Spellheart 9: Chapter 4 (Patreon)

Tivana was tired from the day’s escapades, so I took her home to sleep it off. I’d been hoping to spend a romantic couple of days exploring this alien world, but she seemed like she really needed a bed. Getting home was far easier than going to this world since all I had to do was open a pocket world passage and walk right through to return to the Hearthwood.

Immediately upon my return, I was mobbed by three of my children. Two of my daughters, Argona and Comela, stood before me with amazed and giddy faces. Behind them, their younger brother Dulik loomed. He only looked mildly interested, but his stern and orcish countenance meant that he might as well be jumping up and down with giddy excitement, like his sisters.

“Father, what was that beast you just killed!?” Comela said excitedly. “Mac just had us pull the head from the Dimensional Storage warehouse.”

“It was something called a Mechanobeast Elemental,” I shrugged. “It was a strange world. I’d take you, but it’s a bit too dangerous for a true mage. Maybe after I’ve done a little more exploring to find somewhere safe.”

“There was a lot of metal and strange technology in that Elemental!” Argona said giddily. “I bet I could take it apart and discover all sorts of uses for its components!”

“Well, have at it then, my dear. If you find a good enough use for these things, I’ll go out of my way to hunt down a few more of them for you.”

Dulik nodded slowly at me. “It must have been a tremendous battle. I see the marks in the beast’s thick metal armor and the strange weapons adorning its tentacles. I wish I could have seen the fight.”

I chuckled. Considering I’d fought the entire battle with Tivana bouncing up and down my shaft, I was rather glad nobody had been there to witness it. Still, if Dulik wanted to see a high-level fight between a body cultivator like him and a monster, I would be more than happy to take something down while he watched.

“Set a slot in the Simulation Chamber for me. I’d like to keep my high score. You and I can go there together.”

“Sounds like fun. Can I come?” Comela asked.

“Sure! And grab Segolas too. I heard he’s up on his feet again!” I said.

Comela’s smile turned tight. “Right, Segolas...”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is something the matter with him?”

“No, nothing...” Comela’s voice trailed off. Dulik cleared his throat.

“Eldest brother is a bit... frustrated. As I understand it, he was considered a genius before he was wounded. He was also by far the strongest of your children. That is no longer true. Comela and many of the others have left him far in the dust. Mage Acolyte is no longer all that impressive in the Hearthwood. He is used to thinking of himself as a genius among cultivators, but that is no longer true.”

“So?” I asked. “What’s going on with him?”

“He’s been training as often as Sava and the Spirit Healers will let him. And even then, he was sneaking it a little extra time when they weren’t paying attention. He’s hurt himself a few times and slowed down his recovery because of it,” Comela said. “He acts weird whenever I’m around though, like he’s ashamed to be in my presence.”

“I see. He’s having some trouble adjusting after his long coma.” I let out a deep sigh. “I guess I’ll have to talk to him myself. I suppose it’s past time he and I go on a father-son adventure. There’s still one nexus seal left in the dungeon to hunt for!”

Argona recruited Dulik and Comela to help cart the Mechanobeast Elemental somewhere she could take it apart, and I left them to their activities, though I promised I’d help Argona analyze the monster components later. I was much more accustomed to working with technological components than she was, so she’d need my help making sense of the lasers and other odd gadgets in the Mechanobeast Elemental.

But for now, it was time to see my eldest son.

He wasn’t in the Medical Bay like he was supposed to be, and the Spirit Healer who was supposed to be looking after him nearly fainted at my approach.

“P-patriarch! I’m terribly sorry. I shouldn’t have let him go, but he was insistent! I’m so, so sorry. I should have put my foot down and called for the guards. If I’d known--“

I cut her off and held up my hand. “Where is Segolas now?”

“Sir... he left for the dungeon an hour ago.”

***

My first reaction as I ran toward the dungeon was anger. Why would Segolas do this? When Sava found out, she would go mad with worry.

But as I passed the entrance, my anger cooled. I knew why Segolas was desperate to get stronger. His friends, lovers, siblings, and family had all surpassed him while he was left behind. Stuck in his coma, he hadn’t progressed in the slightest. It was a tragic end for someone once heralded as the genius of the Hearthwood Clan, and not one his pride could tolerate.

I remembered what Segolas said to me that day he sacrificed himself for our clan. He was brittle, and he’d break before he bent. He was used to being the best, and now that he wasn’t, it probably ached him worse than any physical wound. He was desperate to make up so much lost ground. The fact that he had so many younger siblings who’d become stronger than him probably hurt.

So I knew why he was desperate to grow stronger, and if I were in his same position, I’d probably be the same. By the time I came to that realization, I also realized that I could just ask Mac how he was doing.

“Mac? Where’s Segolas?” I asked, trying to hide the worry from my voice.

[He is on the outskirts of the northern end of the dungeon, north of the ancient caverns where you first emerged,] Mac replied.

“Why didn’t you warn me he was going into the dungeon?”

[He asked me not to.]

I was silent at that. Other than occasional directions from Mac, I kept to the insides of my own head.

[He should be just ahead of you,] Mac said.

“We’ve never explored this part of the dungeon,” I said as I looked around.

The walls had writing on them, but now the script wasn’t so strange to me. These catacombs were from the sixth golden age, as were the weapons and all the death spellhearts within them.

[You haven’t explored this part of the dungeon, but plenty of your people have, and we know all about it. During the last golden age, a small school of death-aspect cultivators called the area above this dungeon home, though tectonic movements suggest that the dungeon was further north at the time. Powerful dungeon cores from the Devilbeast Wilds probably drew these catacombs all the way to the Hearthwood over the years.]

“I see. It would make sense that the powerful monsters slain here would leave behind powerful spellhearts, which would go on to create the powerful dungeon cores spread throughout this entire region.” I crept behind a rock, peeing my head out to make sure Segolas wasn’t looking. He was on his guard and ready for a fight, as one should be when traveling through a dungeon full of undead monsters alone.

Not that I was particularly impressed with anyone dungeon diving alone. That was a task best suited to an entire party. But I’d fought that mid-wizard-level Mindslaver Lord on my own, so I didn’t really have room to criticize Segolas here.

I wasn’t really sure what to do now that I’d caught up to him. Was I supposed to barge in there and drag him to his room so he could rest up and heal the rest of the way? That was probably what Sava would have wanted me to do, but the boy was my son too. There was a certain sense of peace a man could gain only through the knowledge that he’d faced challenges and overcome them with his own wit and skills. I wasn’t sure if elves felt the same, but if he did, dragging him away would only make him furious with me.

I remembered the relationship we used to have, where I’d tried to make things work with him and failed. Things had been different then. The Hearthwood was constantly under siege, and threats bigger than anything everyone in the Hearthwood had ever known loomed on the horizon. Looking back, I don’t know how we survived through it all. One threat after another came for us, and we constantly lived on the edge of life and death, where one wrong move would mean not only my death but the death of everyone I loved and their entire clans.

Things were different now. I was strong, and our enemies were either dead or groveling at our feet. I was no longer desperate, and with that freedom, I felt a burden fall off my shoulders. I’d seen my family grow and my children thrive. I still didn’t really think of myself as a dad, but the numbers couldn’t lie. Now, with the luxury to think about these things, I was starting to realize where I’d gone wrong.

And so stayed in the shadows, even when a monster jumped up from one of the sealed catacombs and attacked Segolas from behind. At first, I thought he hadn’t seen it, but I should have known better. By the time the undead skeleton climbed out of its grave, it was fully under Segolas’ control. He hadn’t been called a genius of death zeal for nothing. Taking control of a rogue undead at the heartwielder level was probably one of the first things Xoreda taught him. It was easier than summoning a skeleton from death zeal.

That aspect of necromancy had always fascinated me. Elves didn’t leave bodies behind, as their corpses dispersed into zeal. But death cultivators could draw on that zeal to pluck the bones that should have been left behind from the air, already clean of flesh and ready to be reanimated. It certainly helped make being a necromancer a lot cleaner. If they smelled like rotting flesh, it was entirely by choice.

“Minerva, can you tell me what he’s doing?” I whispered.

Minerva yawned. She was still busy reconstituting herself from the battle with the Timeweaver Spiders, and she wasn’t yet back to full health. For an elemental spirit like her, that meant she was physically weaker, and to my senses, she felt like a true mage. Since she represented a part of my cultivation just as much as my World Titan Fiendbody. Having her so weak bothered me a bit, but with all the death spellhearts and zeal crystals I’d been feeding her, she assured me she’d be at full power again soon enough.

[Ah... my head’s still a bit fuzzy, but your son’s spells are simple enough. He’s just injecting death zeal through the--]

I cut her off. My talent for necromancy had always been sadly lacking, despite my hopes and dreams as a new cultivator. Getting Minerva had been my way around that. I didn’t need to be a talented necromancer as long as she was, since her power was as good as mine. In a way, she was like a sentient spell that existed to act out my will whenever death zeal was involved. I trusted her to see to my interests.

She kept a careful magical eye on where the threats were and what spells Segolas was using to counter them. It was a rather informative conversation, even though all my death aspects spells were cast through Minerva herself, so I didn’t really need to know any of it.

So far, Segolas had been walking through the upper levels of the dungeon and building himself a little army. By now, he’d surrounded himself on all sides with two dozen skeletons.

I wasn’t particularly confident in the fighting ability of the skeletons. Most of them weren’t armed, and they had no additional powers at all. The most they could do was fling themselves at an enemy and try to rip them apart. That might work on heartwielder-level threats, but anything at mage acolyte and above would tear through them.

“I want to see how he reacts to a low-level skeleton that he can’t just take over,” I whispered to Minerva.

[I thought we were trying to be sneaky and unnoticed, not mess with him?]

“I changed my mind. Attack him from above. I should teach him to look up.”

And so Minerva dutifully spawned a skeleton clinging to the ceiling above Segolas’ head. By attacking from above, I not only bypassed the horde of skeletons surrounding him, but I also gained the advantage of surprise. Segolas was probably counting on his small army of undead to shield him from those kinds of attacks, but if I could attack from above, so could his enemies. He needed to be prepared for just such a surprise.

“Hells blasted!” Segolas shouted as the skeleton under Minvera’s control jumped on his head. Like his own skeletons, it was armed with nothing but bony hands, but those could still be painful. Skeletons didn’t hold back in the slightest, and sometimes their blows could be strong enough to break their own bones.

“Go for his neck. I think that’s where a smart skeleton would attack. Throw a bit of teeth in,” I instructed Minerva.

[He’s trying to take control of the skeleton.]

“Block him. He’s getting past this one the hard way.”

[Done. He’s confused and probably more than a little nervous. He knows something powerful and intelligent is behind this skeleton.]

“We’ll blame it on the dungeon core. There’s got to be one around here somewhere.”

Segolas tried to throw the skeleton off himself, but Minerva was persistent. She wasn’t shy about having her skeleton bite my son’s slightly pointed ears. But to his credit, Segolas adapted.

His strength wasn’t what it used to be, so he couldn’t just tear the skeleton off himself and smash its skull. But he could throw himself to the ground and curl up in a ball so the undead couldn’t reach his vitals, no matter how it tried. That left it clinging to his back while a dozen of Segolas’ own skeletons pounced and smashed it until it was nothing more than a broken pile of bones.

“Give him a big death spellheart as a reward. Don’t worry. I’ll give you more zeal crystals, so it doesn’t slow your recovery down.”

Minerva condensed a mass of her own death zeal, and it was far purer and more vibrant than anything Segolas had collected so far. It materialized within the dead skeleton, and Segolas bent over to pick it up with a smile on his face. It would be a good find for any mage acolyte.

After that, he set about patching his wounds up. His back had a few bruises, and his ear was a bit cut up, but he had healing pills, salves, and potions aplenty. I was glad to see he’d come prepared on that front.

He took his time making sure he was fit for battle again, and I resisted the urge to have Minerva spawn ten more skeletons just like the first.

“Alright, alright,” I said when Minerva asked if I was certain for the third time. “We’ll just drop three skeletons on him.”

And so that’s just what we did. This time, Segolas was looking up, and he saw the skeletons forming well ahead of time. He moved out of the way, so they landed among his undead minions, who attacked as one.

From the rear, Segolas was much more effective. His skeletons bore the brunt of the damage while he was free to fling smaller death spells to rot away the bones of his attackers or slow their movements by fighting Minerva over the death zeal that controlled them. Minerva could have completely overpowered him, even in her weakened state, but it would be unfair for someone of Segolas’ level to go up against a spirit of her power, so I had her pretend to be at late mage acolyte. That would be strong, but not insurmountable for the boy. Additionally, that was the strongest death dungeon core Mac knew about in the area, so if I had her fake anything stronger, he’d be suspicious.

After overcoming my surprise attack, Segolas headed deeper into the dungeon. Soon enough, he came to a crossroads, and he stood there a moment as he tried to decide which way to go.

“Mac, which path is more dangerous?” I asked.

[Left leads downward to the second level and ultimately to the dungeon core,] Mac replied.

“Good.”

[Master, should I lure him down the safer path?] Minerva asked.

“Hmm...” Minerva interpreted my dissatisfied mumble as approval, so she created five skeletons down the more dangerous path. They waved their arms threateningly, like they were ready to attack him the moment he approached.

But far from being discouraged, Segolas took their presence as a signal that said that was the path worth fighting. I should have guessed he’d respond to danger that way. After all, he was in this dungeon to fight. Wouldn’t he want to go where the monsters were?

“Ha, that’s my boy. Minerva, you can lighten up on the skeletons. I don’t want you to deplete his energy reserves or his destroy too many of his undead before he faces a real threat. Mac says there are some monsters up ahead.”

I followed Segolas in relative silence for the next few minutes. This entire region of the dungeon seemed to be undead-themed, which was likely why Segolas chose it. It was also probably why I’d never explored it. Before getting Minerva, death zeal had been completely useless to me.

Segolas wandered through the caverns, picking up quite a few trinkets that he found interesting. The elves of the sixth golden age sure were rich, because a lot of the items in their catacombs were very well made. Segolas picked up an amulet and a sword, both of extremely high quality. Argona could probably have made something similar, but I wasn’t aware of any other craftswomen in all of Deania who could match the quality of the two items Segolas just picked up.

Lens of Shattered Fate (True Mage)

• This item glows whenever vibrations in the web of fate suggest an increased probability of the user’s death.

Sword of the Fallen King (Wizard)

• This blade was once wielded by a powerful male elf necromancer at the wizard level. The battle that killed him destroyed most of the blade and its power, but the crooked remains are usable even at the mage acolyte level, and the lingering sense of death within the sword provides a constant source of death zeal. Pouring death zeal into the blade can allow it to utilize several basic death-aspect spells.

I wasn’t sure how much those two finds were influenced by my luck-enhancing spell. Just following behind Segolas like I was meant that he was likely to pick up items of tremendous value. That was one of the biggest reasons my other children were so quick to invite me along with their dungeon runs.

I was wary of accompanying them all the time though, as I thought they needed to experience real danger to grow as cultivators. I knew they took risks when I was there that they otherwise would have avoided, and that was a bad habit to get used to. Maybe I would need to start following them all around in secret like this since I still wanted them to find good stuff. There was nothing quite like clawing your riches from the corpses of a dozen monsters.

Segolas stopped here and there to squint at the inscriptions on the catacomb walls. I approved of that, at least. The ancient writing over sealed catacombs often described the favorite spell of those buried within, and in rare cases, it illustrated their entire spirit cultivation art. Those kinds of things were immensely valuable. I really had to send someone down here to transcribe everything and add it to the Hearthwood Clan’s library.

Before long, Segolas found himself in danger once again. This time, the threat was a level greater than the skeletons I’d been throwing at him to warm him up. These were the Barbed-Tooth Raptors I’d fought when I was at his level. Only instead of being green-hided feral beasts, these were undead feral beasts.

They snapped, bit, and clawed at his undead, and bone clattered against bone in a fight without a single scream, roar, or battle cry. It was a bit eerie to watch undead fight undead. The only sound was that of cracking bones and gnashing teeth. Even Segolas was silent as he tested his sword on some of his opponents.

There were advantages and disadvantages to fighting undead like the raptors. They weren’t as strong as their living counterparts since they relied on death zeal to animate them instead of flesh and blood. With so much of their energy invested in just being able to move, they didn’t have much power left to enhance their abilities to supernatural levels or use offensive spells of their own.

They did, however, have an undeniable tenacity. A real raptor knew when to run. These just kept attacking like mindless robots. A real raptor would also be in a lot of pain if you cut off its tail with your sword. These weren’t bothered in the slightest. Still, Segolas wasn’t a necromancer for nothing, and he converted as many undead raptors to his side as he slew. That was one of the main advantages of death zeal. Fights like this one empowered him rather than weakened him.

[He is doing very well,] Minerva said.

“The dungeon core is up ahead, though, and it’s guarded by a particularly powerful undead raptor. Since it’s controlled by the dungeon core itself and serves as the last line of defense, it’s likely to be both intelligent and strong.”

Sure enough, my instincts proved true. After wiping out all the undead raptors, Segolas discovered another room just behind them. Living raptors would normally have their nests somewhere around here, but these were undead and so were nothing more than guards meant to protect the ancient doors leading to the dungeon core.

The doors were made of rotten wood latched together with iron, a horrible toxin for elves. I expected Segolas to carefully push the door out of the way. He was half human, so the iron didn’t hurt him as much as it would his mother, but it would still burn.

To my surprise, Segolas just grabbed the iron door, ignored the pain in his hand, and threw the doors wide as though the iron could do him no harm. Looking back, I’d probably done the exact same thing when entering the other iron-clad doors beneath throughout the dungeon. Had Segolas seen that?

As soon as he was past the entrance, I crept around to follow close behind. I couldn’t quite enter the room with him since there was only a single main chamber, but I could peer around from the edge. Minerva’s control over death zeal was enough to let me blend into the surrounding background zeal, and my mastery of earth cultivation let me sink into the ground and vanish from one corner of the room only to reappear in the other.

Normally I had a hard time using my Unearthly Movement skill within a dungeon due to the power of the dungeon core, but this dungeon core was so weak relative to me that I brushed off its hold on the zeal around me as easily as brushing a fly off my shoulder. Still, remaining unnoticed by both the core and Segolas proved to be a better training exercise for me than stomping through the dungeon and killing everything in my way.

The dungeon core’s guardian was a massive undead raptor far larger than any of the others. It stood as tall as a building, more on the scale of a tyrannosaurus than a raptor. Though its front arms were scrawny compared to its powerful hind legs, they definitely weren’t useless. Instead of claws on the end of its hands, it bore two metal blades fastened to the bone and stretching down to the floor. From the rust on the edges of the blade, those weapons were made of iron.

Someone had actually fastened a pair of iron swords to the corpse of a giant undead raptor. This was probably a very special project for the clan of death cultivators who lived in these catacombs, as getting that much iron would cost elves a fortune. They had a tough time working with it, given how dangerous it was for them to touch, which meant they probably had to trade for it with one of the other races throughout the Ten Thousand Worlds.

Segolas took one glance at his new Lens of Shattered Fate. It glowed ever so slightly, which I took to mean the threat to his life was minimal. That wasn’t nearly as good a threat detection system as what The Wanderer could do for me, but it was better than nothing, especially at his level.

Death Raptor King (Late Mage Acolyte)

• Crafted by the finest death smiths, the death raptor king’s bones have been dipped in bronze filled with earth zeal for additional strength, and the death zeal its bones were made from came from a true-mage level monster. The iron weapons on its arms were gifted to the Deathless Ravager Clan by a pair of traveling dwarves and are well suited to decapitating elven victims.
• This monster is under the direct control of a semi-intelligent dungeon core and thereby exhibits intelligence far greater than that of the usual undead.

Segolas couldn’t see what I could about the monster he was about to face, but he was undeterred by its fearsome visage. He raised his new sword and pointed it forward. Like troops obeying their general’s command, his undead horde charged at the Death Raptor King with complete disregard for their own undead lives. I wasn’t surprised. Undead at the heartwielder level were scarcely more intelligent than a fireball from a fire cultivator. It took death zeal at the wizard level to craft sentient spells like Minerva, and even then you needed a real elven soul at the heart of the spell.

The battle between Segolas and the Death Raptor King was incredible, at least as far as mage acolyte-level fights went. It lashed out with tooth and claw, and he nimbly dodged each blow. The dungeon core was smart enough to aim for the necromancer instead of bothering with his undead horde, and Segolas used that to his advantage by creating openings for his minions to attack. Far from being content to stick to the rear, Segolas drew his sword and joined his skeletons in the fray. When his opponent looked like it was deciding to deal with his undead after all, Segolas fired spells and darted in close to remind the dungeon core of the threat he posed.

And he did certainly pose a threat. Making minions was just one of many spells in a good necromancer’s arsenal. Segolas could lay hands on the Death Raptor King’s bones and cause them to rot as he broke down the death zeal within them and stole it for himself. Sufficiently weakened, his new sword could hack through those same bones, and with a couple of slices he cut off one of the Death Raptor King’s legs.

That crippled the beast and brought its head down low enough that Segolas’ minions could jump on top of it and pry at the vulnerable joints that connected its skeletal head to the rest of its body.

In my estimation, the fight was rather well executed. It had been quite a while since I was a mage acolyte myself, and my fights had been anything but ordinary, but Segolas probably could have beaten Sharian of the Sakaku Clan, and she’d been their little genius and rising star. If the Hearthwood Clan was still just on the level of one of Deania’s normal clans, he would have been the Hearthwood Clan’s most celebrated young member.

He would have been a tough opponent to beat for me back then. I probably wouldn’t have risked fighting him on my own. I would have lured him far from any sources of death zeal like on the surface, where the Hearthwood was teeming with dangerous lifeforms. Then I could have let the forest creatures whittle down his army and fight him without his minions. I’d have to talk someone into using that strategy against him during a training session since if I could think of it, his enemies would as well. Maybe I could have Mac create a lifelike golem shaped like a monster at the mage acolyte level and control it to chase him around for a few days to give him the life-and-death experience he came into the dungeon looking for.

[That appears to be the final blow. Segolas has defeated the Death Raptor King,] Minerva said as I plotted against my own son.

She was right. Segolas’ minions had bogged the Death Raptor King down enough that he was able to jump on his skull and plunge his sword into it, permanently disabling the undead. With the guardian defeated, the dungeon core was his, and he approached the dais it rested on with a bloody smile on his face.

“Good. We’ll just wait for him to grab the dungeon core and then head up to the surface. I’ll pretend to be a little mad, then congratulate him on a good dungeon run. We’ll throw a little party, and I can give him a few potions from Sava’s stash that’ll help him push right to the peak of mage acolyte. I think that he could really use a--“

Segolas tucked the dungeon core under his arm, but instead of turning like I expected him to, he tapped on the dials themselves. It made an empty hollow sound. He rapped on the display with the hilt of his sword, then on the wall behind it. There was definitely another chamber behind that wall.

“Tear this wall down,” Segolas waved at his remaining undead, and they picked up broken chunks of stone and bashed them against the wall until cracks started to spread. Now that the dungeon core had been removed the earth zeal running through all the surrounding structures had grown less stable, and some of the power was already flowing away to other dungeon cores nearby. Soon, Segolas broke through the wall to reveal a chamber hidden beyond it.

A faint purple glow lit the hidden chamber, and I instantly recognized the color. That was the color of zeal crystals. Segolas had found the last nexus seal.

But instead of being joyous, I grew worried. Nexus seals had dense, magic-rich environments, and all the ones I’d opened had a particularly deadly creature already in residence.

From where I was all the way to the rear of the room, even I wasn’t quick enough to block the beam of energy coming out of it. If that energy beam struck Segolas, the best I could do would be to haul him to the Medical Bay and patch him up after I dealt with the threat.

But Segolas’ new necklace had warned him in advance. It started glowing with bright, brilliant light as it sensed a deadly energy beam, and he rolled to the side just in time to dodge it.

Death Eye Observer (Late True Mage, Level 29)

• This monster is created when the energies of a Crimson Eye Observer are corrupted by death zeal. All of its eye beams are converted to generate beams of death that rot and disintegrate everything it targets. Anything destroyed by its powers has a high probability of transforming into an undead minion to serve the Death Eye Observer.

Segolas shot a glance at his necklace. It still glowed brightly, though not quite as bright as it had when he was nearly taken by surprise.

I expected him to turn and flee. This wasn’t a foe he could fight. But then I heard the words he spoke to himself.

“Father killed one of these at mage acolyte. I have to as well.”


<Note>
Happy new year!


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