Advent of Eternity - Chapter 108 (Patreon)

Even Stix was too stunned to provide him with a snarky reply. She swallowed and looked down at her feet as if considering Cyll’s request for a sock. Knell saved them from having to deal with that particular scenario by pulling out his old set of clothes and tossing the pants to the immortal man.

A few moments later, all of their eyes were once again protected from disaster that could have arrived from a single strong gust of wind near Cyll’s beard. The pants barely fit him, but barely was far better than nothing.

“Thanks, Cap,” Cyll said, rolling his neck and sighing. “It’s been a while since I got dissolved. Real deep cleaning experience, you know? Can’t say I recommend it, though. Got goop in places that goop should never be.”

“Noted,” Knell said, nudging the cube of dense green material that the slime had left behind. It was still oozing from the holes his bullets had left in it, but most of the slime had dispersed. He flipped it over, then jabbed the end of his staff into it and pushed through the thick layer, splitting it apart and flicking the excess material to the side.

“Say, does anyone see my bag?” Cyll asked.

“Over here,” Maya said, nodding at where it laid in the corner of the dark room. “Lucky you. It didn’t get melted. I guess the monster didn’t have time.”

Cyll cheerfully grabbed it and slung it back over his shoulder. “Lovely. Maybe it really is a good thing I wasn’t wearing my armor. We should just get something to display it on at this point. The moment I actually use it, it’ll probably get ruined.”

Knell’s staff clinked against something hard in the core’s center. He dug toward it, splattering more of the green matter onto the ground as he excavated. After a few minutes of work, he received his prize.

A gray, metallic ball the size of his palm fell out onto the floor with a clink, bouncing once before rolling to a stop by his feet. A beautiful gold band wound around its core, digging so tightly into it that the ball bulged around it.

He nudged the core with his staff. “I don’t believe this band should be here.”

“I’d squat to get a closer look, but I think I might rip your pants,” Cyll said, twisting to look down at his backside.”

“I think it’s quite all right,” Knell said. He placed his staff on the core and the talons at its end twitched down, grabbing the orb. He spun it and deposited the orb into his bag, wrapping a handkerchief around it without letting his skin touch the orb. “We’re going to need to find an Artificer once we’re done here.”

“You mean we aren’t?” Maya asked, still watching the exit. “The slime is dead. It can’t come back to life, can it?”

“Unlikely,” Knell replied. “We broke its core. I’m not an expert on slimes, so the possibility is there, but I don’t believe it’s worth fretting over. And our real prize is below, where the slime resided. There is almost no chance of any more monsters in the area, but there could still be traps. Let’s go.”

Cyll collected his sword and ambled into the darkness from where the slime had emerged. Stix stared at his back, her face blank. Knell put a hand on her shoulder and nodded to the doors. “There’s nothing wrong with caring about your crewmate’s life, especially with Cyll. It’s not like you’ve got anything to risk. He can’t die. It’s much harder to let yourself care about the ones that might not be here tomorrow.”

Stix’s eyes shot to Knell. She opened her mouth, her lips trembling for a moment, then turned away. “I don’t–”

She let her words trail off, unable to finish the sentence. Knell took his hand from her shoulder and nodded to Maya, gesturing for her to follow Cyll.

“No point lying to yourself. Caring isn’t weakness. Weakness is being unable to protect the things you care about.”

Stix swallowed. She didn’t say anything, but she fell in behind Knell as he followed Maya and Cyll into the darkness. The path descended into the ground in a long, winding manner. The walls around them were polished to a smooth, uniform gray and the air was stale.

“Found a room,” Cyll called from in front of them. “Some things along the wall too. Might be traps. Not sure.”

“Don’t press any–”

A crackling hiss echoed up the path and a spark of energy arced in the distance. Faint light lit in the distance, illuminating Cyll’s back. A second passed, and nothing else happened. Knell sighed.

“-thing.”

“It was not a trap,” Cyll proclaimed. “Just a button. How fancy. There must be an artifact somewhere here, powering everything.”

“It’s a dungeon,” Maya reminded him. “Don’t question how dungeons work. They just do.”

“That’s why they’re fun to break,” Cyll called back. “Hey, there’s a bunch of shit scattered around down here.”

“Hands off,” Knell said, drawing up beside the older man. He nudged Cyll out of the way with his staff and peered into the room.

Large, circular walls rose high into the air. Lanterns hung from the rounded walls, casting just enough faint yellow light to illuminate the ground. The ceiling was hidden in the darkness far above. They’d gone deeper than he’d thought if the room was this tall. Then again, Maya was right – dungeons didn’t tend to be very logical.

Cyll assessed the situation accurately. Items were strewn across the ground haphazardly. Old weapons and pieces of armor were interspersed with gemstones that glittered faintly in the dim light. Specks of tarnished gold were interspersed between everything.

It was like the treasure hoard of a dragon that had been dropped on its head a few too many times as a child. Knell’s lips pursed as he scanned the ground.

“Collect the valuables and anything that looks like it might be an Artifact or otherwise enchanted,” Knell said. “Don’t touch anything with your hands. Cover them with cloth or nudge things with your weapon.”

And with that, they got to work. Luckily, most of the pieces on the ground were in one piece, so Knell didn’t have to pick, through hundreds of fragments. Even so, there was more garbage than he cared to deal with.

They collected the gems and gold, pushing them off to the side of the room. As useful as it was, Knell wasn’t particularly interested in the riches they were finding at the moment. His eyes scoured the ground in search of any form of message that might have survived the slime.

He moved slowly, shifting pieces out of his way with the staff and making sure he didn’t mistakenly touch anything as he walked. The faster he found – or didn’t find – what they were looking for, the sooner they could leave.

As it turned out, it took just over five hours to root through the room. Five hours and ten minutes, according to his mental clock. Their efforts had separated everything into three piles. The first, and largest, was garbage that wasn’t worth the effort of trying to bring out. The second was gold and jewels, and the final was composed of weapons, armor, and anything else that had caught their eyes as potentially useful.

Of the three, the pile of coin was the smallest. Knell was thankful for that. Now that they’d done the work, it would have been painful to leave it behind. The gold was quickly distributed between the four of them and stowed away.

Knell nudged through the pile of items that they’d set aside. “Does anyone recall putting something in here that might have housed a message? A metal tube or the sort?”

“I might have seen something like that,” Maya said. “I think there were a few, actually.”

“Here’s one,” Cyll said, pointing his toe at a small cylinder pointing out of the backside of the pile.

Knell worked it free with his staff, then slid it across the floor to Cyll. The immortal picked it up with a chuckle. He fiddled with the top for a moment before it popped off with a click, clattering to the floor by his feet. Cyll closed an eye and peered into it, then stuck his finger inside and pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment.

“Here,” Cyll said, handing it to Knell.

The captain unfurled the paper and scanned through its contents. “Quest from the Adventurer’s Guild to kill a boss monster that was defeating too many parties,” Knell said. “Unsigned. It was probably pulled off a quest board.”

“Sounds like it didn’t work out too well for them,” Cyll said. “Maya’s right, though. I think I tossed one or two of those cylinders in myself.”

“Root them out. And, if anyone sees something useful, feel free to have Cyll test it before taking it for yourself. I doubt there’s going to be anything too powerful lying around here or its owner would have killed the slime, but we never know.”

Knell wasn’t all that interested in the contents of the pile himself, but he kept an eye out for any Boons or Artifacts as he used his staff to work through the pile. The chances of a Boon somehow sitting around in a dungeon for this long without a Scion being sent to retrieve it felt incredibly low to him, but low wasn’t zero.

After a few minutes of searching, they had gathered five more metal tubes, all of the same make. Cyll popped all of them open for Knell, giving each a cursory glance before handing them over. Three of the five were the exact same quest, but the reward at the bottom steadily rose.

Knell reached into the fourth one and pulled out its contents. Several sheets of thin parchment had all been stuffed into it. He smoothed out the crumples and scanned over them, leaving through the sheets as a frown deepened on his face.

“What is it?” Maya asked. “More quests?”

“No. Personal correspondence that this adventurer had written. No relation to anything we were working on or the dungeon. Does the name Tressa mean anything to anyone?”

Everyone shook their heads. Knell folded the papers back up and slid them into the tube. He clicked the cover back on, then deposited it into his bag without another word. Cyll handed him the last tube, having already opened it. Reaching inside, Knell pulled out another small bundle of papers.

The first few papers on the stack were generic, containing instructions from who Knell presumed to be higher rank adventurers. He skipped past those – they could be investigated later. After the first three, they became more personal. The handwriting on them was neat and flowing, far smoother than it had been on the others.

He resisted the temptation to read through their contents and instead glanced at the top, searching for who the letters were meant for. It didn’t take him long to find a name.

“What about Mia?” Knell asked.

Stix, who had been studying a light bronze chest plate with the design of a wave embossed on it, froze. “What?”

“Does the name Mia ring any bells?”

Stix pushed herself to her feet, staring at the papers in Knell’s hands. He wordlessly handed them over to her. The moon elf slumped down against the wall, her hands trembling as she looked through the papers. Cyll, for once, said nothing.

All of them stood silently, looking away from Stix to give her at least a little privacy as she read through what were likely her brother’s last words. Knell leaned on his staff, twinges of pain running up his lame leg and spreading through his body.

After all the work they’d gone through to defeat the slime, this felt like a poor reward indeed. He repressed a sigh. An answer, even bad, was better than nothing at all.

I hope that Stix can find some closure in this. Rest peacefully, Alan. And, if you can’t, just wait a little longer. I’ll be freeing you from Mordrigal’s grip as soon as I am able to.