Dragon Mage 051 - Fragmented Hearts (Patreon)

383 days until the Arkon Shield falls

2 days, 9 hours until Dungeon Purge

Esteemed guildmaster,

I hear and obey. You will be pleased to note that I have instituted a three-shift regime. Our scryers are working round the clock. For now, the new approach is yielding better results, but it would be remiss of me not to point out that once fatigue sets in, progress will slow. —Senior Surveyor Wysterl.

After a quick search to assure myself that the bailey was empty, I set about healing my injured limb.

The arm was badly mangled, but it was nothing lay hands couldn’t fix. Leaning against one of the courtyard’s inner walls, I sent cooling streams of mana into the limb, realigning splintered bones, mending torn ligaments, and restoring ripped skin. A few minutes later, my arm was whole again and blessedly pain-free.

I’d gained three levels from the granite elementals’ deaths, and while I had not personally dealt any damage to either creature, I felt as if I had earned every point of experience the Trials awarded me. The encounter had not been easy, nor was it one I cared to repeat.

Flexing my fingers, I took a second longer look at the bailey. The cobblestones of the rainswept courtyard were dark and wet. On the end opposite the portcullis, a set of wooden double doors led into the Keep proper. To the left of the gate, a narrow set of stone steps led upwards to the ramparts and the towers set in each of the castle’s four corners.

The towers rose high enough above the castle proper that each had a clear line of sight to nearly every point in the bailey. If I hadn’t seen to the ice elementals earlier, at this very moment, I would be surrounded on all sides and facing a barrage of ice from above.

Huh. Good thing I took care of them before this, I thought, resuming my inspection of the bailey.

A toothed wheel was to the right of the portcullis, inset in the courtyard’s inner wall itself. It was the control mechanism for the gate, I assumed. The bailey itself was bare, absent of any furnishings and providing little shelter from the weather.

What now?

My gaze gravitated again to the Keep’s doors, and I rubbed at my chin as I considered my next move. It would be nice to get inside the castle and out of the rain, but all my energy pools were low, and I dared not enter the Keep unprepared.

I need to rest and recover before I move on. I glanced upwards at the towers. And perhaps do a bit of exploration.

Destroying the bridge had been a gamble. It had been necessary at the time, but it did not change the reality I faced. With the bridge gone, I had no way out of the Keep—other than swimming across the moat, of course, and that I was not about to attempt any time soon.

I shrugged, accepting my situation. I was trapped in the Keep, and there were likely orcs waiting for me outside the dungeon. Usually, either of those things would drive me crazy with worry, but given what I had gone through to get here, I didn’t let them trouble me.

First, I would clear the dungeon. Then I would worry about escaping. And only thereafter would I concern myself with the waiting orcs.

And who knows, with the way things have been going so far, I might not live long enough for two of those things to be of much concern.

✽✽✽

The first thing I did before moving on from the bailey was to check the dungeon run counter. Turning my gaze inwards, I queried my Trials core.

Time remaining before the Primal Keep is purged: 2 days and 9 hours.

Enough time to chance a rest, I decided.

Turning away from the Keep’s doors, I ascended the stairway leading to the ramparts. The steps were slippery but otherwise easy enough to climb, but my lips turned down unhappily when I reached the castle heights.

The weather atop was wilder than below. The rain pelted me hard, and the wind tugged at my clothes. I’d come up here primarily to find somewhere to rest. The bailey was not secure enough for my liking. With only a single staircase leading up to it, the castle heights seemed a far more ideal location. The rough weather made it less so.

Still, better safe than warm.

Descending back down, I cast a life monitor ward midway on the staircase before returning to the ramparts. Unless enemies descended down on me from above, the ward would provide me with ample forewarning of approaching hostiles.

Glancing from left to right, I surveyed the ramparts themselves. The walkway was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. It ran along the inside of the tower walls, too, I noted, forming a continuous loop atop the castle.

I pursed my lips as I considered the towers. It would certainly be warmer inside one of them, assuming I could get in. There hadn’t been any entrances from the bailey below; I’d checked.

Turning left, I approached the closest tower. As I drew nearer, I noticed another set of stairs zigzagging up the outside of the structure. Urgh. Seeing the exterior stairs, I suspected there wouldn’t be any entrances into the tower from this level either, and sure enough, there weren’t.

Sighing, I considered the upward spiraling stairs. It would be even colder atop the tower. Still, better check what’s there, at least. Leaning heavily on my staff for support, I climbed up.

I was right. It was cold. Icy, really.

Narrowing my eyes against the driving rain, I surveyed the top of the tower. It was empty. There wasn’t even a trapdoor leading down. The suspicion that there was one was why I had climbed up in the first place. What a waste, I thought and began turning away.

Midway through the motion, I stopped.

There was a heap of something white lying against the opposite end of the tower. Now, what can that be? I wondered, my brows creasing.

A moment later, my face cleared as the realization hit me. Of course. It’s the dead elemental. Turning about, I approached the corpse. As I drew closer, the air turned abruptly frigid.

I stopped. Took a step back. Immediately the temperature rose. Not a lot, but enough so that it was perceptibly warmer.

Curious.

Setting down my staff, I tentatively probed the surrounding air with my hands and confirmed that there was indeed a bubble of more profound cold around the corpse. Hmm. I eyed the ice elemental. It was undoubtedly dead. But what then was causing the cold?

Gritting my teeth against the expected freezing, I stepped into the unnatural bubble. Shivering near uncontrollably—but refusing to warm myself with dragonfire—I knelt down and inspected the corpse.

In death, the elemental’s body had shrunk. All that remained were blocks of ice, some as large as my hand, many smaller than a pebble. There were no organs, blood, bones, or anything else that vaguely hinted at it having been a living creature.

I sifted through the remains with stiff hands, and more by happenstance than by design, found the source of unnatural chill—a frost-white crystal from which frigid waves of almost visible cold emanated. The moment my fingers touched the object, the cold dissipated, seeming to recede back into the source.

Elemental reconstruction interrupted. Hibernation activated. Fragment dormant.

I stilled with my hand outstretched towards the crystal and reread the Trials message.

Reconstruction?

If that implied what I thought it did, I was doubly glad I had explored the tower and interrupted whatever was going on it. Made suddenly cautious, I drew back my hand and analyzed the still-glowing object instead.

You have uncovered the heart of a lesser ice elemental: an elemental fragment of water. Current state: dormant. Your skill in anatomy has advanced to level 9.

The special properties of this item are unknown. Your lore skill is insufficient.

My brows crinkled. “An elemental fragment?” I murmured. Despite my research into the Infopedia, I had never heard of such a thing. Picking up the crystal, I held it gingerly in the palm of my hand.

The fragment was no bigger than my smallest finger and but for its burning cold, appeared innocuous. I wasn’t deceived, though. The crystal was important. It didn’t take any great intuition to divine that.

Thoughtfully, I dropped the object into my backpack. It would be safest there for now. Rising to my feet, I headed down the steps and towards the next tower.

I had more fragments to collect.

✽✽✽

I found the other water fragments in the same state as the first. All three were surrounded by an aura of cold that dissipated when I handled them.

After collecting the crystals, I sat down in the driest-looking corner of one of the towers and inspected the fragments anew.

What are they? I wondered. The Trials had called each the ‘heart’ of an elemental. They were not literal hearts, of course, but given that the ice elementals had been reconstituting themselves around the fragments, it was no stretch to believe they were what gave life to an elemental.

This is the essence of an elemental, I thought.

It was a pity that the granite elementals had fallen into the moat. What would I have found inside them? Elemental fragments of earth, I guessed.

Opening my magesight, I studied the crystals through the lens of magic and was unsurprised to find dense lines of spirit swirling within each fragment.

Only living things possessed spirit. Which meant that whatever the crystals were, they were alive in some sense.

Well. Well. The fragments’ spirits were not as complex as the intricate web forming my own spirit or even that of a murluk, but nor were they as simple as the spirit weaves I’d seen in the saplings.

It raised some interesting questions, not least of which was: could the fragments be used to channel magic?

The urge to slip mana into one of the crystals and find out was nearly irresistible. Still, I had learned from my experiments with the saplings how risky that was—I could easily destroy the thing—and the fragments were too precious for such carelessness.

I closed my eyes. As fascinating as I found the fragments, I would have to leave further study of them for after I left the dungeon.

If I leave the dungeon.

The errant thought slipped in unnoticed. Firmly, I banished it and bowed my head.

It was time to sleep.