Verz’s icy shout snapped the adepts out of their daze causing them to quickly spring to their feet and salute their captain with a right fist to the chest.
“Welcome back Captain,” said Bruce in a strong voice attempting to conceal his embarrassment from his earlier behaviour as he stealthily wiped the dust off his trousers.
Although they had many questions relating to what had happened and all of the strange things that had been said, all of them knew better than to ask directly, especially with the Captain there and decided to focus on the task at hand.
Bruce gave a dark look towards Mors -”When we get out of earshot I am going to make Mors tell my everything... there is no way he is as powerful as they said. It must have been the Captains energy masking his or they are trying to suck up to the Captain as he is her favourite.”
Verz gave the group a quick once over, checking their equipment and nodded. “Looks like everyone's prepared. Rock go over the details of their trial and provide them with the map.”
Rock shuffled over sheepishly refusing to make eye contact with Verz and quickly handed Bruce a map. “Right then I won't fool you guys, you drew the short straw this year with the trial task and have a potentially corrupted investigation. If the presence of corrupted is confirmed you're to commence a purge with extreme prejudice.”
Alice and Claire both let out small gasps as they clenched their fists. Alice looked at her sister with a pained expression. -”Why did we have to get a corrupt investigation! Not only are the mortality rates stupidly high but if you find any evidence you may even have to kill innocents.”
“The target of this investigation is the goblin mining town of Garrenth located in the mountain range to the north of the Shimmering Sands. This journey is undertaken as part of the Great Seven alliance and will take you far from Federation Lands.” continued Rock monotonously ignoring the worried gazed of the adepts.
“There are a couple of major fractions and a sack full of smaller ones, that have at the best, an icy relationship with the Federation if they are not completely hostile. As such you are not to take any items that will link you to the Federation bar your soul weapon and they are to only be used as an absolute last resort.”
The complexion of the adepts quickly paled as Rock continued to speak. The Pathfinder trials were notoriously difficult however even a simpleton would be able to tell that this was fast approaching something akin to a suicide mission.
“Mentor… what adventure difficulty would you give this mission” interrupted Alice in a concerned voice.
Rock was slightly annoyed at the interruption but let it slide as it was one of his own mentees. “It would be a C+ ranking if you were normal adventurers however as you will be so far from friendly territory and without support it should be around a A- Rank.”
The five adepts gasped in surprise and looked at each other. A rank missions were only available to those of Barron rank and above.
“Don't worry, initially we estimated Mors to be a Barron at a minimum so would be able to pick up the slack but after today's little display, in terms of strength alone he should already on par with our Captain… as long as he is awake that is.”
Traces of anger flickered across Bruce's eyes -"Lies! How can he be more powerful than me? I haven't seen him display one feat of strength. He gets lucky and falls into a pre-slaughtered troll tomb and everyone thinks he is some kind of big shot!"
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All of the adepts turned to look where Mors was previously standing but were startled to find he wasn't there. Following the quiet sound of snoring, they looked down to find Mors fast asleep on top of their bags.
“H..H..HE IS MEANT TO BE KEEPING US SAFE!” Shouted Clare as she gave a lightning-quick kick to Mor’s side causing her to jump back and clutch her foot in pain and a slightly louder snore to escape from Mors.
Rock turned to look at Verz but seeing that she was enjoying the show he dejectedly turned back with a huff.
“Leave him be. Knowing the Captain and sensing the injuries on his body he is probably exhausted and if you want him in any fit state to travel, a quick nap won't hurt,” commanded Rock trying to maintain some authority. “Anyway if you keep your heads down and… Mors out of trouble you should be in and out without a problem. It's the corrupted you may be facing that will be the problem.”
Not much were known about the corrupted but they were believed to be the followers of a fallen god who had once attempted to bring about the end of the world through dark magic and necromancy.
When the corrupted first appeared out of the blue over 100 years ago, many nations fell under their vicious surprise attack forcing the remaining kingdoms to band together in an alliance which was called the Great Seven after the seven heroes who finally managed to kill the corrupt primarch at the cost of their lives causing a corrupt horde of over 10 million to fall.
Corrupted were considered more of a plague than a true religion due to the way they spread. Those who joined willingly sacrifice their souls were granted immense power while they followed the will of their god.
At the cost of the casters life essence, they could forcefully convert others and take them under their control. The most simple types were nothing better than mindless zombies however if they invested more of the casters life essence the individual could maintain varying levels of intelligence and free thought.
The puppet could then infect others by using their own life essence and thus create an 'infection' that could overpower kingdoms in a matter of weeks. The only thing that stopped them from spreading like wildfire was that they could only control those they directly corrupted themselves. The intelligence of the converted individuals would also reflect upon any they corrupted creating a chain where only those at the top were a real threat. When the chain was cut by one of them dying, any underneath them that did not maintain some intelligence would become nothing more than a vegetable making them extremely easy to purge.
This also meant that only the simplest of commands could be issued to the rank and file corrupt such as kill or destroy because soon as a low intelligence corrupted was encountered in the chain of command, it wouldn't be able to understand the command well enough to pass it on.
Because very few sane people were willing to sacrifice their eternal soul for some temporary power, corrupted were extremely rare and dangerous when encountered. When a cult of corrupted were found the entire area’s population was often culled for fear of a semi-intelligent survivor escaping and creating a corrupt horde.
Due to having to use their life essence which was an extremely precious resource basically trading away years of their life, modern corrupted only converted those with a huge amount of essence or importance that could control others without the need for a conversion.
Being actively hunted had resulted in only the most crafty and secretive corrupt to survive, constantly on the move and only revealing themselves when the situation was nearly 100% in their favour. Because of this, when any rumour of corrupt happenings is heard, it is up to organisations like the Pathfinders to investigate and if any traces are found, purge.
“The travel time should be around two months if you go at a fairly decent speed however the route is pretty perilous and I strongly recommend you take it at a safe, cautious pace. It's far from the Federation's borders so don't expect any help if the shit hits the fan.”
Rock paused for a bit to make sure they were paying attention only for the silence to be interrupted by Mors' sleep talking in a harsh, menacing unknown language causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. -”I swear the first time I heard him talk in whatever that cursed language is, I felt 10 years instantly drop off my life.”