With a chuckle, I pulled the pair of scrolls out and put them to the side. “I guess I can work with that.” From my spatial ring I pulled all the documents we’d found left behind, from all over the mining camp. Fanning through them, I contemplated curating the documents for the king but eventually decided to just drop them all in. “Partial payment, partial documentation.”
I flipped the lid shut with a clatter, but before I could say the command phrase, Jaegan poked his head in.
“Oh, an [Item Box]. Old Piney must really want whatever it is he asked you to send.” He grinned. “Do you mind if I add a personal letter I wrote him a while back?”
Frowning, I looked him up and down as he walked up, letter in hand. “What’s in the letter?”
“Oh, just a few things he’ll want to know about the council and the country at large.” He held his free hand up over his heart. “I swear, it’s nothing that would make him think less of you.”
He tried to snake the box open, but I put a foot up on it before he could get it open properly. “Cards on the table, what did you do with the [Genealogical Record of the Kingdom of Verdant]. If that letter is you bragging about how he’ll never find it, Evergreen will come in person to kick all of our asses.”
“I told you before, I gave it–”
“Don’t bullshit me.” The System lent my words power as I drew upon our bond of fealty. “No, you didn’t tell me, though I’ve asked a few times. Why did you steal the book and where is it now?”
“So, it’s going to be like that.” The old man leaned on his Unique staff. “I’m a member of the resistance within Verdant. We know something is wrong with our land, people don’t gain levels as they should for acting as their Classes demand.”
“Yeah, King Evergreen told me the same himself.” I glared at him. “What does the resistance think they’re going to change by fucking with the most powerful person in their damn kingdom?”
“Why do you think he’s so powerful? Him and his family, I mean.” Jaegan ground his teeth before shouting at me. “His family is siphoning that experience! It’s the only thing that makes sense!”
My voice took on a cold, unfeeling tone that made me a bit uncomfortable. “Answer my fucking question or I’ll cut you down where you stand.”
Behind him the [Arcweavers] stood with blades extended. Somehow they knew I needed them and worked flawlessly. I made a mental note to get their names so I didn’t have to just call them by their species, it was only fair.
For a moment, I saw how badly it could have gone. Jaegan could have used his [Staff of the Wallbreaker] to attack me, dying to multiple blades in the neck at the same time, but not before he could unleash whatever trump card he was holding back. All adventurers ended up with them at a certain point, so it was a safe bet he had one. If I was lucky, my [Evasion] would let me avoid his trump card, but there was no guarantee.
Instead, he stood there glaring at me while drumming his fingers on his staff for almost a minute before throwing it on the bed to my right and flopping down on the opposite bed.
“I preferred you as the naive young adventurer fresh off his first quest.” He leered at me. “But I guess it’s a good thing you’ve got it in you to stand up to someone like me if you’re going to be in charge at some point.” When I raised a hand to signal the [Arcweavers], he waved me away. “I sent the tome to my contacts in Chalcedony. It’s the second biggest city in Verdant and, due to the Tower, the wealthiest by far.
“I haven’t been able to get in touch with my comrades in the resistance, but if they’ve followed the plan we had in place, they should’ve been passing it from person to person in the Chalcedony underground for the past twenty years.” He chuckled. “No matter how many times Piney asked me who had his book I never lied, I really don’t know who has it. With him not knowing about the resistance, he never thought to ask the questions I wouldn’t have been able to answer honestly.”
“Why did you want the book?” My face was like stone, unfeeling, despite my inner turmoil. I felt for his people, they were frustrated at how weak they were and no matter what King Evergreen had tried, nothing had worked to fix the issue with his country. “What good could it do for you?”
The [Mage]’s eyes gleamed with a fervor I’d thought only existed within religious zealots. “It records the events, accomplishments, and crimes of all citizens of Verdant, the Pine family included. We were going to monitor their sections of the book until we saw something relating to the curse on the land and use it to rise up against him.”
“Then why haven’t they?” I deadpanned. “It’s been twenty years since you stole the damn thing and he’s still in power. It seems your plan failed.”
“It has not!” He screamed and started ranting. “They just haven’t been looking for the right things. When I get there I can fix it. I can find the connection, I can avenge my Sophie!” Tears rolled down his face as he sobbed. “If she were stronger, like the citizens of the other countries around Verdant, she would have escaped her kidnappers. If she didn’t live in this cursed place…”
His voice trailed off as he devolved into a fit of sobbing both threats and concerned pleas couldn’t shake him out of.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I opened the letter he’d left on the bed and read it quickly. In the end, it was merely the rantings of a father broken by grief over the loss of his whole world. In it, I learned that she’d been kidnapped a few years before I was born and Jaegan had thrown himself into adventuring before joining the council and eventually stealing the [Genealogical Record of the Kingdom of Verdant].
Nothing in the letter implicated me or gave up any of my secrets, so I wrote Jaegan’s name on the envelope and dropped it in the [Item Box] before saying the code phrase.
“Evergreen, not Ever Gullible.” The box flickered for a moment before snapping out of existence.
Over on the bed, Jaegan had cried himself to sleep, so I left him there a moment as I checked out the pair of [Skill Scrolls] I’d received as partial payment for clearing the Dungen. If it weren’t for the System enforcing our deal, I’d have worried about King Evergreen reneging on the deal, but the penalties for doing so were steep, so I had confidence he’d be as good as his System-bound word. The first was interesting, if mostly inconsequential for me, but the second? That was something I’d been hoping to find at some point and it made me grin like a little kid.
[Learn Keen Mind - Y/N]
I mentally tapped the yes option and, a moment later, the scroll glowed brightly and another window appeared.
[Active Skills - Mastery
Skill Dominance - 27%]
[Passive Skill Added - Keen Mind]
As the [Skill] took over, I gasped. How wrong could I have been? The moment [Keen Mind] finished settling into my [Status] I felt an immediate improvement in damn near everything about me. What I’d thought was just a [Skill] to help with puzzles and the like actually improved my Mana efficiency as well as the way I processed data.
I stumbled for a second before the [Arcweavers] caught me and lowered me down on a free bed with gentle hands. I flashed them a pained smile. “Thank you. By the way, what are your names? I don’t like referring to you by your species if I can help it.”
The female nodded. “I am Volta.”
“And I am Voltaire.” The male followed a half second later.
“Thank you both for your service, Volta, Voltaire.” I nodded to each of them in turn.
Something was nagging at me, there was a puzzle I had most of the pieces I needed to solve, but in the end it didn’t click and I had to give up and let my subconscious work the problem for me. My consolation prize was pretty great though.
[Learn Light Arrow - Y/N]
I couldn’t confirm it fast enough.
[Active Skills - Mastery
Skill Dominance - 28%
Light Arrow - 69%]
Sixty-nine percent mastered, not bad, not bad at all. I drew upon [Light Arrow] and an arrow of golden light formed before me. I drew my arm like I was drawing a bow and a bow made of light appeared with the arrow resting on the string. With a surge of effort, I drew the bow back to its full capacity and let it fly out the window. The light arrow construct sprang from the light bow construct like a normal arrow from a bow, only a hell of a lot faster considering how much higher my [Divine] was than my [Might]. I was initially confused why it was drawing from [Divine] rather than [Arcane] as I’d expected, but soon I realized it was likely a [Skill] the high priest of Light donated to help King Evergreen out. In the end, those Stats were even for me, so it didn’t really matter.
Playing with [Light Arrow] was enough to distract me for a few hours so Jaegan could sleep off his emotional baggage for a while. In the end, we got going after lunch with me riding Raiju and Ylsa and Jaegan riding on the [Cloud Carpet].
According to the map, we were at nearly the westmost area of Verdant while Chalcedony was on the eastern edge. Even at Raiju’s top speed pulling the carpet safely, it was going to take us at least two weeks to travel the breadth of Verdant, a country known for how wide versus how tall it was.
In the end, we settled on traveling ten hours a day, hunting random monsters for four hours, and camping for the remaining time with lunch and dinner in the middle.
The first few days were awkward as all hell, with Jaegan doing his best to stay away from me, but after he almost got eaten by a [Dire Wolf], stopped only a second before by a [Light Arrow] through the skull he and I came to an agreement. I agreed to let him meet with the resistance as long as he took me with. He balked at first, but I leaned on his fealty to me to get him to agree by promising to use [Dominus’ Insight] on their leadership. I needed to meet the people who’d left their friend and leader rot in jail for twenty years.
The monsters along our path weren’t much, especially with Raiju getting bored while camping and roaming ahead to hunt.
On the fifth day, I convinced Volta and Voltaire to go back home, though they swore to return should I ever call them again. Knowing I needed to practice, I summoned a few different elementals each day to spar with both Ylsa and myself. I primarily fought against fire elementals to work on my speed while she liked fighting mud elementals for some reason, which earned her a laugh from Jaegan.
Day nine ended with us a few miles from a fort on top of a hill in the center of Verdant. Two hours after landing, we were surrounded by guards and mages, but as soon as we flashed our Adventurers’ Guild badges they backed off. Their lieutenant tried to charge us a fee to “use the land”, but a growl from Raiju was enough to send him packing with his tail between his knees.
Thirteen days after leaving the mine our vantage point let us see Chalcedony in the distance and instead of inspiring wonder, it inspired dread.
The Tower loomed over the once-peaceful city of Chalcedony, its dark silhouette a stark contrast to the sun-drenched landscape. The tower, once a source of income and growth, had become a destructive force, spewing dark forces from its heart.
Now, the city was a battlefield, its streets ablaze with the fires of chaos. Monstrous creatures, produced from the Tower’s Mana overload, roamed the streets, their eyes glowing with malevolent intent. The once-vibrant marketplace was a charred ruin, its stalls littered with the remains of the city's defenders.
The tower itself seemed to pulsate with a sinister energy, its windows glowing with an eerie, unnatural light. The city's defenders fought valiantly to contain the darkness, but the odds were against them. The Tower’s power was too great, its influence spreading like a malignant tumor through the city's heart.
“Well, I guess we have our work cut out for us, right?” I looked around at my companions who nodded quietly, which reminded me of something. I rubbed my thumb over my signet ring before shaking my head. “I’ve got a trick up my sleeve, hopefully it’ll help us save some more people.”