Chapter 23: Cold Quest
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Time seemed to stand still.
Or maybe… the opposite was true?
Wandering the dungeon, what might have been hours, could have just as easily have been minutes. And the gap between minute and minute might as well have been hours. Excruciating seconds churned into mind-numbing minutes, folded into unreconciled hours, until all of it was lost in the unknown oblivion within which the Gleaming Caves now existed… for them.
It was safe to say that Blychert was losing his mind.
But for whatever reason, he couldn’t bring himself to say that they were lost out loud. It was as if the act of simply feeding that fire would only serve to exacerbate his already shaky nerves about the whole situation to new and uncharted levels.
Where was Alyse? Where was the rest of Bold Arrow? How had he and Xander made it this far without getting themselves killed?
He didn’t have as little as a whiff of an answer to any of those questions, beyond generic dungeon irregularity, and he was starting to doubt he’d get much in the way of answers anytime soon.
“You should try to get some rest.” Xander murmured, huddling over the enclosed fire that they had built a little while ago. His face was covered in dirt, grime, and a little blood from their latest ice demon encounter, but still he offered, “I can take watch.”
Bly glanced around their makeshift campsite for a moment, which was more of a barricade now that he thought about it.
The small, inoffensive chamber within which they’d taken refuge was no larger than his kitchen back in Kelvalder. However, they had stacked the entrance threshold with huge chunks of stone and dilapidated dungeon debris, so much so that it made a decent defensive vantage point. The fire was meager, just enough to keep the cold of the dungeon at bay, though it made Bly feel a small pang of longing for the White Horn’s roaring hearth.
Taking note of his concealment spell, itself set on the doorway with its miniscule mana signature still fully charged, Bly turned towards the swordsman, saying, “We should have rested a while ago, before we fought all those spawns. It’s going to take all night for my mana pool to regenerate… if it even is still night.”
Xander frowned somewhat, his expression ponderous, as he replied, “I take it your invisibility spell has something to do with that?”
Bly nodded wearily, “Not to mention all the ice demons we’ve fought between that first casting of invisibility too. If I’d have known we were just going to get into it again on the other side of that door, I would’ve saved the mana.”
“We wouldn’t have been able to kill thirty of those things. Not without injury.” Xander pointed out, “You did pretty good. Thanks.”
“Yeah, well…” Bly mumbled, almost too tired to say anything more. Instead, he tried to find a more comfortable position to lie down in. He hadn’t brought his bedroll, so unfortunately he had to make do with his cloak. Furthermore, he was beyond hungry. All his dungeon rations were with Vineta, and Xander didn’t bring all that many himself. Quietly chewing on the end of a piece of dried meat, Bly turned onto his side to face the wall, and he decided to add, “You didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“…But I did give you one.” Xander insisted quietly, belated as it was. Blychert heard the swordsman shift around a little, who then said, “The problem is, you chose poorly. You seem to think that I didn’t know what I was walking into by coming down here. But I already told you, I wanted this. For me. Not for anyone else. I’m not looking to justify my actions, it’s just… this is how it is. If it’s how it ends too, so be it.”
Blychert didn’t respond this time.
He wasn’t really sure how to respond.
Xander was so frustrating, and yet maybe he was right. Why did Blychert care what happened to him, if Xander didn’t even care what happened to himself? What point was there trying to change the mind of a madman! Blychert understood that he was wide-eyed when it came to adventuring and dungeon diving, but there came a point when even he had to call a lost cause out for what it was.
And yet…
“It’s your life now, kiddo. Remember that. You go live it however you desire…”
This was the kind of person he was.
Alyse’s words on that fateful day rang truer now in Bly’s mind than ever before. He wanted to help, he had to, and hell if he wasn’t going to try.
“I’m not going to let that happen.” Blychert replied at last, turning around the other way to face the swordsman, “So, why don’t you just come clean with me already, and tell me why this one item means so damned much to you?”
Xander furrowed his brow confusedly.
“By your own admission, I’m allowed to call out your bullshit.” Blychert urged. Despite his drowsiness, or maybe because of it, he felt a little empowered to challenge Xander, “Almost everything you’ve told me since I met you has been a half-truth, if not a downright lie. Hasn’t it? But I got one thing right this morning. Remember? I said it was you who wanted to keep pushing farther into the dungeon, like that was the only important thing to you. But now… now I know that it is. And this quest? I call bullshit on that too. I bet there never really was—”
“There is.” Xander interjected, his tone of voice neither here nor there. He looked at Bly as if in acceptance of the insinuations that had been slung at him, though his expression was fully sober, “Or… there was.”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Bly hoisted himself up from the ground, scrunching his brow and saying, “What do you mean, there was? How could there have been a quest? Wouldn’t that defeat the point of you coming here?”
Xander shrugged, “Shows how little you know about the Guild.”
Bly flushed somewhat, nonverbally conceding that was true.
“Look,” Xander sighed after a moment’s pause, “The quest went cold a long time ago, but it was never closed. Cold quests are backlogged in guild archives for future use, if at all. Norman spent a lot of time at the adventuring hall, that’s how he got access to those records. This quest. It’s not explicitly active, even though it still exists. Meaning, there’s no reward. Does that make sense?”
“Sort of,” Bly shook his head, “That doesn’t really explain why you went out of your way just to do it.”
“Because… of this.” Xander said softly, if not reluctantly as he pulled the pendant out from within his tunic. The silvered emblem glistened in the soft light of the campfire, as he dangled it there for Bly to see. Slowly, he said, “My father left when I was a boy. I… I didn’t know him very well, but he and my grandfather hated each other. He wasted his time adventuring, I guess. Or that’s what I was always told. But… by the time I was curious enough to wander out and search for him, it was too late. He’d gone out on a quest with his party, you see, and they never came back.”
“Oh…” Bly mumbled, unsure of what else to say.
“In all honesty, I’d given up hope of finding out anything about him, or… how he died. Guild doesn’t disclose the terms of privately issued quests.” Xander continued, chuckling somewhat, “But then Norman came along. And Norman being Norman, he stuck his nose into the thick of it. He’d chew me out if he could see me now, I bet…”
A long pause followed suit, as Blychert simply watched the swordsman’s face. It wasn’t sad or angry, it was simply… present. Every time Bly thought he had a good read on Xander, it always seemed to shift at just the wrong moment.
“Ah well,” Xander sighed, “It’s not like I expected to find him down here. I don’t love him, and I don’t hate him. I don’t owe him anything either, but… I can’t move on now, not without that blade. Maybe it’s in my blood. Maybe it’s just me. But there’s your bullshit. Nobody else knows, if that’s what you’re wondering, because I didn’t want to tell them. Because…” Xander grunted amusedly, “Because once again, Trelen, you were right. I’m a terrible party leader. Now, get some rest.”
The conversation ended there, leaving Blychert with more mixed feelings than he had before.
Lying down and turning the other way, Bly furrowed his brow in contemplation, slowly drifting off to sleep.
Perhaps Xander really was a madman after all, or… perhaps him and Bly had a lot more in common than he would have otherwise liked. They were both haunted by the ghosts of their pasts. And now… they were seemingly being haunted by something else entirely, though a part of Bly was starting to wonder if it was really all that different. After all, those visions he’d had earlier hit very close to home.
Just maybe Xander had been shown something similar.
***
Blychert jolted awake.
Shooting up onto his feet, and by what little light remained in the dying embers of their campfire, he saw Xander by the edge of their makeshift barrier, fighting against the onslaught of ice demons situated just on the other side.
“I can’t keep them out—!” Xander shouted, his body pinned up against the barrier as he tried to keep the spawns at bay.
At that moment, a large, icy hand burst through a portion of the stone, pushing Xander back.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Blychert channeled mana into both of his hands, and quickly muttered a firebolt spell under his breath. He pointed, and released, just as the ice demons were beginning to swarm into the small chamber. Two scatter shots triggered, and four bursts of fire in total riddled the bodies of the vanguard ice demons. But they were much more durable against fire than the lesser kind, and so they kept coming.
Xander scrambled forward, his sword and shield in hand, bracing for whatever came next. Blychert held his ground too, readying his next bout of fire spells, fully aware of the danger in front of them, and ready to fight.
But the ice demons never came.
All at once, they retracted and fled down both sides of the corridor. Just as the sounds of their heavy footsteps dissipated into quiet once more, a low rumbling filled the dungeon, and something else took the place of the ice demons there at the threshold of their ruined barrier.
A spectral humanoid form, ghostly and pale, hovered a few inches above the ground. Her expression was plain, but her mouth was opened wide—wider than what should have been normal of any face. Hair swayed and billowed out behind her, as if the creature were under water, and it simply looked at them.
Small gasping, near gurgling sounds escaped the creature’s mouth. But only after a few short moments, it turned and began to float away just as quickly as it had arrived.
“Come on—!” was all Xander could say, and he darted after the creature, leaving everything but what he had on him behind.
Blychert quickly scooped his pack up off the ground, and chased after the swordsman.
The floating specter was fast, keeping a decent pace ahead of Xander, who in turn kept a good distance ahead of Bly. They twisted and turned through chambers, corridor after corridor, all the while other spawns seemed to flee at the mere sight of that spectral woman. Whatever it was doing, it was leading them somewhere. However, Blychert hastily cast a seeing spell over himself, before thrusting his hand forward to do the same for Xander. He didn’t know where they were being taken, but it was better to have vision than not.
“Where is it?!”” Xander shouted ahead, his voice echoing through the dungeon.
“Xander!” Bly called after him, though he was unable to draw the swordsman’s attention at all.
They continued running, Blychert very nearly out of breath, before suddenly they came into an isolated chamber. However, the second they crossed the threshold into the chamber, the pale lady was gone.
“No, no—!” Xander turned, rushing back out into corridor. But she wasn't there, and they were all alone once more.
However, as Blychert tried to gather his bearings, still somewhat dazed and groggy, a chilling cold ran down the back of his neck, and his head snapped to face the rest of the chamber.
Lights began to illuminate within small braziers lining either side of the room. One by one they flickered to life, until the far back of the chamber was illuminated. A single stone throne, much like the one they'd found in the second floor wayshrine chamber, became visible. It was placed upon a dais at a slightly more elevated position than the floor, but there was one glaring difference: there was someone sitting in it.
“Xander…” Bly murmured, gesturing for the swordsman to turn.
Ahead of them, a pale, gangly figure began to stand from the throne. Its features were vaguely humanoid, but it appeared decrepit, adorned in tattered armor and gaunt beyond recognition. However, a longsword hung down by its side, gripped tightly in its hand, and the blade itself shimmered with a strange, unusually bright energy.
“Is that…” Xander gasped, taking one step forward, as he said, “The iridescent blade.”
Suddenly, a terminal blip caught Blychert’s attention.
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[SAGE ---> Winter System Notification]
> Unique item [Iridescent Blade] detected.
> Unique enemy type [Tethered Wight] detected.
> Spawn Type: Undead
> Threat Level: -
> Spawn Rank: -
> Spawn Zone: -
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That thing had led them right to it?
But why? After all they'd gone through, why now?
Was this some sort of a game? Some sort of a test?
Had it even been leading them at all?
Either way, this was what they’d been searching for. And now, spent and weary from delving the dungeon, it was staring them in the face. If but only from within the grasp of perhaps their toughest challenge yet.