It was about half past one when Oscar and Vera reached Sunset Forest. The network of trees earned its name from being the western-most expanse on the continent of Grandom, one that would see the last of the sun before it set over the horizon. It was also considered one of the largest forests at the time, while it wasn’t as old as some of those around Niyeton, the father mountain, it had seen rapid growth in the last few centuries.
Sunset Forest was home to a secret base deep in, one that Oscar and Vera were trying to get to. John Reech had hidden the entrance so well, even those that were privy to the hideout had difficulty locating it.
Oscar was lucky to have Vera with him – she had taken more care to study where it was, and without her, Oscar might’ve had to wait at a local town for another base member to eventually pick him up.
“You better find it!” Oscar declared, balancing his battle staff on the back of his neck, with a hand holding it on the right end. “Reech is gonna be peeved if we don’t get back to him soon.”
“Like you’re any help. I’ll be sure to let him know I did all the work in getting us back,” she responded in frustration.
Vera had all the landmarks memorized, for the most part. The real difficulty was finding the mossy stone door beside a drop off. No easy feat, seeing as every rocky face in the forest was covered in moss.
Oscar was growing tired of the traveling. He had half the mind that Vera was as lost as he was, but held out hope in her as she seemingly guided them in circles. Eventually though, a familiar sight flooded his gaze, a specific creek with lily pads.
“Oi!” Oscar pointed out, ready to let Vera know they were in the right direction.
“I know, we’re almost there,” she said, relieved.
“And here I thought I was losing hope on you,” Oscar teased.
From there, it was smooth sailing to the entrance. After passing the creek, the two of them walked down a slippery incline. They took a sharp right, and before them was a small mossy cliff face. Vera approached, looking intimidated before the puzzle in front of her.
She started studying the uneven stone, looking for something specific. Oscar stood in the distance behind her, twirling his metal battle staff in impatience.
Some time passed as her hands traveled along the stone face. She felt every nook and cranny, looking for something out of place.
“Pressure points, Vera. You’re trying to find the points that push in!” He obnoxiously reminded her.
She sharply turned around, and gave him an evil stare, part annoyance, part frustration in lack of his help.
To Oscar though, he felt as if he had been quite helpful. He had continually reassured her about any doubts he thought she might have – a service he had been offering for free.
He gave her an easy shrug from the stare. She turned around and continued her search.
Oscar turned his back on her, and gazed outwardly to the forest in front of him. He scanned his view, keeping an eye out for anyone who could be witnessing their actions. Vera was taking a long time, and Oscar knew that it would increase the risk of someone spotting them, giving away the base location.
Not that anyone would be out here. The base had been cleverly established in a chunk of the rainy forest far from any civilization. He still began to wonder, though, if anyone had ever accidentally stumbled upon it. Reech was so secretive, Oscar wouldn’t put it past him to make the witness ‘disappear’ from some unfortunate event in consequence.
Click!
Oscar turned around to see Vera pushing in the final pressure point. A large portion of the wall began to vibrate. She quickly gestured him over to her.
He hopped over a small running river in front of him, and met her by her side. The stone wall in front of them sunk inward, then began sliding to the left.
“Remind me where those points are, later,” Oscar quietly mentioned to her.
“There’s a drawing in my room. I’ll show it to you again.”
When the moving wall had cleared the way, both of them headed inside. After a few seconds, the camouflaged stone door that was now behind them began to vibrate again as it prepared to close.
Before them was a narrow cave path that gradually declined further into the ground. Above them were chained lamps, dimly lighting the way in front of them. They walked down the entrance, and into the hidden base before them.
The familiar, musty smell of the cave reminded Oscar that he was home after being away for nearly a week. He followed Vera as she navigated a series of tunnels that sloped downward into the earth. They passed a few turns and splits, a natural defense to the base that would deter invaders.
What started as a simple cave network grew into a large cavern as they reached the end of the entrance’s maze. Before them was familiarity, but even after living in this subterranean home for years at this point, it was still a beauty to behold.
The large open-ended cavern that slumbered under Sunset Forest was lit with both a mixture of lamps and beautiful, glowing crystals of varying sizes and color. The ends of these crystals reached out from the rock that they were stationed in, exposing their flawlessness that they seemed to have developed in such a dreary environment.
This cavern was not just a secret gem mine that remained undiscovered by some large company, but it was also purposed into John Reech’s headquarters and base of operations for his organization.
Oscar and Vera, who were recruited into his family, were brought to this magical location a few years ago. From what they had been rescued from, this place was paradise to them, and even after beholding the cavern time and time again, the sight never grew old.
Oscar walked down the stone stairs in front of him, and glanced at his surroundings. The walls had passages burrowed into the stone, creating artificial halls for bedrooms and other rooms cut off from the center cavern.
In the main cavern itself was nearly everything else. The very center sported a long table to eat and socialize at, in the corners were a kitchen, storage and other crafting stations and utilities. One back corner had an orange glow from a forgemaster’s flame. Another had a sparring ring with target dummies, to the right of that was a range with ringed targets at the end. On the opposite wall from where Oscar stood, was a grander passage that led into Reech’s conference room and office.
It was the first place that the two of them had to report to when first returning.
“I wonder who’s home,” Oscar guessed as he failed to see anyone dwelling in the center cavern.
“It is mid-day,” Vera reminded him. “Most of them are probably out doing something.”
They walked across the middle of the room, passing the stations around them. When they got near the forge, however, both of them heard a rustling of metal down the hall closest to it.
Oscar knew that must be Jorgen near by. He waited a moment, and sure enough, the short, muscular man appeared around the corner, holding several chunks of colored metals.
Jorgen was a black haired man of a dwarven height. That description alone was nearly all there was to him. Black hair covered him nearly everywhere. The hair that grew from his arms and legs almost was a match for the hair from his face and head.
His muscular form would have been intimidating if it wasn’t for the fact that he stood barely taller than the forge mouth he pulled metal to and from so often.
A smile formed underneath his beard, unable to be seen from anyone, when he saw Oscar and Vera walk by.
“Aye, look who’s home!” He bellowed out, dropping the ores near his workstation, and briskly walking over to them.
“Jorgen!” Oscar responded. He was happy to see that not a thing had changed with him. Jorgen gave Oscar a hug, then hugged Vera too.
Before anything else was said though, Jorgen took notice of Oscar’s gunmetal staff, eyeing it up and down.
“What in blazes is that thing?!” Jorgen demanded in a disgusted voice, pointing at the low grade pole that he had clutched in his hand.
Oscar gave a disappointing look, trying to figure out how to explain what had happened to Jorgen’s latest prized weapon he had crafted for the young man.
“The staff you made for me is gone,” Oscar started. “Lost from battle.”
Jorgen’s mouth hung open in shock as he looked from Oscar to Vera and back. His beady eyes were wide open, hearing the sullen news.
“Sullivan Marin broke it in half,” Vera added.
“He WHAT?!” Jorgen responded in a growl, the angry dwarven noises making him scarier.
“He froze the staff, and snapped it clean off with a single hand,” Oscar explained.
Jorgen furiously shook his head, his black beard rustling, trying to keep up.
“That’s impossible. That staff can’t be broken. It’s made with mythril! Coated in a golden shaconium alloy! I spent a week forging that thing! What happened to it really?”
“That was really it.”
Anger turned into a shocking, numb despair for Jorgen. His gaze drifted in thought as he stepped backwards.
“I-I don’ believe it,” the dwarf said in a softer tone, still in denial.
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Jorgen was commissioned by his leader, Reech, to craft the battle staff for him when Oscar had recently reached a new skill level of being a crystal elemental.
All this time, Oscar had been training his use of his chosen element while using a lower, common grade staff. The expensive, mythril one that Jorgen made for Oscar, allowed him to channel the elemental strength through the staff, heightening his ability to create complex crystals for battle.
Jorgen was an experienced forgemaster, but even one as well skilled as his him needed nearly a week to meticulously create the weapon. The cavern they lived in contained most of the rare metals he needed, but some had to be ordered from different parts of the land.
Hours of smelting the exclusive ores in flames that burned in different properties from exotic fuels led to hours of hammering and combining the metals until his finished product was a masterpiece worth hundreds, maybe even one thousand gold coins.
The forged product after cooling and hardening resulted into a rod nearly incapable of being even slightly bent, let alone ever, ever, being snapped in two.
And that, from what Jorgen was hearing, was exactly what had happened. His prized weapon he created met its end within an instant in the singular hand of a cold, undead ice elemental.
Vera noticed that Oscar looked quite upset as the topic had been forcibly brought up, nearly as heart stricken as the day he lost it. Both Jorgen and Oscar had an equally sullen expression, one sad his week’s worth of work was destroyed, the other sad it had been while it was in his care.
“Look, it wasn’t destroyed in vain. The stunt Marin pulled allowed us to get a measurement of his power,” Vera explained, trying to cheer them up. “And besides, at least the staff was the only thing destroyed. I’d rather have that gone than Oscar,” she added.
“Aye,” Jorgen conceded. “Still won’t stop me from holdin’ a funeral for the blasted thing.” He turned to walk away. “Freakin’ metals from Shacone in his hands now. I tell ya, if he was lookin’ to reforge-” Jorgen’s voice trailed off as he stormed away.
Vera turned towards Oscar. “You could’ve hid that thing and delivered the bad news later,” she scolded him as he brandished his clutched staff.
“Oh yeah sure, let me just put this in my back pocket. Or maybe you had a better way to conceal it,” Oscar responded sarcastically. Did Vera really think that there was some way he could hide a metal rod that rivaled his own height?
She shook her head in realization. “Well… I just hope he can get the chance to make you a new one,” she tried convincing herself, knowing how expensive the materials were.
Their brief stop by the forge concluded as they continued deeper into the cavern, and to the passageway that led into Reech’s office. As they grew closer, the crystals surrounding them become more numerous and brilliant. It was as if they were getting close to the core of the gem network.
The archway into his office was adorned with them, the fiercest glow yet, and flawless in nature. They were arranged in alternating hues, offering every color of the visible spectrum. In the hallway, the rough, burrowed stone walls were replaced with bricks, signaling a custom made interior.
The hallway opened up into a spacious, circular room, wrapped in stone bricks. Spacious would have been a good description, if it had not been packed with books, paperwork, filing cabinets, and shelving units containing dusty knick knacks and other enchanted items. Stacks of unorganized papers and books littered most of the floor’s real estate, leaving very little room to get around.
When all was said and done, the only open space was a trail leading to the center of the round room, with a desk in the middle. A second walkable trailed started behind that, leading to a staircase tucked against the back wall, leading to a second floor above them.
“You in, John?!” Oscar shouted out as they approached the desk. He looked down at a glowing green orb sitting on the left corner of the desk. It had some sort of slimy creature contained inside, bouncing around the glass walls.
A rumbling could be heard from the floor above. The sound of a wooden chair being scooted back followed quickly after. After a moment or so, an old man in his early seventies began to step down the stairs on the back wall.
He wore maroon colored robes with gold trim. His wrinkled head was hardly covered by thin wisps of white hair. Under a pronounced nose was a grand white beard that was almost pure in color, if you ignored the light spray of gray that entangled it. It was as if all the hair on his head and lazily retreated to his chin.
Despite the fancy robes he wore, it was not enough to hide the fact that his body seemed quite malnourished. His stature was that of a feeble man, the slouch of his back weighed down from years of turmoil.
Yet despite the frail look, he briskly descended the stairs as fast as any healthy, fully capable person could. The old man turned his body to avoid the paper walls of his narrow passageway, meeting both Vera and Oscar at his front desk.
“Ah, you’re back,” John Reech said in a soft voice, barely above a whisper. Despite the tranquil tone of his simple statement, it radiated a form of authority.
“I can’t wait to read the report. I trust all went well?” He added, as he reached out for Vera’s folder of paperwork. Liver spots dotted the outside of his hand, his bony fingers ended with long fingernails. He had two rings on his hand, one of them Oscar was now really taking note of, for some reason.
“The mission yielded the intel you were looking for, but at a cost, unfortunately,” Vera explained. John grasped the folder, and retreated to the chair behind his desk. Oscar and Vera took seats on the opposite end of the table.
“What’s the damage?” John asked as he flipped the folder open, glancing at Vera’s handwritten notes.
Vera didn’t answer, she held her head down, yielding the answer to Oscar. Before Oscar noticed it was his chance to explain, a moment passed long enough for John to read about it.
“Ah,” the old man grunted, his eyes glancing from the folder to Oscar’s metal staff. “Well, that’s interesting. I wouldn’t have expected that.”
“You wouldn’t have?!” Oscar responded in a surprised manner.
“Other than that, it seems you both did spectacular.” He leafed through a few pages. “I’ll deep dive into this after dinner. I bet you two are happy to be back. Take some time for yourselves and relax. I’ll follow up with you later.” He closed the folder and rested it on his desk. It was a signal that he was done conversing with them for the time being. It was a short meeting.
“What part was unexpected? The attempt to break his staff, or the fact that he actually accomplished it?” Vera dared to ask.
The question caught Reech off guard, and it somewhat showed. For a moment, Vera wondered if she had overstepped with the inquiry. John didn’t deny her though, he looked down at the folder for a moment, deep in thought, then back up to her.
“The attempt, I suppose.”
At dinner, several base members sat around the table in the center of the great crystal cavern. The food in front of them was dimly lit by lantern and crystal alike, but adjusted eyes barely noticed how dark it was.
Oscar sat besides Vera, who was sitting near Jorgen. On the other side of the table was the chef who took the chance to eat his freshly-cooked food while it was hot. By the chef was another base member named Chel, a redhead gal with a short temper. She had two handguns holstered at her waist, weapons that she refused to part with, even at the supper table.
At the end of the table was a middle aged man, one in his fifties. He was of obese proportions, his three chins hanging above the massive plate of food in front of him. He was clean shaven and completely bald, a look that did not go well with his fattened, pudgy face. The only thing sitting on his thumb of a head was a pair of black framed glasses.
Sausage sized fingers wrapped around his fork, taking no time to gouge his medium rare beef.
“How’s Blane doing?” Oscar asked this large man at the end of the table.
He grunted in response. Oscar and Vera had been gone a week, and Blane took no effort in welcoming them back. Instead, he seemed happier that he had his meal before him, instead of the others sitting around him.
Oscar looked away, and turned back to Vera. “Nothing’s different with him,” he told her.
They all ate and held discussion, Oscar going over his story of how he fought Marin and lived. Vera was sure to remind them all that Oscar wasn’t very respectful to the target, taunting him and putting on a show.
“They just needed to know I was serious. I created a crystal wall stopping them from going back into the castle,” Oscar explained.
“You just HAD to duel him?!” Jorgen cried out.
“That was the mission! Find out how strong he is, a duel’s a great way to go about it,” he shot back.
“Yeah well maybe if Vera was there too, you could’ve gotten a duel with honor and he wouldn’t have broken the staff! The… beautiful… staff…” Jorgen started sobbing.
“Vera wasn’t allowed to go see him. Just me,” Oscar explained.
“What? That was John’s orders?” Jorgen bellowed back. “Why? That makes no sense! Obviously she should’ve gone too. I don’t know why John doesn’t-”
Before Jorgen could finish his statement, Blane loudly grunted at the end of the table. They all looked over to him.
“Do not criticize Reech,” Blane said threateningly, one sausage finger pushing down at the table. “You have no place to do so, and I don’t want to hear it again.”
All conversation stopped at hearing Blane’s bassy voice. There was a long pause of silence. The fat man said nothing else, and began eating again.
Jorgen lowered his head. “Aye.”
The conversations after that were lower in energy, and everyone talked about their day and events they had going on. An old story or two was told. Chel dared Oscar to do something unsafe, and he claimed he would try it out during a sparring match with the two of them.
The chef quickly got up as he remembered that a pot in the kitchen needed to be taken off the heat, and Vera had finished eating before everyone else yet again.
The entire time everyone talked and laughed, Blane sat quietly at the end of the table, the only noises coming from him were the grotesque sounds of teeth ripping away meat as he worked on a new haunch.
Everything was going well again, until all of a sudden, a massive spark of lightning reached out of the from the entrance of the cavern. The zapping trail of the terrifying white energy rose from the entrance, dancing along the ceiling of the cave until it dispersed. The fiercely loud noise of cracking electricity caused everyone’s head to turn, everyone but Blane, that was, who was sitting with his back turned to the entrance.
“Oh, Ryno’s back,” Oscar mumbled.
The base members at the table stopped talking again, and waited a brief moment until a new person walked into the cavern from the entrance cave network.
From a distance, it looked like an everyday old man. He was in his seventies, about the same age as John Reech. This man had a gray goatee around his mouth. He wore a brown hood and cape, and had on brown leathers. It was the same battle gear that elementals wore, such as Oscar’s bright orange and black skins, but this man had a much plainer look.
As he approached the table, he held his arms out high.
“FRIENDS! My friends!” He declared. A few sparks of white electricity danced off the back of his brown cloak as it trailed behind him.
The first thing Ryno did was come up behind Blane, who hadn’t turned at all, and who was still entirely occupied with his food.
“Blane buddy!” Ryno greeted as he put his two hands on either side of Blane’s wide, foothill sized shoulders. He shook him back and forth gently. “How goes the food today?” Ryno asked enthusiastically.
Blane grunted in response.
Ryno released his grip, and patted him on the back. “I love this guy!” He told the other base members. “I love him almost as much as he loves food.” He gave Blane one more firm pat on the back and walked towards the other base members at the table.
As intimidating as Blane was, Ryno treated him no more than a younger brother. He was the only one who could man handle the fat man as he did and get away with it.
“Vera, Chel, Jorgen,” Ryno nodded at as he walked by. The three he greeted barely did any more than acknowledge him.
“Oscar!” Ryno said, holding his hand out. “You fought the wizard and lived to tell about it. How did it go?!”
Oscar’s hand met Ryno’s for a handshake. Instantly, Oscar was met with a decent shock of electricity upon contact.
“Ouch!” Oscar yelled as he pulled his hand away.
“Whoops! I’m so sorry!” Ryno went for something in his back pocket. “Gloves,” he murmured to himself. “That’s what the gloves are for.”
Ryno slipped on a pair of brown gloves. “Let’s try that again,” he said as he held his hand out.
Oscar was scared, he did not want to attempt the handshake again, hell he never wanted to ever be in contact with Ryno at all, but the fear of disappointing the electric elemental overstepped all of that.
Oscar shook his hand again, hiding all the concern he could. Luckily, he did not get tazed again by Ryno’s palm.
“It was… um…” Oscar struggled to find the words as he looked into Ryno’s eyes.
Ryno’s bluish gray pupils had tiny flickers of electricity dancing inside them.
“He was… very… dangerous,” Oscar managed to get out as he thought about Ryno. “I mean mysterious! But I’m sure he’s dangerous too.”
Ryno grinned, showing his yellowed, crooked teeth. Some of them in the back were missing. “I bet he was.”
Oscar gulped.
Ryno suddenly realized he had leaned in way too close to Oscar and invaded his personal space. For sure Oscar would’ve let anyone else know that they were in too close, but again, this was Ryno.
He stepped back, allowing Oscar to breathe once again.
Ryno was a stupidly powerful electric elemental, he was several leagues of strength above anyone else who lived in Reech’s base, including Reech himself. From what Oscar had heard, the man could fold even Arkana’s greatest wizards within a single battle.
It made Oscar wonder why Ryno was even here, taking orders from a man much less powerful than he was.
“Anyways,” Ryno started as he stood straight back up. “I’ve got to talk to ol’ Johnny boy. The Reecher has probably got something new for me already. Dude’s been working me like a horse. It was nice seeing you all again.”
No one responded.
Ryno began to walk away, but not a few steps in, he turned back around. “Oh, and Jorgen?”
The black bearded dwarf looked up to him.
“I forgot where the pressure points on the door were again. And it uh, needs replaced. Again.”
Jorgen spat his drink out all over the table.