Chapter 31: Secrets Always Lie Deeper

  “Hold!” Adelina’s voice broke above the sounds of a hissing freeze—a debilitating exhale of chilling breath, unleashed by no other than the silver dragon itself.

  Blychert deployed a personal shield spell, deflecting a hard-struck blow from a wayward, jagged shortsword that would have surely cut him deeply. On the backfoot for a moment, the defensive spell dissipated quickly, but Bly unleashed an icicle spell without delay, all but dispatching the attacking goblinoid with ease thereafter.

  Stealing a quick glance to right, Blychert searched the conglomerate of tightly clustered adventurers for any signs of Skaldan. They’d been separated shortly after the dragon’s first assault, and the proceeding onslaught of dozens of spawns with it. The entire plaza was now riddled with monsters, and the sounds and sights of clashing weapons and brightly illuminated spells or skills painted the otherwise darkened interior of the dungeon in myriad mental obstacles, making it more difficult to gather one’s own bearings, let alone catch their breath.

  For a horrifying moment, Bly wondered if the young prince had fallen. But no, as bodies shifted, Blychert spotted him on the fringes of the middling back line, still holding his own resolve. Exhaling, Bly cleared his own mind and refocused his efforts on supporting his fellow delvers.

  It was just fortunate that they had so many seasoned spellcasters and frontliners in their ranks, otherwise their defenses would have been shredded to bits by now. Bjadir was there at the front too, his maul hacking down scores of spawns just as easily, Reingard as well. In any event, inroads in damage against the dragon seemed too slow, especially with such a high volume of spawns to accompany it.

  This dragon wasn’t nearly as powerful as Kubranul, Bly thought, and certainly was nowhere near as intelligent. And yet it imposed itself quite formidably, making most attempts at getting anywhere near it largely futile. It was a vicious attacker, and a shrewd defender, all but surely worthy of the rank of S.

  “Swap out—” one of the casters behind Bly pulled him back by the shoulder, and before he knew it, Blychert was stumbling onto the back line.

  He didn’t even realize how heavily he was breathing until then, no doubt thanks to a steady stream of mana churning through his body in the last few minutes. But it wasn’t enough. He could still do more. Spinning to face the front, Bly began multitarget casting Protection from Cold, so that at the very least some of his companions would be better suited to taking the dragon’s breath weapon head-on.

  Stepping across to his right, Blychert then repositioned himself behind where Skaldan was fighting, and said haggardly, “You alright?”

  Wordlessly, Skaldan glanced over his shoulder and gave a small nod, before twisting his crimson, energetic gauntlets back around to continue the fighting.

  Blychert nodded in self-assurance, content to catch his breath for a few moments longer before he jumped back in. For what it was worth, neither of them seemed to be too far in the red. But even then, the two parties seemed to be relatively exhausted of resources, given what was more than likely several long and arduous days of spawn culling for both of them.

  “Reingard!” Adelina huffed, “We have to make a decision. We’re sitting ducks out here. If we’re going to fallback, then we need to do it now.”

  Blychert bit at the edges of his lower lip.

  His mana was reaching lower levels than what was ideal for a scenario like this. If he pushed too much harder, he really would have to pull out all the stops. Maybe Adelina was right. Maybe the best play was to retreat to the wayshrine chamber.

  But was that good enough for him?

  If they left the dungeon now, what did that mean for he and Skaldan in achieving their primary objective here? He couldn’t abandon that now. In some ways, it was all he had.

  A monstrous wailing rose through the chamber suddenly. Out of the corner of Blychert’s eyes, he watched as the silver dragon reared onto its hindlegs. The creature’s neck craned, its forelegs splayed as it towered above where the party stood loosely in some semblance of a defensive formation, before crashing down upon the stonework.

  The chamber groaned, buckling against such a magmatic force of will. No sooner had it done so, did the ground beneath their feet begin to give way. Stone quaked, cracking heedlessly, splitting in rows uneven.

  “…Run!” Reingard shouted.

  Though it was left too little too late.

  Before Bly could urge him and Skaldan backward, the both of them were sent tumbling down, and over the edge of the shifting plaza.

  “System command: input spell override: freezing chain—!”

  A flash of Glemberfang’s chamber coursed through Blychert’s mind, as he suddenly found himself in a nearly identical scenario to that day a few months ago. This time, however, he was the one hanging off the edge of the abys, not Xander.

  Dangling from his leg, Skaldan clung on for dear life, those crimson gauntlets digging into Bly’s padded pant leg more than a little painfully. But Bly barely noticed that pain, it paled in comparison to his only tether—the freezing chain wrapped tightly around his wrist which began to close in, as both he and Skaldan began to slip free.

  “”Gah—!” Bly groaned, the pain coursing through his arm reaching an instant level of unbearable, as everything began to stretch.

  At this rate, his arm was going to be pulled straight out of his body. He had to do something, anything. Maybe a wall of ice beneath them? If he got his mana replenishment going, he might be able to pull that off without going critical.

  What other choice did he have at this point?

  “…I’ve got you!”

  Before Blychert knew what was happening, he felt the pressure on his arm immediately draw back, offering a small modicum of relief. Reingard was practically dangling off the edge of the stonework too, as Bly looked upwards, pulling him up by the scruff of his neck with one arm.

  However, the chamber quaked again. Reingard slipped another two feet over the edge, but he too was suddenly caught from behind. Glancing past Reingard, Bly saw Bjadir’s strained face, who had the warrior’s legs tightly wrapped up in his own arms. Inch by inch, the half-giant began to pull not one, but three bodies up from the darkness.

  Well, it was certainly better than the alternative.

  A weightless sensation overtook Blychert suddenly. He blinked, and the light of the chamber above began to shrink. In fact, no longer was he being pulled up, but rather he was falling into the darkened depths. Reingard fell above him, and Bjadir too. The chunk of stone that tethered him and his chain had come loose, and the plaza above had begun to crumble.

  In one last desperate ploy, Bly thrust his hand down towards his leg, where the young prince was still loosely clung. He pumped a moderately strong shield spell over him, all but expending most of the open mana he could comfortably use, before activating his own Thundermaw Amulet with a mental gesture. He just had to hope its [Invulnerable] condition was good enough for whatever impact came next.

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  “Awaken...”

  Blychert groaned, opening his eyes all at once to pure darkness.

  He was still alive… presumably. But hell, if whatever he landed on didn’t hurt.

  “Everyone alright?” Reingard’s voice broke through a series of coughs and grumbles. It sounded a little muted too, as if they were in a closed-in space of some kind.

  Sitting upright, Bly extended his hand and murmured, “Star light’s splendor, hear my call and burst forth. Light.”

  In response, an orb of light leapt into the air from his fingertips and illuminated his surroundings in a pale, flushed glow. Glancing around himself, he spotted Skaldan, Reingard, and Bjadir, all of whom appeared to be relatively unharmed, though Reingard appeared to be nursing a limp of some kind. Furthermore, they were all standing in some narrow, cavernous passage, the likes of which extended in two directions. Looking up, Blychert couldn’t see anything of the chamber they’d fallen from, just black beyond the glow of his spell.

  “No map data.” Skaldan shrugged, who appeared to have been looking at his sage terminal, “Does that mean were still on floor seven?”

  “No idea…” Reingard sighed. The warrior had definitely been banged up in his fall. Whatever he’d done to shelter himself from the impact had at least saved his life, but it was far from ideal. Limping a few feet away, Reingard leaned over and picked up one of his swords from off the ground. The other one was nowhere to be found, but that didn’t seem to bother their party leader in the slightest. Instead, he turned to look at all of them, and grimaced slightly, “Let’s go.”

  Blychert didn’t have the stomach to suggest that maybe they should rest for a bit. Reingard didn’t move the fastest, and Bly himself was still feeling a bit out of it. He was sure he’d heard some voice whispering to him when he’d come to as well, but he supposed that it could have been the dungeon playing tricks on him.

  It could have been anything, truthfully.

  They were stranded in an uncharted area of the dungeon, perhaps it was better to keep moving.

  The narrow, rocky terrain only grew narrower and more difficult as time passed, not less. No one spoke much either, though Bly did check-in with Skaldan from time to time to ensure they were both alright. Bjadir was a man of few words anyway, and Reingard seemed too focused on leading the party forward to say much else other than where to turn and when to stop for a breather.

  It was all well and good for Bly though, because a familiar, growing pain in the back of his head suggested that there was something amiss. The walk gave him time to think anyway. He couldn’t help but to be reminded of when he and Xander had been trapped in the dungeon. They’d had navigated a particuarlly complex and altogether elusive set of caves and tunnels as well. He’d felt uneasy back then too.

  But there was something different about it this time. It didn’t feel… quiet? There was a buzzing, or a sensation that he was picking up on. He was certain that if he cast an aura detection spell, the entire place would light up like the city center.

  There was an intense, perhaps even an unnatural flow of mana in this dungeon right now. And Blychert got the sense that these tunnels, these strange connecting points… it was as if they were walking through the dungeon’s very veins.

  “Up ahead.” Reingard said quietly, gesturing forward.

  Glancing past him, Blychert spotted what their party leader was alluding to. The narrow tunnel reached an exit, through which portions of a familiar, stone corridor could be seen. But that wasn’t what caught their attention, Rather, it was those same wisps and strands of light that they’d seen back before reaching the plaza up above.

  But these were different. They were more intense, but their light wasn’t pale and soft like before, instead more of a rich, golden color.

  As the party of four stepped out into the corridor, Blychert couldn’t help but to notice that there were more of these wisps, but these were concentrated into pockets, more like nodes. From these nodes of energy, strands spread out like tendrils, blooming until they reached other nodes, so much so that each of these wisps were interconnected by eternal strands of energy, like a spider’s web.

  “Quiet.” Bjadir said, though it was more of an observation than a request.

  “You don’t say…” Reingard seemed to agree, “Any map data yet?”

  Blychert gestured for his sage terminal to open and swiped across to the dungeon’s interior map. There was nothing, just complete gray, fuzziness. Glancing up, he replied, “Not even a little bit.”

  “What do you think these things are?” Skaldan said curiously, as he walked up to one of the nodes of energy.

  “Do not get close to that.” Reingard grabbed Skaldan by the scruff and yanked him backwards, “You heard Adelina, yeah? Celthos got sucked into one of these things… for all we know, it’s some kind of dungeon defense mechanism—wards or some shit.”

  Blychert raised his eyebrow at the warrior’s statement, as a sudden thought occurred to him. He had seen something vaguely familiar to this before, hadn’t he? Back in the Gleaming Caves, during that strange vision in which he’d met a humanoid form that he believed to be the Pale Lady.

  Those golden lines of light…

  Stepping forward towards the node, he extended his arm and cast an aura detection spell, intent to study this one more thoroughly than the last, now that his ideas were formulating.

  “Hey, what did I just say—!”

  “Relax.” Blychert swatted his party leader’s hand away. Now was not the time for caution, “I just want to see something.”

  An immediate sensation washed over him, the second Bly’s spell interacted with the aberrant energy around them. It was curious, he felt a tug—a pull towards certain wisps, but not others. Stepping away from the first wisp, Bly allowed himself to be pulled towards the one that made him “feel” the most strange.

  Stopping in front of it, Bly studied the golden lines of energy that swirled around the orb of light.

  She’d called it a “gilded cage” hadn’t she? Winter?

  Reingard had called it a defense mechanism.

  Maybe both were accurate, depending on what one sought to achieve inside this place. Winter was, in whatever capacity, the system notification that deployed upon interaction with certain dungeon elements. Was it possible, that this, this energy, was an attempt by the dungeon itself to mitigate the damages wrought upon it by exterior forces? Was this what the Church and the Guild were really after? But if so, what did that even have to do with a rift? Those were overworld spawn events, not dungeon-based events.

  There were so many questions that needed answering, if only they knew where that damned dwarf was…

  “I think we should go through.” Bly said confidently, turning to look at Reingard.

  “You what?”

  Blychert shrugged at his party leader’s confusion, “I mean, we should throw something in, obviously, to see if it actually works. But… yeah, I think we go through.”

  “Have you lost your damned mind?” Reingard growled, “Get away from that thing.”

  “I agree with Trelen.” Skaldan replied, stepping up to stand alongside where Blychert stood. Folding his arms over, he added, “This is a golden opportunity.”

  “It’s stupid.” Reingard said bluntly, “You’re both stupid. Gods, why did I let you come down here…”

  “Perhaps, we might hear Trelen’s reasoning.” Bjadir seemed inclined to be the voice of reason, “I’m sure he has thought this through quite thoroughly.”

  Thanks, big guy. Bly thought with a small grin. Truthfully, he hadn’t given it much thought at all. It was more of a hunch; a gut feeling. But hey, his gut feelings were pretty sharp most of the time. Right?

  “You too?” Reingard grumbled. He paused, before looking at Blychert unconvinced, “Fine, what’s your big idea?”

  “Worst case?” Bly figured a guess, “We find Celthos and make sure he’s okay. Isn’t that part of our job? There are still three delvers missing from last week…”

  “And what’s your real motive?” Reingard asked, sniffing right past Bly’s deceptions.

  “Well…” Blychert tarried, waving his fingers in front of the node for a small moment, “Why would a guy like Cynric be drawn to this place and not be drawn to whatever this is? Something tells me we might have a real shot at finding him if we have a little faith in the dungeon. I can feel a pull from this thing... seriously, it's powerful. I don't think it'll hurt us.”

  Reingard scoffed, “You’ve lost your fucking mind, kid.”

  “Maybe…” Bly murmured. Reaching into his pocket, he fingered around with his resonance stone for a diligent moment. Before he knew it, he had charged it with a bit of mana, taken it out of his pocket, and had tossed it towards the wisp. In the blink of an eye, and a flash of light later, it was gone. Smiling, he looked at Reingard, “But maybe not?”

  “This is crazy. This is absolutely crazy…” Reingard laughed to himself, as he paced across the corridor. Bly didn’t blame him, it was crazy. But, crazier things had happened, and he’d made it out just fine. Turning back, Reingard said to Bly, “And I suppose you’re going in first?”

  “You’re the party leader.” Skaldan insisted, “Isn’t that your job?”

  “Says who?” Reingard grimaced, “Why don’t you do it? Since you two are so buddy-buddy.”

  “Uh…” Skaldan furrowed his brow, before shaking his head, “I’m only sixteen. How old are you?”

  “Swindled again… fuck it.”

  Reingard stepped forward towards the node of energy. And without even pausing, he reached out his hand. In the same flash of light, he was gone.

  “See you on the other side…” Bly turned towards the others and said, a bit nervously.

  With a deep exhale, he extended his arm, and embraced the energetic node. It licked him all around, engulfing him in a vibrant golden light. There was no pain, but a deep and looming sense of foreboding lingered in that split-second. Whatever secrets this dungeon buried deep inside itself, at least it couldn’t be said that Blychert wasn’t willing to go to any lengths to unearth them.

  Come sooner or later, he was in this to the end.