The next morning saw us heading out just after dawn. We all seemed fairly relaxed, but D’Vaen had that air about him that let everyone know he had a great night. Joining us for our trip was Harold and four other soldiers, each riding an eagzard.
“Standard escort. Two in front, two in the back, and I’ll take middle.” Harold said as the soldiers immediately split to arrange themselves like the dots on a die. We headed out, and I maneuvered myself so that I was next to Harold, hoping to pick his brain on the ride out.
“Mind if we talk along the way?” I asked.
“Sure, though I will have to pay a good bit of attention to our surroundings on occasion. Near the cities and the fort in between, things are fairly calm. There is a slight chance we could be attacked by monsters on the road.”
“No worries.” I replied. “I’m keeping a look out as well. Mind if I ask how you are doing it so we don’t double up?”
“Heh, so long as you explain yours, I’m perfectly fine talking shop. I’ve gotten to the point where I have enough familiarity with lightning that I can actually sense the impulses that cause creatures to move.”
“Wheeew.” I whistled, impressed. “That’d be a handy ability. Does it work on constructs as well?”
“Unfortunately not, as they use mana to move around. What about you?”
“It’s a skill that branched off from mana control. Mana exploration. I can either send out tendrils of mana or lightly send it out in a sphere and detect movement that way.”
“I’ve heard of that before, fairly impressive. Probably damn helpful in the dungeon.”
“It was in the dungeon in Shineheart.” I nodded. “Though I was starting to get a bit of interference with the increasing mana levels. I’m going to assume this dungeon is going to be more of the same.”
“Probably.” Harold agreed. “I’ve only been a few times, but we made it down to floor seven. Even with the elemental resistances from equipment, we couldn’t go much further.”
“Elemental resistances?” I asked.
“Oh man, you really have no idea what you have stepped into, have you? Well, I can fill you in at least. Save you a bit of coin from buying a dungeon guide. So, first five levels are fairly easy goblins. No big deal. Levels six through ten are ice levels. It starts out with some wolves in a light snow, and by the time you reach the tenth level you are fighting yeti’s in a blizzard. Not something you want to do without a party, that’s for sure. From what I’ve heard, levels eleven through fifteen are inside the mountain you climbed, and are fire and earth based. Gem hounds and salamanders are the enemies you’ll most likely face, but don’t underestimate the environment. The deeper you go, the more lava you’ll find.” Harold explained.
“Is the final dungeon boss on level 15?” I asked.
“Yep.” He nodded. “Though the dungeon won’t let people explain it. They can’t even give hints as to what equipment you need to bring.”
“That’s rough.” I said.
“Oh that’s not the half of it. If you have a mixed party of adventurers who haven’t cleared the dungeon, you need to have less veterans than rookies.” He said. “Prevents people from rushing weaklings through. Damn thing’s brutal.” Harold shuddered.
“Anyone ever finished it solo?” I asked. This dungeon seemed like it was going to be incredibly difficult.
“Not a chance. Sure, the first five levels are easy enough to do, but there’s no chance you can finish it solo. Why would you think that?” He asked, looking at me like I was crazy.
“Just figured you might get some better rewards if you can.” I said with a shrug.
“Huh. I suppose that could be possible, but the danger would be incredible.” He said. “Now, we’re far enough out that we should really be paying attention to the surroundings.”
With that warning, we dropped into a bit of silence. I started paying attention, and to my surprise they weren’t anything close to what I had expected. When I first heard the name, I fully expected an incredibly dense jungle or something. Instead, it was a fairly light forest. The road we were following was cleared to twenty feet on each side, but even past that it was still easy to see several possible paths between the trees. There were occasional bits of undergrowth, but most of it was simple berry bushes. I expanded my mana exploration, though I couldn’t find much of anything that could harm us. Multiple tailed squirrel like creatures played in the trees, with the occasional snake hunting them.
A boring three hours later, and we could finally see a walled settlement up ahead. “Midfort.” Harold explained as we neared. “They keep a company of soldiers, ready to help either and act as a relay station should more reinforcements be needed.”
“Huh. That’s a pretty far limit for speaking stones.” I said.
“Eh, these are specialized. Someone found a way to direct the signal, doubling the distance. It just takes a bit of alignment.” He shrugged.
“So, are we stopping?” I asked.
“Nope. We’ll press on, and be in Outpost by late afternoon. Besides, you really need to meet with the head of the adventurer’s guild before too long.”
“Oh? Why is that?” I asked.
“Because he knows when new people go into town, and he is in charge of defending the town. It’s a requirement to living there, even temporarily. Just, try not to be too weirded out by Ghost Eyes, and don’t all him that to his face.”
I gave Harold a weird look, but immediately stopped the conversation as I noticed a group of monkey like creatures moving through the trees. “Feel that?” I asked.
“Yeah. Simbiapes. They shouldn’t attack us, they prefer easier fights. Unless they know how weak you are or if they outnumber you by more than five or six to one. Luckily they recognize the uniform we wear, and know that the soldiers are fairly strong.”
“That makes me feel a bit better.” I said, and we dropped back into silence. As we travelled, I decided to start plotting some advanced magics that I could use. Things that would be included in my celestial sorcerer. So. Dropping a massive rock on enemies could be called a meteor spell. Change it to ice to become comet. While those were powerful, they would definitely be area attacks. There were three things that I could think of off the top of my head that could be devastating, and also were limited in attack area.
The least of them would be a pulsar. An energy burst from a rapidly rotating neutron star. Powerful, and as an added bonus it is sent out as a beam from the poles of the magnetic fields. Should I manage to manage that, the upgrade would be a quasar. Same basic principle, except you are spinning a black hole and the energy is from the matter in the accretion disk around it. Even that would pale in comparison to the most energetic thing I could think of, the gamma ray burst. What do you get when some of the most massive objects in the universe collide? A burst of energy with the most powerful waves in the electromagnetic spectrum.
Unfortunately, I was far too weak to unleash anything remotely close to those devastating attacks. I kept practicing, but the strongest magnetic field I could really make was barely stronger than some rare earth magnets. I figured the base for all of these spells would be some form of combination of gravity and magnetism, and I would definitely need to boost my skill with both.
Soon enough we were at the front gates to Outpost. Once again, things weren’t as I expected. Instead of a wooden palisade, I was greeted with seamless worked stone that blazed with runic magic. The front gate was set back just a bit, with all traffic moving through a stone archway. Towers in each of the four corners would allow the defenders to assault the attackers with impunity. But that was the least of the defenses. Should the wall be taken, the backside had no defensive walls. A second wall was further inside, with the gate for this one offset to the north. It was a triangle inset, with two towers at the entrance. The actual gate inside the city was to the south. That would force any attackers to move siege equipment north before turning it completely around before it could assault the inner gate. The entire time it would be under attack from all directions.
“Attacking this would be a bloodbath.” I muttered as we were escorted in.
“That’s the plan.” Harold agreed. “This is the only gate. The city is two miles in diameter, with the dungeon in the exact center. Come on, the main road is going to wind back and forth, but it will eventually take us to the center of town.”
“Are there any side roads we could take?” I asked. “I get that it’s for defense, but seriously?”
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“Heh, I hear ya. But they wanted it to be the most defensible city ever. Even if it should be overrun by the beasts outside, most of them can’t fly. The most dangerous are too heavy to take to the rooftops, so this is the best bet. Either they split their forces to be picked off, or they take the long route together to again be picked off. All those side roads? None of them connect up the way either. Until you get a map, don’t head too far into that maze. Just stick to the main routes.”
It took us nearly a half hour to reach the town square. Most of the buildings were three and four stories tall and made of the same stone as the walls, but almost all had thatched or wooden roofs. The entire way in was lined with shops of varying types. Tailors, cobblers, blacksmiths, fletchers and general goods were the most popular. There were occasional inns scattered about, and to my surprise there were several brothels as well.
We ignored everything, and simply made our way to the deceptively simple square. In the center was a small statue of all the gods and goddesses holding up Vitae. Behind that from our entrance on the west side of the square was the dungeon entrance. A simple stone arch led underground, with one line waiting to enter as people checked in at a table. The opposite side had several people servicing people leaving the dungeon, taking a bit of their spoils as payment. To the north end of the square was an open air service area. Blacksmiths, fletchers, tailors and armorsmiths. Anyone who could be needed to do a quick repair for lightly damaged gear. The south end was taken up with a massive guildhouse.
“Well, this is where we leave you guys.” Harold said as we rode up to the guildhouse. “Why don’t you guys go see the guildmaster while you’re here. The Red Rooster is the inn we usually stay at. It’s back the way we came two turns ago.”
“Sounds good. Thanks for all the help Harold.” I said, leading my eagzard up to a group that was standing by a nearby stable. For a few silver, we paid to have the eagzards taken care of while we got everything settled in the guild.
Walking in was an assault on the senses. Groups of adventurers were sitting around tables drinking ale or playing cards, while others were practicing less destructive skills. Our group silently ignored everyone, heading over to one of the lines being served by three receptionists. One elf, one human, and a lizardwoman.
“I’ll take the lead.” Elendria whispered as we ended up in the lizardwoman’s line.
“Hello, I’m Hides-“ The lizardwoman started, only to be interrupted by a speaking stone somewhere on her side of the table.
“Hides-in-Reeds, go ahead and send them up.” A male voice said.
“Very well guildmaster, but you could have at least let me greet them properly.” She chastised him. Turning back to us, she smiled. “Sorry about that, the guildmaster sometimes gets impatient. Comes from his ability to see glimpses of the future. If you head upstairs, his is the last door on the right.”
“Thank you.” Elendria said, nodding her head before leading us upstairs. We bypassed several offices with clerks filing papers and counting coins, heading straight to the door the lizardwoman directed us to.
“Come on in already!” The same voice called out to us before we could knock. Elendria shook her head and simply walked in. The office was fairly bland, with several chairs on our side. A quick count noted there was one for each of us. On the other side of a massive desk sat who had to be the guildmaster. A human, with blond hair and white eyes. That was obviously the source of the Ghost Eyes nickname. He had a simple blue shirt without any adornments, but still had a wide smile on his face.
“Ah, fantastic! Right on time.” He said. “Please, take a seat. I’m Brian Farsight, guildmaster and leader of Outpost, and I’ve been waiting to meet you for a while.” He turned to look right at me, and I saw the faintest purple light fill his eyes. “Oh my, the cords of fate wind so heavily about you. I assume you are the Hero of Ariana?”
“Name’s Sean.” I said with a nod. “But what do you mean by fate? I sure hope you don’t believe in anything like predestination.”
“Oh no, nothing like that at all.” He said. “No, fate never forces people into a destiny. There are a few lucky, or unlucky souls, depending on your point of view, that fate places greater options on. They are always free to choose their own path, but those choices tend to have far reaching consequences. Though I must say, you have by far the heaviest concentration of fate of anyone I have ever come across.”
“I guess that makes sense.” I said. “So, why do you need us to register again?”
“Well, aside from needing to know your groups combat abilities in case of attack, I’m also curious. Especially since you managed to do quite the number to the guild branch over in Three Rivers.” We all froze for a second at his words, eyes widening. How the hell did he know? “Oh relax, relaaaax.” He cajoled. “I’m a seer after all, did you expect me not to know?”
“So what are you going to do with that information?” Carrigan asked.
“Why, nothing at all.” Brian answered. “I knew they had fallen under the sway of shadow, and luckily I am not a part of any kingdom or empire. That gives me a bit more freedom than other guildmasters. I just want to let you know the extent of my knowledge first, that way there are no unwanted surprises later on. If you want to trust me, feel free to join the guild and work on conquering the dungeon. If you want to go and try and find another dungeon, the one in the Elven lands has ten floors and is the closest and second most powerful of the known dungeons.”
I looked to the others, who all shrugged at me. Damnit, they were going to make me decide, weren’t they? “Alright.” I said with a sigh. “Let’s just go ahead and join up here. The strongest dungeon should give us the best evolution options, and Brian here isn’t going to hold our past against us.”
“Excellent!” He said with a clap, before reaching into his desk and pulling out a small ball. “If you run some mana through here, it will generate two guild tags for each of you. One will stay with us here, and break in case you perish. The other will let others know you are part of the guild.”
“Will it report any of our stats or status?” I asked, concerned.
“No. I have it set up so it is only the names. I figured you would want the most private setting.” Brian said with a grin. We all took turns, and the machine took a minute per person to spit out matching golden tags.
“I hope you don’t mind.” Brian said. “But I went ahead and gave you gold status as adventurers. That’s the highest your group can get without being composed entirely of evolved. Now, with that done, can you give me a quick overview of what you can do?”
“Air and fire.” Carrigan said. “With a little lightning thrown in the mix. Mid ranged with a variety of spells, and I’ve been trained to combine spell power with others.”
“Ranger.” D’Vorak said. “High stealth and perception, I prefer a bow and arrow to attack with. D’Vaen here is my city counterpart. Daggers and poisons, along with antidotes if he has the time. He specialized in anti mage skills.”
“You have such entrancing eyes.” D’Vaen said, leaning forward. “You wouldn’t happen to be single, would you?”
“Unfortunately I’m not.” Brian said with a smile. “Besides, aren’t you afraid I would look into the future to see all the possibilities and figure out everything you like? Ruining you for others?”
“Baby, you can ruin me anytime.” He fired back with a grin.
“All flirting aside.” Elendria interrupted. “Second tier frost elf. I have a rather high skill level with the ice rampart skill. In addition, I have several summonings that can cause devastating effect.”
“Celestial sorcerer.” I said, rounding out our group. “I have several buffs that can help out large groups, as well as a few powerful attack spells. The strongest one I have is a plasma spell area of effect, but it takes almost my entire mana pool to use it.”
“I see. Not a bad group, but you would need a tank or two to hold the front lines. I suppose your best bet would be in the reinforcement squad. How far away can you cast your buff spells?” Brian asked me.
“I, don’t really know?” I answered. “I’ve never tried for distance.”
“Fair enough. We can try that tomorrow, but I wanted to get you a chance to look at your possible evolutions today. You’re going to stay at the Red Rooster, right? Well, before you go we have some rules. Joining the guild gives you the first three days free of contribution points. After that, you need to go out hunting or subjugating. The stronger the beasts you kill, and the more meat and monster parts you bring back, the higher the contribution points. The Silver Eagles are due to head out in a few days, I’ll send you out with them. They are more front line heavy anyway, and would appreciate the magical back up. That way you get some experienced guards, and we can get you squared away for the first week.”
“First week? And are you vouching for these Silver Eagles?” I asked, confused.
“Yes, I’ll vouch for them. As for the first week, each hunting trip often comes back with enough resources for a week of contribution points.”
“Ok. Now, the most important question. How do I check my evolution options?” I asked with a grin.
“That’s easy. To the side of the dungeon entrance is a golden plaque. Simply put your hand on it. Here, if I go with you we can bypass the line so long as we don’t enter the dungeon.” He said, getting up from his chair.
“Uh, thanks.” I said, taken aback by how quickly he wanted to help us.
“No need to thank me.” He waved it off. “I have a feeling it would be best to stay on your good side, and there’s no better way than helping you out.” As he led us through the guild hall, conversations stopped. I could feel everyone’s eyes boring into our group, and felt Elendria grab the back of my shirt and pull herself closer. I couldn’t blame her, as all that attention was getting to me as well. I could handle it if it was a bunch of students, but the gazes of all these adventurers had a sharpness to it that the kids lacked. The same thing happened in the line, though when they saw us heading towards the plaque and not the door conversation resumed.
“Here we are.” He said, turning and showing me the plaque. It was simple, some runes that I couldn’t read surrounding a pair of handprints. Shrugging, I stepped forward and put both hands on the plaque. Immediately, a blue box popped up.
Evolution
Description
Bonuses
Requirements
High Human
A stronger form of human, high humans have twice the lifespan
+4 attributes per level
Clear level five of the dungeon or max out a profession
Elevated one
Midway between a tier two and tier three evolution, elevated ones are deceptively strong.
+5 attributes per level
Clear level five of a dungeon without any help and without clearing it with a group beforehand.
Locked
Locked
Locked
Clear higher levels and pass further requirements for access to higher evolutions.
“Well, that answers one of my questions.” I said, turning to the group. “I only have access to the tier two evolution right now, but that should change if I can progress further into the dungeon. Let’s head back and get a room for right now, and we can figure out the rest of the plans in the morning.” Everyone seemed to be in agreement, so we headed back to the Red Rooster. Instead of cash, they simply tapped a strange stone to the gold medallions we had gotten at the guild, and that was it. After a filling dinner, I decided to head to bed. In the morning, I fully planned to head into the dungeon for a bit. The others stayed down for a bit, hanging out with Harold and the soldiers that had come with us.