Holy or unholy, the Grove was no longer active. The Revenant or its minions had desecrated it.
Rocks had been overturned or in some cases shattered into hundreds of pieces. Several trees, their roots torn off, lay along the hill like murder victims. The mystical pattern of the Grove had been broken. Hawke could see the remains of magical Inscriptions on the ground. Some were wards like the ones protecting Orom; others were Mana channels, designed to absorb ambient energy and focus it for ritual use. In many cases, it looked like a powerful magical effect had defeated the wards.
That added a missing piece of the puzzle. Hawke had not understood why the Revenant had led an army into the Valley. The town had wards that would destroy any Undead or Fae that entered its borders without an invitation. Hawke was looking into increasing the area protected by the wards, but the Mana cost was huge. If the Revenant could break wards, however, Orom’s defenses were not as impervious as he had thought.
The kit breathed a short jet of flame into the air and laughed in a squeaky, cartoony tone that was completely out of synch with his casual attitude towards arson. Raising his bonded Drakeling was going to take a lot of work. But at least in this case, the Drakofox was right.
“We will,” he told Blaze, ruffling his fur.
Hawke noticed that both Blaze and Luna had reached level three after the fight. They were still the size of a large cat not counting their wings, but their Health and Mana had risen considerably:
Blaze (Drakofox)
Level 3 Draconid (Epic Elite)
Health 428 Mana 323 Endurance 325
Hawke fished out a whole roast out of his Inventory and handed it to Blaze, who took it in his mouth and dropped to the ground to devour it. Tava handed another one to Luna, who started demanding food as soon as she saw her brother getting a ‘snack.’
Meanwhile, Gosto walked around the Grove, pausing at some spots and examining them. “The Grove has been damaged, and the trees that sustained it killed, but I think it can be restored. When I reach the tenth level on the Path, I would claim this place and dedicate it to Cerunnos, with your permission, Lord Hawke.”
The formal words surprised Hawke a little. Gosto normally treated him as a somewhat older buddy.
“This land is not in my Domain,” he said.
“But would you accept it into it, if offered?” the Druid replied. “This forest deserves a better caretaker than Bloody Akaton, let alone the Undead evil infesting it.”
Thoughts? Hawke asked Saturnyx. His days of making impulsive decisions when it came to things that affected hundreds or thousands of lives were over.
Drawbacks?
Hawke didn’t like the mention of conquests. He didn’t want to take over the Foothills by force. But Gosto’s god, Cerunnos, was far more benevolent than the death deity the Woodlings worshiped. And having another source of Mana for the growing needs of the Domain would be great. There were several Mana Nodes and potential Nodes in the Foothills as well. Ultimately, power determined your chances of survival in the Realms. If Orom and the surrounding countryside were to survive, the Domain needed to become more powerful.
And why do I have the feeling that a bunch of tyrants, on Earth and the Realms, made similar excuses for the things they did?
“No burning until I say so,” Hawke told him. He turned to Gosto. “I accept your proposal, Druid. Depending on what happens next, of course. We may be leaving the Foothills a lot faster than we came in.”
“Of course. One cannot claim lands one cannot defend.”
* * *
Saturnyx said as Hawke relaxed and prepared to cast the spell in question.
“I know,” he muttered, pausing his casting. “But it’s our best bet to spot an ambush on our way to the Dungeon.”
Hawke had played with Astral Projection, one of the Mind Magic spells he had acquired, but only under controlled circumstances. Although the benefits were considerable, the risks involved in separating his mind from his body had been explained in the description:
Astral Projection
Time to Cast: 1 minute (30 seconds). Cooldown: 1 hour (48 minutes). Cost: 60(45) Mana. Duration: 10 minutes per level. Range: 5 miles per level. Effect: Project your consciousness away from your body, enabling you to travel through obstacles and fly at a speed equal to (Willpower x 5) miles per hour. You and the ‘silver cord,’ a Mana tether linked to your body, are invisible to normal senses but can be detected through magical or supernatural means. Some magical barriers and wards will prevent the Astral Form from traveling through them.
Your Astral Form is immune to Physical attacks and has 95% Resistance against Elemental and all Force effects other than those created through Chaos, Mind, Order and Soul magic. The Astral Form and Silver Cord each have a Health Pool equal to the sum of your Intelligence and Willpower multiplied by your level. If either is destroyed, you will die. Using magic while in Astral Form is possible, but only spells with a casting time of 0 can be used, and the Mana Cost is quadrupled before any other modifiers.
You must return to your body before the spell duration expires, or you will die and Reincarnate with the loss of 4 Identity points.
His experiments had revealed that while the spell was on, he could move through walls and rocks as easily as he could fly through the air. The experience had been almost addictive; going anywhere and seeing everything could be downright intoxicating. Well, almost anywhere. Areas protected by wards, like sections of the Stronghold, had kept him out, with painful consequences. Hitting a warded area in astral form was like running into a wall face-first. And while his out-of-body projection was very tough, if it was destroyed it would cost him a big chunk of Identity. He had decided not to use it to scout the Shadowy Foothills.
Now that he was there, however, he had considered the pros and cons and figured that a short-range overflight wouldn’t be too risky. He just wanted to take a quick peek at the area between the Party and the closest Dungeon, just to spot any possible ambushes along the way. If it looked too tough for the group, then they could head toward the other one and save themselves some time. Despite Saturnyx’s misgivings, he completed the spell, waved goodbye to the rest of the party, and stepped out of his body. He floated overhead, watching the group settle down for the wait. Tava was keeping watch from the top of the Grove, along with Rabbit. Everyone else was resting or having a light lunch.
He can see me. Why am I even surprised? Hawke thought. Get back to the group, kid, he told the Drakofox.
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess, Hawke replied as he took flight.
The sword would be able to stay in touch with him th
rough the silver thread linking him to his body; if anything happened, she would inform Tava. With a maximum speed of 130 mph with all his bonuses, he could reach the Dungeon in a few minutes, but he took his time, flying in a steady long zigzag pattern to cover a wide swath to territory. He had to fly fairly low to the ground to be able to see through the thick canopy covering most of the forest. There wasn’t much to see; there wasn’t much wildlife in the old growth forest, and from what Tava had told him, that would have been normal even before the Revenant had poisoned the land. Large animals like deer preferred places with lots of underbrush to feed on. But even the tiny critters one would expect were nowhere to be seen.
More importantly, he didn’t see any more Woodlings, Undead or otherwise. It looked like the Revenant had used up all its available troops in the failed attack the day before. Or it was saving them for something else. Out in the distance, he saw a large patch of green amidst the purple-black canopy. More than a patch, he realized. The green section covered several square miles. Somebody or something was resisting the spread of Undeath.
Deciding it was worth a look, Hawke gained some more altitude and flew closer. It didn’t take long to see that the green patch was under siege. Woodlings and Sapling Warriors were fighting other Woodlings, both living and Undead. The defenders of the Green were led by gigantic humanoid trees, thirty or forty feet tall. And in the center of the protected area stood a gathering of massive trees, each of them easily two hundred feet tall. Even from over a mile away, Hawke could tell they were aware and extremely powerful. Those trees were the rulers of the Shadowy Foothills, or rather had once ruled them until the Revenant had come around. He had found the source of the troubles in the area.
Quest Objective Complete: Explore the Shadowy Foothills
Return to Flava Octaves to claim your reward.
Well, he had learned some important information, finished a Quest, and found where most of the enemy forces were. Getting any closer would be a dumbass move. Hawke turned away from the ongoing battle headed back to his original objective. He reached the first Dungeon a couple of minutes later.
The bare patch of land should have been visible from the air, but he didn’t spot it until he arrived at its outer boundary. A thick haze surrounded the place, hiding the reddish wasteland from sight. The tree line ended abruptly and was replaced by a completely different landscape, as if some god or wizard had scooped up a chunk of Arizona, or maybe Mars, and dropped it in the middle of the temperate forests that dominated the Foothills. The green-brown (currently purple-brown) terrain was nowhere to be found, replaced by yellow-red sand and rocks. Nothing grew on that section of land; the area around the Dungeon had been devoid of life long before the Revenant arrived. But like the forest around it, it had changed recently; Hawke noticed dark purple veins were running through the rocky terrain. More Undeath.
In the center of the arid clearing stood a structure made of crimson stones that had been melted and molded like a wax sculpture. It was roughly shaped like a pointed dome, and its surface carved with signs that Hawke recognized as Celestial sigils, arranged to form words he didn’t understand. He had seen something like them once before, at the Labyrinth known as the Gates to Tartarus. That was Infernal writing, which made this a demonic Dungeon. Or at least, it had been one originally. More lines of purple-black Undeath energy were running through the surface of the unholy temple, and Hawke didn’t need his Advanced Mana Sight to know what was happening.
I’ve seen Demons turned into Undead before, Hawke thought. The demon bones the Necromancer used against me. I thought the two monsters didn’t usually mingle, though.
The Realms had lasted for least six thousand years. You would think that if it were possible to mix Infernal and Undeath energies together, someone would have done it long before. Even Hawke’s most amazing feats had not been unprecedented, just rare. Someone was doing impossible stuff, and he could only think of one group capable of violating those rules; the ones who had imposed them in the first place.
Saturnyx, is there a Maker of Undeath?
Yep. Greg the Necromancer couldn’t turn Fae into Undead on his own. He was good, but not that good.
How about other Makers? I’m sort of building a little landline to the Grim Reaper via that temple I improved.
Agreed. I’m not even fifteenth level yet. I shouldn’t be dealing with any of it.
Hawke shook his astral head and floated closer to the demonic structure. The building had five arched entryways on its surface, arranged in a pentagon. The inside was hollow, with nothing but a round platform with a glowing portal in the center.
You Have Found: Claw of Tartarus
Level Sixteen Dungeon
5 Quests Available!
Great. Would he ever run into a Proving Ground that didn’t out-level his entire Party? Hawke didn’t think he wanted to take his group into something that tough. Maybe the other Dungeon would be easier. Hawke started to fly away. The other candidate was fifteen miles away. He could zip over there, check it out and be back long before the spell expired.
Time slowed down until he was frozen in mid-air. For a second, he thought his Temporal Distortion condition had been triggered, but the paralysis was soon followed by a shift in perceptions he had experienced a few times before. Usually when some powerful entity from the Realms wanted to have a word with him.
Darkness surrounded him. Hawke sighed mentally and made a resolution to watch what he said. When dealing with gods and their ilk, his big mouth could literally get him killed.
Fifteen
There were five figures waiting for him. They had chosen to show up in giant size, each four or five times larger than a normal human, making him feel like a mouse surrounded by cats. Which was precisely why they had done it. The unsubtle attempt at intimidation kind of annoyed him, but he kept his feelings to himself. After all, he wasn’t a mouse and they weren’t cats. It was more like he was an amoeba and they were blue whales that could somehow see and crush individual amoebas that got on their nerves.
“Greetings, Hawke Lightseeker,” said Vitara, exemplar of Life and senior member of the Triune Goddesses. Lumina and Sophia stood behind her, looking at him with what seemed to be friendly sympathy. Maybe they had forgiven his last trespass, or figured that what he was about to endure would be more than he deserved.
To their left stood an ordinary-looking guy in a black jumpsuit and silvery utility belt that looked much too modern for the Realms; a set of green energy goggles floated in front of his eyes, and in his hand he held something that looked like a fancy flashlight or a ray gun from some old sci-fi show. He didn’t introduce himself, but he had a name-tag on his jumpsuit that said Arbiter Vicesimo in golden letters. Vice, as he preferred to be called by his friends. He and Hawke weren’t friends, though. The Arbiter regarded him as a nuisance at best and, at worst, a rule-breaking abomination that should be expunged from the Realms.
And to the left of the Arbiter was a
giant monster that Hawke recognized from one of the new statues in the Death Temple he had improved: Akaton Blood-Drinker, patron of the Woodlings that Hawke had been killing with depressing frequency for the past couple of months. From the way the Death god was glaring down at him, he knew what Hawke had done and wasn’t happy about it.
Hawke gave a deep bow to the gathering. “I am unworthy of this honor,” he said as respectfully as he could, trying desperately to keep his head clear of thoughts; gods and Arbiters were telepathic.
“The god Akaton has brought word that Huntmaster Laryn, a Fae Revenant, has control of an Infernal Dungeon and has created an Amalgam of Undeath and Infernal energies,” the Arbiter said, going straight to business and sounding a lot more formal than he had during his last conversation with Hawke. “This has never happened before. We are concerned.”
Why don’t you just purge him from the system? Hawke thought, before realizing that if a Maker was involved, the Arbiters and gods couldn’t intervene directly. But if a pesky Eternal did the job for them… Well, if the Maker took it personally, too bad for said Eternal. Being a pawn for greater powers sucked.
Vice grinned and tapped his nose, letting Hawke know that his thoughts had been read and his guess had been right. Out loud, the Arbiter said: “We are here to offer you a task, Twilight Templar. To enter the Claw of Tartarus and defeat its Core. That will prevent the Undeath infection from spreading further. Your patron deities have acquiesced to this task.”
Hawke kept quiet and thought about old TV shows. There would be no agreement from him unless they sweetened the pot a little.
The Arbiter gave an exasperated grunt after a few seconds went by. “In return for your assistance, we are all prepared to offer you a boon, within reason. I offer you this: ask me for one favor. Within reason.”
Labyrinth to Tartarus: A LitRPG Saga (The Eternal Journey Book 3) Page 10
