Chapter 50: Ch.46: Confluences Part I (Elenaril’s POV)

Scrying crystals— are crystals that exhibit telepathic magic. Ancient Illvarian texts outline the process by which the crystal lattice work can be attuned and engraved with runes to channel such phenomena, and as such, they are prohibitively expensive. That said, scrying crystals are only a subset of the much larger category of psionic crystals. It is known that psionic crystals can also be enchanted into memory crystals capable of holding other rune and spell matrices, still images, and moving images using [Recall] and [Chronicle].‘On Evaluation: The Clerk’s Handbook’ By the Adventurers Guild

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Elenaril Amberkeep watched Wyvern’s Woe blitz through the first level of the Fetid Wood’s dungeon. She was in an alcove on the first level, designated a safe room where monsters could not get to her as long as she stayed within the confines of its wards. Though a dungeon safe room was not exactly generous with its furnishings, the mana was enough to get the enchantments on the mageslate running.

The artefact displayed moving visuals of the adventurers split four ways according to the number of scrying crystals as they duked it out with the monsters . The sight of bog rats throwing themselves at the mercy of the party was enough to earn her grimace. The vermin were filthy, slippery, and obviously toxic creatures that she would not even touch with a 10 metra pole.

The sylvmaid shook her head and scrunched her nose; it would not do to have a wandering mind while she was supposed to oversee the evaluation. She was trying hard to concentrate, and despite this being her first time administering an evaluation, the boredom was already getting to her. That her rump was a little saddle sore from the days they’d spent traversing the Shallow Wealds was not even a fact worth mentioning.

‘Blight me! Why in Oonaris' name did I let the greybeard rope me into this excursion?’ She groaned, batting away a nonexistent bug.

In the last three days, they’d ridden especially hard so that they could get to the dungeon early to start their promotion evaluation. Of all the times, Elenaril had never seen Ahnaestra so eager to get started.

The other sylvmaiden had suggested that they make it there as soon as possible. Yet before that, she’d not shown any outward signs of being on tenterhooks. Another sigh escaped her.

Elenaril was already regretting taking on the request to do this kind of guild job. The gore and firing of spells and skills on the mageslate had gotten monotonous, and the jerky she was having for a snack was too salty and too dry. Fresh supplies in a lair type dungeon were not hard to come by, but the Fetid Woods were not exactly known for their palatable panoply of monsters.

Regardless, watching a bunch of other people from the other side of the mageslate got tiresome fast, and the lack of sound was also rather off-putting. Even the exaggerated hand gestures of the party’s mage as he chained lower tier spells ceased to be a novelty.

When the party on the other end of the magical surveillance finally signalled that they were taking a break via [Message], Elenaril felt like wanting to have some action of her own. She could have gone out to stretch her legs or get some air; the atmosphere in the safe room was not exactly baby's breath. Like the dungeon’s namesake, it stank of discarded vegetables and fermenting peat.

She fired off her own [Message] spell to Ralf, the party’s [Mage], and she made to rise in order to get rid of the pins and needles building in her legs. However, before she could, there was a sudden rumble, and the dungeon shook as if an earthquake had hit.

Detritus and dust fell from the ceiling. Out of reflex, Elenaril used her hands to protect her head, but as she was unbalanced, she fell backwards, eliciting a yelp from landing on her sore bottom.

‘Blight Rot!’ She cursed, rubbing her backside. Some dust had gotten into her eyes and hair but those were quickly dealt with using a [Cleanse] spell. She surveyed her surroundings, finding some stalactites had barely missed falling on her after being dislodged. There were cracks crawling up the walls, and the safe room looked ready to come down on her head. More than that, the safe room’s wards were failing.

‘Rot! I forgot about the slate,’ Elenaril swore. She fussed over the cloth and pack she’d spread for her seat to uncover the mageslate. Fortunately, it had gotten away without a scratch from the incident. Unfortunately, the connection to the adventurers was gone. She tried to infuse some mana into the runes; they lit up, then sputtered out.

She sent another [Message] spell, and got nothing. There was something blocking her spell matrix from forming and the mana was too thin. Fearing the worst, she activated her guild-issued emergency beacon, another type of crystal that resonated with its twin at the guild. Again, she felt the magic activate—and fizzle out.

‘Calm down Elenaril,’ she slapped her cheeks. ’What does the guild’s guide say about things like these? Eh, find a place where responders would reach me; the safe rooms. But I am already in the safe room. Wyvern’s Woe might be in trouble if I can't reach them. I have to go and see what happened on their end.’

With a plan in mind, she holstered a Guild issued wand of [Stone Dart] and a dagger to the belt hanging from her hip and drew her trusty rapier. She also picked up another emergency beacon from her pack and slotted it into one of the pouches on her waist belt. Then, with a satchel of emergency potions worn like a bandolier across her bosom, she made her way towards the exit of the safe room.

‘You got this Elenaril, Halen did teach you everything he knows after all.’ Elenaril psyched herself. She put one foot ahead of the other, her head on a swivel as she ducked under the archway connecting the safe room to the main passageway. The safe room was the halfway point between the barrier at the level’s start and the main exit of the dungeon, which sloped into the daylight.

The sylvamaid weighed her options; whether to go out and send the emergency beacon or check on Wyvern’s Woe. Her pragmatism warred with her conscience, but in the end, it was morbid curiosity that won.

Consequently, Elenaril took a right—into the dungeon. “[Light]!” she intonated. The tier 0 spell chased away the dreary darkness, lighting her way. Her leather boots sank into the moist dirt as she navigated the debris that littered her path before reaching the barrier to the first level.

“You can do this,” she murmured. She put her palm against the translucent shimmering ward that separated the first level of the dungeon proper from the outside. Visibility was poor, so she couldn’t make out anything past the ward, even in the bobbing sphere of her mage light.

Elenaril directed the magelight forward with a flex of her will whilst pushing against the ward. The sylvmaid felt it give immediately and stumbled into the other side. She caught herself before she tripped and face-planted onto the dungeon floor. Shivering at the probing nature of the wards, she blinked to acclimate to the gloomy atmosphere of the dungeon proper.

The first thing that hit her was the smell. It was stuffy and sordid and stunk of decaying and congealed blood. ‘Ugh! primals and gods above,’ she retched as her eyes teared up.

She used her free hand to tie a scarf against the lower half of her face and increased the mana to her mage light. Sending it ahead of her again, she took stock of her surroundings, her sylvani ears twitching at the smallest sounds.

With her rapier in hand and a wand in the other, she cast her eyes over the remains of the adventurers’ dalliance with the dungeon’s monsters. There was viscera, blood and remains of bog rats all over the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. Scorch marks from fire spells and pock marks where acid spells had eaten away at the rock and carcasses also revealed themselves to her.

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Elenaril gagged and bit back nausea as the air became more humid the further in she got. She soldiered on, jumping over dismembered monster parts while watching out for the things that went bump in the shadows. Her hand was ever at her rapier in case something jumped at her; she was confident she could put down anything on that level and even fight off a pack of five bog rats if it came to it.

‘How much further?’ she thought, grimacing as she went deeper into the dungeon. The sounds of water dripping sent echoes through the tunnel. Though the dungeon’s level was barely past peak Silver in terms of tier, she still hated that she had to contend with its repulsive environment. Regardless, it was eerily silent, as if the monsters had all retreated elsewhere.

An indeterminate amount of time had passed and still her repeated [Message] spells went unanswered. She was growing increasingly worried by the condition of the mana inside the dungeon and was about to give up in favour of going back to the exit when she happened upon a collapsed part of the dungeon. Debris had fallen across the passage, closing her off from advancing onto the next level. Testing the rocks with her foot barely budged any of them

‘Did the dungeon break?’ Elenaril paused, confused. Index finger and middle finger to her temple she muttered, “[Message]! Ralf report, this is Elenaril speaking. Can you hear me?”

Silence answered her. At that point, Elenaril decided that needing more help was a forgone conclusion at this point. She turned on her heels and began to run back the way she’d come.

Just as she was about to breach the wards on her way out, her Danger Sense went off as her mage light winked out. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she reflexively let herself fall forward into a tumble. Air whistled and a thrown dagger screamed past the place her neck would have been, instead shaving off a few strands of hair.

‘Blight rot!’ She cursed. The sylvani’s heart hammered against her chest as she scrambled to get to her feet bringing her rapier to bear with the wards a few paces behind her. Another whistling sound came from the front and ricocheted off her hastily drawn sword, spitting sparks and screeching torturously. The action left her dominant hand numb and reeling from the blow.

“Who are you?! Show yourself...[Light]!” she shouted. The mage light winked out as soon as it manifested. But there was no response from her attacker, no sound of footsteps approaching, only the roar of blood rushing in her ears.

The sylvmaid hastily switched her rapier to her off hand and unholstered the wand of [Stone Dart] with her recovering hand. However, try as she might, her sylvani sight could not pick out any shapes or silhouettes in the semidarkness.

‘Assassin,’ Elenaril’s breath caught as her blood chilled. A cold sweat trickled down from the nape of her neck to the small of her back despite the humidity of the dungeon. Her clammy hands quivered and threatened to let her weapons slip from her hands. The atmosphere suddenly felt stifling and foreboding.

‘Blight it Elena, calm your nerves! You’re a Silver ranker!’ She screamed internally. Truth be told, she had neglected her swordcraft despite the fact and was not very confident in her skills. She shuddered, almost at the point of despair as she slowly edged back towards the wards, legs wobbling like a newborn fawn.

The tension in the air was so palpable she felt she could almost pop it with her rapier if she tried. Meanwhile, her [Danger Sense] had gone quiet and she did not dare cast another [Light] spell if it would only give her away.

‘ Rot, it’s not like that would do me any favours; If I can just get to the brunhorns,’ she gulped as her eyes darted around the gloom; there were shadows they could not pierce. Her throat suddenly felt parched and dry as though she’d eaten sand.

‘Then what? they’ll just pick me off in the weald…” Elenaril thought. Then she felt the film-like sensation of the wards touch her back. Slowly and furtively, she felt it passing over every pore of her skin as she emerged on the other side. That was it for her; she could make a run for it since the illumination on that side was better.

She took another backward step, and the heel of her boot stepped on the carcass of a bog rat, almost twisting her ankle. A hostile aura momentarily pulsed in her awareness, but [Danger Sense] had remained eerily silent.

The sylvmaid froze, and before she could jerk forward or make use of her weapons, a doused rag muzzled her mouth, smothering her scream. Another arm twisted her wrist painfully enough that she dropped her rapier.

Elenaril tried to use her wand of [Stone Dart] too, but her hand was restrained against her side from the forearm to the elbow. She could barely reach the dagger at her hip. She flailed, attempting to step on her assailant’s feet with the point of her wooden heeled boots.

Elenaril suddenly found herself kneed from the back, fouling her sense of balance as the black velvety gloves of her captor pressed the scentless rag to her nose even harder. The grip of iron twisted her hand painfully behind her back, and Elenaril found herself sucking in a harsh breath, inadvertently inhaling whatever the rag had been laced with.

Then it happened; her eyes blurred and her vision swam as she felt lightheaded. Paralysis began to encroach on her extremities as her legs turned to jelly. Her scream died in her throat as her lungs began to wheeze painfully with every breath she took. Finally, the veil of unconsciousness smothered her awareness.

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Bleary eyed, and half comatose, Elenaril drifted in and out of consciousness. The uneven level painfully dug into her hips, ribs, and torso. After an indeterminate amount of time had passed, the only part of her that could move was her eyes, and upon coming to, she found herself prostrate on the ground behind the dungeon’s wards. Dirt, sod, and the rankness of the dungeon torturously cloyed her nose. She longed to spit out the bile in her mouth, but her jaw ached and her body remained paralysed.

Her eyes grew hot, welling tears of frustration and helplessness as she realised she was going nowhere. She squirmed, ineffectually trying to reach the wards, which were only a couple of paces away from her if her [Mana Sense] was right, but the dungeon’s auric field was back at full density, making it hard to tell in her delirious state.

Taking stock of her bearings, her heart sank further when she realised her guild satchel had been rent, spilling its broken contents. The same broken contents had been her only hope of recovery. Her dagger was even further away while her rapier was nowhere to be found. The wand of [Stone Dart] had also been snapped into two and its focus gouged out. In hindsight, she should have expected that. She could have been kidnapped otherwise and sold off or had worse things done to her.

It dawned on her that if the Guild found her body, they would be none the wiser, citing it as a freak accident. Perhaps someone like the guild master would cite it as foul play but they wouldn’t even find any residue of the paralytic sedative because it was virtually scentless and untraceable. Perhaps there were worse ways to go, but still, Elenaril choked back a sob as she imagined being devoured by the dungeon’s monsters.

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