The Land: Forging (Chaos Seeds Book 2)

CHAPTER 19

Richter healed himself over the next five minutes. By the time he had gotten back onto his feet, Daniella had healed Yoshi from his cold burns and Sion from a swipe he had taken across the abdomen. The blow must have been hard because it had scored the sprite’s armor and punctured it in one place. Sion didn’t seem any the worse for wear though and was walking around to the piles of dust the fades had left. He sifted through the ash and scooped a pinch of a sparkling purple powder into an empty vial.

Richter looked at the pile of ash at his feet. Slowly sifting through the dust, he found a small amount of the purple dust as well. Examining it, a prompt appeared. His rank as an apprentice in Herb Lore came into play, teaching him three potential uses.

You have found: Spectral Dust. You have the feeling this could be used in an invisibility potion, a spectral poison, or the component of making a Blur item.

He examined the other prompts that came up during the fight.

Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Dual Wield. You can use a weapon in both hands. Accuracy decreased in both hands, worse in non-dominant hand. At least one weapon must qualify as a light weapon until skill is leveled appropriately. Ignoring this constraint will greatly increase the drop in accuracy.

Richter looked closer at his combat log from when he was fighting with both daggers. Accuracy was decreased 25% in his right hand and 50% in his left! No wonder he had been missing so much!

Congratulations! You have reached level 2 in Small Blades. +2% attack speed. +2% bonus to damage.

Congratulations! You have reached level 4 in Life Magic. New spells are now available.

The bump in attack speed was nothing to sneeze at. All things being equal, daggers and short swords would likely never completely match longer weapons in raw damage potential, but if you were able to make twice as many attacks in the same amount of time, then who cared?

Richter let Sion collect all of the spectral dust since. He made sure to tell the sprite about the three qualities he had identified. The fades hadn’t dropped any other loot. Alma dropped down to his shoulders. He had told her to remain above the fray with Futen. The temperamental psi dragonling had of course ignored him, and he had seen her sweeping down to use her psi blast. Unfortunately, it had no effect on the fades, perhaps because they were pure spirits. She had narrowly avoided being caught on razor sharp claws. After that she had decided the smart move might be to hover above the fray.

The party gathered and looked at the open skeleton doorway. Richter convinced the others to remain behind while he scouted ahead. The plan was for Futen to turn invisible, and lead the way. When Futen had first been summoned, he couldn’t be more than one hundred yards from Richter if they weren’t in the village. That range seemed to have expanded to more than twice that. Either way, Richter didn’t want the remnant more than one hundred yards ahead. If there were any more lightning crystals or other magical traps, Futen could come to a bad end.

Richter moved to the doorway, cast Night Vision, and then walked into the dark hallway. He tried to activate his stealth skill, but was unsuccessful. More accurately, he could Stealth but the “eye gauge” remained wide open. When he was in stealth mode, if he was successfully hidden then an icon with a closed eye appeared at the corner of his vision. The less effective he was in concealing himself, the wider the eye grew until it was fully open. The eye was still green meaning he wasn’t being directly visualized by an enemy, but he was a bit concerned that his ability was on the fritz. Suddenly he realized there was more light in the tunnel than there should be. Slapping his hand to his forehead, he dismissed Minor Life Aura. After that, he was easily able to cloak himself in shadow. Between Futen as his early warning system, and the shadows hiding him from view, he felt well protected.

The hallway was made of long bones. Richter had to be careful of his footing, the knobs at the end of each bone made walking somewhat treacherous. He walked slowly though and avoided any noisy falls. He continued walking straight for a bit less than half an hour, and then the hallway opened up into a large stone room.

Horizontal alcoves were carved into the walls. Any given section of wall had three stacked, floor to ceiling. Most were filled with corpses or skeletons. What captured Richter’s attention though, was the mass of fades in the room. There were multiple doorways leading off at odd points from the chamber. The fades were slowly moving in and out of the room and into the adjacent corridors. At most there were fourteen or fifteen in the room at one time, but sometimes there were only five.

Richter mentally summoned Futen back, and then made his way back to the rest of the party. He related what he had found, and a quick discussion ensued. They didn’t have a sure way to attack the creatures since they could phase in and out. The best option would be to draw them back into the central chamber, and into the light of the column. Richter had the best movement speed, and so it was decided that he would draw the fades. The other three situated themselves in the light of the column at the far end from the skeleton door.

Richter was about to start walking back down the bone hallway when Yoshi stopped him. “I saw you recharge the wand. Do you have any spare soul stones to do the same for my swords?” Richter nodded and Yoshi handed him one of his swords. At first it showed up as ‘Magic sword,’ but Futen flared and Richter got to see the weapon’s real stats.

Quicksilver Rapier of Frost. Damage 32-41. Durability 86/100. Item class: Rare. Quality: Exquisite. Weight 1.9 kg. +5 Frost Damage per strike (+12 vs. Fire creatures). Charges 48/70.

Richter’s eyes widened at the weapons stats. He looked at Yoshi, who gave him a smug look, then closed both eyes nodding slightly. Richter just chuckled a bit. No matter how much he and the adept fought, they apparently had one thing in common. They both liked a good blade.

Richter willed one of his basic soul stones to power Yoshi’s sword. The ribbon of light flowed into the weapon, replenishing fifteen charges. Richter figured that was enough for now, and handed the sword back. He did the same for Yoshi’s other blade, replenishing twelve charges. He could have maxed the charges out on both, but only had two basic soul stones left. He decided to use one more basic stone on his Life dagger, bringing it back up to full charge. He checked to see what the Fade had awarded him, and was pleased to see that he had captured a common level soul.

Once he was done with his enchanting duties, Richter went back down the hallway with an invisible Futen leading the way. He made his way back to the room unmolested.

When the four of them were discussing the best way to proceed, they had decided to draw the smallest amount of fades as possible. He watched for several minutes until only six fades were present. Not wasting any time, he shot the closest with his bow. Surprisingly, it didn’t phase out of view. It must be an active ability, Richter realized, meaning the fade had to will it to happen. The arrow struck and immediately they all began their horrible wailing.

The fades moved towards him, but again not overly fast. Richter retreated up the tunnel. He would run twenty or thirty yards, and then stop, waiting for them to close part of the distance. He didn’t want to lose them. He kept firing back periodically. His first shot missed as the fade phased out of sight. He learned that if he targeted the same fade again in succession, though, his arrow would connect. Thankfully, it seemed that their ability had a cool down period.

Once Richter made it back to the central chamber, he dismissed Night Vision and rejoined the sprites. He quickly recast his buffs, and then turned to meet the fades. The monsters didn’t even make it to the central column. Once they were within the radius of the light, they slowed just like the previous slain fellows had. Under the fire of three bows, soon all that remained were piles of dust.

Richter repeated the process five more times. On his seventh trip down the tunnel, he watched the chamber that he had been drawing the fades from for ten minutes, but he didn’t see any more activity. Futen also didn’t see any as he invisibly searched the side rooms, so Richter felt relatively safe that all of the fades had been dispatched.

He collected the sprites, and soon they were all standing back in the sepulcher.

“So who is up for a bit of grave robbing,” Richter asked, gleefully rubbing his hands together. They split into two groups, Yoshi and Daniella in one, him and Sion in the other. That way each group had someone with the Pierce the Veil skill. Richter and Sion explored the right side of the room. His wand was out and the blue light swept every surface. Nothing flared white, though. They began to inspect each skeleton and found a collection of copper and silver coins. Every so often they found a semi-precious gem.

The doorway to the next room led to another crypt chamber with three more doorways leading off. They looted the chamber and the ones to the right and left. When they approached the doorway of the last room though, it wasn’t a simple stone arch like the rest. It was at least twice as wide as the others and was constructed from a type of matte black stone. Sion and Richter could easily see into the room, illuminated by Futen’s light, and the Far Light balls Richter cast periodically. The bodies were much better preserved than they had been in the previous rooms. There was no sign of obvious decay, the corpses just looked desiccated. Each was wearing hide or leather armor and had a weapon either at its side or crossed over its chest. The alcoves were also upright as opposed to horizontal. Four armored corpses stool sentinel on either side of a central closed crypt. Richter used Analyze.

Draugh Elite Guard. Level 18. Health 740. Magic 0. Stamina 390. Draugh are warriors who willingly consign a portion of their souls to be bound to their bodies after death. All personality and individuality are gone, but what remains is a fierce determination to protect the place of their rest. For this reason, draugh are normally placed to protect the burial chambers of their former masters. Beware the fierce strength of the undead.

Sion was about to step into the room when Richter grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.

“Something not good is going to happen if we step in there,” Richter said.

“How do you know?”

“You mean other than the fact that there are eight undead warriors guarding a crypt which clearly has a boss inside?”

Sion looked at him sheepishly, “Well if you say it like that, then of course it sounds like a dumb idea.”

“Let’s just go find the others.”

Richter and Sion walked back towards where they had split with Yoshi and Daniella only to find the sprites were already walking back towards them as well. Yoshi had made a makeshift torch with what looked like a bit of old cloth wrapped around the head of a leg bone.

“We found something,” Yoshi said. Daniella handed over what she and Yoshi had collected from the bodies. It looked to be the same type of loot that Richter and Sion had found. He put it in his Bag.

“Us too,” Richter replied. He told the sword adept about what they had found. Yoshi nodded.

“There is a room this way,” Yoshi said pointing back the way he had come. “It has a chest in the center, but the room is absolutely bristling with traps.”

“Show me,” Richter said.

Yoshi led the way through three rooms still holding the leg bone aloft. Richter asked him if he planned to wash his hands before he ate. Yoshi just looked back at him with a deadpan expression and kept walking. Richter couldn’t resist annoying the half-sprite by shooting a ball of light ahead of them, just to prove how useless the torch was. Yoshi ignored him.

After passing through a few rooms, they arrived at a doorway lined with white stone. It was larger than the other doorways in what looked to be exactly the same proportions as the black doorway leading to the boss room. Richter gazed inside. At first, nothing special jumped out at him, but then random flag stones began to glow red. The chest itself glowed red as well. No magic glowed in the room, other than the chest itself.

Richter looked at Yoshi and said, “Let’s get to work.”

It took a little over two hours to disarm the traps in the room. Richter was definitely able to deal with traps faster than he had a few days ago. There were a few traps to the side of the room that they could have avoided, but Yoshi figured better safe than sorry. The gold column had only appeared when they had disabled all the traps in the central chamber after all, and there was no denying that the Light of Life had been pivotal in defeating the fades. The adept also raised the point that the initial wind that blew them down once they had opened the skeleton door would have made them land on traps if there hadn’t all been disarmed. If they hadn’t taken the time to remove potential dangers before proceeding, it would almost certainly have meant all of their deaths.

Once they had finished with the floor, that only left the chest. Richter hoped it would be an easy task, but doubted it. It had taken Killik and Leandra an entire night to safely open the chest from the Night Blades’ hideout. He looked at Yoshi who had a stern look on his face as examined the chest. The sword adept looked up and said, “I will need some time.”

Richter nodded and stepped back. Yoshi had started moving towards the chest when Futen spoke.

“I would advise against touching the chest”

“Why,” Richter asked.

“There are protective wards set on the chest, my Lord.”

“Show me.”

The light at the heart of the remnant glowed brighter, and a series of overlapping circles appeared on the chest. It looked like some interwove, and others were merely laid on top or bottom of the others. Yoshi not only arrested his forward movement but jumped back sharply at seeing the now visible magical traps.

“What the hell,” the Warrior swore.

“Okaayyy,” Richter said. “Can you disarm the wards, Futen?”

“I am unsure, my Lord. I have the ability to disarm any one ward, but I believe they must be unraveled in a certain sequence. Otherwise to affect one would trigger a cascade that would make the rest discharge. The specific result would be unpredictable, but it would most certainly violent.”

“What would happen if we just triggered them on purpose,” Daniella asked. “We could set them all off and then open the chest once they were discharged.”

“Among the wards present are Ravaging Frost, Explosive Heat, and Chain Lightning. Those wards alone would be enough to destroy the chest and its contents. If all of the wards went off at once, the destructive energy might be enough to destroy the integrity of this cave system, and bury all of you alive. That is, if your bodies were not already reduced to their most base constituent parts,” Futen answered in his deadpan tone.

Richter shook his head, “Total protonic reversal. That’s bad. Okay. Important safety tip. Thanks Egon.”

The sprites were used to ignoring Richter when he started speaking nonsense at this point, so Daniella just kept trying to find a solution. “There has to be a way to open this,” she said. “We just have to look.”

And so they looked. And they looked. And they LOOKED. Every skeleton was removed from every cubby. Richter stared at the chest for an hour. He had hoped that his Pierce the Veil skill would reveal a hidden compartment somewhere, but nothing happened. It was about as boring as watching paint dry… only without the paint. Then he stared into every cubby and alcove, but again, nothing. The only interesting thing that Richter discovered, was that the bones weren’t human like he had originally thought. They were similar in shape, but were longer and far heavier. Seeing as how he wasn’t an archeologist though, it wasn’t much help. He even leant his wand to Sion who shone it against every surface and floor a second time. Still nothing.

The search went on for the rest of that first day and through another. Both nights they bunked in the central chamber under the glow of the golden column. Yoshi had resolved that when they woke again, they would need to attack the room with the draugh guards. It was the only place they hadn’t looked.

Richter couldn’t quite get to sleep that second night, his mind searching for an answer, and his shoulders tense with irritation from night finding one. So he just laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the central chamber. It was a mosaic that showed the life cycle of a tree. The ceiling was divided into nine equal squares, in a 3x3 grid. One square showed the tree with full green leaves and birds flying around it. The second was of a darkened sky, the tree draped in shadow. The next was the tree bending under a strong wind. The one after showed a rain storm and the tree had been struck by lightning. In the fifth, the tree was on fire. The following picture, the tree had burned down and only ash remained. The next showed the sun rising over the horizon, and in the last a new green offshoot had sprung up. Richter stared up ceiling, and something tickled his memory.

He opened the Lore book, and read again about the Basic Elements. Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Light, Dark, Life and Death. Eight Basic Elements. Eight tiles surrounding the central symbol of a sun. He stared back up at the ceiling… it couldn’t be that easy! Could it? What was the order, though? He looked at each tile for a number system or some indication of order, but nothing leaped out at him. The only other thing up there was the center tile of the eight pointed star… that matched the column on the ground.

Richter jumped up, and ran over to the column. He didn’t see anything on top, but when he shined the wand down on it the whole thing lit white, and white numbers appeared etched into the surface. Each number was by one point of the star, and each point indicated a square of the mosaic. This had to be it! The last piece of the puzzle was to ask Futen how many wards were on the chest. The remnant answered that there were eight wards, and each was cast in a different type of magic. Ya Ta!

He turned to the sprites who were staring at him at this point.

“I’ve got it,” he said excited. “The wards need to be disarmed in the order of the mosaics on the ceiling. We can do this!”

They all raced back to room with a chest.

Richter started giving orders, “Futen, disable the wards in this order, Life, Fire, Water, Death, Dark, Air, Light, Earth.”

The white light at Futen’s center started pulsing, and the lines of symbols surrounding the golden rune began spinning like tumblers on a safe. All three layers of symbols stopped moving, and then the golden lines comprising the ward thinned until it disappeared completely. Richter waited a moment, but when nothing happened, he gave a cheer.

“Thank god that worked!”

“What?!” That question came from all of the sprites at once. They hadn’t known that he was only mostly sure his reasoning was right.

“Relaaxxx,” Richter said. “Everything worked out.”

Yoshi opened his mouth with an angry expression on his face, but Richter interjected, “Shhhh. Don’t distract Futen. If he loses focus, we could all blow-up.”

Futen spoke in his emotionless voice, “I will not be distrac-”

“Shhhh,” Richter interjected again, “just get back to work.”

In less than ten minutes, all of the wards had been disabled. Richter gave a flourishing bow. The sprites had apparently not forgotten that he had just gambled their lives on a hunch, though. Yoshi just brushed past him and started examining the chest, muttering under his breath. Sion and Daniella walked away saying they were going to gather the bedrolls they had left in the central chamber. Richter sat down with a satisfied sigh, reflecting on something he had heard long ago. The saying was true, there was only one thing more satisfying than solving a puzzle, and with the puzzle you didn’t have to buy dinner first.