in the bulwark and engaged the fiery cetes head on.

Claire found little to no joy in watching the battle. The monsters were too far away for her to make out any obvious details and she had to crane her neck all the way to stare at them. And that wasn’t even the worst part. Even more annoying was the lack of spectacle. Both sides fought at a level that left Claire completely and utterly disappointed. All the participants were slow and weak, and neither party appeared capable of inflicting any sort of lasting injury.

The only individual to catch the halfbreed’s eye was a late arrival. It was, in effect, an anti-borrok. Unlike his freakish counterparts, which had monkey-like faces and beetle-like bodies, the newcomer was a monkey with a beetle for a head. Even its feline features were backwards—its tail grew out of its skull while its ears adorned its rump.

Something about the way it moved bothered her. Her lower left eyelid twitched in sync with the creature’s ears, and her fists itched each time its tail flickered about. The longer she watched it, the more she wanted to clobber it senseless for reasons she had no way of explaining.

Despite its appearance, which was strange by just about every standard, the bug-cat proved itself a skilled fighter. One of the dolphins would suffer a heavy blow each time it kicked itself off either the dome or the crater’s walls.

None of the supposedly aquatic creatures fell for good, but they retreated before long, cursing the borroks and threatening to return in the near future. Based on the locals’ casual behaviour, it was likely a common occurrence.

But even so, Claire was standing at attention. There was a chance that the anti-borrok was the sentinel. And there was clearly only one way to find out.