Chapter 150 - Leakage (Patreon)

Despite the fact that the immediate danger had passed, and their enemies lay dead on the rocky, uneven ground, it didn’t take a genius to realize that they were still neck deep in trouble. During his time in the caves, Zeke had developed something of a sixth sense for underground spaces. It didn’t extend into supernatural territory, but the combination of his enhanced senses and a wealth of experience in subterranean environments had given him the ability to intuit and predict what might lay ahead. And his every sense told him that the cave system beneath the keep went quite a bit deeper beneath the ground. They had a long way to go before they discovered the secrets of the place, and so, it became that much more important to pace themselves. Getting in a hurry would only make them stumble into situations they couldn’t handle. So, with that in mind, he called for a brief respite, for which everyone – save Talia, who seemed predictably unaffected by the battle against the possessed – was grateful. It also gave Zeke the opportunity to investigate the ramifications of what he’d done during the fight. Turning his attention to his notifications, he read the first one:

[Leech Strike] has evolved to [Life Scythe], increasing its power tier from [H] to [F]. In addition to previous functionality, it has gained the ability to do the following: user may toggle between two modes. The first, Leech Mode, works identically to the skill [Leech Strike], siphoning vitality with each attack. The second, Scythe Mode, sends a wave of energy out in an arc, siphoning vitality from multiple enemies at once. This is extremely mana intensive.

That made perfect sense to Zeke. When he’d forced the new glyph into the skill’s rune, it had altered it at a fundamental level. However, it was still only one symbol, so its effects weren’t as widespread as a natural skill evolution, and the majority of the old skill’s functionality still remained. So, the skill had reacted by creating a new component to its usage. Zeke also sensed that, if he’d had a little more experience with runecrafting, he could have made Scythe Mode far more efficient. Still, it had been what he needed in the moment; the result of draining so much vitality at once had healed him faster than he’d ever healed before. In fact, he suspected that, if he wasn’t already used to being on the receiving end of stolen vitality, his body wouldn’t have been capable of handling so much of the life force. As it was, though, he felt better than he had even before entering the caves, which was important because he knew they had a long way to go.

He turned his attention to the next notification:

Artisan Path: Runecraft has reached Novice (High). + 30 Int, +30 Wis, +5% Wis

That was an impressive gain. At mid-novice, his artisan path had given him fifteen points in intelligence and wisdom, so he’d effectively doubled the benefit. But looking at his stats, that wasn’t the only increase he’d experienced. He had gotten another achievement.

Skillsmith: You have forcefully evolved a skill mid-battle. + 5 Str, +5 End, +5 Vit, +15 Int, +15 Wis.

It was an incredibly valuable achievement, but it confused Zeke a little. He’d changed [Mark of Companionship], altering it to the point where it would allow him to bond Pudge, so it felt a little like he was being rewarded for doing the same thing twice. However, there were a couple of key differences. First, he hadn’t been in battle when he’d bonded Pudge, so that must have made a difference, at least as far as the Framework was concerned. Second, back in Tua’ta’alar, he hadn’t evolved a skill so much as fundamentally changed the resulting bond so it could do something wholly different from the skill’s original intention.

With [Leech Strike]’s transformation into [Life Scythe], it was different. Not only had he been in the middle of a fight, but the skill’s transformation was clearly something that could have happened without his direct intervention. Zeke hadn’t done much research into skill evolution, but his book on runecrafting had mentioned it a few times. As far as he could tell, doing so was a natural process whereby old skills could either gain functionality or become more powerful. Usually, it involved a quest, but there were some people who’d managed to evolve a skill through hard work and practice. As far as Zeke knew, no one had ever changed the underlying glyphs of a skill’s governing runes, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how close to disaster he had come.

One wrong move, and the entire skill would have collapsed in on itself. Not only would that have rendered it useless, sentencing him to death at the hands of the horde of possessed miners, but, unless he missed his guess, it would have also let the energy run wild through his body, resulting in an eventual explosion that would have probably killed everyone within the cavern. In retrospect, he probably should have used [Unleashed Momentum] before resorting to such a dangerous longshot.

“I guess if I ever want to be a suicide bomber, I have my weapon,” he muttered to himself.

“What was that?” asked Abby, who’d come to sit beside him. They’d moved off to the side of the cavern, away from the pile of dead bodies. Zeke had already looted them, getting nothing but a few damaged pickaxes in return, but their bodies hadn’t broken down quite like a monster’s. He still didn’t understand how his looting power worked, and he wasn’t in the mood to think about it.

He glanced at his partner, seeing that she’d gained a few new wounds during the battle. In particular, she’d taking a grazing blow that had dragged a shallow cut across her cheek. It had bled profusely, but it probably wouldn’t even scar. Otherwise, she had come out of the fight relatively unscathed, likely because she’d kept her distance as she peppered the miners with her arrows. Even so, her leather armor hadn’t survived nearly as well, and it had been ripped to shreds in more than a few places. Zeke could sympathize; his own armor still hadn’t recovered from the fight with the fire ants – it probably never would – and its issues had only been exacerbated by the miners’ assault. It was barely hanging on, and he knew he’d have to replace it at the earliest opportunity.

“That was really close,” he said, scooting closer to her. She leaned her shoulder against his. “Are we doing the right thing here? Should we turn back?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “It’s still a job that needs to be done, right?”

Zeke nodded, but he didn’t verbalize an answer. He wasn’t ignorant of his own hero complex. When he saw a chance to help people – or as was too often the case, to avenge them – he had a habit of charging in without a single thought for how he was going to survive. He wanted to be smarter about it. He wanted to think things through, to turn away when going in was a stupid decision. But he just wasn’t built like that, and if he was honest with himself, he didn’t want to be. He had real power. He could make a difference. And he refused to squander that.

“The new guy is pretty strong,” Abby said, glancing at Carlos, who was engaged in conversation with Tucker. Talia hovered nearby, silent and unmoving. Her gaze never left the good-looking newcomer. “And Talia’s going the right way to becoming obsessed with him.”

“Is it that bad?” Zeke asked.

Abby rolled her eyes. “Probably worse,” she stated. “When I was her age, I was just as bad. The only difference was that I was never close to any boys quite that pretty.”

“He’s not that good-looking,” Zeke said.

Abby laughed. “Sure, he’s not,” she said, not bothering to hide her sarcasm. “But I’ll talk to her before it goes too far.”

Zeke rolled his shoulders, then leaned back against one of the stalagmites as he let out a deep breath. “I’ll let you deal with that, then,” he said. “Something tells me that if I got involved, it would only make everything worse.”

“Good instincts,” Abby said.

After a few more minutes, Tucker cut off his conversation with Carlos and approached Zeke. He said, “I think it’s time to get moving, boss.”

“I’m not your boss,” Zeke muttered, but he still pushed himself to his feet. Abby followed, and Pudge emerged from the shadows. Zeke glanced at the bear, saying, “You’re getting good at hiding.”

Pudge didn’t answer, but Zeke felt a wave of pride wafting off the bear. A stealthy bear was strange, but it certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest thing Zeke had seen since being reborn in that troll cave what felt like a lifetime ago.

After everyone gathered together, Carlos was the first to speak. He said, “There’s only one way down. I didn’t come this far, so I don’t know what to expect.”

“More miners, I’d guess,” Tucker guessed.

Zeke bent down to pick up a discarded chunk of rock; it was a piece from one of the red-and-white veins of ore that wove through the obsidian walls, but when he tried to inspect it, he got nothing.

“Blood mithril,” Tucker stated, focusing on the rock. “It’s not pure, though. There’s corruption in it.”

“The demons?” Zeke asked.

Tucker shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “But even like this, it’s valuable. I’d gather whatever you can on the way down. That storage space of yours can hold a lot, right?”

Zeke hadn’t been into his spatial storage in quite some time, but he knew its dimensions had grown right alongside his tower. The result was that, even looting constantly over the previous few months, his possessions only took up a fraction of the available space.

“Yeah,” he said, already going to one of the piles of ore. He touched one of the rocks, activating his looting ability, and the entire pile disappeared into his storage space. That was a relief, because he didn’t want to take the time to touch each individual piece. Quickly, he went to each pile, looting them with a touch and a thought. As he did so, he was well aware that Carlos was watching him.

So much for secrets, he thought.

After every loose piece of ore was safely tucked way into his storage space, Zeke and his companions crossed the magmatic stream. It was unpleasant, but because they all had invested at least some points into endurance, it wouldn’t be dangerous unless they decided to dive in. Even then, Zeke suspected that he would survive, at least for a little while. The rest of his group, save, perhaps, for Pudge, wouldn’t be so lucky.

They made their way into the next tunnel and resumed their trek through the cave system. Zeke could sense that it wasn’t nearly so sprawling as the troll caves, but it was still pretty expansive. The big difference was that in quite a few places, the tunnel had clearly been artificially widened, and it was supported by wooden framework. The other major difference was that the tunnels had been carved through solid obsidian, which gave the entire place an unearthly feel.

Over the course of their descent, they encountered a few scattered miners, all of which had been possessed by demons. The first, Zeke had captured so that Tucker could examine the unfortunate man, but no matter what the alchemist did – including feeding the miner a wide variety of potions – the demon that had taken over the man’s mind didn’t relinquish its hold. So, they’d been forced to kill the man as humanely as possible. After that, they didn’t even try to help the poor people, except to make their end as swift as they could. It was a grim, gory affair, and by the time they reached a series of side chambers, Zeke was mentally exhausted from the ordeal.

He didn’t mind killing. Monsters or people, if he thought someone deserved it, Zeke would do what was necessary. He didn’t enjoy it, but he didn’t balk at the necessity of it, either. However, executing the possessed miners had brought with it a distinctly bitter taste. More than anything, he just wanted to plant Tucker’s bombs and be done with the whole affair. The only reason they didn’t was because they had no guarantee that it would be enough. On top of that, they needed to find the demon’s source and cut it off, lest the demon possessions continue to plague the area. So, they continued their exploration with grim determination, approaching the side chambers and hoping their presence signaled the impending end of their task.

“God,” said Abby, holding her hand over her nose and mouth as she poked her head into one of the rooms. “That smell is terrible.”

Thankfully, the first few rooms were obviously empty, save for a scattering of blankets, the bones of some unidentifiable animals, and piles of refuse that none of them had even the smallest desire to investigate. So far as Zeke was concerned, in the exceedingly unlikely event that the key to ending the demon threat lay at the bottom of a pile of human waste, it could go completely undiscovered.

As they moved from room to room, they saw more of the same until, at last, they found something different. The chamber itself was of similar size to the sleeping areas, but that’s where the similarities ended. Instead of blankets, bones, and waste, the space was dominated by a single, broad platform made from obsidian. Upon that platform was a large parchment, weighted down by chunks of blood mithril.

“It’s a desk,” Abby said, stepping into the room. In addition to the obsidian desk that, to Zeke, looked more like an altar, the room was unique in that its walls were covered by similar pieces of paper. Zeke approached one of them and saw something quite familiar.

“They’re plans,” he said. “For a summoning ritual.”

Having approached next to Zeke, Tucker asked, “How do you know that?”

“I ran into one underneath Beacon,” Zeke explained. “It was meant to summon an elemental, so these are different. But there are enough similarities that I can recognize it for what it is.”

Indeed, Zeke’s nightly studies hadn’t been limited to his exploration of Runic Composition, the book Abby had stolen from Callum Einar’s personal collection. He’d also spent quite a bit of time looking through the book he’d looted in the sewers, and he’d managed to develop at least a shallow knowledge in summoning rituals. It wasn’t enough that he could perform one of the complex rituals himself, but he could at least recognize the elements of one. And what he saw on the walls was enough to tell him that they were in far over their head.

“This is bad,” he said. “Really, really bad.”

“What?” asked Abby from across the room.

Zeke turned, saying, “If I’m reading this right, they’re not just trying to summon these lesser demons. In fact, unless I’m missing the point entirely, they’re kind of just…a side effect. Kind of like a spillover. Or leakage.”

“That word always sounded gross to me,” Tucker said. “Kind of like the word moist. It’s completely innocuous, but it doesn’t sound like it.”

Abby cut him off with a glare. “Anyway,” she said. “Moving right along.”

“What is the point of all this, then?” asked Carlos.

“I think they’re trying to open a permanent gate,” he said. “I’m not an expert or anything, so I can’t be positive…but this…whoever’s building this ritual is attempting to connect our world to another.”

“Like one of the higher planes?” Abby asked. Initially, she hadn’t believed him about the existence of those planes, but trust in Zeke, combined with their encounter with the goddess Aja, had given her a deeper perspective. Now, she believed, and without reservation.

“No,” he said. “Or at least I don’t think so. I think…I think this is kind of like…okay, so we have our world, then we have others, like the elemental realm, running beside it. It’s not more powerful. It’s just different. I think it’s the same with wherever this other portal’s going. Or at least it looks the same to me. I’ve only scratched the surface of this, though.”

“The answer is obvious,” said Talia, her seldom-used voice like two rocks scraping against one another. “It is the demon realm.”

“Shit,” Tucker muttered. “This is bad.”

Zeke added, “That’s what I just said.”