Araedi. Day 04.

Krait had been jabbed with the pointed end of a weapon every thirty seconds since his capture two days ago. It stopped hurting him after the first few hours, but the incessant poking served only to make him angry. He tried to lash out at his captors several times, but his bindings prevented any movement beyond a few feet.

His Caer fragment was in his bag of holding, but still lay just out of reach. As it was soul bound to him, it could never really be taken from him. But his hands were bound tight enough that he wouldn’t be able to palm the fist-sized crystal even if he could reach his bag from the other side of the room.

Wisteria Leothalis entered the room trailed by two heavily armored men bearing the crest of the Royal Knights of Araedi. They heaved Krait to his feet and led him out of the building and into Araedi’s guildhall.

They went to one of the rooms that functioned similarly to an elevator. The door closed and a second later, it opened to a large room with Baron, two guards, and a tall, slim woman with an almost ageless appearance.

"I would like you to meet Araedi’s governor, Raizel." Wisteria looked towards the great door behind Baron. "She has been extremely helpful in figuring out a way to deal with you and everyone else you convinced to join in on that stunt across the northeast."

The woman stepped forward and made a small black crystal appear in her hands.

One of the guards holding Krait and the one beside Baron moved to the massive door behind at the opposite end of the room. The door creaked open, revealing a shimmering black curtain of light.

Wisteria stood next to Krait. "I'm told there isn't much in there, but it should be better than being poked with a stick every day until we find a way home."

Wisteria turned to Krait and he spat in her face, the only act of defiance he could muster.

“Fuck you, too.” Wisteria wiped her face off. Krait could see the anger, no, rage, in her eyes lurking beneath her forced impassive smile. And if it weren't for the fact that he knew she couldn't kill him, he might have approached something like genuine fear. Whoever this woman had been on earth, he doubted he would have wanted to cross her path. "You two are the last two to go in there for now. We will come back for you when we find a way home."

The guard beside Krait shoved him through the portal. His skin tingled as he passed through it and hit the ground on the other side. A moment later, Baron landed beside him with a grunt.

The room they had been tossed into was an exact copy of the one they had left, right down to the hallway opposite them.

Baron sat up and called out to Krait. “Come here. There’s enough slack in the bindings around my hands that I think I can undo yours.”

Krait shuffled over to the Summoner and after a few minutes, he had his hands free. He took a moment to stretch and rubbed his wrists. The enchanted rope he'd been bound with had been tied too tight and though he couldn't actually feel pain, it had been uncomfortable.

He returned the favor to Baron and reached into his bag of holding and took out his Caer Fragment. He raised it up to activate it and received a glowing red message:

Error: You cannot use your Caer Fragment from inside this Instanced Dungeon without entering a safe zone first. If you teleport out of this dungeon from a safe zone, all progress will be lost.

Krait dismissed the prompt and went back towards the door he had been thrown through. The second he touched it, time around him froze and he received another prompt:

Error: You do not have permission to leave this Instanced Dungeon through this portal. Find a safe zone or another unowned portal in order to leave this Instanced Dungeon.

Permission from who? Why did he need permission to leave an instanced dungeon?

Baron walked up to Krait. “Well, rather than sit here and molder, should we try one of the other doors?”

Krait nodded. “Or try and find the others in here. Maybe we can find a way out of this dungeon.”

Baron opened the door to the elevator room, but it only led to a long, dark stairwell. They walked up three flights of stairs before they reached a large wooden door. It led directly to the main lobby of Araedi’s guildhall, but it was not the same building he had been in minutes ago.

Where the guildhall had been noisy with the random conversations of hundreds of people, it was now empty and eerily quiet. Chairs and tables lay overturned or broken and the building that had once been a hub of activity now looked like it had been abandoned for decades, if not centuries.

The Caer Fragment in the main lobby wasn’t a purple monolith with a slow, pulsing beat, but a static black like looking into a collapsed star. Like a black hole, it drew him towards it even as it left Krait feeling uneasy simply by being near it.

Krait pushed the feelings of discomfort aside and walked up to the crystal pillar. He tried to see if he could access it, but it didn’t respond to his will.

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“What the hell is this place?” He punched the Caer Fragment and grunted with frustration then turned to face the main entrance. Two massive holes had been blown through the doorway, leading out into the open city.

It had been early morning and sunny when Krait had been dragged to Araedi’s guildhall. Now the city was bathed in the evening glow of twilight. The clouds were unnaturally static in the sky and there were no stars visible. Not even the purple glow of the city’s defensive barrier could be seen.

Araedi had always looked to be in various states of disrepair, but this version was even worse. Entire blocks of buildings that had once been standing were now piles of rubble. Buildings that had once been inaccessible by some magic black barrier covering their windows and doorways could now be seen inside. And from what he could make out, their interiors were just as ruined as their exteriors.

Krait cursed loudly as he pitched forward, tripping over something and falling down several stairs.

He turned around and saw the thing he had tripped over was a woman’s body lying face down in a pool of her own blood. Bloodstained though the armor was, there was no mistaking the expensive materials that had gone into her gear’s construction and the telltale iridescence of enchantments. This woman had been a high level player.

But players didn’t leave a corpse when they died, they left a copy of their Caer Fragment until they were revived or they respawned.

Yet here she was.

The hairs on the back of Krait’s neck stood up as he flipped her over to see her face. The reason there had been so much blood became apparent: someone had slit her throat. Recently, too.

Krait wiped the woman’s blood off his hands, turned, and jogged back up the stairs. “I found a body outside! Her throat’s been slit. I think she was a player!”

He had expected to find Baron where he had left him and he had, but the Summoner wasn’t alone. Standing beside him was the very woman who had opened the portal to the dungeon Krait and Baron had been thrown into.

The woman’s appearance changed to that of a figure in white leather armor and a white, featureless mask that showed only her mouth. Krait knew that woman, Elara, her status page named her. She had been with Baron at the bar when he had recruited him to his meeting.

Before Krait had time to wonder when she had gotten in here, Baron spoke in a frighteningly calm tone. “I know. I’m the one who killed her. Really killed her. She won’t be respawning.”

Krait took a step back, his hands reaching for his twin rapiers. “What do you mean? How? Why?”

Baron held up an ugly looking black dagger as though he were inspecting it. “I had to see if this could really do what it claimed. Kill a Guardian. I hadn’t known what that meant when I stole this Remnant of the Rogue all those centuries ago, but this has been a very interesting turn of events.”

It was then that Krait noticed Baron’s stats had changed. He wasn’t a level one hundred Summoner. His name wasn’t even Bar0n. He was a Rogue named Lohk and Krait couldn't make out his level. It wasn't hidden the way Rogues could hide their stats with a skill. It was there, but where a number should have been, there were only question marks.

That could only mean he was of a significantly higher level than Krait. But how? No one had time to get any more than one or two levels beyond the old cap.

Krait pushed that revelation aside, it didn’t matter. Lohk had killed another player. That meant he could kill him.

Krait turned and ran. He just made it through the guildhall’s outer doors when a hand grabbed him on the shoulder. Krait’s heart exploded in his chest as he was stabbed from behind, the dagger driven through the space between his ribs. Blood flooded Krait’s lungs, turning his scream of pain into little more than a wet gurgle.

Lohk pulled the blade from Krait’s back and he dropped to his knees, coughed once, and slumped to the ground.

“Why?” Krait croaked. The pain in his chest was agonizing. The wound didn't heal instantly like the many injuries he had taken since coming here usually did at the cost of some random amount of health points. His greyed out health bar taunted him as it showed full.

“I told you before, Reylynn’s creation.” Lohk's voice had grown deeper, louder, more… present as he sneered, stressing the epithet. “All of this… Everything you see… It is a prison. And I have been bound here long enough. I will break free. I will have my body back. And I will sunder every last one of you to do it.”

Lohk turned and handed the dagger back to Elara. She sheathed the weapon at her side and followed Lohk inside the guildhall.

As Krait lay on the ground, dying as he choked on his own blood, the eerie quietness around him was broken by a low scratching and shuffling sound. Krait tilted his head out towards the street.

He watched a pile of rubble shift. A rock fell into the street. And then another pile shifted, sending a small avalanche of rocks. And then more rustling as a hand broke through the pile of debris it had been buried under. It heaved its body up, looked around, and instantly locked onto Krait.

The figure had pale grey skin and empty white eyes. Black crystal fragments stuck out of its body in random spots and it moaned as it shambled towards Krait.

Suddenly dozens upon dozens of figures began pulling themselves out of the ground. Their numbers swelled as they poured out of the previously empty buildings surrounding the Guildhall’s courtyard.

Their shambling turned to running as the hundreds became thousands, the haunting chorus of their collective cries filling the air.

***

Lohk hated when Isiphelo took control of his body to speak through him. But it was the price he paid for the power he had been given. Fortunately it was only in places like this, the prison as he called it, where he had the power to do it. Outside of here, Isiphelo could only sit and wait for Lohk to act.

He listened to the sounds of the Hobgoblins tearing Krait apart, only taking his attention away to watch his level tick upward from 674 to 675.

It had been a long time since Lohk’s last level up, even with the hundreds of Guardians he had killed over the night in this place. He savored the accomplishment for a moment longer before activating his Rogue skill, changing his appearance.

He walked up to the Caer Fragment and watched as Elara stepped through it, back into the Governor's offices.

She had more work in Araedi. This Wisteria Leothalis was becoming a real pain in his side. Yet as powerful as he was, he couldn’t kill her outside of this place. Another of the ways Isiphelo tried to control Lohk. All this power, yet he could only draw upon a fraction of it outside this place.

Lohk changed the destination on the Caer Fragment to that of the one hidden beneath Castera.

He stepped into the Caer Fragment.

The end of Act One of Soul Forged.