“That they are…” Misha confirmed with a sigh, her expression shifting unreadably as she spoke. “I was talking to Michael the other day, and he said the same thing. They’re a bit torn on leaving us in the lurch with what we have going on.”
“Well, we might not be in the lurch anymore with Carver and the Dread Crew gone,” Peter said. “And I don’t want them to resent us if they really want to get back home.”
“Definitely not,” I agreed, feeling myself warm up to the idea, especially now that I’d finished watching the group’s feed and knew why the three wanted to get back to Eberia in the first place. “But even if they aren’t up for going back just yet, I think putting out a highlight of events from the feeds we have is a good idea. It’s also realistically the best we can manage right now because you’re right, Misha, we have enough of our own problems to deal with. Maybe once we put our Carver problem to bed, we can turn our eyes back that way, but until then…”
“Our focus needs to be on getting our own house in order,” Misha finished. “And deal with whatever else as it comes.”
“Okay,” Peter said, letting out a slow breath as he leaned forward in his seat, glancing down at the floor for few seconds, deep in thought. “What’s our first step then if we’re going to plan this out? We still have plenty of day left to work with.”
“Well, first things first,” I said as the three of us began to sort out all the details of putting our plan together. “I’m going to have to have a talk with Gavin…”
Chapter 9
Thursday, April 11th, 2047 – 7:03 a.m.
Aldford
“Hey, have you guys seen Lazarus today?” I asked as I walked into the town hall with Amaranth by my side, spotting Sawyer and Ransom sitting together at a table and eating breakfast. “I need to talk to him.”
“Hm? Oof, morning, Lyr,” Sawyer managed amid a mouthful of food, pausing to finish chewing and swallow while his hand pointed towards the northwest. “Erm, sorry. Uh, well, we haven’t seen him since last night, but we’re still in a group. Party sense has him out somewhere that way, outside the town and towards Crater Lake.”
“Isn’t that where he went yesterday?” Ransom asked, turning his head towards Sawyer. “He said he was going to go for a walk. Did he even come back?”
“Not a clue, man,” Sawyer answered, giving the half-orc a shrug. “When I logged off last night to sleep he was still out.”
“Hrm,” Ransom grunted. “Why would he stay out all night?”
“Uh, maybe because he wanted to sleep in?” Sawyer stated, his eyes drifting up to look at me apologetically. “Aldford hasn’t been exactly…quiet the last couple days. All that hammering as soon as the sun comes up…”
“Hey, don’t look at me,” I replied a bit defensively, hearing Amaranth croak in agreement with the dark-haired warrior. “That’s all Jenkins’s and Léandre’s show.”
“Hrm, sure, and you’re not the one pulling their strings?” Ransom mused in a disbelieving tone which quickly morphed into a chuckle. “Anyway, do you need Lazarus for something specific? Or can we pass a message on when he gets back?”
“Well, I had a couple questions about his feed,” I said simply, deciding that this wasn’t the best place to get into all of the details. “I finally had a chance to finish watching your…adventure, then I looked at a few others out in Eberia after that. Things are getting to be a bit rough back there.”
“Oh yeah?” Sawyer queried, giving me a curious look. “What did you see?”
“A lot,” I replied vaguely, turning my head to indicate the room, which was full of adventurers getting ready for the day. “I don’t suppose you two would mind helping me track Lazarus down? We have a guild meeting planned later in the day today, and I have a couple of things I’d like to talk to you guys about before then.”
“Uh, okay,” Ransom said slowly, his eyes following my gaze and then turning to glance at Sawyer. “We’re just about done here anyway.”
With that, the pair finished their meals and followed Amaranth and I back out of the hall, a thundering cacophony of pounding hammers, shouting voices, and rasping saws crashing into us as if it were a physical blow. The serene and quiet mornings that had once been typical of Aldford had finally come to an end over the last couple days, replaced with the sound of heavy industry and labor the moment that the sun broke the horizon. Unsure how long our lull in the war with the Dread Crew would last, Léandre and Jenkins had refused to take our increase in available manpower for granted, setting brutal workdays for everyone who could work a tool or lift something heavy.
Maybe he really is burning out? I thought, worried that if the man’s friends weren’t in the loop of his state of mind that there could be something really wrong. I guess we’ll need to see when we find him.
Putting that train of thought to the side for the moment, I found my attention being caught by the partially complete palisade as we approached the town’s edge, our path taking us right under a collection of wooden framework and scaffolding that would one day soon become a reinforced gate.
Assuming of course that everything goes to plan, I thought as we emerged from the other side, the construction noise beginning to fade away behind us.
“So. What’s going on, Lyrian?” Ransom was the first to ask once we’d managed to leave the town behind, the four of us finally able to hear one another clearly as well as have some privacy for ourselves.
“Oh, you know, just the world moving along without us…” I began, going on to give the pair a quick outline of everything that Peter, Misha, and I had found yesterday. “…and that’s where we are now.”
“Huh,” Sawyer grunted, glancing over at me after my explanation with a wide-eyed expression. “Shit.”
“You could say that again,” Ransom breathed softly, his voice sounding a bit pained. “We had no idea Graves was involved.”
“To be fair, you didn’t even know about Graves back then,” I stated, waving a hand dismissively through the air. “Again, assuming in the first place that it’s really him at all. We really can’t be certain.”
“So you said,” Sawyer noted with a sigh, the conversation shifting as the two of them began to ask me questions about what was happening in Eberia while we continued to walk towards wherever Lazarus had gone for the morning.
Doing my best to answer what questions I could, the journey passed by quickly, both Sawyer and Ransom leading me to a familiar overlook that hung over Crater Lake, giving us a perfect view of the horizon, which was broken up by the two mountains far in the distance. Pausing to take in the sight, I shifted my gaze downward, spotting Lazarus sitting at the very edge of the outcropping with his feet hanging into nothingness. Making no motion to acknowledge our arrival, Lazarus, however, remained fixed and motionless, his head inclined downward as if he were staring down into the lake below.
“Morning, Lazarus,” I called out gently, hoping not to startle the man if he was simply lost in thought and hadn’t heard us
approach. But instead of turning to react to our presence, the man continued to sit motionless, his body not moving a single inch. Giving the others a strange look, I decided to try again, pitching my voice a bit louder. “Hey, are you okay, Lazarus?”
Once again there was no response, nor movement.
“Um…” I trailed off, this time turning to look at Sawyer and Ransom with a raised eyebrow, wondering if I’d somehow offended the man unknowingly to cause him to ignore me.
“Gav! What’s going on?” Sawyer called out, his voice sounding slightly annoyed as he walked up towards the man. “Ransom and I are here too! Why are you—”
Sawyer stopped mid-sentence as he reached Lazarus’s side, his head glancing down at something in the man’s lap.
“Oh, what the hell is this?” I heard him mutter as he turned to look back towards us, his eyes wide with concern. “Guys, I think there might be something wrong here. Lazarus looks like he’s in a…trance or something, and his sword is looking a bit weird too.”
“His sword?” I asked, momentarily confused as I moved towards the seated man, my question answering itself as I arrived at his side. Clutched by the hilt in a single hand and set across his lap was Lazarus’s glass-steel sword, which now pulsed with a faint crimson light, his free hand resting flat on top of the blade. A glance showed me that his eyes were open but completely glazed over, the man otherwise completely unconscious in a seated position.
“Damn, something sure isn’t right,” I said worriedly, grabbing one of Lazarus’s arms and motioning for Sawyer to do the same on the other side. “We’ll take him backward slowly, then put him on his back. Watch that sword too as we move.”
Pulling on the man, we easily dragged Lazarus from the edge of the overlook, his body not resisting our efforts in the slightest. Reaching a safe distance from the edge, we then set the man down, my eyes shooting downwards towards the sword in hand, which he had stubbornly held onto.
“I’ve never seen the sword do that before,” Ransom stated as he and Amaranth joined both Sawyer and me on the ground, the four of us staring at the pulsing sword in Lazarus’s hand. “I know that he finally finished feeding it experience and awoke it during the battle in the Twilight Grove, but he didn’t say anything else about it to me.”
“Me either,” I replied, having gotten Lazarus to show me the weapon after the tumultuous events in the Twilight Grove and how he’d been able to coat the blade in flames for short periods at a time. Wondering if something had changed with the sword, I focused my attention on it a little bit more intently, seeing a tag appear with its description.
Awoken Glass-Steel Greatsword
Slot: Main Hand and Offhand
Item Class: Relic
Item Quality: Mythical (+30%)
Damage: 90-120 (Slashing)
Strength: +28
Durability: 200/200
Base Material: Glass-Steel
Weight: 2 kg
Class: Any Martial
Level: 22
Special: Evolving Weapon – Stage 2 – Attunement
“Shit, something’s changed with it alright,” I said, after skimming through the item’s description, not recalling seeing the “attunement” stage of the evolving weapon before today. “It looks like Lazarus’s unlocked a new stage of the sword.”
“Well, he picked a great place to do it,” Sawyer muttered with a shake of his head as he and I both reached out to grasp Lazarus’s hand that was holding the hilt of the sword, peeling the fingers away one by one. Fighting an iron grip, it took us several seconds to get the hilt free of the man’s grasp, but no sooner did the last finger touching the hilt come free did the light within the sword vanish and Lazarus’s eyes return to life.
“Ugh,” he groaned weakly, staring up at both Sawyer and me blankly. “Sawyer? Lyrian? What…how…”
“I think that’s what we’re supposed to be asking,” I said, leaning back to give Lazarus some room. “What happened, man? Were you here all night?”
“I…shit. Is it morning already?” Lazarus asked, blinking his eyes as if he were coming out of a deep sleep. “Damn, it is.”
“We just found you now,” Sawyer said. “Why didn’t you tell us you were going to try and do something like this with your sword?”
“Because I didn’t think that it was going to put me out,” Lazarus answered wearily, lying still for several seconds before pushing himself upward into a seated position, mindful of the sword that still rested on his lap. “I thought that this next stage was going to be something simple to unlock.”
“Riiight,” I said, drawing the word out slowly. “And when was anything ever simple in this game?”
“Okay…chalk that up to hindsight, then,” Lazarus replied in a tired voice as he gently grabbed the hilt of his sword and placed it in the dirt beside him, clearly not afraid of the weapon despite whatever it had done to him. “I’ll know better for next time at least.”
“Next time?” Ransom queried with a scowl on his face. “How about you finish telling us what happened this time?”
“Well,” Lazarus began, pausing as he pushed himself off the ground and into a standing position, his balance appearing unsteady. “You all know how before I had to feed the sword experience, right? And that it’s an evolving weapon that is supposed to scale with me as I level?”
“Yeah,” I said with a nod, recalling my envy the first time that I’d seen the man’s weapon—and wishing that I had been able to have something similar. “I remember.”
“Right,” Lazarus stated, visibly steadying himself before bending down to pick the sword up from the ground, holding it carefully in both of his hands. “So it turns out that was the first step in unlocking whatever this weapon is capable of. A few days ago, I felt something about the sword start to…change, for lack of a better word.”
“Change?” Sawyer asked, his eyes darting from the sword to Lazarus’s face. “Change how?”
“That’s the thing,” the half-giant replied, his attention focused on the weapon in his hands. “I can’t explain it, but something started to feel different about the sword. Like there was something inside of it just beyond reach. Then a couple days ago, right after our big battle on the plains, I got a notification about a second stage to its evolution, saying that I had to somehow attune myself to the weapon, whatever that means exactly.”
“Let me get this straight. Your magic sword that is clearly special somehow, started to feel weird and different, so your first thought afterward was to run off somewhere to let it eat your soul or something without telling anyone,” Sawyer said in a sarcastic tone while rolling his eyes at Lazarus. “Do you guys ever feel like our lives have become something out of a bad fantasy pulp novel since we started playing this game?”
“You know, now that you mention it,” Ransom said, raising a hand to stroke his chin thoughtfully.
“I know, I know,” Lazarus acknowledged, raising his hands in surrender. “It wasn’t exactly the smartest idea, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
“Eh,” I said with a dismissive wave of a hand. “Doesn’t look like it hurt you. Did you at least finish that attunement thing before we woke you up?”
“No,” Lazarus replied with a shake of his head. “I think I might have done it wrong, to be honest, or I might not be high enough leveled yet.”
“Or it might take longer than a night to attune,” I suggested, knowing that there were easily a dozen more potential answers for what Lazarus needed to do in order to continue evolving his weapon. “Do you remember anything at all from when you were trying to attune with it?”
“Not really, to be honest,” the half-giant replied. “Just a vague feeling that I was walking through somewhere dark, almost like I was searching for something but couldn’t find it.”
“Huh,” I mused, wondering what that could mean. “So much for an easy clue.”
“Yeah, no dice there,” Lazarus agreed in a wistful tone as he moved to sheath his sword,
his face shifting into an apologetic expression. “Well, at any rate, I’m sorry to have worried you guys for the morning. I really didn’t expect this to happen. I was just looking for a quiet place to sort this all out in private.”
“Neither did we when we came looking for you,” Sawyer snorted. “But now that we’ve actually found you, we actually have our own things to bring you up to speed on.”
“Oh?” Lazarus’s asked, an eyebrow rising in curiosity. “Did something happen overnight with Carver?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head as I prepared to retell my story once again. “We’re planning a guild meeting later on tonight to lay out our plan for the next few days, and I wanted to have a chance to run a few things by you three first…since a big piece of it could affect you guys.”
The next few minutes after that were filled with me catching Lazarus up to where I’d left Sawyer and Ransom, the pair waiting patiently in the process. As I continued with my explanation, I noticed his face tighten as I brought up the state of Eberia, any lingering thoughts that he might have had about the mystery of his sword abruptly vanishing.
“So with all of that going on now in Eberia,” I said, wrapping up my speech, “we want to use your feed to help raise awareness from a meta-perspective and possibly get more players heading back to the city, either to mess with whatever plans this mystery player has, assuming he’s not Graves, and get the nobles to fall into line. But in order to do that…”
“You need my permission,” Lazarus stated, crossing his arms as he considered my request.
“I think it’s a good idea, Lazarus,” Sawyer volunteered. “Plus, if we can get the feed out, maybe Molly and Quinn will see it and reach out to us back in reality. Then at least we can figure out what happened to them.”
“That thought did cross my mind too,” I admitted in as gentlest a tone as I could manage, having heard weeks ago from Sawyer and Ransom that they’d been split up from the rest of their party. But it hadn’t been until I’d watched the full chain of events until I realized the full scope of what had happened, or how it had affected Lazarus. “We can have our producer maybe include a message if you want or just filter for and pass along any emails that they get.”
Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4) Page 12
