by Aaron Oster
“Damn that Gold,” Ivaldi muttered, turning his attention back to the gauntlets. “He sent you here on purpose, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to resist working on these.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes!” Ivaldi snapped, seeming more annoyed than excited. “But I can’t just melt them down and re-forge them as they are now.”
“Why not?” Morgan wondered.
“Because they’re made of Godsteel, the rarest and most powerful metal on this planet!” Ivaldi snapped. “Special metals, especially ones that are as seeped in magic as these are, need special ingredients for just about every step in the forging process.”
“I take it that you don’t just have these ingredients readily available,” Morgan said, a feeling of annoyance already threatening to take hold.
“Obviously not,” Ivaldi retorted. “To re-forge these into a spear, I’ll need several things. Firstly, I’ll need the acidic venom from a gargantuan-poison hydra. Secondly, I’ll need some scales from the World Beast, Breaker. Third, I’ll need a heat source comparable to that of a star, and fourth, I’ll need some of your blood.”
“I can provide the last two easily enough,” Morgan said. “I have a skill that can project that sort of heat, and blood is something I can give easily. I just don’t understand why you would need it.”
Ivaldi lifted one of the gauntlets, then slid his hand into it. At least, he tried to. As soon his fingers approached the opening of the glove, they smacked into an invisible barrier. He then tossed it to Morgan with a snort of annoyance.
“These are keyed to a specific person. No one but said person can wear them, so if you want to wield that spear, I’ll need your blood to…Holy crap! How did ye do that?”
This came in response to Morgan simply slipping the gauntlet onto his hand and flexing his fingers easily. It seemed that the dwarf was able to articulate better when not overly excited and went back to using a weird dialect when either overly upset or excited.
Morgan resisted the urge to use even a shred of his power, as doing so would reveal their secret.
“Easy,” he replied, removing the gauntlet and tossing it back to the dwarf. “They’re already keyed to me.”
The dwarf nodded slowly as he placed the gauntlet back on the table.
“Well, then I guess all we still need are the first two things.”
“Great, care to tell me where to get them? Oh, and what the hell is a World Beast? I’ve never heard of one of those before.”
“Never heard of the World Beasts?” Ivaldi asked, seeming to be genuinely confused. “But everyone knows about them.”
“No, not everyone,” Morgan replied simply. “They might be known here, but where I come from, we don’t have those.”
Ivaldi shook his head in bafflement.
“The World Beasts are legendary in Faeland. To put it simply, they’re beasts with the power to destroy the entire world.”
“And I have to go kill one of them,” Morgan said flatly.
“No, not kill. That would be impossible,” Ivaldi said with a snort. “No, all you need is one of its scales.”
“Lucky me,” Morgan replied, still in the same flat tone. “And where, pray tell, might I find this World Beast?”
Much to his surprise, Ivaldi pointed down. When he raised an eyebrow in question, the dwarf explained.
“There is a Beast Zone deep beneath this mountain. For the last thousand or so years, Breaker has been sleeping down there. The gargantuan-poison hydra is down there, too, but that one, you’ll have to kill. It is a nasty creature and shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
“How strong is it?” Morgan asked.
“Last I checked, it was somewhere in the rank 70 range, but I could be wrong,” Ivaldi said with a shrug. “Either way, I’ll need its venom and one of Breaker’s scales to work on this spear. So, if you’d like it done, you’d best get going.”
Morgan blew out a long breath, already dreading this colossal waste of time. Even so, getting a chance to pit himself against a rank 70 beast was something that kind of excited him. He’d never faced a beast that strong, not even Octagon. While the Pinnacle King had probably been stronger in the sense of power, he hadn’t come close to that rank.
“Fine,” he said, turning towards the tunnel once again. “Can you please do something about your damn traps, though? They’re annoying as all hell.”
“Fine,” the dwarf grumbled, moving to a large steel panel that was built into the wall.
“Come on, Lumia. Let’s get going.”
“Wait,” Grace called, sounding a bit hurt. “Aren’t you going to take me with you?”
“Not a chance,” Morgan replied, his voice firm. “We’re going to face beasts that are going to be extremely challenging. I won’t be able to protect you if you get into trouble. Besides, having you there will only serve as a distraction, and you won’t learn anything from the experience. No, I want you to stay here with the dwarf and practice. Maybe you can learn a little more about their culture and Faeland in general?”
He phrased this last statement as a question, hoping that Grace would pick up his meaning. She didn’t, that much was obvious by the clenching of fists and tightening of her shoulders.
“You can’t just leave me here!”
“I can, and I am,” Morgan replied, his voice growing hard. “Now, you’re going to do as you’re told, or I’ll have you spend your time running laps with a five-hundred-pound vest, instead of staying here and relaxing. Do you understand?”
Grace folded her arms with a huff, then stormed off into the smithy. He could hear her stomping her feet all the way and turned to give the dwarf an apologetic look.
“Children don’t always agree with what their parents have to say,” Ivaldi said with a shrug.
“I’m not her…” Morgan began, but the dwarf only waved him off.
“Get going. I’ll look after the lass while you’re gone. Oh, and please try to get back here quickly. I’ve already waited long enough to work on metal like this.”
Morgan let out a sigh, taking the small slip of parchment with directions from the dwarf, then turned to leave. Not for the first time that day, he wondered why everything always had to have a catch.
45
Morgan flew down the side of the mountain, Lumia still sitting on his shoulder, holding the small map out before his eyes. Ivaldi wasn’t exactly an artist, but the almost illegible scrawl did still somewhat resemble a mountain. What surprised him was how close the dwarf was living to some beast that supposedly had the power to destroy the world.
“How strong do you think this World Beast is?” Morgan asked as he continued on his downward trajectory.
“I don’t know,” Lumia replied. “We don’t exactly have anything for reference. Can we assume they’re as strong as the Pinnacle Kings?”
“Stronger, actually,” Gold said, popping into existence beside them.
“Oh, yeah? And why fail to mention this before?” Morgan asked.
“Well, you didn’t know about them,” Gold replied with a shrug. “According to the rules, that meant I could tell you nothing.”
“And now you’ve come to enlighten us?” Lumia asked.
“Well, I have, and I also haven’t,” Gold said, leaning back in the air and folding his arms behind his head. “You see, the history of the World Beasts is long and complicated…”
“Yeah, obviously. What I don’t understand is how anything I’ve known over the last few years ties in with this,” Morgan said, cutting him off. “I mean, how many world-destroying beasts did Samuel make already? I thought the Pinnacle Kings were the only ones. And what’s all this about the gauntlets being worn by a god?”
“Gosh, you would not believe how much history this world has,” Gold said with a grin. “The Five Kingdoms have existed for some ten-thousand years, but the world itself was around long before that. Did you know that there was an entire civilization here before that? But that doesn’t really matter right
now, does it?
“What you want to know is who wore the gauntlets before you, and for what. Also, about the World Beasts and why you’ve never heard of them.”
“Yes. All of that,” Morgan said, giving the man a flat stare. “And please don’t leave anything out this time. I’m sick and tired of having my world views continually turned on their head.”
“Alright, fine,” Gold said, rolling his eyes. “Let’s start with the World Beasts. Believe it or not, they weren’t actually created to be as powerful as they are, but with the ambient reiki and plentiful beasts to fight, they eventually grew into their power. You see, back when Faeland was first created, the beasts were placed here first so Samuel could conduct some testing.
“Then, over time, he sort of just left them to their own devices as he began to drop the other races in here. It was only when a town was wiped off the map, and an entire race was nearly driven to extinction, that he took notice. But, instead of doing the smart thing and getting rid of them, he just left them there.”
“Why?” Morgan asked. “If the world had been destroyed, it would have meant his death.”
Gold shrugged.
“No idea. Sammy never shared why he left the beasts as they were. He just did. Anyway, over time, they continued to grow, but having that much power is a serious drain on them, so they spend most of their time sleeping.”
“And what do the races here do when one wakes up?” Lumia asked.
“Oh, they have plans in place. Protocols to drive them away, distract them, or tire them out. The last one woke near the Glimmerlands and cost the elven king his life. Nasty business, but no one’s managed to kill one, so they just live with it.”
“What about the constraints on rank? Wouldn’t they have been capped at 50?”
“You’re forgetting that these beasts have been living in a reiki-rich environment for thousands of years. They long ago reached the Pinnacle of power and have the same abilities as you and that lovely new girl you’ve picked up.”
“You mean they use reiki,” Morgan said, feeling an icy chill in his veins.
“Yup!” Gold replied. “Each and every World Beast was at the maximum supermage rank of 100 before Sammy screwed things up yet again. Now, with all the rules gone, who knows how strong they’ll be?”
“And we have to go face one of those things,” Morgan said, his voice sounding oddly distant.
“Well, not face, so to speak. All you have to do is nab one of its scales, and seeing as Breaker sheds those like loose fur, you should have no problems.”
“Great,” Morgan muttered. “What about the gauntlets? What can you tell me?”
“I can only tell you that the one who crafted and wore them wasn’t from this world,” Gold replied. “Anything more than that will result in a very painful and ugly death on my part, and as you can tell, I very much like being alive.”
Morgan just glared at him, but Gold shrugged unapologetically.
“Anyway, I really do need to be going,” the man said, looking at his empty wrist as though a watch sat there. “It’s always a pleasure. Until next time.”
Before Morgan could say another word, Gold vanished, leaving Morgan to stew in his annoyance. Gold always got under his skin with these random pop-ins and information dumps. It was extremely aggravating to have information fed to him in tiny snippets as things happened. All he really took away from this meeting was that there was a lot he didn’t know. With his luck, he’d eventually find out everything there was to know, but only right before he needed to use the knowledge.
“I think I see the entrance down below.”
Lumia’s voice snapped him from his thoughts and Morgan saw that he was indeed coming up on a large opening in the side of the mountain. After what Gold had told him, he was less than eager to be entering, but if he wanted Sarah back, this would be a necessary step he had to take.
Contrary to what most believed, Morgan was no longer the battle-hungry maniac he’d once been. He still enjoyed a good fight, especially a challenging one, but going up against something he knew he couldn’t beat really wasn’t his style. Not anymore, anyway. There was a time when the prospect of fighting such a monster would have excited him, but right now, Morgan’s only wish was that the World Beast, Breaker, remained asleep.
His feet touched down lightly on the stone floor before the cave entrance, and Morgan strode forward. After just half a dozen steps in, he opened himself up and allowed his Aura Sense to extend before him to pick up all the various trails leading deep into the heart of the mountain. Breaker’s aura was not hard to pick up, even from the entrance.
In fact, its sheer size and intensity made Morgan hesitate a few moments. Only once before in his life had he sensed so much power, and that had been from Dabu, the supermage who’d grown too powerful to remain in the Five Kingdoms. Breaker’s aura was different. It was more intense, primal, and very, very old.
The mass of purple energy lit up the heart of the mountain like a beacon, yet at the same time, it was so thick and heavy that it seemed to stifle the very air itself. The sheer size of the cloud of reiki hanging around it was incredible! A normal or Evolved beast didn’t project a field of energy at all, while Intermediate and Advanced gave off an aura between two and five feet.
The Pinnacle Beast he’d fought had an aura that extended some ten feet around its body, and Octagon the Bitter had projected his out some fifteen feet. This beast’s aura was immense, expanding over a hundred feet! Morgan had to remind himself that he had yet to lay eyes on the beast, so he couldn’t be sure just how large it was in comparison to the aura. Either way, it didn’t bode well for him.
“What do you see?” Lumia asked, hopping off his shoulder and morphing into her hybrid form.
“Let’s head in, and I’ll tell you on the way,” Morgan said, already lifting back off the ground and following one of the paths.
He explained to her what he’d seen as they flew, occasionally stopping when they came across a beast, before inevitably continuing when they saw that it was not what they were after. Still, the power of the beasts in this zone was particularly alarming. Thus far, he hadn’t found a single beast under Intermediate, and none were below rank 55. This meant that the hydra creature they’d be fighting was probably going to be an Advanced beast.
While they’d usually have the upper hand by fighting as a pair, Lumia was only rank 64, and Morgan was at 66. A rank 70 beast might be too much for the two of them to handle. But Morgan wasn’t one to quit when there was work to be done. He had a mission, and no amount of pain was going to stand between him and Sarah.
They rounded a corner in the tunnel and came across yet another beast, a long, lizard-like creature with fiery red scales and long green spines. It hissed as they passed, spitting a large glob of greenish goo at them. However, Morgan and Lumia were moving too fast, and the beast had been caught off guard. The fact that the stone walls didn’t even throw up a hint of resistance as the goo impacted hinted at the sort of beast they’d be facing at the end of the tunnel.
The stone in the caverns had an odd, rusty color as well, which told Morgan that they were probably rich in iron. That might have been why Ivaldi was living here, though it was just a guess, so he could have been entirely wrong.
“I think I see something big up ahead,” Morgan said as a mass of blue light flared in his Aura Sense.
“How bad is it?” Lumia asked.
“About as bad as we expected,” Morgan answered grimly. “But let’s wait until we see it before making any judgments.”
The tunnel began to narrow as they flew, forcing Lumia to shrink down to her smaller size and making Morgan wonder if they might be heading in the wrong direction. The tunnel continued to narrow, to the point where he had to land and walk, then stoop to keep going.
“This is getting to be ridiculous,” Morgan said, as he dropped to his stomach and began crawling forward.
He had half a mind to just bust through the walls, but he had a feel
ing that if the tunnel was this narrow, it was probably for a good reason. Perhaps it was to keep people out, or whatever was on the other side, in. Either way, the warning was clear. He wasn’t exactly going to turn back, so he kept going.
Luckily, the last bit, where he was forced to crawl, was only about a hundred feet. It was unpleasant, to say the least, having the walls clinging so tightly to his body that he couldn’t move more than a few inches to either side. The knowledge that he could always blast the stone apart with his Earthen Shift made it somewhat bearable, even if only a little.
As he reached the end and came into the next room, he began to understand why the tunnel had been narrowed as much as it had.
“I have never seen a room like this before,” Lumia commented as they entered the massive cavern.
“This is a first for me, too,” Morgan said, pulling himself from the tunnel and getting gratefully back to his feet.
The entire cavern was covered in a dark, shining metal that Morgan immediately identified as adamantite. What alarmed him most were the multiple scorch marks on the walls and floor. Massive parts of the metal had clearly been melted, corroded, and otherwise destroyed, only to solidify once again in lumpy messes.
Large blocks of the same metal were littered throughout the room, some half-melted and others covered in scratches and teeth marks. It wasn’t hard to find the creature responsible, as it was currently chewing on one of said blocks with all five of its heads.
The beast turned at the sound of their entrance, five pairs of slitted yellow eyes locking onto them. It was a truly monstrous beast, measuring some forty feet long and around fifteen at the shoulder. A pair of crumpled and mismatched wings lay draped across its scaled and leathery back. Its entire body was colored a mottled green and brown, all except for the five, serpentine heads, all of which looked uniquely terrifying.
Five snakelike necks protruded from between the beast’s shoulders, extending some ten feet before meeting their oversized heads, each a different color. Starting from the far left, they were red, blue, green, violet, and yellow. Heavy scales covered their necks and heads, giving the beast some impressive armor, and judging by the flickering forked tongues and hissing, it was fairly obvious that this beast was some sort of reptile.
