“Stay clear of the crystals, got it,” Mira said, having watched Hal.
The mimic cleaned up the corpses easily enough, ridding them of whatever possessions they once had. They were about to continue on when Vorax made a strange burping sound.
Hal turned just in time to see the mimic spew handfuls of glittering crystalline chips – sparks – onto the ground. It reminded Hal of a slot machine when it hits the jackpot. Vorax imparted the sensation of eating something displeasing, his immediate instinct was to regurgitate the foul items.
Items that Hal clearly coveted. The mimic immediately showed Hal an image of a small blue velvet lined box filled with strange bits. Metallic plates, screws, rivets, and of course sparks.
With one long sweep of its thick purple tongue, the mimic reclaimed the sparks, mentally assuring Hal they were safe.
Unable to help himself, Hal did his best to show his gratitude and pride at the mimic’s continuing ability to learn. He fell into an easy crouch when Vorax came by and patted his glossy, well-polished treasure-chest-shaped body.
“He can eat sparks?” Mira asked, aghast.
“Apparently,” Hal answered with a shrug. “He eats treasure, not people. He’s the cool kind of mimic, not the gross one.”
Before Hal could press on, Vorax hopped ahead. Every so often a spiked tongue would lash out and nab a crystal growing out from the wall. A crystal that would have surely zapped one of them.
Narrow tunnels with rippling stone and dangerous glowing red crystalline growths made the going uneasy. All the more because Hal worried about Vorax’s safety as the mimic insisted on being at the head of the group.
No amount of mental prodding would dissuade the helpful mimic who continued to gobble up crystals, its tongue lashing out and ripping them easily from the strange cancerous stone as it passed.
Every blind turn felt like an ambush waiting to happen. Each time they were forced to squeeze past a particularly narrow section, they felt as if the walls would suddenly constrict and crush them.
There was a malevolence to the place. Something deeper than the Founder. Older.
Despite the slow going, it only took them half an hour to reach a fork in the tunnels. “More of a trident than a fork, really,” Mira said, looking at the three tunnels that split off in different directions.
More than ever before, Hal felt a pull down the middle tunnel. He was certain that the Vault was just up ahead. The tunnel was tighter than the others, with bulging smooth stone and sharp jagged crystals giving the approximation of a grinning, toothy maw.
Mira stepped up to the right. “The air gets a little colder down here.”
Elora took point on the left tunnel. “Hotter down here. This seems to be where the humidity is coming from.”
Hal took three steps down the short tunnel ahead, staring hard at the thick jagged crystals that sprouted like broken, blood-stained teeth from blackened gums.
A faint tickling in the back of his mind was the only hint he had that this was not like the other crystalline growths.
Vorax bounced up to the grinning mouth of crystals and lashed out with his long purple tongue. And though the mimic tried his best to eat the disgusting things his tongue couldn’t find any purchase to rip them out.
Try as he might, the mimic could not widen the gap. He sent a wave of apology to Hal, who was quick to reassure Vorax. It wasn’t his fault. They would find another way.
It was a door, one that would not yield to Vorax’s appetite. They needed something else to pass through. Even if they weren’t capable of emitting a painful jolt, the crystals were too sharp and too close to pass through without being shredded.
Hal turned about, thinking. He knew the Vault was down here and he intended to get inside and be done with this whole Coffin Contract once and for all.
“We’ll go down the left path,” Hal said pointing down the tunnel that curved out of sight a few feet in.
“We could just leave,” Mira countered, leaning against the tunnel from which a cooler air wafted into the small chamber. Hal noticed she held her spear differently. Almost like she expected to use it like a crutch. It was then that he realized the spear wasn’t as opulent as he remembered.
It looked old and worn. Just like her expression. She was scared, though she tried to hide it by acting nonchalant.
“We need to clear the monsters from the Coffin District,” Hal said, trying to put as much of his Leadership skill into his voice as he could. “And this is the path to do it. I won’t let Giel’s sacrifice be in vain. Our survival isn’t enough to justify that price.”
Hal needed to see this through.
For Giel. For the koblins. For his own Sanctum. Maybe the man he used to be would have taken the easy way out and just left. But he wasn’t that person anymore.
A change came over Mira and she stepped away from the wall. She stood a little straighter and nodded. “You’re right.”
If he went through the same trials and tribulations as Rinbast, would he end up the same as him?
Hal shook his head to clear it.
“So, either we have a boss fight or something probably gross and sticky,” Mira said. “If there are a bunch of florking eggs on the ground I am not going in. I’m not getting face hugged. At least not without a drink or two in me.”
Again, her use of vernacular drew Hal’s attention.
The elf looked over at him and quirked a brow. Almost like she was challenging him. A merry light danced in her violet eyes.
Hal struck off down the humid tunnel, the others following behind. The crystals they found down the left tunnel were strange and dull. Hal passed his hand over one, and receiving no shock, told Vorax to stay back.
Tunnel walls glistened with the moisture-laden air. After only a few steps they struggled to breathe the thick air. It felt like somebody pressed a hot, wet cloth over Hal’s face.
Snaking back on itself countless times, the group spent more time doubling back than moving forward. Every turn brought more heat and humidity until steam filled the cramped tunnel.
They emerged into a shrouded chamber covered in thick gouts of steam. Only Hal’s Shadesight proved impervious to the glare the Guild badges cast on the shifting clouds of steam.
“If I wanted a sauna,” Mira said, vainly trying to fan herself, “I would have gone to a bathhouse. At least there I would get an eyeful of something pleasing. I don’t see anything here, can we go?”
The Dragoon was partially right. In the shroud of steam, there seemed to be nothing. An omnipresent bubbling echoed around them, telling them they were in a spacious chamber.
Hal could see what the Dragoon could not.
With his Shadesight, Hal could pierce through the shroud of steam. They stood on a shelf of stone, slick with water that pooled in places, that stuck out barely two feet above the boiling lake that filled the chamber, stretching beyond his vision.
Seated at the center on a stone island – one Hal noticed was devoid of any tumorous growths or crystals – stood a pure-white obelisk that shimmered and warped the air around it like a heat mirage.
Hal did his best to explain what he saw, much to the interest of those around him.
“Can you see a symbol on it?” Ashera asked, coming forward and gripping Hal’s frayed aketon, ripping it further without realizing. She tried to peer through the shifting clouds but couldn’t.
“I’ve never seen you this interested in something,” Hal said quietly enough that only the Sin Keeper could hear him.
“Because I have only ever heard of these objects in academic tomes. If this is truly what I think it is, then we are in the presence of something older than even the Founders. Older than the gods themselves, perhaps.”
It was hard to make out with the constant shifting of the obelisk but eventually, Hal was able to find the symbol. “A curling ball of lines, kind of looks like a stylized ball of fire.”
“A Flame Totem,” Ashera and Elora said at once. There was no mistakin
g the reverent tone they shared.
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Hal looked at the pair of them. “What is a ‘Flame Totem’?”
“Nobody really knows,” Ashera answered. She gripped his sleeve so tightly in her excitement as she once again attempted to peer through the clouds of steam that it ripped a little more and she suddenly noticed what she was doing. “Sorry.”
Hal looked at it then to Ashera’s sheepish smile. He sighed and brushed off the apology. “It still has enough durability. Go on.”
There is supposedly a Primordial Totem for each of the elements. They channel raw elemental magic. If this is the Flame Totem then the steam makes sense, though I thought they no longer worked. Supposedly if you touch it, you can receive a boon. Do you see any way to get to it?”
Hal peered over the edge, his face instantly drenched in the cloud of steam. “Aside from wading through boiling water? No.” He pulled back and had to blink his eyes several times to clear them.
Once again, he was pleased to have increased his VIT. Hal could remember getting scalded while boiling pasta and that was nothing like this. Yet, when he leaned over into the surge of heat he only felt mild discomfort.
“Maybe I could jump it?” Mira wondered aloud.
“Not unless you can leap over fifty feet and are immune to being boiled,” Hal said. “I’ll go.” Remembering how he carried Ashera soon after acquiring Beastborne, he turned to the Sin Keeper. She seemed the most excited about the obelisk after all, how much better would it be if she could see it up close? “Care to join me?”
If it was possible for the pale-skinned woman to get any paler, she probably would have then and there. Ashera looked at the boiling water then back at Hal. She nodded enthusiastically and Hal lifted her up into his arms.
Summoning his shadow-treant-limbs, Hal probed the depths of the water and found it surprisingly shallow. He would need to be careful but his essence created limbs should be long enough to lift them clear of the harmful water.
Hal pressed on, several times he maneuvered around a deep trough or sudden depression in the stone beneath the boiling water. The whole time he was thoroughly miserable, hotter than he’d ever been, and barely able to breathe the soupy air.
But he wasn’t taking any damage. And neither was Ashera, he noticed.
He made it to the stone island but found no relief. Setting foot onto the dry, hot stone, Hal was thankful for his new boots. His older ones would have likely disintegrated by now. Even through the sturdy insulation of his [Leaping Boots], Hal could feel the intense heat of the stone.
Ashera unwound her arms from his neck and stood in awe of the Flame Totem.
The white obelisk loomed ahead of them, drawing their eye skyward. It was as large as any oak tree Hal had ever seen. The air warped and twisted around it in a perpetual heat haze.
Each step closer ratcheted the heat up until Hal’s HP finally began to dip with every passing second. His skin burned and he had to back away before he even got within arm’s reach.
But not Ashera’s. The pale-skinned lamora waltzed right up to it, wincing only briefly as what little of her exposed skin reddened like a bad sunburn. She touched the white metal with her palm. Hal felt the surge of power ripple through her and spread outward.
As Ashera walked carelessly back, her face which was flushed and sweating just a moment ago was cool and pale. Not a drop of sweat marred her grinning visage. “You try it, Hal. It gets hot but it is okay once you touch it. I got a powerful fire resistance trait from it.”
“It burned me bad enough to drop my HP,” Hal remarked.
The Sin Keeper struck a pensive pose, watching Hal and then shifting her gaze to the obelisk.
Noth floated nearby, untethered by such mortal concerns as heat. With a thought, she swooped ahead of Hal and up to the obelisk. “So many things out of place,” she mused. “So much wrongness. This is ancient. Older than this mountain. It should have long ago ceased to function.”
“Clearly it still works.” Hal motioned to Ashera. “Native fire resistance would be real nice to have.” Not needing Monstrous Resistance would be a boon, and when he did use it any fire damage he received should be even less.
Tentatively, Hal stretched a shadow-treant-limb to the obelisk. As soon as it got within a handspan, it disintegrated and Hal felt a deep twisting pain in his gut.
He nearly collapsed from the sudden spasm of pain. The howl of agony, however, was not his voice. It was Besal’s.
Ashera was there in a heartbeat, hands on his shoulders. “What happened?”
Hal struggled to lift a hand and ward her off. She took two steps back but kept a wary eye on him.
“Do not go near it!” cried the Beast. And despite Hal’s attempts to get further elaboration, Besal said nothing more.
Regaining his composure, Hal looked at the obelisk again with newfound respect as he remade the shadow-treant-limb but noticed it was weaker and paler than before.
“You must touch it if you want the boon.” Noth finally said, stating the obvious.
Hal barked a sardonic laugh. “Yeah, sure. And get my hand melted to the metal? Even the Beast doesn’t want me going near it.” He looked to Ashera. “At least one of us got something out of this.”
He turned to leave and Noth floated into his way, her golden eyes aflame. “And why do you think that is? This is a representation of the primordial power of flame. Fire purges corruption. It cleanses. You feel pain because you are corrupted. Look at Ashera. It hurt her but did not cause lasting damage because she does not suffer from the corrupting effects of your Class.
“But the corruption is nascent yet, this may be your only chance to get near a Flame Totem. Were you more deeply attuned to your Class it would kill you but not yet. Touch it and receive its boon.”
Ashera watched but added nothing to the conversation. Hal doubted she would. She was a mediator and wouldn’t likely weigh in unless it was important. And while a buff that seemed to permanently reduce his damage to fire was good, the Sin Keeper could also hear Noth’s words.
She knew firsthand the strength of that corrupting influence within Hal. Ashera had fought the Beast when it seized control of his body. She understood this was Hal’s decision to make.
When Noth noticed that Hal still made no move toward the obelisk she stared hard at Hal. “Is it the Beast or Hal that determines your path?”
That brought a glare from not just Hal, but Ashera as well. Hal squared his shoulders and pressed forward, more to prove that he was still in control than anything else.
The heat cranked up once more but Hal noticed it wasn’t quite as intense. His essence-limbs burned away. The leather and cloth of his armor began to smoke. His skin felt like it was bubbling but he reached his hand forward anyway. He was in control. Not the Beast.
Perhaps that wasn’t such a wise decision.
Pain lanced through his hand and for a split-second he feared the worst. That the skin on his palm had melted to the obelisk. The Beast howled in agony.
Flames curled in long white-hot tongues up Hal’s right arm, burning the sleeve to ash. He watched as the passing of the flames left a dark shadow in their wake. His hand released and the heat of the island vanished. It felt no warmer than the steam after a hot shower.
Hal marveled at the fiery markings that curled and coiled up his arm to the shoulder. There was something in his palm, practically stuck to it. A hexagonal chip of the same metal as the obelisk.
You receive Blessing of the Flame.
+25% Permanent Fire Resistance.
-25% Permanent Water Resistance.
Partial Immunity to fire.
Resistance to Corruption.
You obtain a [Fragment of Flame].
There was a glyph on the center of the chip that shifted and rearranged itself like the flickering of a flame whenever Hal looked at it for more than a second.
“You didn’t die,” Noth pointed out with a smirk.
Ashera came up to him and stood
by the obelisk with him. She glanced at his arm. “I wonder if I have a mark like that under my cuirass.” The lamora smiled more than he had ever seen her before. “Maybe we match!”
“That would be cool,” Hal said with a grin, noticing how the heat from the obelisk seemed to vanish.
And then he chanced to look at it and found that it wasn’t his newfound resistance that was the cause. The obelisk was turning dull and gray. The heat haze vanished.
It took Hal longer than he would have liked to leave the small stone island with Ashera in tow. Not for any discomfort but because his essence-limbs kept turning to ash whenever he summoned them.
They were hardly strong enough to bear his weight, much less the pair of them together.
By the time he set out across the lake, it was barely simmering and the obelisk behind them had turned cold and black like onyx.
After several long minutes of struggling, Hal finally managed the crossing. The only sweat that clung to his brow was that of the sheer concentration it took to keep his essence powers from disintegrating once more.
“My turn next!” Mira shouted as soon as Hal’s boots touched the stone.
Hal’s face paled as he set Ashera down and stared dumbfoundedly at the Dragoon. He didn’t know how to tell her that the obelisk was inert now.
The elf kept a straight face long enough that Hal opened his mouth a few times, trying to figure out how he could break the news to her. He felt bad that he had taken it without asking.
“I’m sorry,” Mira said, wiping away a tear. “Your face. It was priceless. My awesome Dragoon powers already make me nearly immune to flames.” She motioned to Elora. “Maybe the Ranger would like some fire protection?”
Elora took one look at Hal, then at the distant black obelisk. “No. Not that it would work if we tried.”
Mira looked at it then at Hal and Ashera. “You broke it.”
Shaking his head, Hal released his essence-limbs. As soon as he did, he felt better. They were never that difficult to maintain before.
He wasn’t even sure he could summon the shadow-limbs or anything essence-based at the moment.
Beastborne- Mark of the Founder Page 65
