CHAPTER 23
Morning had dragged into afternoon, the sun’s swelter beating down on Frost and his group when Frost reached level eighteen. His aether increased to seventy after he’d gained another two points from skill use before leveling up. The constant action, the promise, and Gilda’s steady work rate kept Frost from asking after her well-being. But he did keep an eye on her whenever she wasn’t looking.
They took a break to eat, drink, and replenish aether. Meritus cast another round of Purifying Touch, Suppression, Ameliorate, and Rejuvenate on Gilda to ward off her debilitation. While she was recovering, Frost absorbed his Aether Barrage skill shard.
Skill Acquired
Aether Barrage:
Cast time: 2 seconds
Recharge: 20 seconds
Consumes: Aether
Available shard slots: 4
Effect: Rapidly fire eight Aether Shots. Can be activated at the start of Stand and Deliver to instantly increase the cyclic rate to maximum. Gain 1.5 percent Aether for each successful hit.
When Frost glanced up from examining his skills, Ryne was riding toward them.
The goblin dismounted next to the group, his expression one of disgust. “I have killed thousands of molewurms, and all I have gotten are two dozen normal Rejuvenate shards. This should not be so hard.”
“Been the same here.” Frost took a stock of his inventory. He had twenty-six Suppression shards.
Saba stopped chewing on her piece of fruit. “Seems as if Nakada lied to you.” Her gaze shifted to Meritus.
“Could be,” Meritus acknowledged. “Or maybe he didn’t know any better.”
“We could keep farming. It might just be an extremely rare drop.” Crimson-skinned Dante was sitting cross-legged, his axe beside him.
“Or we can hunt down Setnana and try to steal Benediction.” Gilda was standing, staring toward the west. “She’s gone to the Crypts to try to find her son.”
“What did you just say?” Frost frowned as he watched her.
Gilda’s gray splotches were more prominent than at any other time. “Setnana is going to the Crypts to find her son.”
“I thought he was dead.” Meritus’ attention was also on Gilda.
“Same here.” Frost stood and strode in front of her.
Gilda’s eyes were unfocused, as if she didn’t see Frost. The alien thing was there again, a darkness slithering behind the green of her pupils.
A chill ran through Frost despite the day’s heat. “Gilda?”
She was still looking through him.
“Gilda.”
He raised his voice. “GILDA!”
Her eyes focused on him. “Yes.” She gave a little shake of her head. “Sorry. It’s just that I feel a need to head west. It’s like something’s drawing me in that direction. And I think it’s the Crypts or something in them.”
“Maybe we should go see what it is.” Frost licked his lips as the alien thing faded, her eyes returning to bright green. “But that stuff about Setnana and her son. What made you say it?”
“Oh. It was something I just remembered. Her bodyguard, Ihuet, showed up when she was torturing me. He said her son had been found at the Forsaken Crypts. He mentioned that draconids and corrupted were drawn to the place. She said she’d head there once she got Benediction.”
“Why would she claim he’s dead, then?” Frost glanced from Gilda to the others.
“Could’ve just been an excuse to hunt you down or get others involved.” Meritus shrugged.
“That wouldn’t’ve been necessary,” Frost surmised. “She had enough reason with our connection to Blue Sky and the attack on Khafra the Mad.”
“Facts.” Meritus nodded.
“Regardless,” Dante said. “It sounds like we got a chance to take back the zhua and the skills.”
“The zhua, maybe.” Gilda was focused on the west again. “But not the skill-effect shards. They were consumed by some grand kora mystic Setnana had with her before you guys showed up. A Vindicator named Dita.”
“Damn it.” Frost pounded his palm with his fist.
“Setnana had a Vindicator down there? We fought a Vindicator?” Saba fixed Gilda with a sullen stare.
“Most likely.” Gilda shrugged. “But from what I remember she wasn’t all that strong and she was a little squeamish.”
“Neither of which matters.” Saba’s tail swished. “What matters is that we’re now likely to have Vindicators after us, who are several times worse than the Battleguards that hunted us previously.”
“I’m not convinced the Vindicators have been sent after us as yet.” Frost understood Saba’s concerns, and typically he would be worried also. But this was not typical. “If the Vindicator was helping spread the Gray Death, I doubt he’s gonna be reporting to his superiors.”
“We better hope that’s the case.” Saba stomped a hoof.
“I’m more concerned by the fact the Vindicator used the skill-effect shards.” Frost wracked his brain for a solution. “It means our best bet is to continue farming and hope for better luck.” Frost opened his mouth to speak again and stopped, brows drawing together. “Unless.”
“Unless what?” Saba asked.
“I’m such a fool.” Frost shook his head in exasperation.
“What makes you say that, dawg?” Meritus regarded Frost with a furrowed brow.
Frost’s thoughts raced. “I been so caught up in trying to save Gilda, what they did to her, and losing Benediction, that I haven’t been thinking straight. I completely forgot you told me there’s another way to get empowered skills.”
“Using a hierkaneer to craft them,” Frost added in response to Meritus’ confused look. “In fact, I don’t think they drop at all. I bet the one from Grenok came from a chest. Even the ones we found were in chests in the emperor’s room. Not on the emperor himself. I’d be willing to bet the skill-effect shards for empowerment don’t drop either. Not naturally.”
“Damn, that conversation slipped my mind.” Meritus shook his head. “And I stored the info from the books in the Halls of Illumination, but hadn’t gotten around to checking it after I got word from Naka Masami. One sec.” Meritus’ brows drew together. The moment stretched. “I feel bad now.” Meritus sighed. His mouth downturned. “I could’ve saved us some time. Empowered skills work similar to regular item and skill boosts, where artificers imbue an effect into an aether-infused gem, creating a shard. But to craft empowered shards, you need high quality gems as well as twenty normal skill-shards of the skill-effect you want to augment.”
“We have the shards.” Frost’s spirit soared.
“And we have the infused gems.” Meritus produced a bag from his inventory. “I saved a bunch from the mines. Planned to sell them on the Market.”
Meritus reached into the bag and came away with gemstones. They glinted in the sun. There were tourmalines, garnets, topazes, aquamarines, peridots, opals, citrines, and amethysts.
The gemstones all had one thing in common. Aether. Aether glowed within them.
Dante whistled. “Damn, we could be rich if we sold these.”
“But not rich enough to afford a hierkaneer,” Meritus said. “And we’d have to wait for them to sell.”
A glimmer of hope rose within Frost. “All that’s left is a Genesis Engine, a hierkaneer, and the rest of the mats to craft a Benediction. We don’t need to bother with finding Setnana at all.”
“It also means you must reach level twenty like the rest of us,” Saba said. “Can’t get into the Crypts before then.”
“We could continue to grind these mobs.” Dante gestured to the new spawns. “Exp was pretty good.”
Frost took in Gilda’s skin. More splotches stained it. Her face was haggard.
“Staying here is definitely
safer.” Saba pawed the ground. “Especially for two eradae. The Forsaken Crypts are in Puria, deep in the Kanpuri Vale. If our experience with Umesh Madara proved one thing, it’s that slavery and poaching erada horns is alive and well in the grand kora dominion.”
Frost knew of the dangers involved. “Safer but most likely not faster than if we completed quests near the Crypts. I really don’t care about the risk. Gilda’s got a day and a half if she’s like all the others.” He didn’t want to point out the dire issue, but it needed to be said.
“Why not let me take a group into the Crypts?” Ryne stared up at them, hope shining in his round eyes. “At my level we could clear it easily.”
“Not really.” Frost shook his head, remembering Zhi Yin’s words about the Crypts. “The dungeon scales in difficulty based on the highest person’s level when the group enters. So you’d all be facing level thirty-two mobs. And there’s no loot from mobs or chests for people above level twenty-five.”
Frost’s Comm Orb dinged. “One sec. It’s Adesh Hamada.”
Frost listened to the message. When it finished, he had a quest named Meet the Hierkaneer in The Cure line.
“Well, that just gave me more reason to take advantage of the quests near the Crypts to level faster. And to beat the dungeon.
“Adesh said there’s a Genesis Engine inside. Might be bullshit, but considering there was one in the Sanctum, and the dev made sure to give us a lil info about them before we came in-game, there’s a good chance it’s true. He’s already dispatched a hierkaneer to the Crypts.
“The bigger issue is that the Genesis Engine area will be an Open-PVP zone even if the rest of the dungeon isn’t. Which means we gotta get to it first. He also confirmed what Gilda overheard. The Gray Death is rampant in western Puria. Corrupted and void beasts are converging on the Crypts daily.”
Saba shook her head and blew out a long, slow breath. “That means an army of Vindicators is probably on its way, if it’s not there already. I want no part of them. Not right now.”
“A Vindicator army was my first fear also,” Frost said. “But Adesh claimed the Coalition has only dispatched a couple of them to help in Apur. The brunt of them went to the Front to face an army of draconids and void beasts led by several draconid generals and two lords.”
“Damn.” Dante wore a dreamy expression. “That makes me want max level so badly.”
“Same here.” Frost imagined how powerful he would be then. How strong Gilda would be. The sheer fun he would have completing endgame content with her by his side. The thought of those last two not happening tempered his dream. “But right now, we’re gonna take advantage of all this chaos to save Gilda.” Frost smiled in her direction.
Everyone agreed. They climbed atop their mounts. From his map, Frost picked out Obuchi, the nearest gurash city with a simurgh, deeper in western Lothal on the other side of the Sands. A few simurgh Velocity Surges would see them in Apur before the end of the day. With joyful cries, the flyers took to the air. Afternoon bled into evening as they flew, the day’s heat abating, the sun’s orange hues limning heaven’s fluff.
Even before Obuchi appeared upon the horizon, Frost noted scarves of smoke twisting in the distance. Meritus pointed. Frost nodded to let his friend know he had seen them.
The scarves grew more numerous, as did orange blooms at ground level. Booms followed. Low thunder like a grumbling belly. Black clouds swarmed this way and that in the sky between the smoke, various colored lights flashing among them. Frost knew what he was witnessing.
A battle. Magic. Aerial combat. All on a massive scale.
Dante’s voice in group chat cut through Frost’s thoughts. “Hey, I contacted one of my friends when I saw the smoke. Obuchi is under attack. Part of a Lothal civil war.
“General Asamar has staked a claim to become the next gurash Kalarch. Redthorn armies led by him and Umesh Madara have taken several western cities. Goddamned bastards.”
“Shit.” Frost scowled. “Maybe, we can still sneak into one to get a simurgh.”
“Not likely, bro,” Dante said.
“Gotta be some other place we could grab one.” Frost grimaced. It felt like the world was conspiring against their quest to save Gilda. “We need all the time we can get.”
“Sorry, bro, but there isn’t.” Melancholy eased from Dante’s voice. “My starting zone wasn’t far from here. I know this area well.”
Frost sighed, the need to save Gilda a weight on his chest. “What options we got?”
Dante took a moment before he replied, “Head north toward the Ouroboros Mountains to skirt the fight and fly all night if we have to.”
Frost traced the route and was taken aback. “Not only does that take us farther away, but we’d also be flying toward some of the most heavily guarded grand kora outposts.”
“I don’t see any other way, bro. Not if we’re to reach the Crypts by tomorrow morning.”
Frost squeezed his eyes tight. That would give them a day at most to cure Gilda. A day versus the chance of being caught up in the civil war. He opened his eyes and let out a slow breath. “Northwest, it is.”
CHAPTER 24
“We have arrived, my nomarch.” Ihuet’s voice woke Setnana.
She opened her eyes to the sun’s glare and Ihuet’s back, his cloak fluttering in the howling wind. Falling asleep while on her simurgh was a testament to her exhaustion despite a determination to remain awake on the flight to the Kanpuri Vale. Tilting her neck from side to side, she worked out the stiffness of being in an awkward position for an extended period of time. She took stock of her surroundings.
A savanna stretched beneath her, sandy roads carving paths through its grassy plains and into the heart of the lush Kanpuri jungle. A few miles before the trees was the Coalition blockade: a long line of tents, banners, and soldiers. Their purpose wasn’t to keep anyone or anything out, but to keep corrupted trapped in the vale. Not that it appeared as if any of the corrupted wanted to escape.
She did not care. None of the blockade’s rules applied to her. Not when it came to saving Perihy.
Setnana’s gaze was drawn to an unnatural gathering of dark clouds above Apur, the stone city that sprawled from one of the Indrati River’s massive bends. Thunderless lightning radiated within those clouds. Reminiscent of a voidstorm but for the missing vortex, the sight sent a chill through her.
Her attention shifted to Apur itself. Jutting above the jungle’s canopy was the Temple of Jerad’s infamous towers. She focused on the pyramid at the city’s center. The Forsaken Crypts. It was above the Crypts where the clouds were thickest, boiling with violent radiance.
“Do they still have Perihy cornered?” Setnana imagined her son, teeth bared and bloody.
“Yes. At the cost of over a dozen lives,” Ihuet answered. “They say trapping him was sheer luck.”
“Good. Fly straight to their location in Apur.”
“Major Neferna has advised us not to do so,” Ihuet said in his too calm tone.
Setnana scowled at the Blackguard’s back. “I did not do as I have done, come this far, to balk, to be denied, or defied.”
“My nomarch, I would expect no less of you. But we lost over half the Sky Swords to the void beasts that own the skies above Apur. What’s left of Major Neferna’s forces are on foot, guarding the boy.”
“Even more reason for us to get there as fast as possible.” She clenched her fists.
“And if we get shot down and Dita dies, then the cure dies with her. All your sacrifices would have been for nothing.”
“Ihuet is right,” Khafra added from his seat behind her.
Her shoulders drooped at the truth of their words. Not only were the four of them vulnerable riding a simurgh, but also if the void beasts were numerous enough to wreak havoc on a trained war company like the Sky Swords,
then she, Ihuet, Khafra, and Dita stood little chance.
“I have arranged for mounts at the jungle.” Ihuet began their descent. “Do not fret, my nomarch. Your son will soon be with you.”
Setnana smiled. “Thank you, Ihuet.”
******
Over an hour later, she, Ihuet, Khafra, and Dita entered Apur and met two of Major Neferna’s scouts. The scouts led them northeast along one of the central avenues, away from the Crypts, and toward the barracks where Major Neferna had trapped Perihy. During the ride they encountered and killed the occasional void beast or corrupted, far from the glut of monsters Setnana had expected.
On one occasion there came a cacophony of roars and screeches, soon followed by the thunder of stampeding feet. But it was from the opposite direction, toward the Crypts and beyond. She was glad for such good fortune. Her sole desire was to cure her son.
Soon, they arrived at the barracks, a building more similar to a fort than she would have anticipated. Sky Swords manned a few of the battlements. Others guarded a large main entrance that featured a portcullis. Her stomach fluttered as she strode into a corridor which opened onto a flagstoned courtyard.
Major Neferna was there to greet them. “Nomarch Setnana.” The major bowed to her patron then turned to Dita and offered a slight dip of her head. “Vindicator. I’m glad you arrived safely.”
“Thank you for all you have done, Major. I will not forget.” Setnana smiled curtly even as she tried to control her emotions. “Is my son secured?”
“I wouldn’t say secured.” Major Neferna cleared her throat, no doubt nervous over Setnana’s possible reaction to any perceived incompetence. “We managed to trap him in a workshop of some kind. He’d fled into this building after fighting and killing over a dozen grand korae outside. A Concealed tracker followed Perihy to the room in question. There, they found him holding several of these.”
She held out her hand. A purple pear-shaped jewel sat in her palm. Black and silver energy coiled within it.
“A void shard?” Setnana frowned.
The Forsaken Crypts Page 23
