Rise of the Living Forge - Chapters 272-273 (Patreon)

Golden light took form into letters over the fallen trunk-corpse of the Ashwood tree. Arwin was somewhat surprised to see a message from the Mesh after the fight. He really hadn’t been expecting much of anything.

After all, they’d come to this dungeon for one reason alone — to get a Dungeon Heart. And the Dungeon Heart in question was still thumping away at a steady, sickening pace encased within the wood of its former host.

Arwin hadn’t even been forced to use the full extent of his abilities in the fight against the fallen monster.

And that’s honestly quite fortunate. I want to get used to using the shield before I try to use my ability to manifest the power of a Cursed Item to help me fight. Something tells me that anything related to Cursed items is going to always be high-risk, high-reward.   

Thus, Arwin would have been quite happy with just an Achievement for the fight. As a non-combatant, he really hadn’t expected to get much more.

But, as it turned out, the Mesh saw things differently.

Something prickled against Arwin’s skin. It felt slimy and cold, like a dip into a river of sludge. The breath stiffened in his chest and his eyes went wide in disbelief. The sensation almost felt like the rush of energy he got from leveling up, but that should have been impossible.

Non-combat classes couldn’t get energy from —  

Title: [The Rot] has been earned.

[The Rot] –You have defeated another Cursed entity, permanently unlocking the full potential of the Cursed Dwarven Smith path. You may now receive [Cursed] Skill upgrades.

Arwin’s eyes widened as he read over the words, but the Mesh wasn’t done. Golden letters flickered through the air and took form into a second message no more than a second after he finished the first.

Achievement: [Dead-monic Tree] has been earned.

[Dead-monic Tree] – Awarded for stopping a Cursed creature before its energy could spread out from the dungeon in which it took form. A portion of its Cursed energy has been stored within your soul. Effects: One skill in your next Skill Selection has been upgraded to [Cursed]. This achievement will be consumed upon choosing your next skill.

“Godspit,” Arwin said, the word falling from his lips before he’d realized that he’d spoken.

He hadn’t even really thought about the possibility that the tree could have been Cursed. He’d known that monsters could be Cursed, of course. Arwin had fought them when he was the Champion. But he’d never considered them as anything more than a more dangerous, variant monster.

People usually couldn’t even tell they were up against a Cursed monster until it died and the System mentioned it. Arwin had just never made the connection that a Cursed monster could have anything to do with his path.

Would Cursed skills work in the same manner as a Cursed item? An ability that has a much higher risk in return for a bigger reward? That could be a really powerful option to draw upon. I don’t imagine I’ll get the option to get many of them — even as the Champion, I don’t recall fighting that many of them. Granted, I wasn’t keeping track, but still.

 “Are there any more of these trees anywhere?” Olive asked, a note of awe in her voice as she approached the monster’s fallen trunk. She wiped her face with the back of her right sleeve. “Because that was a real nice reward. Shivers all the way down to my toes.”

“I got a Title!” Anna exclaimed in delight.

“You did?” Rodrick’s eyes lit up. “Seriously? I got an Achievement and a fair bit of energy, but a Title… good shit, Anna. What is it?”

“It lets me purify organic materials if I spend enough magical energy. It doesn’t work on actual cursed stuff, but this is incredible.” Anna was practically bouncing from foot to foot in delight. “This opens up so much for me. I didn’t know an ability like this could even exist, much less come from a Title.”

“Not to be dour, but couldn’t you already do that?” Reya asked hesitantly. “You purified Melissa, didn’t you?”

“No. That was healing the poison. Different way of treatment.” Anna shook her head. “I fought that by neutralizing it and using Cure, one of my abilities. It was a really difficult process that could have easily failed. This lets me do more than just attack the poison. It lets me turn the poison into the cure. Granted, it’ll probably need a ridiculous amount of power, but it’s not even limited to poison. Any malignant problem with organic material falls under the Title. That includes sickness. Disease. This is an incredible boon.”

“Congratulations, Anna,” Arwin said. “If anyone deserves a skill like that, it’s you. I’m sure you’ll be putting it to good use.”

“You can bet on that,” Anna said with a firm nod. “There are so many people that could benefit from this — and I could bring some attention to the Devil’s Den as well. Run some healing sessions inside it. People would flock.”

“That would be incredible,” Lillia said with a delighted smile of her own. “It’ll be the perfect way to do a little extra advertising when the Devil’s Den opens back up shortly! And you aren’t the only one that got a Title.”

Huh? How did she—

“You got one too?” Reya asked, blinking in shock. “I got an Achievement, but damn. What did you do, give the Mesh a back rub?”

“Evidently,” Lillia said. She made her way over to the head of the fallen tree, coming to a stop before she touched the razored leaves covering its branches. The Demon Queen tilted her head to the side as she squinted into it for a few moments.

Arwin and the others watched her for a few confused seconds, waiting for the explanation of her new Title. Lillia said nothing. Instead, she held a hand out toward the leaves. A shadow rose up from the ground and wove through the tree, vanishing within it.

There was a faint snapping noise. A moment later, the shadow emerged with a large, round fruit. It had red skin covered in swirling patterns that almost resembled leaves and was about the size of a small child.

“What’s that?” Arwin asked, peering at the fruit. Nothing from the System appeared to identify it.

“A fruit,” Lillia said helpfully. She smirked at the annoyed look that Arwin sent her. “I got a Title and Achievement pair. The Title lets me grow magical plants for a herb garden. I think it’ll let me make the effectiveness of my cooking even stronger. It… might also turn it into poison, but I’m pretty sure I can avoid that.”

“I can test it to make sure it’s safe,” Anna offered.

“That might be wise,” Lillia admitted, cradling her new fruit under an arm. “The Achievement let me find this thing. It’s an Ashleaf Tree Fruit.”

“Are you going to eat it or plant it?” Reya squinted at the fruit suspiciously. “Is making another one of these a good idea? The Mesh seemed pretty pleased that we kill it.”

“It’ll be fine,” Lillia said. “I’m not going to have trouble from a baby demon plant. I’ve dealt with much bigger ones in my time.”

“And if it ends up being Cursed, I might be able to make quite some use of it,” Arwin provided. He grinned at the others. “It seems the Mesh was feeling generous today. I got a Title as well. One that lets me get Cursed Skills.”

“Cursed Skills?” Rodrick tilted his head to the side. “Sounds… well, cursed.”

“Very astute, Rodrick,” Lillia said.

“Thanks.”

“Arwin’s Cursed item seemed to work well enough,” Anna observed as the Menagerie all started to gather around the base of the fallen trunk. “That seems like it could be powerful.”

“Or dangerous,” Lillia said. “But it’ll just be one of the options, right? You’re not guaranteed exclusively Cursed skills.”

“Just an option,” Arwin confirmed.

“Then I don’t think we can complain. The Mesh rewarded us well for this one,” Lillia said. She brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

A wet thud echoed through the room.

They all looked to the center of the trunk. The Dungeon Heart was still thumping away within it. Arwin and Rodrick wordlessly walked over to the unsettling organ. It was buried deep within the tree, trapped in by thick, smoothed bark that implied it had been there for quite some time.

Freeing it took the entire group roughly five minutes. It would have been a lot faster if they didn’t have to worry about accidentally damaging the heart — the wood was so tightly packed around it that one mistaken cut had the chance of damaging it, which they couldn’t risk.

But, eventually, they managed to carve away enough of the tree’s trunk to free it.

The Menagerie didn’t stop there. The Dungeon Heart had been freed, but they’d just gotten so many rewards for killing the Cursed monster that the mere idea of leaving anything behind that they couldn’t carry felt like a physical blow to Arwin’s own heart.

They cut apart as many branches as they could, tossing out any useless and relatively unimportant materials they’d gotten earlier through the dungeon, and piled everything full of leaves, sticks, and pieces of trunk material.

By the time they had finished, the Menagerie resembled a rather odd-looking group of lumberjacks who had just gone to war against the notion of a forest as a whole.

But, finally, they were ready to leave. Their task in the dungeon had been completed. All they had to do was head out, give the Dungeon Heart to Yonas so the Dawnseekers could deal with the Ardent Guild and Twelve, and they would be on their merry way.

Arwin wrapped the Dungeon Heart in a cloth and hoisted it into the air, holding it out with locked hands to keep it as far away from himself as possible.

And there he paused.  

A small frown crossed over his lips. He glanced away from the pulsating heart to Lillia, and then to the rest of his guild.

“You know, your forge got a lot stronger after you put a Dungeon Heart in it,” Reya muttered, picking at the side of her collar. “It kind of feels like a shame to give it away. Especially to someone who might be connected to Jessen…”

“We can’t scam the Dawnseekers, though,” Anna said, but there was a long second of hesitation before she spoke. “That’s just not right. We only got into the dungeon because they let us in.”

“But they don’t care about the heart. Just the money to get rid of the Ardent Guild,” Olive pointed out. “What do you think we could do with the heart if we kept it?”

“If we didn’t have to give it away, imagine what we could do if Arwin and Lillia stuck it in the Devil’s Den,” Rodrick said. He coughed into his fist. “Hypothetically, of course. Backing out of deals is wrong.”

Lillia glanced at Rodrick, then back to the heart. She scratched at the back of her neck. “Maybe we could offer to trade it for something and another way for the Dawnseekers to get what they want?”

“Giving a magical item that empowers shit to an evil bastard feels like it goes against what we represent,” Olive said.

“What do we represent?” Reya asked. “I didn’t realize we represented something.”

“Being… good adventurers, I guess,” Olive said. “I’ll be honest. I didn’t think it through that far.”

“It does kind of feel bad,” Anna muttered, chewing on her lower lip. “Twelve doesn’t strike me as the responsible, respectable sort.”

The Menagerie fell silent for a few seconds.

“We’re not going to give the Dawnseekers the heart, are we?” Reya asked.

“No,” Arwin said. “I don’t think we are.”

Chapter 273

“You’re what?” Yonas exclaimed, staring at Arwin in aghast disbelief. He sent a glance over their shoulders into the ruins of the boss room behind them, then turned his gaze to the dungeon heart tucked under Arwin’s arm.

“Not giving you the Dungeon Heart,” Arwin said, giving Yonas a sheepish grin. “Sorry about that.”

“You… can’t just do that,” Yonas said. “We had a deal. Is this meant to be some kind of joke?”

“No. Why would we joke about something like this?” Lillia asked.

“Because it’s ludicrous,” Yonas exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air. “Who reneges on a deal and then informs their business partner when they’re still in the dungeon together? Anyone with half a brain would wait until we had left the dungeon and were in a safer area.”

“But that would be pretty rude, wouldn’t it?” Anna asked, tilting her head to the side with a small frown. “We felt it was best to inform you that we would not be handing the Heart over earlier rather than later. We only just decided on it, after all.”

“I feel like it’s a bit late to be worried about being rude at this point,” Yonas said, his features growing sharper as he realized that the Menagerie were actually serious and had absolutely no plans of handing the Dungeon Heart over. “You’re honest about this?”

“Quite,” Arwin said. “I don’t have anything against the Dawnchasers. In fact, I rather dislike going back on promises. But the more I think about it, the more distasteful I find the idea of giving Twelve a powerful magical item.”

It was difficult to tell exactly what Yonas was thinking — but the man definitely wasn’t happy. He blew out a short, irritated breath, then thinned his lips. “I am not new to negotiation tactics.”

“Tactics? This isn’t a tactic.”

“You want more of a reward,” Yonas said flatly. “It happens all the time. Fortunately for you, I’m not an unreasonable man and the Dawnseekers were prepared for this. We’ll increase the pay for your efforts. Five thousand extra gold.”

Arwin shook his head. “That’s a kind offer, but it’s negotiating toward the wrong thing. This is not about the money. It’s about the principle. Twelve is related to a man by the name of Jessen. They were likely allies — if not more. And anyone that supported Jessen will get nothing from me but the weight of my hammer.”

“You drive a hard bargain. Six—”

“Yonas,” Arwin said, his words slicing through the merchant’s like the blade of a sword. “We do not want your money. This Dungeon Heart will not go to Twelve. My guild is responsible for this issue. We should have put more thought into it before the Heart was in our hands, but what’s done is done.”

Yonas let out a long suffering sigh. “You do realize you’re threatening a guild far stronger than yours, right? Backing out of a deal like this is just going to end with all of you dead.”

“Unlikely,” Rodrick said. “The Dawnseekers can’t ever say they had any claim on the Dungeon Heart. You have to keep the fact you were ever here under wraps. Starting a campaign against us would be suspicious.”

Yonas glanced at Rodrick out of the corners of his eyes. “Astute. But we are here alone, and I am an Adept.”

“So was the tree,” Arwin said. “I don’t dislike you, Yonas. But if we wanted you dead, then you would be dead.”

“I—”

Arwin twisted. Verdant Inferno materialized in his hand and he swung the hammer, driving its head into the wall beside them with all the force that [Scourge] would let him muster. An echoing crash tore through the dungeon as the weapon obliterated stone. A huge section of the wall pitched forward, red brick crumbling as it fell to the ground amid a cloud of dust.

“How?” Yonas breathed, his eyes widening as he took a step back. “You’re a smith. That much power… it isn’t possible for a non-combatant class.”

It’s not even half of what I could have done if I was using [Soul Fire] and Verdant Inferno’s [Shieldbreaker] in conjunction.

“Of metal and flesh, the latter is the far easier of the two to forge.” Arwin dismissed Verdant Inferno and turned back to Yonas. “We have no quarrel with you or your guild. We want Twelve and the Ardent guild gone as well — but not at the cost of arming a monster.”

Nobody spoke a word for several long seconds. Yonas studied Arwin, then the other members of the Menagerie. None of them moved. Finally, the merchant pursed his lips.

“You have personal history with Twelve, then.”

“With Jessen,” Arwin corrected. “But they are connected.”

“So it was the Menagerie that destroyed the Iron Hounds. There were a few rumors, but none that bore enough weight to be believable,” Yonas said. “Tell me, then. Why? What did Jessen do to elicit such distaste that you would make an enemy of my guild?”

“He killed a child,” Lillia replied, her features going as dark as the shadows that followed in her footsteps.

Yonas stiffened. “What?”

“His men attempted to recruit me. I refused, and they tried to kill me,” Arwin said. His stomach clenched at the memory. He shifted the Dungeon Heart to the side and lifted a hand to his head, pulling his helm off. For a second, Arwin paused. His eyes traced the horns protruding from the helm’s sides. “They sent a mage to my smithy in the night, with orders to firebomb it. I was not there.”

“A boy by the name of Zeke was working together with Ifrit. He was working late.” Lillia’s voice was taut with anger. “By the time we heard the explosion, it was already too late. I had to drag Arwin from the fire. The only thing that survived the flame was Zeke’s helm.”

“He wasn’t even old enough to fight. He was a child,” Arwin said. He slammed the helm back over his head. “As I mentioned earlier, I should have dismissed the idea of giving Twelve anything from the start. But that road has been crossed. We will not aid Twelve.”

“I see,” Yonas said. His features had turned completely inscrutable. He observed Arwin silently for several long seconds before speaking again. “I can see why your guild would hold a grudge. Am I remiss in assuming Twelve is unaware of this?”

“I’d imagine we’d have come to blows already if he knew,” Lillia said.

“Likely,” Yonas said. “The entire reason for his presence in Milten is the missing Dungeon Heart — one which Jessen had. One which I presume you took.”

“It’s gone,” Arwin said, guessing the direction the merchant was leading the conversation. “And even if we could, we would be no more willing to return Jessen’s Dungeon Heart to Twelve than we would be to return this one.”

The merchant chewed on the insides of his cheeks. His foot tapped against the ground and his arms crossed in front of his chest. “You do not leave me with many options.”

“What would you do?” Reya asked. “If it had been someone you cared about that got murdered by a cold hearted bastard? Would you just help out the guy that might have had something to do with their death?”

“But you don’t know that Twelve was responsible,” Yonas pointed out. “You only suspect it.”

“Which is the only reason we got this far in the first place,” Rodrick said. “But you can’t possibly look at Twelve and tell me that he wants the Dungeon Heart because he’s planning to sell it to build a house of healing for children. There are other ways to deal with the Ardent guild.”

“And if they get Twelve on their side?” Yonas asked.

“We just don’t allow that to happen. Twelve might be strong, but we’ve dealt with strong enemies before,” Arwin said. “I’d imagine it won’t be long before he eventually figures out we had something to do with Jessen’s death. And, when he does, we’ll be at odds anyway. No point helping him in the process of waiting for that day to come. I’ll turn in my grave before I arm a monster.”

“This is a stupid decision. Stealing a Dungeon Heart from the Dawnseekers, even if they can’t act directly against you right now, is practically asking to be destroyed. The amount of money we get out of successfully completing this deal is astronomical. Moving into Milten and crushing the Ardent Guild… you rip victory from Raen’s jaws. A merchant must always seek to make coin. Standing in his way will make him your enemy.”

“Our decision will not change,” Arwin said. “We know the risks.”

Yonas nodded slowly. His eyes flicked up to Arwin’s helm. To the horns at its top, then back to his eyes.

“I see,” Yonas said. “Very well. It is unfortunate.”

“You’re not going to try to stop us?” Olive asked, blinking in surprise. “I fully expected you’d try to attack us or something.”

Yonas snorted and corner of his lips curled up in a smirk. “I am not blind, and I have no reason to waste effort raising my blade against filth such as you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Reya asked, her eyes tightening in anger.

“A merchant,” Yonas replied, his eyes shimmering like blue ice, “must always follow the coin. And the Menagerie were, unfortunately, an enormous disappointment. Despite their bold claims and refusal to allow for mercenaries to be hired on, they were unable to reach the boss and were forced to retreat. Who would have thought? The crafting guild is nothing but a crafting guild.”

“What?” Reya asked. “That—”

“It is unfortunate that, even after I later returned to attempt to retrieve the Heart with my mercaneries, there was no Dungeon Heart present. It seems the Dawnchasers received poor information,” Yonas said.

“You’re covering for us,” Reya muttered, her eyes going wide.

“Why?” Lillia asked.

“I already told you,” Yonas said. He nodded over his shoulder at the remains of the dungeon boss’ room. “A merchant must follow coin, and I am quick to adapt. It seems your guild believes there is a way that you can deal with this situation without arming Twelve. I bet against you once already. That proved to be a mistake, and so I will take the opposing side this time around. Instead of betting against the Menagerie, I will bet on them.”