‘A shelter from what?’ Aki wondered rhetorically, but I answered nonetheless.

‘I don’t know, but it must have happened a long time ago.’

I shared the quest I got when I entered the Tower of Trials with them.

Quest Cancelled: The Trial of the Champion

Type: Dungeon (Legendary)

Difficulty: Deadly

Description: Greetings, Aspirant! You have been chosen by our spell as a potential champion. While we cannot reveal the details of your quest yet, know that our world is in grave danger and we need all the best and the brightest to help save it. A set of trials awaits you to see if you are worthy and to prepare you for the upcoming task. Good luck!

Objectives:

* Reach the exit of the dungeon

Rewards:

* Access to the Champion Stash

* 2000 experience points

* Next Quest

Caei and Aki hissed upon seeing this.

‘Seriously?’ the Sanguine spat, utterly flabbergasted. ‘This is what you are told when you end up here? You said they wanted you to save the world or something but by the Blood!’

‘Yeah… this was some bullshit,’ I agreed. ‘And we know this particular danger happened five hundred and thirty-four years ago.’

‘Now that I think of it, that’s around the time the Vandarian Empire fell apart,’ Aki added. ‘The village elder always said it was a couple of hundred years ago, but I don’t know the exact date.’

I looked at Caei for extra input, but she just shrugged.

‘Sorry, we don’t get taught Dwynveian history. Like, we knew about the Tower, but that’s about it.’

‘Fair enough,’ I agreed. ‘Still, we have to assume Y-Ram was built BEFORE the Tower because I have no idea why you would ever build something in its vicinity. So there was one threat five hundred and change years ago that probably killed an empire. Then there was something that necessitated the construction of Y-Ram and likely other similar structures like it. And the society then was fairly developed then.’

‘So we’re talking about at least two situations, likely centuries apart when people thought the world was going to end,’ Caei said.

‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘And based on the shrine, we are now likely facing another one. So…’

‘Let’s j-just… deal with Laachersain,’ Aki interrupted with a trembling voice. ‘I’m not sure we’re… ready for this.’

She sounded on the verge of tears. I didn’t blame her one bit. I was probably so deep in denial, that I was in denial about that denial. I moved to hug her, but, suddenly, I thought I felt something move in the distance. It did not register further, so I shrugged it off and embraced Aki.

‘Don’t worry, babe. We don’t know if we’re going to need to save the world, just yet. You’re right though. Let’s focus on the present for now. First, we have to leave this place alive. Speaking of which…’

I pulled up my “main” quest:

Quest: The Ruined Tower

Type: Dungeon (Legendary)

Difficulty: ???

Description: The Tower of Trials has at least partially collapsed and whatever magic brought you here has run out with fairly spectacular results.

Objectives:

* Find the exit

Rewards:

* 2000 experience points

* Your life

I tried to share it with Aki and Caei, but I got an error message:

Notice: Cannot share personal quests.

‘Never mind,’ I sighed. ‘I wanted to share with you guys the quest I got to leave this place alive, but the system said “No”. Shame too. Gave two thousand experience points. And I think we’ll need all we can get. That being said…’

I told them that Ereshkigal suggested we seek work in Ror-Bhyk and familiarise ourselves with the world. Well… she was only talking about me there, but I think it applied to us in the end. The girls agreed this was the best course of action, as me and Caei knew nothing about life on Dwynveia, Aki, the only one of us with an actual stake in this, had never left her village until recently, and we had next-to-nothing in terms of supplies, allies and for the most part we were homeless..

‘How about we settle down in Y-Ram after we are done here?’ Aki suggested after I pointed out the last part.

My knee-jerk reaction was to outright shoot the idea down, but the more I thought about this…

‘Caei, would it be possible for us to set up some means to quickly return here?’

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The Sanguine pondered the question.

‘Possibly. We would probably need to find a Magitek Engineer to make a portal we could install here. Then it would be just a matter of creating beacons attuned to its frequency, but those are easy enough to make. All of this will cost a fortune, though.’

‘Good thing we’re looking for work then.’ I laughed.

Caeileera turned to Aki.

‘Good idea, pip… Aki. I really like it.’

‘Yes,’ a low-pitched female voice suddenly spat, making my heart sink. ‘Master Laachersain will definitely be happy about his new base of operations.’

‘Indeed,’ another, this time a male one, added. ‘This place AND the head of a traitor? He should reward us handsomely.’

Suddenly, two fog clouds appeared behind us and a figure stepped out of each of them: the man from the right one and the woman from the left one. If I didn't know any better, I would have assumed they were twins. They were both clad in dark blue sleeveless vests and linen pants, had utility belts with many pouches and wore simple leather shoes with what looked like rubber soles. Bandoliers of knives were strapped across their chests.

The man and the woman had the same height and body shape, so far as a man and a woman can be anyway, and had identical black wings. The only real difference between them was their red hair. The man’s was short and unkempt, while the woman's was long and tied into a ponytail. It’s possible they had different facial features, but it was impossible to tell due to their masks.

In sync, they raised their closed fists, the man his right one and the woman her left one, in front of their masks and crushed something inside of them. A massive crimson portal appeared in the air behind them and an immense Sanguine non-face emerged out of it, and soon the rest of the creature started to lumber out.

‘Summoning stones’ Caei hissed.

Seeing the mass of hands at its back broke me out of my stupor.

Behemoth. And one way larger than the previous one.

Each of the Sanguine used our surprise to take out four-sided pyramids made from some sort of black barely translucent glass from their belt.

Would those be the portal prisms Caei mentioned? I wondered and decided to act. Hopefully, the elemental contamination won’t get much worse.

I thrust out both of my hands and cast the Gust of Wind with each of them. I felt the pain of the elemental energy of Air twisting my body further, but I did not care.

‘Into the city!’ I shouted, as the powerful gale staggered the pair of Sanguine Assassins and knocked the portal prisms out of their hands. ‘Quick!’

We set off at a dead run. I felt something sharp enter my back and I stumbled forward, but managed to regain my balance and keep going. We got to the entrance. Aki was the first to jump down and Caei soon followed her. I heard my girlfriend cry out in pain, but didn't have time to worry about her, since she was in good hands and I had more immediate concerns. I decided to cover their descent, and when I turned around I saw that the Sanguine man was towards us.

In for a penny, in for a hypercane.

I gathered wind around my hand and when he was near me I punched towards him and hit him with a Fist of Wind. My strike hit him dead centre in the chest. I heard loud cracking as his ribs splintered and the man was launched across the pillar, skidded on the floor and disappeared over the edge.

‘Zvirvil!’ the woman cried out, the portal prims she had barely managed to gather fell out of her hands to the floor.

The Last thing I saw before I disappeared into the entry hatch was the Sanguine woman rushing over to where her companion fell into the abyss and the Behemoth slowly approaching us.

I landed on the floor below. Aki was sitting by the wall massaging her left foot, with Caei crouching next to her.

‘The kid landed badly and broke her ankle,’ she explained. I fixed it.’

No ‘pipsqueak’? It’s a miracle.

Instead of making wry comments though, I simply said:

‘Let’s get going then. We need to put some distance between us and them.’

A notification popped up implying the Sanguine I launched into the air had finally landed.

Level 9 Zvirvil of the Sanguine has been slain.

You have earned 900 experience points (2166/3000 total experience points progress to level 6)

I helped Aki up. She winced slightly, and when she got a close look at me, her eyes got wide.

‘How bad?’ I asked as we hurried towards the staircase.

‘Your hair is almost all white and cloudy,’ Aki said. ‘It’s just the blue part that is left.’

‘It was unavoidable,’ I shrugged and called up the status.

Status: Elemental Contamination - Air

Level: 3 - Severe

Effects:

* Irreversible changes to body structure have occurred

* Increased effectiveness of Air Arcana-based spells, abilities and traits

* Decreased effectiveness of other Elemental Arcana-based spells, abilities and traits

* Unable to use Earth Arcana-based spells, abilities and traits

Note: The level of contamination will revert to 2 - Moderate 20 days, 16 hours and 31 minutes.

I winced. That got worse by a lot. Was it the double cast?

Probably will get to level four soon If I’m not careful.

‘On the plus side…’ I continued. ‘I think we only have to worry about one of them. The man… decided to explore the bottom of the ravine… the fast way. ’

‘Just to let you know…’ Caei sighed. ‘The woman will do everything to kill you now.’

Yay. More friends.

‘Let me guess… honour demands it?’

‘Worse. Much worse. He and our flyer are members of the Serrated Blades. The Blood that Devours spawns them for a specific purpose - espionage and assassination. They are also the closest thing among the Sanguine to an actual family. Serrated Blades are always spawned in pairs. They train together, eat together, sleep together, fuck together until they are basically a single organism in two bodies. If one of them dies the other… well…’

‘Goes on a murderous rampage of revenge?’ I suggested.

‘Pretty much. They won’t rest until you or them are dead.’

‘Amazing. And assuming I die, what happens then?’

Caeileera saddened.

‘Some of them manage to get over the trauma and become teachers in their academy. The others... well…’

‘I understand.’

We entered the staircase and started running down the stairs. Then Aki, red-faced from embarrassment, asked:

‘T-they fuck together?’

Caei laughed at that.

‘Not with each other… probably. But the orgies at the House of the Blades are pretty legendary among the Sanguine. I’ve managed to score an invitation to one of them… probably the best night of my life.’

Aki looked at her wide-eyed. Her face became red like a tomato. I was feeling really lucky I didn’t have any blood when Caeileera laughed:

‘Hey, Lilyth. Did you know your face becomes blue when you are horny?’

FUCK.