Dungeons weren’t exactly common, especially in Fortissia, so under normal circumstances a nearby Dungeon might be seen as a cause for celebration for a town like Twinwater. Most dungeons were a great deal more difficult to conquer than the one that had sprang into existence beneath Invicta, taking months if not years of effort from multiple teams of adventurers before finally being fully cleared. All the while, adventurers would stream into the nearby towns, dreaming of the treasures they might find in the depths of such a place - and bringing with them the sort of wealth that even nobles paid attention to.
But there were two sides to every coin, and a dungeon left abandoned for decades - let alone centuries - was as likely to destroy a town by its mere presence as it was to make it prosper, and Zen was only too happy to tell them how his careful analysis of the runes had marked the door as being at least two hundred years old.
Just thinking about the sort of horrors that might be sealed beyond it made Vivi’s blood run cold.
“Are we sure we want to do this?” Monika asked softly, her voice echoing the thoughts of everyone present. “If the door is truly that old, there could be a Hero ranked threat lying beyond it.”
“Don’t fret,” Zen said cheerfully, blissfully blind to the tension in the air. “There are several warnings carved into the door, yes, but they clearly state that the beast they contain is a demon!”
Everyone gave the scholar a flat look that bordered on outright hostility.
“Don’t you see?” He said, positively giddy. “The ruins above the door were of a temple. A holy place! Foul, blasphemous creatures like demons quickly perish when contained in such places, and anyone desperate enough to use a demon as a guard must have left truly fantastic rewards behind, as well!”
“Or,” Lucas countered dryly, “the damn thing was so strong that only sacred ground could properly contain it.”
“Even if that is the case,” the scholar replied, his enthusiasm waning, “you in particular should be able to wound such creatures gravely. You drank from the spring there, after all! Its powers suffuse your very being! With such a warrior on our side, what need have we to fear?”
“Your age is showing,” Niko said as he lazily lifted his tankard. “Or maybe just your reading habits. Seriously, why do you talk like you’re 500 whenever you get excited?” He shook his head as he finished his drink. “Nevermind. Doesn’t matter - you do you. Just… give it to us straight. Is that door holding strong, or on its last legs? Because if that thing’s breaking down, we gotta go in, like it or not.”
Zen simply looked at him, a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment clearly written on what little was visible of his face. Everyone could tell he didn’t want to answer - which was, of course, an answer in and of itself.
“Well then,” the pyromancer said softly, “I can’t speak for everyone, but I am not letting whatever’s down there tear through town if I think there’s even a tiny chance I can stop it. You guys with me?” He looked over to his teammates, who nodded, albeit slowly.
“Ferris Stoneshield is no coward,” the dwarf grumbled.
“Nothing like almost dying to spice things up!” Lucy added cheerfully.
“You’re always at your best when facing disaster,” Monika noted with a small smile. “That is why you’re our leader.”
Niko flushed slightly at that.
“That reminds me - do we have a leader?” Lucas asked idly.
“I thought that was you?” Damaia said, surprised.
“Do we really want the caffeine addict in charge, though?” Jubel said lightly.
“Shouldn’t we be discussing something more important?” Vivi said sharply. “Like, I don’t know, whether or not we want to head into a deadly ancient ruin tomorrow?”
“Why waste time discussing the obvious?” Lucas asked, puzzled. “Twinwater’s your home. I don’t care if that dungeon has been around for a week or a millennium, if it poses a threat to this place, it’s got to go! Now, I was going to say I shouldn’t be in charge, but now that Jubel’s opposed to it -”
Vivi sat back and listened to the pair bicker, shooting Damaia a questioning glance. A bright smile and an enthusiastic nod were her only reply. Jubel noticed the exchange and, without even stopping his halfhearted rant on Lucas’ many flaws, shot her a smile of his own.
Ignis had come to a decision quickly, but to Valorous, there was never a decision to make in the first place.
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“Another Dungeon so soon?” a familiar voice drawled through the haze of an already fading dream. “You’ve become rather bold, haven’t you?”
Jubel blinked a few times, his mind taking a minute to catch up. He was sitting at the same table he’d been at a few hours ago, before he’d headed up to bed. Across from him, the eternally smiling, slight smug visage of Nihlus sat, a martini in his hand.
“I wouldn’t say bold,” he replied finally, “more… determined.”
“Good,” the pale figure said with a smirk. “Bold is just another word for brave, really, and courage coincides with stupidity too often. Keep a clear head, Jubel, and you’ll go far. Especially now that you’ve found the hilt of Rend.”
The pitch black hilt appeared between them, thin black threads tied to the crossguard connecting to each of them. “Isn’t it a thing of beauty?” Nihlus whispered, his tone practically awestruck. “The mightiest weapon the world has ever seen - when it was whole, at least. It may never reach such heights again, but with your help… there is a chance, at least.”
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“Rend, huh?” Jublel murmured, staring at the deadly weapon. “What is it, Nihlus?”
“A hilt.”
The half elf deadpanned at the man that sat across from him. “A hilt able to make a blade that can cut through steel like a hot knife through butter. A hilt that’s able to disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye. A hilt that’s only one piece of something much, much stronger. Nihlus, if I told an archmage that the hilt alone was an artifact, would they be able to prove me wrong?”
The pale figure sitting across from him said nothing, which was all the answer Jubel needed.
“I’ve no intention of backing out of our deal,” he said firmly, “but I want to know what I’m dealing with. If you want me at my best, I need to understand the stakes. What is Rend?”
“That’s… difficult to explain,” Nihlus said quietly. “You mortals see things quite differently than I do. It’s…determination. It’s the power to tear asunder all that stands between you and your goal. It is the essence of what was and will be.”
He leaned in close, his voice little more than a reverent whisper.
“It was the first, and probably the last, of its kind. It is cold and hungry and furious- but out of place, and very much alone. It’s as much a part of me as your arm is a part of you, Jubel, but I’ve been without it for a long, long time. I made a mistake. I trusted the wrong people, and paid a terrible price.”
There was a peculiar sadness in the pale man’s voice as he finished speaking, a mixture of grief and longing in his eyes that seemed somehow familiar to Jubel. On instinct, the half elf reached out and lay a hand on the man’s shoulder.
It was cold - incredibly cold, as if it had never known what heat was meant to be, and the chill of it shot down his arm, but he did not pull away.
Nihlus shot him a look. “You really are a peculiar boy, aren’t you?” he muttered.
“So I’ve been told. ”
The ancient being laughed mirthlessly. “I suppose you would’ve been, eh?” In that moment, it occurred to Jubel that, in spite of their oddly frequent conversations, he honestly didn’t know what Nihlus really was. He opened his mouth to ask, but before he could speak, the world around him began to flicker and fade.
“You’re starting to wake up,” Nihlus murmured. “Well, then, let’s settle things. A gift, Jubel, to celebrate your first major victory.”
He raised his mug in the air with a sardonic smile, toasting the half elf even as the boy staggered, barely managing to stay on his feet.
Jubel gasped as the crushing wave of information overwhelmed his mind, but this time, he was ready.
He watched as the man’s eyes turned into starlit voids, and galaxies flickered in and out of existence therein. He held the strange being’s gaze as power rippled through the air between him, and saw something akin to respect flitted across his patron’s all too human face.
“Use this power well, Jubel,” he said as the world collapsed around him, fading into an increasingly familiar starlit void. “I have the strangest feeling you will need it.”
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The massive door that Ignis led them to the next morning was less a stone slab covered in runes, and more a series of runes held together by the occasional scrap of stone. Several of the runes were still glowing, but the vast majority had gone dark, leaving the door looking both ancient and unfinished.
“So,” Niko said slowly, “how do we open it?”
There was a long silence.
“You did figure that part out, right?” Lucy said, shooting the nervous scholar a suspicious glance.
“Well, yes, but - well, there’s magic involved.” The heavily bandaged man fidgeted a bit, glancing at each adventurer in turn before blurting out, “We need to deactivate several of these runes to open it without a key! Once that’s done, we can open the door, but closing it again…” He lifted one hand, wobbling it back and forth uncertainly.
Damaia walked forwards, her eyes gleaming. “I can help! I’m not an expert or anything, but my Papa made sure I learned a bit about old runes. You know, for fortification enchantments and stuff.”
“Your last attempt to disarm runes caused a cave in,” Lucas reminded her.
“That was my fault, not hers,” Vivi said, leaping to her friend’s defense. “Besides, that was when dealing with a trap specifically designed to cause a structural collapse. This is just a lock! What could possibly go-” she cut herself off just in time.
“Wrong,” Lucas finished. “The phrase goes, ‘What could possibly go wrong’ Vivi. The words aren’t cursed!”
“You have no sense for narrative weight!” she snapped.”That attitude is going to get someone killed, Lucas!”
“Right. Sure. But until then, here in the real world, we have a door to get through. You were saying?”
“I was saying,” the elf said slowly, glaring at Lucas, “that the worst thing that could happen would be for the lock to break, which would either let us in anyway, or stop the doors from ever opening again, sealing whatever dangerous thing might be on the other side in there forever. That sounds like a win-win situation to me.”
Lucas nodded in agreement, frowning. “Before we mess with anything, though, can our resident bookworm tell us what the rest of the runes say? Could be important.”
Zen stood up straight, clearing his throat and pulling at his collar. “According to the runes, beyond this point lies a place called The Trial of Sun and Moon. During The Trial, you shall be tested by wicked demons, who seek to deceive or destroy you. Should you reach the final guardian, you may either claim the treasure they guard, or barter with them for… the runes are worn down and difficult to read, but I believe it means something like ‘gifts’? The bottom of the door says ‘do not take the heart, else shall the barrier fall’ which sounds like good advice to me, but doesn’t really explain much, and then…” The scholar nervously wiped the sweat from his brow.
“The last part says something strange. ‘Light and dark forever dance; From Shadow cometh Light -’ the rest seems to be worn away, though.”
“If that’s all, let’s get to work!’ The felblood engineer chirped, reaching for one of the few runes that actually glowed with a bright smile.
The second she touched the rune, though, the world began to shake.
A wave of agony ripped through her outstretched arm as cracks rippled outward from hand in a spiral pattern. The rune beneath her palm shone so brightly that it hurt to look at, and a hollow, unnatural voice echoed in the engineer’s mind as the door trembled.
Is that -? Where are you? Please… help me!
Then, the door crumbled, stones reduced to dust in seconds as Damaia collapsed, exhausted. The other adventurers stared at the massive, empty doorway, each of them tensely awaiting some sort of monster or secondary disaster, but none came.
Vivi turned to her shapeshifting teammate with a scowl, raising one eyebrow.
“OK,” Lucas said reluctantly, “maybe those words are slightly cursed.”