FINAL CORE - Chapter 108 (Patreon)

The world was once a great unknown. In times before the wildlands were mapped, before the oceans were crossed, before the mountains were climbed, and before the deep caves were plundered, those who would leave the comforts and safety of the towns and villages to cross, explore, and delve into these places were given the title of ‘adventurers’.

Over time, as these things all gradually began to happen and as the world seemed to shrink in on us because we knew everything that was around us, the designation seems to have lost a little of its original meaning. However, we continue to bestow this same title on those who would plunder into the darkest parts of the world. While we associate adventures with dungeon diving individuals, it’s important to understand that this isn’t a requirement. An adventurer can just as well be someone who fights wild monsters in the savannas and on plateaus as it describes someone who regularly enters into a dungeon to earn their living.

While it is true that the title has lost some of its original romance, there are still plenty of associations left.

While in reality, adventuring is gritty, dirty work with poor pay and an even worse long-term mortality rate, the stories of its romantic nature continue to be told, influencing even the most astute children of the richest noble families to break off and try their own at it, much to the annoyance of their counterparts from the low-born community, who take great offense to those whom they would dub pretenders, as if this were a game being played.

The poor become adventurers to escape crushing poverty.

The rich become adventurers to escape their luxurious images.

To be found out within the adventuring community as being a faker, someone with incredible resources who then chooses to stay within the echelons of low tier adventuring society to experience a lifestyle that isn’t theirs, is as good as a death sentence.

The rich stay with the rich. The poor stay with the poor.

This rule is enforced by both tiers of society.

~ Of the term ‘adventurer’ and the socio-economic context behind it

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Seide

Dryad, Female, Wood-mother

Location: The Sub-Tower, floor -99

“If you are not willing or able to fight for Isaiah and your faith, then please take the staircase now,” says the dryad, gesturing to the upwards leading staircase next to her as she looks out over the crowd that is made up of hundreds of people of every sort from the common races.

It’s not really something she’s experienced with — guiding humans in the same way she has been guiding her goblins for so long — but it turns out that there are a lot of transferable skills. Humans and goblins aren’t that different, really.

She had just finished explaining the situation. Everyone is aware of the tower’s ability to prevent death for anyone who ‘dies’ inside it, but that of course does not mean that everyone is ready to take the risk to check if that’s actually true, let alone to experience a violent death preceding that, even if there is a promise of return.

Many elderly, the infirm, and families make their way to the staircase, although among them are also people who she knows are in fighting shape. It’s almost a curiosity, but she wonders why they would have bothered coming all this way if they weren’t really ready to stand for their principles when put to the sword.

Seide shakes her head, looking back at those who remain.

It’s her job to guide and shepherd these people, the pilgrims who have traveled from over the world to serve Isaiah. The entity had placed its faith in her, so she won’t let it down after everything that has happened.

Faith is a mutual thing. Isaiah believes in her, so she will choose to believe in Isaiah and its plans. This mutual faith in one another is the bond that is held within all whole communities, whether it is a simple goblin tribe, a human village or a full-scale movement of religious purpose.

The foundation of it all is everyone doing their part.

“Let’s get those trees manned!” calls Seide. The goblins cheer, before running off to their tasks, with the humans following as they prepare the sub-tower for the first wave of the assault to come.

Despite all of this, faith is not something that exists in her domain, in nature. Her being able to partake in it is an emergent property of her sapience.

In nature, it is either eat or be eaten.

Her hooves clack as she walks over the stones, setting to work.

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Isaiah

White-feather harpies circle the tower, screeching with shrill screams as they rush through the odd mist that seems to have covered the world, obscuring it in a fog that never quite settles. The ticking of the clock-tower fills the world with a grim heartbeat, the inevitability it signals fits in too well with the deadened, quiet city in the west.

Thousands of people who had managed to escape are fleeing into the country-side, fleeing towards the tower.

It is very unlikely that there is anything truly human left alive within the city’s confines.

Sickening.

It is truly sickening, and Isaiah takes careful note of the fact that this only came to pass because it had once spared the witch, Perchta, in their previous encounter. Had it known that she would escalate to such an absurd degree, it would have plunged the sword through her heart rather than her hand on that day.

It shakes its head, looking back over its shoulder at the healing springs atop the roost, in which the wounded are submerging themselves to restore their battered and broken bodies. To see its children hurt pains Isaiah greatly, but not as much as the pain of having lost them would have been.

Turning its head, it looks back towards the city as a dark tide begins to stream out from its gates.

They’re people.

But they’re not.

A shambling, shuffling horde of thousands of bodies, human, orc, elf, and dwarf, move out of the city’s gates, together with streams and streams of monsters, who intermingle with the black crusade and march through the mist.

How much life has been wasted for all of this?

Over a stupid, empty house.

Isaiah narrows its eyes, listening to the ringing of a bell. It looks around. This is unusual. “Why is the bell ringing?” asks Isaiah. “It’s not time yet,” it says.

Black looks his way. “That’s not the tower bell,” says the uthra.

“He’s here…” says a voice from the side. Isaiah looks at Countess Avoria, the woman who had fled the central city over the sky bridge. She clasps her hands and lowers her head.

‘He’?

Isaiah turns to the side, looking to the distant north-west, from where the sound seems to be coming.

A bell that chimes across the world.

How novel.

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Witch Perchta

???, Female, Witch of the Blackwater

Location: The Dead City

Perchta lands on the ground, humming to herself as she lands in the dungeon plaza of the city. She lands on one foot, leaning theatrically to the side with her hand cupped by her ear as if she were listening to something.

There is total silence. The city is dead.

The woman smiles, stepping onto her other foot and leaning in that direction.

Silence.

“It’s beautiful,” she says. “Finally,” sighs Perchta, looking around at the burned, decayed city. “It’s finally quiet.”

The members of the Witches’ Sect, walking past, carrying a load of construction materials, stop and look at one another. They nod and then stand perfectly still, neither of them wanting to be the one to break the silence.

Perchta hums to herself, doing a little spin as she grabs hold of the load of timber that the two cultists are holding, and then jumps up, sitting on top of it.

“Take me home, boys,” says the witch. She sighs contentedly and lies down on the beam. “I’m retiring.”

The two cultists silently tip-toe off, doing their best to remain absolutely silent as they deliver the witch to her home. The city is entirely, eerily silent. The members of the Witches’ Sect are already beginning to take action to reclaim it, to rebuild and fortify, to make a stronghold out of the rubble, a sanctuary for the witches and their followers.

Perchta smiles.

The crusade is going to take care of the bird for her, together with Yovel, wherever the hell they got off to.

Everything is finally starting to be perf-

— A loud bell rings in her ears. Perchta shrieks in rage, jumping up onto her feet, the platform she’s on wobbling as she looks around, trying to find the source of the noise. She turns her head, looking towards the distant north-west.

The hell?

Wait.

She narrows her eyes.

“ERZAEL!” screams Perchta into the night, the bell drowning out her angered, betrayed cries.

[Critical System Notification]

THE ONE-HUNDRED YEAR CRISIS - THE WILD-HUNT

 UPDATE: The true-hero has been summoned to our world by the Holy-Church to resolve the crisis.

Engaged in a massive, cooperative breach that spans each of the oldest dungeons in the nation, every single dungeon in the world is now engaging in a dungeon-break, flooding their monsters out of their gates and into the night. This will persist until the death of crisis leader ‘Witch Perchta’ or the destruction of the ‘Tower of Isaiah’.

The hero will soon begin his journey.

Difficulty: IMPOSSIBLE

Priority: HIGHEST

Time Remaining: UNKNOWN

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Cardinal Erzael of the West

Human, Male, Cardinal

Location: The Western Mountain

[Ritual of the Golden Bell {Success}]

A true-hero has been summoned to your world. A true hero far surpasses the natural limits of the world, having been hand chosen to be a particularly effective tool against the specific crisis a world is facing.

It is your task to guide and train them.

Cooldown: 99.99 Years

He’s here.

Drained, his face frozen, and his breath short, Cardinal Erzael falls to his knees, looking at the silhouette of a young man who stands in the circle, between him and his colleague. His form is obscured by the raging snowstorm and violent winds, leaving only the strands of his ashen black hair, which take on the same shapelessness as his obscured presence.

The stranger looks around himself, his undressed body unbothered by the freezing temperatures, as he reaches out to the side and grabs hold of the ancient lance, wedged into the rock of the mountain-top, pulling it free.

A crack runs through the rock of the mountain.