The glade was tranquil.
A picture of springtime.
Tall grass waved in the breeze like a sea of green.
A small stream wove through on its way to the crystal clear lake in the valley.
Rather, it would’ve been tranquil had it not been for the fresh carcasses of assorted mutated animals and monsters piled in haphazard mounds.
The portal had conveyed them as promised.
There was hardly a hint of the nausea that accompanied his own attempts.
The gateway had opened up.
They stepped through.
The transition was almost seamless.
Deon was pleased to see his team snap to attention without hesitation.
Safety had been promised.
Sworn by binding oath reinforced by a spell.
Granted, they had taught him the spell and such things were only backed by the strength behind them.
He was over Level 40, but the eidolons were clearly more powerful. His best appraisal methods had come up with barely any information.
Both of them had suggested it in the first place in an effort to allay his wariness.
Towering giants over seven feet tall.
The lavender-skinned man was probably over eight feet tall and he made the biggest, most muscular men Deon had ever seen look like chubby children.
The winged woman was even more alien-looking, if one could believe. With the massive feathered wings sprouting from her back, clawed fingers and eagle-like talons instead of human feet.
Oddly, she was super hot.
Even the guy was.
Deon wasn’t into dudes, but he could admit when he saw perfection.
He scratched at his beard.
Damn dudes with chiseled jaw lines.
He had to hide his lack with a beard, which the eidolon outdid him a perfect, lush, violet-colored beard.
“Hold. Scan for threats.”
He cast detect monster.
No pings in his vision, which meant that there weren’t any within a hundred yard radius of his position.
“I’ve got nothing.”
Elandria scanned with her silvery, modular rifle, turning in a slow circle.
The soft light from the targeting lens attached to her helmet cast a greenish tint over the dark brown skin of her smooth face.
Ten years.
The two of them had started this ten years ago when they would’ve been just about to learn to drive cars back in the old days before the spires.
Ancient history that he only knew mostly from stories from the older people, like his grandfather, and from the occasional book or show that managed to make its way to them.
“Skies are clear,” Xander said. The tall, stout young man had an arrow nocked, but not drawn on his huge bow. “Movement higher up the mountains everywhere I look, but too far to tell what exactly I’m seeing. Probably not an immediate threat. Otherwise we’d know soon, won’t we?”
“Here, let me make it easy.” Russ planted the tip of his rapier into the soft earth and cupped his hands over his mouth. “Anyone or anything out there… Fight Me!”
The taunt rang out.
They remained silent and ready.
But there were only echoes.
“Can we find some shade? This much sun ain’t doing much good for my complexion.” Russ shaded his eyes while wiping at his forehead. “Already sweating like a hog lined up at my daddy’s butcher shop.”
“Should’ve worn a helmet like smart people,” Brandon or ‘Brand’ said.
He was shorter than Xander by about six inches but close to a hundred pounds heavier thanks to body density beyond the normal human limits. He was also the only one in the eight person team without a class.
So said, Brand tipped the heavy, steel faceplate up to reveal a light brown complexion and a mix of features from who knew how many ethnic origins.
Russ scoffed.
“What? And be even hotter? Give it up with the headgear shit. You know it’ll only make me slower. I don’t take hits. I avoid them.”
“Yeah, if you see it coming,” Brand said.
“Or sense,” Russ pointed out.
“I guess we’re cool if these two can argue in the middle of a bloody mess,” Hollis said.
The ever-present scowl on her face was deeper than usual.
“Shade’s good. Find a defensible spot since it looks like we’re going to have to wait,” Deon said.
“I’d like to sample the blood,” Saint said.
“Okay, Brand, Russ, watch her back.”
Russ opened his mouth to argue.
“You’re the only one with high-level taunts.”
That snapped it shut and Russ dutifully trudged after the bloodmage.
Not everyone had been on the team since the beginning.
Many had died or left over the years.
He and Elandria were the only constant.
Though many of the others had been with him so long that it didn’t make much of a difference to him that they didn’t come up from the same town.
Russ had only been with them for about a year and he was kind of annoying. However, he was good at his job so it wasn’t that much of a problem.
They found their shade near a tall pine tree.
A lone giant amongst smaller ones.
That seemed odd to Deon.
But they didn’t detect anything off about it.
Just a tree.
It wasn’t an evil treant or a faux-tree, an extension, a lure, like those pictures of deep sea fish that brought prey to them with a glowing tentacle-thing from their foreheads.
Weird shit.
Those things seemed more like monsters than natural animals and yet, they weren’t.
Idle thoughts roiled through his head while they waited for the meeting to start. Mostly, they concerned the Level 40 ceiling and the Terminus Decree along with the threats of new potential upheavals from the spires.
Growth had stagnated in the past couple of years and he— they needed to get stronger to face the challenges.
The eidolons were one such. Even if they were about to work with them.
Alien invaders working with the old U.S. Government.
At least they weren’t going for the straight conqueror shit like in the old stories.
The eidolons didn’t eat people so that already put them ahead of the Meat Parade, which was thankfully ground down to almost nothing, thanks to the eidolons, if you believed them.
Still, making deals with magically powerful beings from different worlds tickled the danger sense, so to speak, because he didn’t have the Skill, just had a lot of experience honing those instincts.
It reminded him of stories his grandfather used to tell back when the grizzled old man had been still coherent.
Don’t make deals with fairies.
There was always a catch.
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“… you’ll never get the lucky charms.”
“What?” Elandria said.
“A saying… from my gramps. About dealing with fairies. Follow your nose to the rainbow, so you can taste it, but watch out for the pot of lucky charms at the end cause the leprechaun's going to gut you if you try to eat the marshmallows.”
“Folktales,” Karna nodded while juggling a dancing flame between two fingers. “Heard a few from the old people back home, except they were just that, tales. None of them were real. Skunk ape, mothman, dogman, Ozark howler. All make believe.”
“Half that shit is real. I’ve fought and killed them,” Xander said.
The tall man still had the arrow nocked.
“Half?” Hollis spun a thin, straight dagger. “More like three-fourths. We’ve killed the first two and I know for a fact the third exists, except it just people with the werewolf or weredog class. No idea what the howler thing is. Sounds like the same, yeah?”
“Were they really mothmen? They didn’t seem sapient to me. More accurate to call them moth monsters,” Elandria said.
Hollis shrugged.
“They kinda had two arms and two legs.”
Hollis stiffened.
Deon recognized the look.
His team was already moving to a defensive formation while he called the trio of bloodseekers back.
The air rippled above the open glade.
A horizontal line appeared, like a jagged tear, which widened like the opening of some baleful eye.
She descended out of the portal from on high, like the angels in the stories the old people told.
Perfection in the flesh.
A billowing dress of white couldn’t be more modest and yet it seemed to accentuate her womanly charms of which there was plenty.
Elandria cleared her throat.
“What?”
“You’ve got the fish mouth going.”
“I don’t blame him,” Karna said. “I don’t know if I should throw myself at her feet or throw myself at her feet.”
“Magical charisma. We’ve talked about this!” Elandria snapped.
Deon cast a general anti-charm spell on his team.
Being more of a generalist he had breadth at the cost of sacrificing depth.
The eidolon’s strength of presence dampened a little.
Not a good sign.
He had put a decent amount of mana into his spell.
The eidolon alighted on the grass.
This was the first time they had met this one.
She was just as towering as the other two. Statuesque, really.
Karna was right.
He also wanted to prostrate himself at her feet and beg her to lead him… and do other things to him.
Instead, he remembered why he was there and steeled himself to approach.
Her complexion was that of perfectly polished bronze. That of one that spent a lot of time in the sun and yet she looked as fresh and radiant as a sheltered child. Not the tanned, leathery look that melanin-lacking people got when they spent too much time under the sun without the proper protections.
She was the picture of youth, yet her eyes…
Her eyes pressed the weight of unnumbered years as she gazed down at him beneficently.
The dichotomy threw him off.
This was an ancient being.
The huge eidolon had said as much at their first meeting a few weeks ago.
Deon had been skeptical of Alcaestus’ claim that the Eidolon of Sunor measured her age in quadruple digits.
The Eidolon of Sunor gazed at each member of his team in turn before speaking.
“I greet you, Team Fortune’s Future, I am, ‘Sunor’s Will’, though, in my interest of securing a mutually beneficial alliance, I grant you the honor of a name. You may refer to me as ‘Kerkestis’,” she bowed.
He copied her, not knowing what else to do.
The rest of his team did the same to varying degrees of adroitness.
“It is our honor to be granted this opportunity,” he said.
His mouth felt dry.
The other two eidolons hadn’t been this formal or maybe stately was the word he was looking for.
Alcaestus and the Eidolon of Ekra had basically shot the shit like normal people.
This Kerkestis gave him the impression of talking to an old human king or queen, except, if the eidolons could be believed, they actually had divinity backing them.
Judging by the magical energy emanating from her, he was inclined to believe.
“I, uh, we, um, spoke with the other eidolons and, uh, they said you were cool with answering questions under truth spell and Skills… respectfully, of course.” He added hastily. “It’s, uh, not that we question your integrity…”
Kerkestis smile made him weak in the knees.
“Do not be concerned. It is only prudent since we have yet build a relationship. I acquiesce to all questions as it pertains to our first collaboration.”
He sensed rather than saw Elandria stiffen behind him.
He could imagine the shape of her thoughts.
Was it really a collaboration if they were the ones doing the dirty work and taking the risks?
“Er, yeah, questions. We have just a couple.”
He and Elandria had decided on simple ones.
Yes or no.
Their theory was that it’d be tougher to beat the spell and Skills without added ambiguity.
Kerkestis seemed to be of the same mind because she raised a finger.
“I must warn you that such methods are not perfect. Spells and Skills can counter them. If the subject is of sufficiently greater personal power then they can simply ignore them.”
Her smile was incongruent with the fact that she had essentially told them that she could lie to their faces.
Deon shrugged.
If that was the case then they couldn’t do anything about it.
In truth they had all decided on going forward with the plan, regardless.
This was really more for some peace of mind.
“Nevertheless, ma’am, we’d like to try anyways.”
“Then ask to your contentment.”
“Is this a trap to do us harm?”
“No.”
The huge ruby in Karna’s hand remained dull.
Truth enchanted items glowed in the presence of a lie. The bigger the lie the brighter the glow. Anyone that enchanted them the opposite way was objectively wrong and stupid.
“I concur with the magic gem,” Hollis said.
Deon glanced at Elandria.
Her scowl beneath the glow of her helmet’s lens was as deep as one of those grand canyons he had seen in his grandfather’s old vacation pictures.
“Her energy is overwhelming my readings.”
Kerkestis inclined her head a fraction.
“Apologies. I have diminished the radiance of Sunor’s Light within me as much as I can.”
“Er… we appreciate it, ma’am. Um, next question,” he continued. “The map of the Bat People Encounter Challenge you’re going to provide is accurate?”
“Yes.”
“The map of the fort as well?”
“Yes.”
“And the troop disposition of the defenders?”
“Yes. Granted, such things change. The information I am providing is from the past year of aerial observation. I am confident that if there are changes, they will be minor. Troop rotations and such,” she waved a dismissive hand. “What hasn’t changed is that there have only been two to four defenders over Level 40 at any given time. That number tends to double for a day or two as part of said troop rotations. Though the command staff remains in place for three months at a time.”
“How did you get the maps?”
“I commissioned high level stealth specialists in a similar arrangement as I am building with you.”
The ruby remained dull.
“The gear you promised? There are no hidden dangers to them?”
“Not intentionally. Any tool can be dangerous if wielded improperly.”
Truth.
“And they’re powerful enough to make getting through the fort and into the caves easier. It won’t do us any good to use up our abilities just getting inside.”
“I can’t answer that question because it is combat and there are oh so many variables.”
Truth.
Deon glanced at Elandria.
She blinked twice.
“Okay. We accept your offer of patronage for this one instance. Future collaboration depends on how it goes.”
“Wonderful!”
The eidolon’s smile made his head swim.
“Now. As promised.”
Kerkestis’ hand disappeared into the space beside her and emerged with two small gems he didn’t recognize.
They exuded magic in his mage’s senses.
“The fort.” She floated the smaller one to him. “And the encounter challenge, more specifically the caverns and tunnels claimed by the Bat People. There are many deeper ones, but I strongly caution your team from venturing there. Let what lurks below keep the Bat People occupied while you accomplish your Quests.” She floated the much larger gem toward him
Elandria snatched them.
“The magic gear?”
There was an edge to his friend’s voice that, frankly, scandalized him.
She didn’t need to be so rude.
Kerkestis was being so cool and nice and motherly and hot.
Before he could say anything, the eidolon clapped.
Treasure chests suddenly appeared in front of each member of his team.
Dark reddish wood shined in both normal vision and in his mage’s senses. The gold gilding was without the slightest blemish.
Kerkestis opened them with a gesture.
A fist-sized rock lay in Deon’s.
“Mana battery,” he muttered.
Except, there was way more in the rock than in any other he had used or seen before.
“That is correct, yet inadequate. I can tell that you know it holds more mana that what you are familiar with. It is as one of your Great Lakes to a quaint mountain pond. One of the consequences of a world and people new to the spires. It is a near-unending font of mana. Unaspected, which is best for a generalist mage, such as yourself. Though, I would advise you to specialize in one to three paths as you gain levels. For at the heights of power, masters of a few tend to triumph over adepts of many, yet masters of none.”
She turned to Elandria, who lifted a dark helm with a cyclopean eye in the center. Strangely, there were no openings. No slits for her eyes or her nose, mouth and ears. It looked to be made of soft and supple material—
The eye suddenly blinked.
Elandria almost dropped it as both she and he recoiled.
“A Helm of Unerring Aim. Suited for your usage of guns. Do not fear. It does not restrict your senses, nor the ability to breathe. In fact, you will find wearing it as though you were wearing nothing at all. Though, those aren’t its main enchantment.”
The rest received their magic gear with varying levels of excitement or wariness.
“I will graciously take the rest of the afternoon to instruct you in their usage.”
Kerkestis’ smile warmed his insides like nothing had ever done before.