Moonlight Relic, Ch 34: A Message to the City (Patreon)

The more Sam thought about how Micas planned to kidnap Altey, the angrier he became. By the time he was halfway through the ruins, he was far beyond rage. It was a desire for vengeance that wrapped around the essence stars in his soul and sang with a thousand voices from his bones.

There was no way he would allow him to escape from the debt that was owed.

Crystal Passage flared as he pushed himself to reach farther with each jump. The moons were beginning the rise and with each moment essence was pouring into him, giving him plenty of energy to call upon. The teleports came so closely together that the flames looked like one continuous chain warping the air.

It was over a hundred miles to the meeting point with Garild at the entrance to the third layer, but at the rate he was moving, he would be there in twenty minutes. The Guardian Star was helping, drawing on its connection to the relic to put a clear image of the next point at the front of his mind as soon as he landed, which was extending the distance he could cross with Crystal Passage. Each teleport was covering two or three miles and he ran in between them, stretching his legs until he had the image in his mind. Perhaps he should have created a gate, but the run was helping him to think.

“Meet me near the next bounty after I talk to the governor.” He contacted his father as his plans came together. “Mom and Altey should be safe in the village for now with Siwaha to guard them. I don’t see Micas getting past her or their wards.”

“I don’t like asking the sylphs for so much, but they are practically family now,” Jeric sent back in agreement. “The hunting team has all come back to keep an eye on things and Elsanar is scouting the sky. He’s unlikely to get in here.”

“Why does he want Altey?” Sam growled as he thought about it.

“He was probably told to get her, which would explain why he’s here in the first place.” Jeric paused as he put it all together. “I’m betting someone back in Cliff’s End sent word that I was dead and one of the older generation decided it was time to collect her, rather than letting her stay in the village. It’s how they think. They see everyone as belonging to them. His plan changed when he saw me and now he wants both things.”

“Nelgen must have told them,” Sam said as he considered the possibilities. “No one else had any reason to cause trouble, only him or his followers.”

“Probably,” Jeric agreed with an angry mutter. “He’s the jealous type, one who’ll try to break something if he can’t have it. Maybe I should have corrected his attitude more while we were there.” He fell silent for a moment. “All the same, don’t underestimate our family. It would have been easy for them to find out which way we went from Cliff’s End.”

“How dangerous is Micas really?” Sam asked with a frown. “His level makes things difficult on its own, but inside the relic, that would be manageable with enough preparation. It’s the classes and abilities that I need to know about.”

“Very,” Jeric replied immediately. “Dimensional Mages are fast and powerful. Even if his teleportation is limited here, he can still use most of his strength. More importantly, a Tower Magus is exceptionally strong with artifacts and activated items, and it looks like he is loaded with them. There’s no telling what sort of effect they could have, but none of them will be good. Be careful.”

“Understood,” Sam said with a grimace. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

---

When he arrived at the entrance to the third layer, Garild was already there, standing beside the broken staircase that led up. There was a tall candle in his hands burning with blue, green, and purple sparks, which had probably come from the festival in the city.

“Governor,” Sam’s greeting echoed through the area as a sphere of crystal flame faded away from him. Now that he was in the relic, silver threads of astral energy and moonlight were more prominent in the flames, giving them an ethereal presence that matched the ruins, and his voice echoed from the stones with multiple layers of heat. “I have some questions for you.”

Initially, there had been no purpose to this meeting. Garild wanted to create a connection and agreeing had been a way to get him to leave. Now, however, there were several things Sam wanted the governor to do. His perspective on the man had transformed from him being an annoyance to a potential tool.

“Questions?” Garild looked startled as he spun around to face Sam’s voice. He carried himself well and caught his stride almost instantly, but it was clearly not what he was expecting to hear. “I brought you a dimensional bag full of items from the city...food, wine, some amenities that you might enjoy, as well as information on the various enchanters and a list of the things they most commonly sell. Since you’re corporeal, surely you must eat?”

He held out an ornate dimensional bag that had probably cost several gold and waited for Sam to take it. Although he was polite, he was still fishing for information. This time, Sam let it go. He just took the bag and tucked it away in his vest for later as he turned the conversation back to his purpose. He wasn’t planning on answering the governor’s questions, even if it was just telling him that he ate.

“What do you know about Micas Hastern?” he asked instead, his voice taking on a dangerous rumble. “A Dimensional Mage who came to the peak last night. After I chased him away, he sent mercenaries to attack the Ice Sylph village and to seize two people there who are under my protection.”

“Micas Hastern?” Garild’s face twisted into something unpleasant as he tried to follow Sam’s train of thought. “Why did he do something so.... No, never mind that. Yes, I know of him, but only a few things.”

“Tell me.” Sam was head and shoulders taller than Garild and his shoulders were twice as wide. He stared down at the man as he waited for the answer.

“He visited me yesterday...” Garild muttered in thought as he put something together. “He was asking about a small girl with golden hair who was supposed to be in the area, along with her mother and a large man who looked like a mercenary. It wasn’t much to go on, so I told him that I hadn’t seen them.”

“Did he say why he was looking for them?” Sam clenched his hands as he stared down at Garild. “Why was he visiting you?”

“He said it was a family issue, that he was supposed to take the girl back home.” Garild shook his head. “That’s all I know. He was there just to pay his respects. The Hasterns are...well known. Does this have anything to do with Jeric Hastern, the man who came to fight the Terror? I noticed his name, but I didn’t put it together then.”

“It’s all tied together,” Sam rumbled in agreement, but he didn’t plan to give Garild the full details. “Micas is doing what he should not. And since you’ve already met him, that makes it easier. I want you to find him and bring him to the ruins here tomorrow night at moonrise. Up here, or near the peak. It doesn’t matter where. I will find you.”

“Finding him should be easy enough if he’s around the city,” Garild muttered in consternation as he stared up at Sam, “but how am I supposed to convince him to come along? And why?”

“Tell him that the ruins have opened a storeroom.” Sam said decisively. “And that it may lead him to an unexpected discovery. As for the reason why, he has attacked those who are innocent.”

“I suppose,” Garild muttered, but he looked confused as he frowned at Sam. “But it sounds like you’re going to kill him and that’s something I really shouldn’t be a part of. The Hasterns are a bad enemy. They control a lot of the teleportation network throughout the kingdom, as well as most of the high-grade dimensional artifacts and scrolls. Not to mention the influence they have just in Tower Reach, which is one of the major cities.”

“You are concerned only for power and prestige?” Sam rumbled as he considered Garild. “This will raise it for you.”

“What?" Garild was startled. "How will it do that?”

“He has already offended the Ice Sylphs, the true owners of this land, and me, the owner of these ruins,” Sam replied. “All you have to do is announce his crimes in the city afterwards. Say that you have judged him guilty and helped the Horned Hunter to deal with him as a matter of justice.”

“How would that raise my status?” Garild was sputtering now. “The Hasterns will want to know what happened to him! They might even cut off trade here and that would make the king angry with me. I’m here to collect taxes, not ruin them!”

“Are the Hasterns above the law?” Sam growled down at him. “Will you allow him to be a criminal in your city? You are executing justice! Frame it that way. He has tried to kidnap a young girl, to take her from her mother, and to seize her father. He hired mercenaries to harass the Ice Sylphs and insulted them, threatening to destroy the ancient treaty in this valley.

“If he’d succeeded, the Ice Sylphs might have closed the valley to outsiders, which would ruin the trade that Highfold relies on. Then you would have no taxes at all. He has threatened the balance of power! Blame the Hasterns for this. Demand that they pay you compensation!”

“That...” Garild muttered as he fell silent, struggling with the idea. “It might be possible, since it’s the Ice Sylphs. They’re highly regarded here. The dwarves would agree because of that. The rest of the public might fall in line.” Then he looked up at Sam, his expression changing as he got used to the idea. A political gleam flashed in his eyes as he clenched his fist. “It’s a risk. I’ll do it, but it has to be worth it.”

“Obviously,” Sam answered in grim amusement. He’d expected nothing else from the man. He’d already gained enough from their battle with the Terror, but he wasn’t someone to dwell on what he had, only on what else he could gain.

“You are a man interested in knowledge, and in having more than others. Do this and I will tell you how old these ruins are and what they were designed for. If you are enthusiastic enough, perhaps I will even give you a book about its past, filled with legends of the ages. You would be one of the few to know about it."

“I’ll do it,” Garild said quickly, as if he was worried that Sam would take the offer away. His eyes were wide. The ruins all around them were filled with the resonance of astral energy flooding through the transfer lines and the ancient enchantments were hanging fractured in the sky, making it clear exactly what Sam was offering. “I’ll have him here tomorrow night.”

“Good,” Sam nodded with a slow smile. His fangs glimmered from between his lips and his eyes were narrow. “Now go.”

“Wait. What should I tell him about the storeroom?” Garild asked as he hesitated, glancing around the area. “I’ll need some information about it to lure him here.”

“It is on the first layer,” Sam said as he waved in his hand in the air. A map made of moonlight formed there, marking out the location of the storeroom that he’d visited once. “At the center of this plateau, marked by the symbol of the three moons on the stones. Tell him you don’t know how to open it all the way.”

He wasn’t concerned about Micas getting into the storeroom. He might even open it and lure him inside the entrance hall to make sure he couldn’t escape, although he didn’t plan to let him through the inner door.

“Got it.” Garild nodded as he stared at the map. “Until tomorrow then.”

Sam nodded in agreement as he waved him away, and a moment later, Garild was gone, running back to the city. Sam watched him until he was out of sight, and then he let out a dark chuckle.

That information will not do him much good, even if you give it to him, the star spoke up.

He is chasing power, Sam agreed, but missing the bigger picture. If he tells the world that the relic is 162,000 years old and designed for dimensional sealing, it won’t matter. Everyone already knows that it’s old and that teleportation doesn’t work here. I’m not planning to give him any proof.

It would only be another theory thrown into the mix of what scholars had been arguing about for a long time. More than that, he trusted that Garild’s self-interest meant he would keep the information close to his chest for a while, until he figured out what to do with it, and by that point, the relic’s defenses would be active on the first layer.

It was more than just that, however. Now that the relic was beginning to repair itself, Sam was looking to the future. He needed to accelerate its recovery.

And the book that you mentioned, if he proves himself?

My mother will write it. I’ll give her stories of the people who used to live here, the various schools and sects, like the Three Peak Sorcerers, and the grand purpose they had of building a line of relics to defend the world from invaders. I’ll let him spread it around as an ancient history that was discovered and recently copied down, and he can get some fame for finding it.

We can call it a Chronicle of Moonlight.

All of the experience when people read it will go to my mother, which might be enough to get her to the First Evolution or even higher.

Your intentions do not end there.

No, Sam said slowly as he looked around the relic. The moonlight flowing everywhere and the overwhelming weight of the enchantments in the air was enough to tell him what he needed to do, however much of a risk it would be. I don’t know how much time we have until the Seal fails, but it’s not enough.

I’ll delay giving him the book until the main defenses are in place, but I have to push the relic back into operation. He was already thinking of the massive task ahead of him. To do that I need more people here to study and repair it. Not the core part, but everything else. The teleportation platforms, the farms, the schools that studied dimensional magic, the warriors who trained for battle to fight things like the Blood Elemental.

It’s time for the Moonlight Relic to live again.

In its day, the relic had been the home of tens of thousands of people, all studying how to defend the world. He couldn’t stay here working on it just by himself, not if he wanted to build more of them anytime soon. He needed more crafters, warriors, and people who wanted to be a part of something bigger, who would devote themselves to restoring the relic and defending it from monsters.

He had to recreate what it had been.

The Moonlight Relic was the prototype, and in its day, the council had been training people to build the rest. If he really wanted to bring it back, he needed to do the same. It was the only way to establish the foundation. His mother’s book would be a recruitment letter, a lure to anyone who wanted to help seal the Flaws and was pulled by dreams of a better world.

Although he doesn’t know it, Garild will be spreading hope for the future.

It would probably get attention from enemies, but with the Guardian Star and the relic itself to help, he was confident in keeping an eye on everything happening within its boundaries. He wouldn’t give up the main control, and he had no intention of handing out the core enchantment to anyone else, except maybe his family, but if it worked...this would be their place of power.

The beginning of fixing the seal.

The peaks of the Western Reaches stretched away into the distance as he considered what was to come, looming like silent guardians in the night awaiting their orders. Eventually, he pulled his attention back to the present, searching the area around him as his attention locked on the location of the last bounty.

There are still a few things to take care of.

---

In the valley below, a sudden chill breeze ran through the air, mixing with the warmth that was usually present. The sun had set and the stars were a clear field framing the enormous moons. From one side of the valley to the other, the earth began to tremble.

A fog of ice-blue mana gathered on the surrounding slopes, quickly becoming so dense that it was visible everywhere in the valley. It built up in heavy, rolling layers like a tide until it was a frozen ocean hanging there, held back by something unseen. The cliffs began to shudder as massive cracks ran through the snow covering them.

Snow fell from the mountainsides, revealing ancient runes carved deep into the stone. Their design was simple and archaic, ornate loops merging one into the other like interlocking droplets with curling spikes in between that resembled icicles and frozen herbs. Once they were visible, the ocean of mana above them rippled, releasing a booming echo, and then it fell, heading directly for the runes.

The runes flared as they absorbed the mana at a furious pace, and they began to shine brightly. Not a single current of mana spun off in another direction. It was all absorbed, sinking into them like it was descending into a bottomless whirlpool.

A thunderclap echoed through the valley and shook the walls of Highfold as new runes came to life on the slopes and connected to the first ones, until the entire valley was ringed by layers of rune script covering the mountainsides. They glowed in brilliant bands of icy blue and white, like a myth of the frozen past that had come to life, radiating with undaunted might.

An answering tremor came from the valley floor as lines of white and green rose up across it, flaring into existence as they connected to the runes on the slopes, until the entire valley was ablaze with a web of power. These lines felt like summer and the sun, fragrant grasses left to dry in the fields, and the rich scent of apples and alder. The valley hummed with two great notes that vibrated beside each other, one promising eternal summer and the other winter.

When the runes were all alive, the only space they didn't cover was Highfold itself, which was nestled at the foot of the mountains on the far side. The wards surrounded it, kissed the edge of the walls, and held there, like a vast runic eye looking upward to the heavens with the city as the dark pupil.

Then a quiet voice, like a grandmother speaking in the ear of a child, rustled through the valley. It was accompanied by the sound of crackling frost and the wind and waves of snow began to form, swirling above the valley in enormous sheets. The weather of the peaks tipped back to its original icy chill, high up in the Western Reaches.

“On this Festival of the Three Crowns, to villagers and visitors from near and far, I grant you the sight of the ancient wards that defend our valley from ice and snow. Hold in your memory the ones who carved them!

Remember the treaty, honor the land, and raise your glass to greet our new ally, the one who dwells on the peak, the Horned Hunter of the Moons!

To each and every one of you, enjoy the festival!”

Then her voice fell silent and the snow swirled away, melting into the air as a warm summer breeze returned to the valley, warming it like the kiss of a golden evening. The runes along the slopes flared once more before they dimmed, fading away like fireflies until only the light of the moons and the stars lit the night.

In the streets of the city, loud cheers erupted, echoing from wall to wall as the festival climbed to a new height. Shouts of merriment, drinking, and toasts rose upward, shaking the ground as the visitors tried to compete with the sight that they’d just seen. Many of them were shouting for the Horned Hunter, roaring out their welcome to a spirit of the world.

In the palaces, however, it was a different story. The powerful looked outward at the wards they’d never seen and the ice storm swirling so close overhead. A few smiled as they recognized the voice of an old friend, but many, especially the younger and the more foolish, shuddered as they heard the message that was being sent.

It was going to be the most memorable Festival of Three Crowns in a very long time.