Within the canopy of an immense forest resided a pair of working women. They were in a sparse room perched upon a pair of massive branches. While large, the branches were smaller than intuition alone would suggest was required to support the room. It was almost comical, and yet the strange proportions only served to highlight the hidden magic at work. Some called it divine intervention, while the more pragmatic understood that humans were not the only creatures in the world who benefited from levels.
“Make a small cut here.”
A small quake shook the earth. Little of the force traveled up the trunks or down the branches to the treehouse. At most, the branches bobbed a serene melody not so dissimilar to the ebb and flow of the tides. Noticeable, but regular enough to become commonplace. The pair of women didn’t pay any mind to the disturbance, small as it was. They had grown used to it. Besides, the gentle vibrations had long since been drowned out by the powerful susurration of insects in the distance.
“Try to stagger your cuts in groups of three, Ashley. If a Woodsinger behaves chaotically the resulting structure will be stable.”
The elder of the two women guided her charges hand to perform several slim incisions in the bark on the floor of the room. The enchanted blade burned with deadly fire that burned into the wood with gleeful hunger. Despite the dagger’s fervor, cutting through the high-tier bark was a tough task. Minutes passed as each cut grew wider with each pass of the magical dagger.
Part of what made the task difficult was how the bark healed at a prodigious rate. The elder wasn’t fazed by the unnatural recovery. With precise, angular movements, she hammered wooden wedges into the cuts to slow the healing. Despite the efficient nature of her movements, they lacked focus. Almost bored, as if her mind was elsewhere.
“Now we call the spirits by pulling the sap from the wound and spreading the scent on the wind,” the elder said, taking the enchanted dagger from her charge.
Her charge took no mind of her disregard. It was expected by now. The mysterious Seer of New Hope was always looking off to the side. Her attention was transient, and yet, no word spoken in her vicinity was missed. She existed with a perpetual frown. Stern and sad. Weighted down by an intractable, unknowable problem. Those who saw her in passing attributed her dour mood to the weight of the future, and in part, they were right.
“How do you know all this stuff,” Ashley said, feeling silly as she waved a sticky sap-covered hand in the air at Christina’s encouragement.
“Watch carefully,” Christina replied, not deigning to answer as a Woodsinger floated into the room. “This part is finicky.”
The ghostly spirit circled the three injuries on the great branch. It spun its alien head and produced a rippling rumble of a terrible storm cloud about to shed its load. Ashley gawked at the creature. Its form faded as it wove its natural magic. Sprouts shot up and displaced the wooden wedges. Christina ignored them and instead snatched the upshoots and twisted them with practiced hands. The wood melted together, still fueled by the magic of the Woodsinger. Fibers fused and split under her practiced hand into the shape of a curvaceous chair with a low back.
“Wow,” Ashley said. The chair was basic but beautiful. It had a radiant golden hue and was full of gentle curves that drew the eye. “Oh shit! This is how you made the floor flat, huh.”
“It wasn’t me who flattened this branch,” Christina replied, then handed the younger girl the knife. “Now you try and add some armrests.”
Ashley took the knife hesitantly and began carving. Her movements were quick, but not assured as Christina’s had been. They were hasty, as if desperate to get to the end with no regard for how the journey impacted the destination. Ragged cuts oozed sap around uneven wedges as the scent of pained pine drew yet another Woodsinger into the room. Once again it coaxed the damaged wood to heal and Ashley jumped on the opportunity to form two lumpy armrests.
Ashley palmed the knife and pouted at the uneven mess that she had made. “Man I suck at this.”
“But it is functional,” Christina replied, unperturbed. “You will improve with time, and this is the best way for you to help the community.”
“I mean...I guess,” Ashley said, the pitch of her voice rising in that weedling way that only toddlers and teenagers could reliably reproduce. “You are so much better than me. Couldn’t you do this, and I could gain some levels in the dungeon and...ya know...really help.”
“Gellamine and Kellar don’t require your firepower on their quest to emancipate the people. They are protected by something far stronger than anything you could hope to provide at your age or level.” Christina said. She gathered up the tools used for the shaping in a rudimentary woven bag and stood to leave.
“What, the new god everyone’s talking about?”
“No, pseudo-random guerrilla tactics advised by a maximum likelihood esti...mation...” Christina glanced at Ashley and sighed. “Never mind, come on, it’s lunchtime.”
“Wait, no explain it to me!” Ashley jumped up, tugging on Christina’s sleeve. “What’s soo-doh-rah-dohm? What language is that? Is it common? It doesn’t sound like common.”
Christina paused as they reached the ladder down the trunk and glanced at the girl at her hip. Then her ear twitched and her gaze moved up, focusing on the middle distance. Ashley hopped from leg to leg as a series of expressions from annoyed to frustrated back to annoyed and finally, resignation flashed over her mentor’s face.
“It’s a branch of mathematics,” Christina eventually said, climbing the ladder up to another abode where several other people were gathering to eat. “It ensures that even though they venture into hostile territory, the chance that there are forces assembled to stop them is minimal.”
“Wow, could I help with that?”
“I can show you the sequence sometime,” Christina replied noncommittally as she stacked several fruit and vegetables on a wooden platter. They settled to eat, and the typical small talk that abounded in New Hope filled the branch. People were thankful and awed at their new home. They praised the quick and bountiful harvest, while grumbling light-heartedly at the lack of meat or any other animal products. Milk and eggs were especially missed and since Christina was there, the people asked the Seer if they would be able to farm either within the magical forest.
Christina answered vaguely where she could, long since given up on convincing the people that she didn’t, in fact, have future sight. Instead, she spoke with Ashley as much as she could, diverting conversation under the guise of teaching her trainee.
“Could you tell me how my brother died?” Ashley eventually asked quietly into a lull.
And so, with people asking uncomfortable questions on one side and a girl asking a slightly less uncomfortable question on the other, Christina recounted the tale. She had not been there, but with Cortana’s help, it wasn’t hard to weave an enchanting tale of the time the dungeon had been discovered.
The lunch conversation dwindled as people stopped to listen. One and all were in awe, drinking up her words like gospel. All except one. Ashley was quiet for a different reason entirely. She listened with equal rapture to the rest, but with an unhappy frown that darkened her countenance.
The story finished. In the silence, the sound of insects in the distance grew prominent. Just as everyone was about to burst into applause, Christina‘s gaze snapped to the west.
The people followed her gaze, confused for a moment until the sound of insects reached a crescendo. A warbling buzz of millions of insect wings drowned out the sound of everything else. The sky to the west grew black. Not dark like night, but black as pitch. An impenetrable void that drained hopes and dreams by its mere presence.
“What is that?” someone said, vocalizing the sentiment everyone had. As one they turned to their Seer, but she was inexplicably missing.
On the forest floor, where flowers fought an endless war with grasses and brush, Ashley caught up with Christina. Her mentor stalked through the undergrowth with quick steps.
“Wait!” Ashley called freezing at an invisible barrier. A metaphysical wall that her soul refused to step through no matter how much her mind willed her forward. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going home, head back to town. You have the rest of the day off.” Christina shot a cursory glance back.
“When can you show me the soo-doh thing?” Ashley called.
“Another day,” came Christina’s voice as she vanished into the part of the forest where but a select few could follow without severe repercussions.
Leaves and needles crunched under her feet as the sound of insects faded in the distance. Only plants existed this deep within the dungeon. Silence reigned, only pierced by the gentle rustling of leaves and the creak of branches. If she didn’t know better, Christina would have thought the forest she walked through was centuries old, rather than only years.
Her eyes were downcast as she stepped into the rustic old cottage that had been hers since the beginning. Everything was as it should be. The meat on the counter didn’t spoil, nor did the glass of milk on the table go rancid. Such things didn’t happen this far inside a dungeon. How could they? As it was said: Nothing survived in a dungeon.
She ignored the mess, and fell into the plush couch she still hadn’t figured out how the dungeon had made it so soft. Her gaze roamed the ceiling aimlessly, sharp, but without purpose.
“Hey, Cortana?” Christina murmured after minutes of quiet contemplation. “Could you show me home again?”
She settled into the comfortable couch as her eyes glazed over. For the first time that day, a content smile graced her lips.
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A dazzling smile graced Gella’s lips as she raced across the field with Kellar at her back. Her smile was dazzling. Literally, lighting up the well-manicured lawn of some noble with a subtle glow tinted with just a faint hint of green. It was a small thing. An effect of hitting tier five. Yet seeing the reflection of her joy on the stunted grass somehow intensified Gella’s happiness.
“Thirteen hostiles at the north entrance.”
“Calm your tits, dude,” Gella said, exasperated. “Buckets of water don’t make them hostile. ‘Sides, the whole point of the distraction is that we can get to the slaves without having to fight the hostiles.”
Behind them, a tongue of flame licked up the side of a distant storehouse. The orange flame drew to it a horde of uniformed Guards hired for that very purpose. It also served to draw the eyes of every living soul in the vicinity away from a small cook's entrance that Gella unlocked with a deft flick of her wrist.
Kellar followed her inside. They rushed past the various unlit storage rooms and burst into a neat kitchen. The walls were covered in cabinets. Where the wall was visible, dozens of pots, pans, and large utensils hung from iron hooks.
Three rather disheveled individuals worked in the middle of preparing some kind of meaty dish. The first — and chubbiest of the three — was holding a weathered meat cleaver over a chopping board full of nuts. The second mixed several lumps of some nameless meat in a dark orange marinade, while the second frantically added various dark powders to the mixing bowl.
Powders? Spices...that was the word.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Everyone froze in that familiar manner that strangers do upon meeting. Or perhaps burglars upon chancing upon the landlords.
The chubby chef, raised his meat cleaver, a look of shock and fear on his face. Before a syllable could be spoken, Kellar acted. He dashed across the room and smashed his fist past the cleaver and into the man’s face. Pots and pans dinged and rattled as a grotesque display of blood and brain matter splattered across their surface.
“Kellar wait!” Gella blurred forward to grab her partner by the shoulder, but he was already gone. Skills activated in a rush and the remaining two cooks screams were silenced in another spray of arterial blood.
“What the hell is wrong with you!” Gella backhanded Kellar as she caught up to his insane movement. She knelt to check on the bodies. They were dead. Mincemeat from the force of Kellar’s blows. “To tier one’s? You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“He was holding a weapon—” Kellar started, but Gella scoffed in disgust.
“Oh come off it,” she grabbed the cleaver from where it had fallen and in a blink of an eye slammed it — edge first — into Kellar’s shoulder. The blade buckled, cracking as the soft unenchanted iron caved under the force. Kellar jumped back, grimacing as he rubbed his shoulder.
“Oww—”
“This isn’t a weapon! He could have done more damage with a frying pan! Why is it so hard for you to let these defenseless fools live?”
“They were not slaves. Should we have let them live, what do you think they would have done the moment they left our sight? My sight can only protect us so far from discovery.”
“That’s not the point and you know it,” Gella accused, repeatedly jabbing a harsh finger into his chest. “Priests I get, but I didn’t sign up to be an executioner. We are here to free slaves, Kellar. Free slaves. Not kill everyone else.”
“And if we show compassion then what? Hmm? How many slaves will remain trapped? How many more of my people will suffer because we aren’t willing to do what needs to be done? We must be strong or we will lose!”
“Strength!” Gella scoffed, turning away. “I wonder if the church would give you a medal for your so-called strength.”
Kellar froze, then lunged and grabbed Gella by the throat.
“Don’t you dare,” he snarled, words unintelligible. “You-you...don’t...”
“We have to stand for something, man,” Gella said, much more softly. She gently placed her hand on his. Her feet dangled, but she felt no discomfort from being supported by her throat. “If we don’t draw a line in the sand somewhere, then what's the point?”
“The point is that we are free!”
“Are we though?”
Kellar dropped her, shaking his head. “Whatever, it's done. People are coming. Let’s just find my people and get out of here.”
Gella raised her hand to belabor the point, but paused and frowned, tilting her head as she listened to a far-off sound. “Hey, you hear that?”
“Yeah, screams. From the fire. Let’s go.”
“No wait, this is different.” Without waiting for Kellar to respond, she dashed out of the kitchen. He grumbled, but followed. He caught up just as a litany of expletives burst out of her mouth.
Kellar paused for a moment as he beheld the great darkness rising from the east, but then he smiled, calm and victorious.
“See? Overwhelming force. This is the way.”
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“[Overwhelming Force][Titanic Might][Splitting Strike]!”
Brigadier General Keron Arcturus heaved. Veins bulged on his thick neck as he slashed his heirloom blade. The glittering lightsteel from the age of legends flashed as the magical steel absorbed the power of his skills and enhanced them.
All across Krimta’s wall, soldiers unleashed the same set of skills. Glittering white scythes of pure light raced out in waves. Each blade raced forward, splitting every second into more and more blades. In a blink of an eye, a wall of pure white slammed into the black horde with undeniable power.
Insects chittered. Black blood and broken carapaces fell like rain as hundreds of thousands of the persistent insects were annihilated by the coordinated strike by the humans.
A great cheer rose from the battlements as General Arcturus sheathed his blade. They had less than a minute before the main body of the insects finished consuming their brethren and once more threatened the walls. Instead of staring at the writhing horde that enamored his Guards, Keron turned unbothered to Kendrick, his aid.
“Civilian report.”
“We managed to evacuate all twelve villages into the walls, sir. They are being housed in the barracks for now. Lieutenant Melin is finding more stable housing in the city.”
“Monster report.”
“Tier one shadow-attuned insects, sir. 10-15 life. 3 to 5 physical damage. High maneuverability. Low intelligence. Coming from the east.”
“Name?”
Kendrick hesitated. “Sah-do Sarm-lin. It’s not Common, sir.”
“They’re new,” General Arcturus stated, unperturbed by the information. Instead, he turned back to the east, as if his gaze could pierce the wriggling horde. His fist clenched, the leather creaking as he looked to where he had sent his son not so long ago.
The insects approached en masse to the walls again, and the General organized another coordinated strike that annihilated hundreds of thousands of the dark critters. Despite the decimation, the attack barely made a dent in the horde, serving only to distract them momentarily.
“Weakness assessment and progress on locating the hive?”
“Non-damaging light weakness, sir. They fly right into light,” Kendrick hesitated. “Preliminary reports indicate there is no hive, sir. Each one is capable of spawning eggs.”
“No hive,” General Arcturus stated. It was not a question, yet Kendrick responded as if it was.
“No, sir,” he gulped, then paused as a blue crystal on his shoulder buzzed.
City Aegis: thorns attunement, online.
Hexagonal golden panels burst into existence all around the wall. The barrier spread high into the sky and arched until it formed a solid prismatic bubble around the entire city. A great cheer rose from guards and civilians alike as the shield snapped closed.
“Mages!” General Arcturus said, his powerful voice cutting right through the celebrations. “Elevate [Light] to tier 4.”
All around the wall, spheres of white light pulsed as another half dozen mages stepped up to fuel the spells. The light emitted was so blinding that everyone but the strongest looked away lest they be blinded. The light spread across the no-man's-land and washed over the black swarm. The blinding light was soon consumed by the shadow oozing out of the creatures, but not before it applied its effect. The insects burst into the air, flying in chaotic spirals before racing to the golden barrier.
Soldiers flinched back as their commanding officers stopped any retaliation. The horde neared, then slammed into the City Aegis. Sparks arced as the insects landed on the barrier. They crawled for a second before they died. Whether crushed by their brethren or zapped by the shield was irrelevant. Tens of thousands died in seconds as the powerful lights mounted on the walls drew more and more insects to their doom.
“How long can we sustain a siege,” General Arcturus said as relief spread through his men.
Kendrick tapped a few crystals sewn into his collar, then said. “Seventy-eight days of food in the granaries. Into late winter with rationing.”
“But not to the first harvest,” the General murmured, watching as insects died mere feet in front of him. A powerful smell of burnt meat and charcoal emanated through the wall and all across the wall, Guards were holding cloth to their faces in a vain effort to minimize the smell. As he scanned his men, the General paused as he noted an uncharacteristic bubble around a group of soldiers where no insects dared venture.
“Lieutenant,” General Arcturus barked, striding over to the strange phenomena. The Guards snapped to attention. “What skill is doing this?”
“Sir! It's Barkus, sir. [Minor Fear Aura]. They don’t get near ‘im, sir,” the guard with lieutenant stripes on his shoulder barked back.
“At ease,” General Arcturus said, turning back to his station at the central tower. He gestured to his aid who rushed to his side. “Kendrick, I want you to gather all repelling aura skills into a special division until this blows over. Remind me when there is a lull to talk to the mayor about requisitioning aura skill books for the men.”
“Yes, si—”
Suddenly, the red crystal on both men's lapels buzzed and a panicked voice emerged from them.
Multiple Tier 5 strikes imminent. I repeat, Multiple tier 5 strikes imminent.
Before the message could complete, General Arcturus leaped onto the battlement and roared at the top of his lungs.
“Shields!”
For a second nothing happened, then all across the wall, shields of every color, shape, and composition bloomed into existence. They fused with the City Aegis, thickening and bolstering it just in time as a beam of lightning as thick as a building ripped through the black horde and slammed into the City Aegis with the force of a meteor.
The wall shook, and men stumbled. The Aegis flickered. The massive bloom of damage was absorbed by the many disparate plates. Before the lightning could fully dissipate, however, another three lightning bolts slammed into the shield and knocked any who remained standing off their feet.
“Damage estimate!” Arcturus roared, funneling his own power into the Aegis as he felt an attack on the order of a tier seven strike shake him to his bones.
“Six thousand and counting, sir!” Kendrick screamed back, unable to maintain his feet as another fifteen lightning bolts exploded on the city walls. The rain of lightning and fire abated for twenty miserable seconds, then resumed with increased power.
"25-second cooldown," Arcturus snapped. "They are staggering their strikes, but inform the mages to tune the Aegis."
Before Kendricks could respond, the red crystal on his jacket buzzed.
Wall breach in the eastern market. I repeat. Wall breach in the eastern market.
“ETA until reinforcements?” Arcturus asked.
4 minutes, sir.
“Coordinate civilian retreat!” General Arcturus turned to his aid as he unsheathed his sword. “Swap Aegis to lightning resistance and retract to safe neighborhoods! I’m bottling the breach.”
In an instant, he was gone, a dim blur across the rooftops. His light steel blade left a faint shimmering afterimage behind him as a half dozen skills burned through it to hurry his passage. In barely twenty seconds, the General traversed half the city and landed in a nightmare.
A sickening plague of black oozed through a tiny gap in one of the auxiliary gates. Somehow the great wooden doors had opened a hair and allowed the invaders to slip in. Thousands of insects coalesced from the shadow and joined their brethren in the sky. Already the air was clouded by an endless stream of aimless insects as flesh wood and stone were chewed on mercilessly.
[Hellfire Aura]
A bloom of red flowed off of Arcturus as he landed amid the chaos. Insects and humans alike screamed as their bodies ignited.
[Lifelink Bond]
Arcturus winced as his own skill funneled damage from the civilians to himself. It was nothing compared to his defensive and regenerative passives so he ignored it. Civilians jumped to their feet, pushing off crumbling insect corpses as they looked wildly around.
“The Guard is here!” Arcturus intoned, raising his sword. [Heart of the Lion] triggered and sensibility returned to the panicked citizens. “Retreat to the river.”
Civilians ran as Arcturus scanned the sky. Several insects buzzed around. Somehow they had managed to wheedle their way into the city. A second later, a group of five individuals slammed into the ground beside the General and instantly saluted. Their boots cracked the cobblestones, but no one minded the damage.
“Squadron 47, reporting for duty, sir!” The leader barked.
“Hold the gate, and clear the skies. Don’t let any of those things in.”
“At once sir,” the squadron leader saluted again and directed his men towards the gap. One of the soldiers lifted a wand, and a quick [Chain Lightning] later had all the visible buzzing insects fall to the ground in a grotesque rain.
General Arcturus disabled his [Hellfire Aura] and leaped up on top of a nearby building. He took a moment to gather himself. Messages buzzed out of his communication crystal as more breaches and the general chaos was relayed to him in real-time. His men were working well to protect the city. They were successfully rebuffing the insects and there had been no casualties yet.
First Company is citing unfit for duty. Hungover, sir.
A muscle twitched under Arcturus’ eye as the leather of his right glove tore from how hard he was clenching his fist.
“Get them up and out here using whatever it takes. Use whips if you have to. I will handle their...family.”
With pleasure sir.
He relayed a few more orders into the communication crystal as he scanned the city. At the edge of his vision, he noticed a black spec rising from one of the granaries. He dashed into the air, and cleaved it in two, before landing gracefully on top of the granary.
The shingle he landed on sagged, and Arcturus stumbled. In a flash, he regained his footing and studied the damaged shingle. It had been chewed on as if the clay shingle was in the least edible. With a faint sigh, Arcturus lifted the tile and see the extent of the damage but then froze.
Behind the shingle was a single large room full nearly to the brim with grain. It was one of the dozens of granaries that stored grain to feed the hungry city in times of trouble. Except, instead of the comforting pale beige of grain, dozens of black shapes squirmed around, and every available surface was covered in glistening black eggs.
Arcturus smashed his way into the granary, headless of the damage to the roof as his boots crushed a dozen larvae with a disgusting squelch. He leaned down and picked up one of the black eggs. As he watched something wriggled inside the thin sack and a toothy maggot burst free.
[Hellfire Aura]
Fire erupted throughout the granary. The pleasing aroma of baked oats mixed with the rank scent of burnt insects into a flavor that made Arcturus gag. His hand snapped to his collar and touched the black gem located therein.
“Protect the granaries at all costs,” he croaked.