Chapter Twenty: Against the Grain
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Blychert winced.
He’d been gnawing at his lower lip with such determination over the last candle mark that a long, thin strip had finally come free in his teeth, and the pain was instantaneous. But he couldn't help his anxious nerves, and it was just about everything he could do to keep himself calm.
Though, it was Xander's fault.
It hadn't taken very long for them to figure out that he wasn't in Kelvalder. And once that had been established, the rest fell into place on its own.
He'd been spotted walking towards the north gate several hours prior, right around the time when the rest of Bold Arrow were getting their own things in order for travel. Guardsman Alain, who was posted at the north tower at the time, confirmed this by detailing his brief encounter with the swordsman, who’d simply said he needed to go to the dungeon. With no reason to doubt his intentions, Alain had simply watched Xander disappear down the northern trail. And by the time the guardsman finished his recounting, Lisel had already found his tracks, all but verifying that he had set off alone. And anyway, once the pieces had started to come together, none of them really needed much of a reason to doubt what Xander had done, or rather what he intended to do.
After everything, it made Bly's blood boil that Xander could still find the nerve to do something like this, and with the dungeon volatility being what it was, it was putting all of their own lives in danger. Because now? It fell to them to go after him.
Blychert stole a glance around his cluttered bedroom, momentarily settling his gaze on the small pile of treasure that constituted his cut of Glemberfang’s horde. It seemed like forever ago that he’d been all too happy with bringing home a handful of energy crystals. But that might as well have been a lifetime ago, and he might as well have been a completely different person too.
Swiping his fingers through the air, Bly opened his sage terminal and slowly flicked across to his system inventory. He didn’t possess many items capable of being stored here, which made pulling up the one he wanted to inspect all the easier.
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[Devouring Threads]
Devour: Increases maximum mana by [50]. While equipped, [5%] of received [magical] damage is negated and converted into mana, applied to short term mana [STM].
Lightsilk Recovery: +2.5 mana per second (STM), +1.5 per minute (LTM).
> Item Rarity: Rare
> Item Level: 1/50
> Item Class: Armor - Arm (bracer)
> Item Set: Canticle of the Devouring Lord
- Set total: 1/4
- Set bonus (2 items): NA
- Set bonus (3 items): NA
- Set bonus (4 items): NA
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Bly's forhead creased.
It was certainly powerful. Either one of Bredic or Vineta could have just as easily benefited from such an item, and yet he'd neglected to even mention it to anyone except for Xander. Part of him wanted to believe that it wasn’t on purpose, that it was because of how hectic the last several days had been and that he’d simply forgotten about it, but was that really the truth? If Xander hadn’t gone off on his own, then it was entirely possible that Bly would have simply let them all leave without ever bringing it up. It had been offered to him, sure. But then if that was how he truly felt about it, then everything he accused Xander of yesterday must have been equally true of himself.
He was just as selfish, and being classless was as lousy an excuse as Xander’s had been.
“Ready?” Alyse's voice asked all of a sudden from the threshold of his bedroom door, her tone of voice neither here nor there, “Everone else is just about, and it’s not going to get any better for him up there if we wait much longer.”
“Yeah—” Bly murmured in a fluster, gesturing for his terminal to close as he said, “Just a minute.”
Alyse's gaze narrowed, “Is… everything alright?”
Blychert thought about what to say for a long few moments, before a small sigh came out, and he said, “I’m just trying to figure what we’re even supposed to do for him.”
Alyse stepped into the bedroom slowly, “Not much than can be done, except to go after him; hope for the best, plan for the worst.”
“Is that what you would do?” Bly asked skeptically, not sure why she even cared to go after Xander, not after Glemberfang.
“It’s what I’m doing.” Alyse insisted, as she took a seat on the end of his bed, “I may not agree with all the things you’ve gotten up together, but they were your party mates. And they’ve done more for you in a span of three weeks than I would have been able to accomplish in three years. So no, I won't sit back and let that young man throw his life away.”
Bly rolled his eyes.
“I’m serious,” Alyse urged, “You've grown rather fond of them. I can see it in the way you act when you're with them. They trust you.”
“I don’t feel very trustworthy.” Bly shrugged, slumping down on the bed himself as he frowned, “My whole life is lie, Alyse, and the only way I can fit in is by lying even more? How does that make sense?”
“That’s what you’re so concerned about? Seriously, come on—” Alyse grabbed his arm, and Bly immediately gasped as he was suddenly pulled along through the hallway and back into the living room.
“Right,” Alyse started, letting go of Bly as she stepped into the center of the room, “The four of you—and myself, to an extent—have a dire task tonight. To find Xander, yes, but to quell the chaos that's growing in our dungeon. Truthfully, I had been going to handle this myself upon my return from Frostwall, but now it seems I have little choice but to requisition your aid."
A look of fear and confusion crossed the faces of the others, and Bly felt those same things too. Was it really that serious?
"Your party leader seems to think that he doesn’t need you, or perhaps he simply does not wish to be a burden on you." Alyse continued, "Maybe he’s right, maybe he doesn’t need you. Or maybe you don’t need him. In any case, he's picked a terrible time to test that theory. And regardless, it is very clear to me that trust has been broken in this party. And that, well… I suspect this is merely the consequence of a prolonged failure from all of you to be trustworthy, both to yourselves and to one another.”
Bly's eyes widened. It was at that moment that he had no doubt Alyse had been using her empathic abilties on all of them. For how long? He couldn't say. But his eyes darted around the room to where the faces of the other three seemed equally caught off-guard by her statement, and it all but verified his thoughts.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“You’re young, so I won’t hold it against you,” Alyse said. She walked across the room, brandishing her winter cloak as she made towards the front door, saying over her shoulder, “Though it’s not me you need to answer to. So, I ask you, Bold Arrow… are you ready to wake up and smell the ashes? Because your party is burning from the inside out, and you’re almost out of time to save it.”
***
The entrance to the dungeon somehow loomed even taller than Blychert remembered, as they approached the top of the winding path.
Snow and wind whipped up through the evening mountainscape, churning cold into misery that settled in Blychert’s bones. It was gearing up to be a brutal storm, and he was simply relieved to not be the only one caught out in it for a change. Though the silence was unbearable. The last couple hours of hiking up the trail had been completely devoid of conversation of any kind, which somehow seemed worse than the cold itself.
“Core volatility is greater than sixty percent.” Alyse said, her voice breaking above the sound of the raging snowstorm, “Once you're down there, you’re going to have to pay closer attention to your surroundings. Floor changes, cave-ins, dead ends… these kinds of things are more likely with changes to the core.”
“Wait, you’re not coming with us?” Bly asked confusedly.
“…No, it's not safe.” Was her response, a slightly unsure tone of voice, as she added more confidently, “We have two objectives tonight: Find Xander and lower the core's volatility. The four of you will head down to the first floor wayshrine and begin your descent from there. It is possble that Xander could have gotten turned around or moved across floors entirely, so it's important to clear those areas first. I'll head down to the second floor wayshrine and do the same on the third floor, and we'll both do our best to clear out as many spawns as we can along the way. That's the key lowering the volatility. Now, if you reach the third floor, follow my markers. If I haven't found Xander by then, well… let's just focus on our tasks for now."
"But—that means you're going down to the third floor alone." Bly argued, "You just said it yourself, it's not safe."
"It's not safe… not for you." Alyse shook her head, smiling somewhat under the light of her illumination spell, "But seeing as how I'm the adult here, this is simply what must be done now. I need your help, all of you. So please, do as I ask."
Bly wanted to say more, but there was no point. Her mind was already made up.
"I know all of you will stop at nothing to find your friend, and to bring him to his senses." Alyse continued, "Work together, trust in one another, and leave nothing to chance. Vineta, it’s your shot to call.”
“Right…” Vineta exhaled nervously, gesturing for the others to join her by the wayshrine.
“Trelen, wait—” Alyse grabbed his arm, and he turned to face her with a small scowl.
He couldn't help but feel angry that after all her talk about him being foolsh, she was about to go down there and chase after Xander alone. Of course, she was probably more powerful than all of them combined, but that somehow made it feel even worse; like she knew they weren't good enough to stand toe-to-toe with what needed to be done.
Alyse reached into her cloak momentarily, and pulled something out. Bly’s brow creased unexpectedly, as Alyse placed the spell scroll Missus Stein had given him all those weeks ago into his open hand. As he clutched it confusedly, she said, “I’d hoped to give this back to you sooner, but…well, the translation is complete. It’s an invisibility spell, might be useful down there if you land in a spot of trouble. I’ve written the incantation on the back of the scroll for you. I know how much you hate my handwriting, but you’ll just have to make do—”
“Thanks.” Bly forced his voice above hers. For a split second, he regretted even being angry at her at all. She was willing to do whatever it took, same as him, and despite how she probably felt about Xander, Bly knew there was nothing she wouldn't do to try and bring him back too. Shrugging, Bly clutched the spell scroll, “I guess I'll try not to let you down again.”
“Uh—” Alyse stammered; her face riddled with momentary bewilderment. However, a small smile etched her face thereafter, “I know you won't. Now, go. I'm counting on you.”
With a nod, Bly stepped backwards, and in the blink of an eye he was engulfed in a flash of white light.
Blinking several times, the sounds of footsteps echoing against stonework immediately filled his ears. As his eyes adjusted to Vineta’s newly formed light spell, the rest of the party slowly began to spread out across the wayshrine chamber on the first floor.
“Well…” Vineta sighed, “Let’s take stock one last time before we head down.”
Suddenly, a message blipped across Blychert’s vision.
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[Sage ---> System Notification]
> You’ve been invited to join [Bold Arrow]
> Do you accept?
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Bly glanced up at Vineta, whose steely features remained resolute by what little light they had, as she studied her own sage terminal. Pressing to accept the invitation, he glanced down a bit further, selecting his role of damage support as he did, when he noticed something peculiar. Not only was Vineta now listed as the party leader, but Xander wasn’t even listed as being in the party at all.
“Hey? When did Xander—”
“I don’t know.” Vineta shook her head, meeting Bly’s gaze with a woeful expression. She muttered, “But it had to be today, because I was working in my terminal just last night, and everything was normal—he was normal. Wasn’t he?”
Bly shrugged, “I don’t know. Maybe… he just couldn’t leave after all, not without finishing what he came out here for. Or maybe this was his plan the whole time?”
“The whole time…?” Vineta echoed, as if Bly had just said something completely horrifying.
“Hey, it’s alright,” Bredic walked up behind her, patting her shoulder twice as if to comfort her, “We’re going to find that bastard. Believe it—”
“And you think that will change anything?!” Vineta shouted, as if all the emotions she'd been holding back finally broke her. She jerked forward, saying, “Bredic, I know you didn’t want to be here in the first place, and I know you still blame him for Norman’s death, so you can just drop the act already. I doubt you care if we even find him at all!”
“Hey, you don’t need to be so—”
“I knew, but I didn’t say anything, and that’s my fault.” She interjected, her face falling low and her voice trembling, “I could see this party falling apart at the seams, but… I just wanted this trip to bring us all back together. Like we used to be. But that’s what Miss Crane was trying to say, wasn’t it? We haven’t changed. We just keep lying. We haven’t solved any of our problems. We’ve only made them worse! And now Xander's probably—probably—”
Bur she couldn't seem to bring herself to say it… dead, and the chamber fell silent except for her quiet sobs.
Blychert remained silent too, unable to imagine what he was supposed to say in a situation like this. He didn’t have any right to step into this conversation, no matter how much he wanted to. However, it was at that moment, that a long, furious rumbling shook the entirety of the wayshrine chamber. Several pieces of stone fell to the floor, as Bly caught hold of a nearby wall to stabilize himself. The rumbling ceased a few moments later, and the quiet returned.
“We need to move.” Vineta composed herself enough to say, wiping her eyes as she added, “We had six healing potions, minus the two that Xander likely had on him, so four. We have two tinctures from the treasure horde, one poison resistance and one physical resistance, as well as a potion of alertness. The helmet—Lisel, tell me you still have it?”
Lisel nodded wordlessly.
“Good… that’s one thing he didn’t take.” Vineta murmured to herself, before looking back across to Lisel, “You put that on, we'll need your sensing at maximum. Everyone gets a healing potion, I'll hold onto the tinctures. Otherwise—look, our strategy is the same as it’s always been. Okay? Trelen, do you think you can focus on damage? I’ll take on full defensive duties, if so.”
“I can, I—” He stammered, gulping once before he could bring himself to say, “I got a drop from Glemberfang, when I… killed it. I meant to tell you guys, but I didn't. I'm sorry."
“Hm.” Vineta simply shrugged, as if unaffected by the revelation, “Then please do. We’re going to need every bit of help that we can get. And anyway, you earned it. Pleased don't apologize for that, it doesn't matter now anyway.”
Bly felt his insides turn upside down, his lips parted slightly in exasperation. So much for all that guilt he’d been holding onto, she hadn’t even paused to think about what he’d just said! Let alone that he’d been holding out on them. Well, he had been, in more ways than just one. And that was the truth, but one he'd surely have to take to his grave.
Turning, Vineta started in the direction of the stairs leading down to the second floor without another word. There was an air of composure about her all of a sudden, as if she'd finally come to some understanding with herself. Bredic gave Bly a simple look of understanding too, before shrugging, and heading off after her, his spellbook already in hand.
“Thanks for being here, Trelen. You and your teacher” Lisel said gingerly, stepping up next to Blychert for a moment, “I know none of this is your problem, but… I'm glad you're here.”
Bly shook his head, “You were wrong. I haven’t kept my promse. Not yet. But… I will.”
Lisel nodded slowly, and gestured for them to follow after the others.
As they walked, Blychert stuck his fingers into his pocket momentarily, feeling around for the resonance stone. The cold, smooth rock felt strange but comforting in his hand, like a little piece of good luck, and he wondered if he wouldn’t need a bit of luck tonight. But as he started forward, reaching the edge of the steps leading down, he knew in his gut that beyond a shadow of a doubt he was ready to risk his life for Bold Arrow once again.
That was the kind of sorcerer he wished to be, because… this was his party.
This was were he belonged.