“Sir Morlak of the Mantle, alive and well,” Ihuarah answered the young man, opening his arms wide, “It pleases me also to find you in good health after all this time. My countenance hath changed greatly since the glory of Eoct, what gave my identity away? The hole in my chest, perhaps?”
Alkorm brought a hand to his face, his oversized green sleeves hiding his expression as a crystalline laugh escapes his mouth before he answered, “Yours is a countenance one would be hard-pressed to forget, my friend. But we shall catch-up at a later time,” he turned toward the rest of Sofia’s group as he introduced himself, “Alkorm Diasorian, Seraph and guardian of the Mantle of Love and Hate. It is my honor to meet so many rising stars at once on this auspicious day. How may my presence be required?”
Sofia cast a glance at Cinthia at the mention of the mantle of Love and Hate.
Seraph? I thought Erredis said he lived in the middle of the human peninsula? Have we been that close to a trial tower all this time without knowing? I understand now what Richard meant when he said we would inevitably meet him if we kept leveling…
It was Erredus who explained the current matters to Alkorm, and the story let him in a pensive mood.
“A troubling matter, to be sure… I believe there to be some merit to the planar gate theory, but I must support Richard’s recounting of the events that unfolded back then. There was nothing left of value to salvage from these ruins save for said Fae skeleton and remnant soul, let alone something like this. That being said, however, I can already picture a few ways things might have gone, if you’ll indulge me?”
Erredis pressed him to continue, “We’re listening.”
“Well, these are but conjectures, but here goes,” Alkorm started, walking around with his arms behind his back, “First of all, I am inclined to think that we are onto something here, and I have to wonder if the act of allowing mana to flow freely inside of the once closed-off Eddarinian ruins might be what alerted the Phageid to their presence. Starting from there, a number of possibilities open. If my recollections are correct, there was a significant lapse of time between our Hero acquaintance getting his hands on the tablet and Richard receiving them, something in the realm of six months to a year. More than enough time for a potential planar gate to be extracted from there before we even caught wind of this affair.”
“Would you have not noticed that something was missing?” Erredis questioned.
“Who is to say?” Alkrom answered with a shake of his head, “Said planar gate could be an artifact small enough to fit in one’s hand, not to mention, noticing the lack of something in a place made entirely of one uniform layer of midenicite is easier said than done, though I suppose there is nothing preventing us from going to check by ourselves once more. Now for the other possibilities. The Phageid are known to be lifeforms adjacent to midenicite, it is no exaggeration to say that something made of midenicite for them is akin to an object of flesh for us mortals of Veliadren. Restoring flesh to its original state has long been one of the most studied subjects when it comes to mortal societies, our eternal stand against death being what it is. Perhaps the Phageid were able to restore the gate from its corrupted state.”
“That sounds unlikely,” Erredis shutdown his hypothesis in an instant.
“But not entirely impossible,” Alkorm continued with a shrug, “lastly, assuming the Eddarinians truly had access to such a groundbreaking technology, who is to say they only had one gate?”
“Why not just ask the fairy?” Sofia suggested.
Alkorm laughed again, hiding his face, “I doubt that would lead us anywhere, zealots of the Eddarinian cult have never been known to trust outsiders, I suppose it is worth a try, nevertheless.”
“Bookie, your turn,” Sofia told the small skeleton hiding behind her.
He refused to step up, for some reason. Sofia turned around, “Bookie?”
The skeleton grabbed Sofia’s leg. “S- Sofia…” he stuttered, shaking and sounding distraught, “Something- Something is wrong…”
Sofia dropped to her knees, holding the shaking skeleton, “What’s going on?!”
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Bookie grabbed his skull letting out a pained groan, before falling limp in Sofia’s arms, panting. “The… The fairy…” he said, his voice breaking, “her soul…”
“What about it?!”
“It- it exploded…” Bookie said on the verge of tears, “I couldn’t stop her… I’m sorry Sofia… I’m sorryyyy-”
‘That’s it?” Sofia said calmly, stroking the top of Bookie’s skull, “You’re not hurt?”
“N- no, but the fairy…”
“I don’t care about the stupid fairy! You scared me! Here, calm down, everything is alright, as long as you’re not hurt everything is alright,” Sofia told the sulking skeleton. She turned her head, still holding bookie, “Well, there goes this lead. Sorry we couldn’t be more helpful but it looks like this was going nowhere anyway…”
“Deranged fanatic zealots, I tell you,” Alkorm said, nodding to himself, “I expected nothing less. Such a waste of effort it was to save her soul in the first place…”
“Are you left with the skeleton, still?” Richard asked, curious, and Bookie nodded in response.
“Wait, really?” Sofia asked Bookie.
“Yes… But she’s just a regular skeleton now…”
Sofia was wide-eyed at that revelation, she had fully expected the page to be gone just like her dog after getting caught by the Deep parasites.
“Ahahahah!” She laughed, “What a joke!” Sofia said before she looked at Richard, “Trying to escape through death in front of two necromancers.” Sofia brought up Bookie’s book form, trying hard to contain her laughter as she flipped through the pages. She summoned the midenicite fairy a second time.
The fairy slowly formed from Bookie’s mist under the large group’s eyes, unlike the first time, it did not attack anyone, and was waiting for her orders, like any other one of Bookie’s subservient skeletons.
“Bookie’s skeletons are very special,” Sofia explained with a wide grin, “They may not retain ‘memory’ from their previous life, but they retain all manner of general and magical knowledge.”
“Can she lead us to a planar gate?” Erredis questionned, instantly getting Sofia’s intentions.
“Can you lead us to a planar gate?” Sofia repeated to the fairy.
The answer was a curt nod.
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Kyle was left behind as Richard teleported everyone else to the mountain range north of the human continent and east of the red desert, the very same one that Sofia once hunted the Stone Ogre tribe in, although much further to the north.
The group stood at the very top of a decrepit set of stone stairs, going down a deep chasm in between two rocky mountains.
These were the stairs that once led to the prosperous hidden underground city of Zangdar, or what remained of them. A few quick teleportations down the chasm, and the group found themselves gazing into a deep hole.
“Oh my,” Alkorm gasped, “It appears we were truly late, this time.”
“There is not the slightest trace of midenicite left anywhere. That’s a suspiciously thorough excavation job,” Richard marveled at the sight. “I don’t know what we might have found with the help of the Fae, but it’s clear that someone was one step ahead.”
“The phageid would hide the evidence after the fact?” Erredis asked, “When was the last time anyone came here?”
“Erm… While I did come a few times after the city’s disappearance in a bid to salvage the situation, I have to admit that my last visit dates a long way back… Perhaps about eight hundred years… The city was gone but the ruins were still mostly intact, back then.”
“The last time I stepped foot here dates back to a few days after the city’s disappearance itself, there was no clear reason why they even activated the emergency mechanism in the first place. I only learned later from Richard that he had already disposed of the Phageid still remaining there,” Alkorm explained in turn.
“I should still have those specimens stored somewhere, they were not special in any way.”
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Having no further obvious lead to follow, Sofia questioned the fairy skeleton a bit more, but the only worthwhile information she managed to get out of it was that it was not aware of any other planar gate. It could not even lead the way to any other Eddarinian cult chambers.
That being said, she handed Alkorm the letter from Zhǎng Lú that she had been holding onto for a long time, and the Dragon gave her a strange jade slip as thanks, without an explanation as to what it was at all. After that, Sofia and her group were sent to Vasperia, while Richard and the Dragons stayed behind, looking to investigate further into the planar gate situation.
“Well… Let’s get started,” Sofia announced as she appeared in the middle of the Vasperian capital, “We have much to do. Who’s coming with me to pay Zerei’s school a visit?”
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