Chapter 57: Ch. 52: So It Begins Part II

“It was not long until the Gold Standard Weight came into being. Gold had been the most common storage of wealth before the Adventurers Guild started unearthing artefacts that could also be deemed as a store of value, with a little help from various appraisers and mages. Therefore, for posterity, one gold standard was deemed the standard measure of weight called the aum. One aum (Au) or gold standard weight is the equivalent of one gold bullion, of at least ninety parts purity. It can also be used to measure the volume of liquids. All these fall under the under the Trade Accords and all subsequent clauses therein as witnessed by the involved parties. The need for a larger unit for measuring bulk cargo for both air and sea faring vessels was also unanimously agreed to follow the same convention. Thus the Imperial Weight, equal to a thousand Gold Standard Weights became the measure of choice for all those dealing with large quantities...” -Excerpts from Archival Records of the Merchant Guild, Antecian Calendar Year 1220.

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“ You there, [Artificer] or whatever your Class is, why didn’t you tell us that we were walking into a frenzy?”

Aindreas had Caucasian features with sun spots on the bridge of his nose and had his sandy blonde hair in a quiff. He wore armour with burnished brass highlights, and an obscure symbol, grimed by blood and mud was on the left of his breastplate. And well, he was a head shorter than Arthur, so he was literally shouting up at him.

‘Are all adventurers this brash?’ Arthur thought, trying to come up with a response.

“ Best I can tell you, is I got out of there before I saw the signs of one,” Arthur said, shrugging as he looked askance at the dungeon entrance. Nothing else was going to come out of the dungeon that way; the [Terrafort] spell was true to its name in that regard.

“ Lies, I took more than twenty pars traversing the second level of the dungeon. And to think you left the rest of the party undefended―” Aindreas spoke up, prodding at Arthur’s cuirass with his gauntleted finger. His other hand hung by the pommel of his sheathed broadsword. “ The rogue thereabouts told me you took down several bone spriggans in heartbeats. What kind of a trollshat Silver tier are you?! Don’t you know the adventurer’s code?”

“ He is not an adventurer!” Margaery butted in.

“ And how in the Nether Pits would we know that ?!” Aindreas snapped, whirling on the Ahrakni.

“ Aindreas! ” the morose [Summoner] snapped. Losing her favourite summoned creature was hitting her hard. Arthur did not know the minutiae of summoning, but it must have been a deeply personal craft for her.

“ He has no Guild medallion!” she said, crossing the clearing to stand before the two men. “ And he risked life and limb when he could have gone on his way―”

“You don’t know that, Marg. How do you explain what an unknown mage and his affianced were doing randomly traipsing around the weald; a tryst perhaps?” he sneered. “ Or do they have something to do with this debacle?” he said, whirling towards Arthur with contempt in his eyes.

“ Hah, stubborn to a fault aren’t you!? “ Margaery said, throwing up his hands. “ Listen to yourself talk―”

The ground suddenly trembled beneath their feet, almost tripping the woman. Trees around the clearing shook eliciting cries of nocturnal beasts from the brush and nervous, panicked whinnies from the hitched brunhorns. A swarm of glimmerflies took flight, brightening the night with their lime green glow.

Waves of dread washed over and froze all that stood before the dungeon as minute cracks began to appear on the barricade of stone. Then the sod and rock of knoll which bore the dungeon’s entrance seemed to heave. It deformed upwards as though something was trying to force its way out.

“ What in the blue?!” Arthur swore, nervously reaching for his weapon. “ Seems we’re not done here.”

“Nethers! I cannot put up with any more of this,” Margaery let out a curse as she took off towards the camp, yelling about their camp supplies.

‘Nora?!’ Arthur sent it through the telecry.

‘ Saddling the brunhorns; everything has been accounted for! Some of the adventurers will have to be tied down to ride double but it's nothing we can’t handle.’ Nora replied, a harried tone in her voice. ‘You should get your hoverboard!’

They were a few paces away yet, Arthur couldn’t bear to take his eyes off the spectacle as he backpedalled with [Danger Sense] a palpable buzz in his head. His stomach churned with apprehension as he wondered what manner of monstrosity would unearth itself.

Arthur kept [Gust Shield] at the ready and counted his munitions. Only a few of the magazine tubes remained. Twelve shots. For all the good that would do against monsters with the resilience of a troll. He could have gotten pyr monster cores for the bang, but those were by far, the most expensive by the aum.

“ Slen!?” Aindreas bellowed in alarm as he shook off his stupor. The ground was still rocking, jagged faults split the ground in front of the dungeon as some of it sank. The half-giant’s barricade of stone tilted like a lone wall on soggy ground. Roots came out questing from the fissures as though they wanted to grab at something.

Slenlog, the unflappable [Druid], bald with a braided beard and skin a tanned orange complexion, drew up with a look of solemn contemplation. He looked on as nature’s wrath carried on around them. Then they watched the knolls that formed the entrance to the dungeons crumble inwards like a poorly baked sponge cake.

Slenlog sighed and spoke as if pronouncing their death knell, “ An eldreant awakens.”

Shivers ran down Arthur's spine as Aindreas cursed out loud.

 

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A roar like a host of many trees being felled split the air, staggering them backwards as the dungeon’s knoll burst into an explosion of dirt and stone . Arthur gasped in shock, throwing up his [Gust Shield] on reflex just in time for debris the size of his head to ram into it, sending him skidding backwards. Aindreas carved a boulder in twain with his sword while Slenlog simply waved away the flight of stone with his terrestrial magic as though batting away gnats.

In the midst of the mushrooming debris cloud, they didn’t need a guttering campfire to see what had arisen as blue green wisp-fires turned to gaze at them. More smaller wisps fires lit up here and there while gnarled claws whipped out from the crevices and between the recesses of the collapsed dungeon.

Rock heaved, ready to disgorge more of them―spriggans. Never mind the bog rats whose population was still high enough even after the dungeon’s entrance had been decimated. Or the trogs, which could not have remained in hibernation or aestivation. Whichever it was.

Given the distance between the now defunct dungeon and the trio at the front, the silhouette of the eldreant was as tall as the shortest trees of the Shallow Wealds. Its aura was a heavy presence that smelled like rot and peat and just about anything that embodied a swamp. Arthur swallowed and looked at his well, magelock pistol. Now it was just as effective as a peashooter―

‘Or not, if I switch to wand-mode.’ Arthur thought. The magelock pistol was still, in the end, a modified runic wand with its foci ensconced inside the barrel, to shield from external thaumic flux.

It was his solution to being robbed of magic, like back in his first dungeon where he was almost pincushioned when Livierre turned on him and magic went rampant. But then again, even wands had to ‘cool off’ after a certain number of casts.

‘ Yet with the injured weighing us down, we’re mostly, definitely and irrevocably fragged,’ were Arthur’s thoughts as he thought about the avenues of escape.

‘Arthur?’ Nora called out over the telepathic artefact. The prompting tone in her voice was all the tell he needed to know what she was considering. But for that many people?

Nora could have shadow walked them out of there but that was a skill even she decided to keep hidden as an ace. He was worried about revealing it; it was already out there that she was a [Healer] but they didn’t know what kind.

Healers were rare, but those who would cleanse the blood of poison? Even rarer. Now a healer who had stealth and translocation skills would send tongues wagging. Then her persona as an eloping sylvmaiden would face even more scrutiny.

Arthur looked askance at the [Spellblade]. He had set himself and looked ready to be rearing for a fight.

“Adventurer or not, now is not the time to turn tail,” Aindreas muttered. “ We hold the backline; buy time for Marg and the others to escape.” There was none of the derisive brashness in his voice anymore as he clenched his sword so hard Arthur heard his gauntlets creak.

Slenlog grunted and heaved a round shield that wouldn’t have looked out of place as a halfling’s door.

‘And there goes my cover as a pure [Runecrafter].’ Arthur thought. Runecrafters were mostly augeo-bent on the use of magic . Anything materia was only tied to lower tie spells and skills that were bound to a focus; like [Affinity Augmentation] whose focus had been the silvered monster cores forming his musket balls.

‘ Nora go now! I'll be right behind you. If it gets desperate , do what you will.’ Arthur telepathically thought.

‘But the hoverboard?’ Nora reminded him.

‘Leave it where I’ll find it. The log near the fire―’ Arthur barely finished the thought as eldreant made its first step. Eldreants came in many forms and this one was like a small sylvani grove decided to up and away, roots and all. It literally coasted above the ground on its numerous roots in a crablike manner.

‘We’re leaving…stay alive Arthur,’ Nora sent. ‘ And keep the telecry open, I’ll come back for you.’

‘Haha, you don’t trust me to take care of myself, huh?’ Arthur chuckled deprecatingly. The sounds of brunhorns whinnying and galloping off faded from their awareness.

Cracking sounds came from the eldreant’s vertical maw of insectile ribs as they opened wide, showcasing its vine-like flagella. The spectacle made Arthur want to throw up as they dripped copious amounts of brown sap that fouled the air. And it had four, no, five pairs of arms, the last being a whistling vine on its back.

“They’re gone. Now Slen!” Aindreas yelled. The eldreant charged, nay,glided, through the ground on its mismatched appendages. Despite its size, it displayed an uncanny agility as it passed among its smaller kin whose height only reached where its trunk met its motile half. That is how absurdly large they were dwarfed.

“[Marsh Ground]!” The half giant rumbled, thumping his shillelagh. The ground several paces just, liquified, turning unsteady as though the grass and soil were floating on water. Spriggans had a harder time wading through the terrain. The eldreant’s fore appendages of wood sunk into the mire, but only just as fast as the spell could go. Terrestrial area of effect spells were generally slow to take.

Arthur didn’t need to be told what to do with a trapped sentient tree. He flicked the hammer on the magelock pistol switching between munitions and pure arcanery and aimed with [Thunder Bolt]. The spell matrix manifested in his consciousness, like a reticle seeking a target; all he had to do was supply mana and intent.

This time, the magelock pistol really cast like it was created to sound, as lightning screamed towards the incoming horde. Thunder boomed, startling his compatriots. Trees, magically sentient or not, were not immune to lightning, and the wail that went up from them was enough to make them flinch as they caught on fire.

“ By the Saint’s sullied sword! Warn someone before you do that!” Aindreas groused in anger.

“ Damn I should really have gone with that first―frag! [Gust Shield]!” Arthur yelled as a rotten tree trunk came barrelling through the air. Slenlog made a motion and a vine cracked through the air so fast it was a blur as it snagged the log like a whip.

The half giant made another motion and the trunk went barrelling back and ploughing into its thrower’s smaller kin. The eldreant roared a rattling screech from its chest cavity and then aped the half-giant with the vine from its multi limbed upper torso. They thought it had been too far to reach , but it was too crafty for its own good.

The [Marsh Ground] spell the druid had cast could not effectively stop the eldreant as it did the spriggans. Instead, its large hands with claws as long as a shortsword, impossibly elongated like a flail of hooks as it swiped at the [Druid]. Its vine snagged the nearby spriggans to use as a bludgeoning weapon or a missile.

Arthur’s eyes went wide and knowing what was coming, he cast his defensive spell, “[Gust Shield]! “

“[Terraegis]!” “ [Aero Blade]!” Slenlog and Aindreas both followed with their own spells and skills.

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Slenlog parried the claws as they screamed against his shield, but he held his ground as it glowed purple. He was practically immovable. Aindreas cut a snaking vine, spilling noxious sap with a crescent of compressed air. A claw almost eviscerated Arthur as the force of the attack breached through the [Gust Shield]. A mere glance was enough to send him skidding on the grass as an indescribable pressure bloomed between his browns; the shield had almost been breached but it was no Tier 3 for nothing. A flying spriggan crested the air after him―

“ Frag!” Arthur swore as he jerked and tumbled out of the way. His heart jumped into his throat. He came up drawing his magelock pistol on reflex and got a bead on the hapless spriggan. A blast of [Thunder Bolt] lanced through its chest leaving a smouldering hole behind as the thing caught on fire and burst into splinters.

One would have thought a living tree would be impervious to it. But no, Arthur didn’t have the luxury to debate physiology as more and more spriggans came sailing through the air . Then they were running, tumbling, and dodging the edreant’s indiscriminate game of caber toss. Aindreas cursed, Slenlog bellowed a challenge.

Arthur counted down the number of casts before cooldown of his weapon; the Kalthoff Luftkaster Mark I could only fire off as many as 10 of his [Thunder Bolt], two of them being a result of the foci embedded within. He’d used cheap malachite and now it was about to bite him in the keister.

Then Arthur realised how far back they’d been pushed. They were literally near the edge of the camp, with the fire burning low. In the midst of their fight, the camp had been scuttled—those in no condition to fight had gone with Nora and Margaery.

However, Arthur had to give the monster its dues. The eldreant, had grown warier with every cast of [Thunder Bolt] that fulminated its lesser kin. It had been stuck with lobbing missiles at them, peppering the vicinity with debris and everything it could get its vines on.

The clearing looked like the aftermath of a shelling strafe. And there his hoverboard lay. He nudged it with his foot, disappearing it into [Inventory Chest] before his acquaintances in arms could see—he could finally make his escape.

They were outmatched, even the adventurers knew that. Their reserves, mana and stamina would not stack up against the horde of forestry out to get them. It was already remarkable that they had held their own for so long.

Unfortunately, while they'd been fighting, the roots that had opened up fissures on the ground had laid another trap for them. Arthur noticed that as he looked back where he presumed Nora and the rest had gone. The plant life around the clearing had turned malevolent—infected with the will of the eldreant.

Briars and tumbleweeds rolled along the ground, lianas uncoiled from tree branches and grass rustled menacingly. The eldreant loomed in the background, like a puppet master as more of the instact spriggans stalked around them. They too were wary of fire, the still smoking husks of their brethren made sure of that.

“Great, it never gets easier,” Arthur said out loud. He brandished his magelock pistol around looking for someplace to punch through. A place of weakness. He cocked the hammer, switching to enchanted munitions instead of pure magic. They were back to back, putting the dying emberlight in their midst. Arthur slapped down his dwarven goggles for Dark Vision.

“ You should not have hidden your abilities from the start,” Aindreas scoffed. “ Hmph.”

“ Peace,” Slenlog hummed, ever the gentle giant.

“ Just because we fought together does not mean―” Aindreas started.

“ Are you going to keep griping about my abilities or are you going to look for an opening or not?!” Arthur snapped back. His patience with the adventurer was wearing thin.

“ Listen…” Slenlog almost whisper-shouted. His voice carried even when he made it low. Aindreas clamped his mouth shut; Arthur panned his ears for what Slenlog might have heard.

It was hard to concentrate in the midst of the rustling vegetation coming alive and the creaking sounds, from the spriggans and eldreant like like boughs swaying in the wind. But they heard it; a whirring drone that steadily got louder. It came from the direction where Nora and the others had gone. Arthur’s hand went to his telecry in worry

‘Nor―’ He started.

‘Arthur! Help is on the way; the Guild is here!’ Nora spoke over him.

The whirring sound crescendoed as they drew their eyes skywards. Suddenly, an aersloop suddenly crested over the clearing , throwing a rustle of greenery as its low flying keel and spinning vanes clipped the canopy. It banked broadside, wing sails and rudders pivoting to make a tight turn as cannon barrels swivelled unerringly towards the biggest target.

Over a [Loud Speak] spell, a woman warned them of incoming artillery fire and they barely had breath to flatten themselves as cannons roared overhead. Arthur’s ears rang as he felt the displacement of air in their wake. The eldreant’s shrieks of fury were a sound that set teeth on edge as salvos went screaming into it.

Arthur had a front row view of cannon balls carving it into splinters as they burst into shrapnel, sending it tumbling back. Tenaciously, it threw its four claws to anchor itself against the ground, digging long furrows . Its lesser kin, the spriggans went berserk heading straight for Arthur’s trio of Aindreas and Slenlog.

The aersloop turned about, starboard to their front, as a boarding net cascaded down the gunwale. A short gruff man with an orange tinge to his skin bellowed at them over the twanging sounds of swivelbows and the report of cannons.

“ What yer gawkin’ at? Haul yer breeches yer land sluggards! ”

 

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Standing on the decksole of the first aership he was actually flying in was surreal. The sylvani aerships did not count because they’d never left their berths as Master Kolva tutored him. Neither had he gotten around to test the magier engine because of their escapade that cut short their stay in Lysfall. Now? Arthur was taking in everything as he watched the half-dwarf command his sloop.

“ Watch the soles yer land sluggards, the grounding runes are shot!” the [Skipper] bellowed. Arthur got out of the way of a sailor running across the deck, and stood by the gunwale.

The Rust Flint, was a rugged vessel of wood and old dwarven steel. Scuffed with the scars of a thousand battles and the wear of innumerable voyages. The crow’s nest, and signal flags were way at the back for it had no centre hoisting masts like an Earth sloop. In their place, wing sails that bloomed from the sides like a beetle’s wings raised in flight.They sails were an offwhite, tessellated into thaumic cells, each pulsing a turquoise colour as they fed on the mana from the air.

A multiracial crew bustled around the deck, swinging from the rigging, turning capstans and sighting the horde below. Excluding the [Skipper] and the [Helmsman], Arthur counted a dozen crew members which was considerably less for a 20 something metra long vessel. He chalked it up to the World’s skills bridging the gap.

“ [Helm], bring us about, ‘undred moments to starboard! You, unfurl the mizzen sails! Cannoneers, ready steam cannons, [Expeditious Reload]! Hold yer fire! on my mark! [Aggregate Volley]! ”

The ship lurched against the reporting steam cannons one deck below.

“ [Sighter], tell me what yer see!” the [Skipper] bellowed startling Arthur from his survey. He cast about for his acquaintances and found them talking to a middle-aged woman in a buzzcut. She was the one who'd shouted at them to take cover during the opening salvo.

The woman had a militaristic countenance and wore the guild colours on her cropped blazer. The gold insignia, epaulettes, and aiguillettes pegged her as someone important. She had sharp features and a lot of muscle definition under her cropped blazer. Her hands were covered with fingerless gloves which meant that the sabre at her back was not just for show.

Piercing blue eyes met his, and she beckoned him over. Arthur sighed, dreading an encounter with a powerful figure; he could see it in her body language and the steely aura she was putting off. In fact, he was inclined to think it was a trick of light but then again, he checked that he in fact had [Draconic Sight] uncast and shook his head.

‘Must be the exhaustion finally getting to me,’ Arthur left unsaid as he walked astern. He kept one eye out, curious what the aersloop would find as it orbited the site of the bombardment . Magelights bathed the area, showing the carnage wrought by the cannons.

Thralled plant life and spriggans had been caught in the aftermath, and lay strewn around the clearing. Those that had escaped moved around listlessly. However, thick smoke obscured them from finding out what had become of the eldreant. Arthur couldn't help but think every heartbeat the aersloop hovered in the vicinity was just jinxing to have something happen.

“Hail and well met. Mage-crafter Arthur I presume?”The woman prompted him as Arthur approached.

“ Hail and well met likewise,” Arthur replied as he came to a stop. The woman gave him a polite once over of an appraising glance.

“ I am [Quarter Mastresse] Isignel of the Aldmoorian Adventurers Guild and you have my gratitude for stepping in when you did,” she said, looking askance at the activity going on around them. She had a deep, smoky voice of someone who had aged into her middle years with grace.

“ Anyone would have done the same,” Arthur said, scratching the nape of his neck. Aindreas scoffed with derision. The woman narrowed her eyes and the [Spellblade] ducked his head with embarrassment.

“Under the circumstances, we could have used a lot more of your aid. I hear your betrothed managed to stabilise two of my people…” she framed the statement like a question.

‘ There was no hiding it anyway. Better let them down slowly so they’ll think her less of a defenceless person’ “ Of course, “ Arthur said. “ Nora is a [Healer], with some modicum of combat ability. She can hold her own in a fight too, in case someone’s thinking it foolish that we were both traipsing in the wealds.”

“ I assure you, there is no question about your ability. You look like you can handle yourselves. It might be presumptuous of me, but perchance you were heading to Aldmoor?” the woman asked.

“ That had been our plan thus far,” Arthur nodded. The woman hummed, looking past Arthur’s shoulder.

“ Is that so? I was hoping to impose on you a while longer,” she said, nodding. “ Besides, these are dangerous times, even for people of your stature― Ah, here comes Ragnus,” the woman said, pivoting to face the owner of the sloop.

Ragnus the [Skipper] was a half-dwarf. Half because he was less stockier and a little taller than his full blooded brethren, not that Arthur had a big enough sample size to tell. Ragnus looked more like one of those fishermen you’d find on an old fishing trawler.

He was dressed in overalls and had a leather cap, cracking from being exposed to the elements and steel toed boots which also marked her as a heavy duty crafter of some kind. He had a bulbous nose, and a well kept Van Dyke beard with streaks of grey and bushy eyebrows that looked like caterpillars on his face.

“ Aye, Mastresse Isignel!” the half-dwarf boomed as he came clanking towards the quartet. The half dwarf’s had a thick nasal accent like that sounded half Scot and half German. “ The wee monster absconded from hither ‘t seems like. Methinks it dug deeper into the dungeons o’ what remained of it anyways.”

“ Very well then. Let us be off,” the woman sighed, suppressing a grimace. “ We shall note this as another site to have those Seekers from the Dreimarch investigate. We are stretched thin as it is…”

“ ‘ear that laddies, hoist the main sails.” The half-dwarven [Skipper] yelled.

“ Aye aye [Skipper] Ser!” the crewmen yelled back. Then they flew over the still smoking hole from whence the eldreant had crawled out off and slowly ascended to the sky.

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