Moonlight Relic, Ch 4: Curseborn (Patreon)

When the sun rose above Winter Peak, Sam was already far away from the sylvan village. The question of the curseborn was an itch under his skin that wouldn’t let him rest, and it had pulled him out of bed long before the sun was up. Fortunately, he didn’t need a lot of sleep anymore. He needed to find out where they’d come from and if there were more.

He gave himself half a day before he had to return. Anything more than that would start to affect his timeline for the relic. That couldn’t wait, since the alignment was approaching. If he missed it, it would be seven years until the next opportunity. This one morning would have to be enough.

When he’d left, his father had already been awake. He didn’t sleep much these days either. Jeric had given him a considering look and then nodded. He knew that Sam was strong enough to be on his own, and if his son encountered any unexpected danger, he should be able to retreat. Meanwhile, Jeric was planning to organize the enchanted items Sam had made and prepare to open a shop in the city.

Krana and Lesat had arrived the night before, followed shortly after by Lenei, and now everyone was gathered at the village. This time, Krana had brought a rental agreement with her, one that was approved by the city council. Her relatives had come through for them, but the rent was staggering at 30 gold a month.

That was a hundred and fifty times more expensive than the house they’d had back in Cliff’s End, and it marked out one of the major differences in their new home. For a few months, that price wasn’t a problem. They had enough wealth in monster cores and some scattered coins to cover it, but they needed to start selling things if they wanted it to work out in the long run.

The good news was that there was a room at the back of the store that they could turn into a workshop and an apartment above it, where his mother and sister could live if they decided to stay in the city. Overall, it was a good investment and the contract was guaranteed by the dwarven side of the city council, which should prevent most problems. There was an option to buy out the cost of the building too, for 2,000 gold.

His thoughts were on the future of that as he followed the path the curseborn had left behind. The monsters on the ground had not been subtle. Krana and the others had wanted to come along with him, once he explained his plan, but he’d turned them down. He was able to move much faster alone with the elements speeding his steps. Instead, he’d asked them to keep an eye on his family in case anything else appeared.

As he crossed over the shoulder of Winter’s Peak, however, a good distance away from the village, a drift of snow swept out in front of him. It was a loose eddy, as if the wind had suddenly swept along a snowbank and picked up a scattering of powder from the top. There was a blur of mana in it that tugged at his attention, and then it transformed, turning into three tall, white-haired sylphs that he instantly recognized.

It was Siwasir, Raelia, and Danir. These three made up half of the hunting team, which meant the other half had probably stayed at the village to keep an eye on things. They were outfitted for an expedition, which made it clear that it wasn’t a random appearance. Their armor was made of ice drake scales that had been layered together and it rippled with an underlying sense of mana and a powerful aura. Siwasir and Danir had bows slung across their shoulders and Raelia had her staff.

“Well met, Hunter.” A small smile crossed Siwasir’s face as he met Sam’s gaze. “I didn’t think you would be able to restrain your instincts, and so I am not surprised to meet you here. No hunter protecting his home can ignore an enemy so close by. We share the same goal, so why don’t we move together?”

There was no reason to turn down their offer. There was a quick discussion as they compared notes on the trail and the direction the monsters had come, and then they were moving again. He had been worried about others slowing him down, but this time he was the one who had trouble keeping up. Even as he started to fall behind, a chill breeze surrounded him, pulling him along.

The sylphs were all old masters at moving in the snow. As their arrival had shown, their Ice affinity was far more advanced than his. It seemed like they could disappear in one location and appear in another like the wind. He’d seen some hints of it before, but this was the first time he’d really been able to ask about it. Their conversation was held in quick words as the wind streamed past them, reaching each other’s ears only through a bit of mana imbued into it.

“It’s an innate movement ability in a cold area like this,” Raelia explained. “Right now, you’re an Initiate of Ice. When you reach Adept of Ice, many new abilities will become second nature to you. For most sylphs, advancement is a natural process that happens around the same time as our First Evolution.”

“For you, it may be different,” Siwasir added, glancing back at Sam. “We focus on a single element, but you have several. You will need to study Ice, if you want it to develop with you.”

Their words gave him something to think about, including an idea he’d been mulling over about crystal flame and its relationship to ice and flame. He could feel the depth of the hunters’ affinity all around him. They’d run together before, but that time he’d been on his own. Now, they trusted him enough to share their abilities.

Their movement was a constant ripple of the element in a dozen shades. Mana and aura both flowed around them. Perhaps that was how affinities worked, as an intrinsic part of the world. After a moment, he pulled his attention back to the tracks. They weren’t hard to follow. It was a long swathe of broken earth and destruction.

Droplets of wyvern venom had burnt the stone wherever the monsters flew close to the ground, and there were a dozen crisscrossing serpent trails that weaved around one another in a web of hoarfrost. The grass was frozen to white dust that was slowly being blown away by the wind. The cave trolls had left heavy footprints and scattered claw marks in the stone as they dragged their arms, or perhaps they’d been running on all fours.

The team headed southwest across the mountain, curving around its slope as they began to descend. There was a marked difference between the eastern and western face. Where the east looked out on the valley and its gentle weather, the west was a world of jagged ice, avalanches, and peaks that pierced the sky between bottomless crevasses.

There was also a difference in the spirit of the land. Here, the ice drakes reigned, wyverns harried their prey, and spiked ice worms the size of wagon trains burrowed into the stone, rolling over the bones of things long buried. Monsters that haunted nightmares lived here, but instead of worrying him, it made him feel alive. The edge of danger as the cold wind bit his skin was a whisper of the past. It held the faintest hint of blood, a remnant of battle between hunter and prey. He drew in a deep breath as his ears perked up and his pupils narrowed.

“Over there, past Windscar Point and Demon’s Shoulder,” Siwasir said quietly, his voice a murmur on the breeze. The sound shivered into Sam’s awareness, drawing his attention back. “The trail descends.”

He followed Siwasir’s motion, his gaze sweeping across the broken ground as he saw the tracks move around a strange spiral of stone that looked like an awl and disappear behind a bony outcropping. That part did look like a shoulder blade, and there was a curling point at the top like a horn.

“There’s a sheer cliff on the other side,” Danir spoke up as he studied the area. “There’s enough room for a wyvern to fly up, but the other things would need to climb. A serpent would have trouble.”

“It has been a while since we patrolled this area,” Siwasir agreed. “Perhaps something has changed in the past few days, but a Hoarfrost Serpent can climb a cliff, as long as they get enough purchase on the stones. It's an unsettling sight.”

“There might be another track, if the monsters joined forces here,” Raelia suggested. She laid her hand on Danir’s shoulder, although it wasn’t clear if she was asking for reassurance or giving it. “With the Outsider interference, it’s hard to say what could happen. We'll have to go and see.”

With a silent agreement, the four of them headed for Demon’s Shoulder. It took a few minutes, even though their feet found traction on the broken ice across the slope. The outcropping was forty feet high, extending upward from the side of the mountain with a strange, angular tilt that made it look like it had fallen from the heavens and embedded itself there.

There was a strange feeling that intensified as Sam got closer, a mix of the icy wastes and something connected to the danger in the air. It shivered across his skin like the wind off a graveyard with a hint of rattling death and rusted sabers. An unfamiliar aura pressed at the edge of his awareness, rising up in a way that he’d never experienced before. It felt like the entire area was imbued with it.

He frowned, hesitating at the uncharacteristic feeling. Everything within range jumped into his awareness, brightly outlined in Crystal Focus. The impression changed, separating into distinct layers. There was glacial ice, shattered stone, hoarfrost, something that felt like aged and yellowed bones, rotting meat...and a swirl of elemental auras, ones that felt like a natural part of Aster Fall. Then a sense of blood, gushing through the world like a river.

It hit him so hard that he rocked on his feet, his shoulders swaying as he instinctively jerked away. It was like being punched in the face and the stomach at the same time, even though he’d only sensed the outer edge. He’d encountered many strange auras before, from the Ice Sylph’s blessing to the Moonlight Relic, but this was the first time he’d ever felt one like this.

The relic’s aura was strong and pure. Despite its damage, it had a sense of completeness to it. This was chaotic. The sense of blood was twisting around the others. He frowned, hesitating as he stopped beside the Demon’s Shoulder. Around him, the sylphs came to a halt as well, looking to see what had grabbed his attention.

“Something’s not right here,” he said when Siwasir gave him an inquiring look. “There’s a strange energy. Can you sense it?”

The sylphs turned instantly, their gazes sweeping over the land as they searched for enemies and traps. Then they looked again, more slowly, combing over every foot of the area within reach. After a couple of minutes, however, their search turned up nothing and they looked back at him again, shaking their heads. There was no doubt in their eyes, just a trace of puzzlement.

“What do you sense, Sam?” Raelia asked, frowning slightly as she freed her staff from her back and tapped it on the ground beside her. “Wyverns or monster traces?”

“Something else,” Sam shook his head. “It’s a mix of things, with some relation to the monsters, but not exactly them. This outcropping is part of it, as is whatever is below us. The area here is saturated with it. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

“What is it like?” Danir asked. He had his bow in his hand, with an arrow ready to draw, and his eyes never stopped moving. The sylvan hunting team was old and experienced, and they wouldn’t doubt a teammate just because he saw something they didn’t.

“Like blood and death,” Sam replied. “Weapons, a mix of elements...like an old battle.”

Siwasir’s face became even graver when he heard that, his eyes tilting down at the corners. He turned toward the outcropping, looking up at it as if he were remembering something.

“The Demon’s Shoulder is very old,” he said at last, his words slow. “In all my years, it has never changed, and legends say it has been the same in every memory of our people. It’s believed to be bad luck, and so we avoid it.”

“Perhaps there’s some truth to that,” Danir agreed, looking restless as he shifted to glance at the stone and then back again. “No animals come near here, only monsters. Hunting in this area has never been fruitful, and as far as I know, none of our people like to travel in this direction. There’s always a better path.”

“Can you pinpoint what it is, and where it is?” Siwasir asked, focusing on Sam as he finished looking around the area.

Sam reached out, pushing through the confusion of auras as he tried to find the strongest point, where it all originated. There was a wash of sensations, elements crashing against his mind with the taste of a faint, old copper, and the feeling of things crumbling away, but nowhere in it felt stronger than any other part.

“All I can tell is that it’s stronger near this outcropping and it goes down for a way,” he answered, shaking his head. “I’ll have to head down to find more than that.”

“The tracks descend here as well,” Danir said, nodding resolutely. “We need to go there either way. Perhaps you’ll be able to sense it better from below.”

Sam turned, looking toward the sheer drop in front of them and then straight at the Demon’s Shoulder. A shiver of premonition passed over his back as he saw the horn at the top. Whatever was down there, he had the growing suspicion that it did not bode well for the sylvan village or his work on the relic.

---

The path down the cliff was impassable by foot, but the four of them didn’t hesitate. Sam gathered the air around him and leapt off in a swirl of crystal flame. He plummeted for a few feet before he hardened the layer of air around him and fell more slowly. The ice sylphs kept one hand on the icy wall as they slid down, almost like they were holding onto a rope. Their feet skipped off protrusions and sheets of ice, never slipping.

They dropped down, passing the gashed marks where troll claws had dug out chunks of stone for purchase, until nearly two hundred feet below they discovered an opening in the cliff face. It was a jagged hole nearly twenty feet across, its edges torn apart in a scatter of stones like something had burst through. Flows of ice had formed at the roof of it, half twisted where some heat had melted them before they reformed. Now, the ceiling was covered in icicles, the jagged tips pointed down.

The four of them slid into the opening, keeping a careful eye on their surroundings. The icicles might have been threatening to most people, but to them, the icy daggers were reassuring. Their element was present. The cave in front of them was a different story. It twined away into the darkness like a black ribbon unfurling, twisting away and down.

As soon as Sam entered the cave, clashing auras pressed into his awareness like the mountain was collapsing. He staggered for a moment, catching his balance as he adjusted to the pressure. It was far more intense here than up above. Even with the ability to see in complete darkness, all he could make out was the curve where the tunnel moved away.

“You can sense it here?” Siwasir asked, looking at Sam questioningly.

“It’s more intense now,” Sam replied with a nod. His eyes narrowed as he looked down the tunnel to the wall that curled away. It looked as if this place had been dug out by an ice worm or something else that slowly ate through the stone. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t feel welcoming. But there’s something familiar about it. I’ve just never felt this type of aura before.”

Suspicions of what it could be were floating through his mind, especially since he was familiar with the story of the Ice Sylphs’ origin. According to their history, this area had once been a battlefield for a war against Outsiders, some 60,000 years before, and the Goddess of Life had descended here, weeping tears for her lost son that gave birth to the Ice Sylphs.

Based on that timeline, that war hadn’t been the First War. The Moonlight Relic had been created around the time of the first one and it was 100,000 years older. The Ice War, as he decided to call it, must have been one of the Breakings between then and now. He wasn’t sure if whatever was here had something to do with it, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

If the relic could survive through so many years, who was to say something else couldn’t too? Perhaps there was some truth to the unease around the Demon’s Shoulder.

“If you can sense something here, Sam, please lead the way,” Siwasir suggested. “This feels like trouble. Hopefully, you can warn us if anything approaches. This is all stone deeper in, which is more difficult for us to sense through.”

It was the first time that Sam had heard the sylphs speak of limits to their Ice affinity, and he noted that Siwasir only said it was less effective here. From his own familiarity with Ice, it seemed like they would still be able to sense movement as long as the stone had some water in it, as well as gradations in the temperature of the area.

With a careful glance around the cave, Sam moved to the front and headed for the tunnel that led deeper. The sylphs had no trouble seeing in the darkness, but now and then a soft blue light would radiate from their equipment and then dim as the enchantments on it activated. With each turn downward, there was only a few dozen feet of space visible before another curve cut off the view.

It didn’t take long for Sam’s frown to deepen as the constant desire to see farther began to twist at his nerves. This tunnel reminded him of the Abysinnian Plains, but in some way it was worse, since at least there the tunnels had stretched on for what seemed like forever. He pushed the feeling aside and scanned the energy around him as he tried to isolate individual auras and identify them.

Can you identify anything here? he asked, glancing down at the Guardian Star on his hand. Or something from the relic’s memory?

The Moonlight Relic’s memory crystals are not fully active, and some of them are damaged. There is nothing that matches this area, but it is also outside of the relic’s territory. It may not be aware of it.

Do you think there’s some connection to the war that made the sylphs? Sam continued, pushing for any possible information. He wasn’t sure if he was on the right track with the line of thought, and in this case, he would be glad to be wrong. Unfortunately, the star didn’t refute his guess.

It is possible, the star replied as it began to flicker with multihued light. but it would require a series of events with unfortunate consequences. The nine points on it began to shine, each of them pulsing one after the other.

Whether or not it is from that war, the most likely scenario is that something was dormant here and the incursion by the Icebloods activated it. If so, this area will be in danger. Let us hope it is not the case.

Sam grimaced as he considered the distance between this tunnel and the Ice Sylph village. It had taken the monsters some hours to arrive, but it was still too close for comfort.

They continued downward for nearly an hour, following a winding course that felt nearly random until the floor leveled out. The pressure of the auras around him was so thick now it felt like he could barely breathe. By his estimate, they’d descended nearly two miles down into the roots of the mountain. He wasn’t sure if this area even counted as Winter Peak any longer. An impression from the elements here came to him, conveying a sense of deep stone and dark earth.

Outsider presence detected, the Guardian Star spoke up suddenly, its voice ringing in his mind. Ahead, fifteen degrees to the left. Four hundred feet.

The warning sent Sam’s shoulders back as a curl of crystal flame wrapped down both arms, forming into swirling bracelets, and the horns on his head curled upwards, growing by a hand’s breath. His hand shot into the air, warning the sylphs behind him to halt.

Ahead, as if it were responding to their presence, a dim red glow began to emanate from the end of the tunnel. It stank of old blood.