B6 Chapter 636: Greater Gates Debrief, Finale (Patreon)

Every delver present was used to being the strongest in almost every room they walked into, yet they all fell silent without complaint as the Guildmaster stood tall at the podium. Kaius was damn sure the loudest thing in the room was their bloody heartbeats.

This was it — the crux of the latest phase change. The Shardworld.

Guilewind swept his red eyes across the room, waiting a few moments to ensure he had everyone's attention. A moment later, he threaded a little mana into his podium. Behind him, the clear glass windows went a deep grey, cutting the view of the guild grounds outside. A dim projection of light mana snapped into existence on the stage, just next to Guilewind. It showed a massive arch of black stone, rising out of dusty, red ground and dry grasses. Kaius recognised the material immediately. It was the same black glass he’d seen in the Crucible. The projection even captured the shifting runes of orange fire that swirled within its bottomless depths.

“This is a greater gate. It was found a few days outside of the Garsum borders by a travelling merchant a week ago. They reported it immediately, and the place has been swarming with people ever since.”

“Why are we just hearing about it then!” someone yelled from the back of the room.

“The Guild worked with the Garsum triarchy to keep it locked down to authorised delvers and members of their military until we knew what we were dealing with. That report just came through this morning. It’s thin, and what we have learned isn’t pretty.”

Guilewind turned, and with a flick of his hand the projection zoomed in on a small section of the columned arch. 

“First, the boring basics. We do not need to be worried about missing these things, it’s thirty strides wide, and nearly a hundred tall. That does mean they are either remote, uncommon, or both for it to have taken so long to discover. I do expect, however, that they will be found far more rapidly now that this is known. Testing has confirmed they aren’t shielded against scrying, and any farscout with birdseye capabilities will spot them from over the horizon."

Kaius let out a slow breath. They were obvious — good. He’d been worried that they would be roughly the same size as depths portals. If they were that small it could have taken months for them to be found tucked away in the wilds. Now it was only a question of how common they were. If they were lucky, there would be one near the Dukedoms. 

“We also don’t need to worry about them being destroyed,” Guilewind continued. “We’re not sure what material they are made of, but it seems almost impervious to harm and inordinately magic resistant. Obviously, we can’t say that for certain. No one was foolish enough to throw third-tier warmagic at the thing.”

“It’s voidglass,” Ianmus spoke up reflexively. In an instant, the entire room was staring at their team again. Ianmus swallowed.

“You’ve seen this before?” Guilewind asked, unphased by their interruption.

“We have,” Kaius replied, jumping in. “The Crucible spire we found in the Depths was made of the stuff, as was the entrance room. Had the same swirling runes, too. No clue what it is, but Xenanra called it voidglass.”

Guilewind nodded as a notepad and pen were ferried out of his pocket by a breeze. “I’ll share that round, though I'm sure that others who have been through that trial will make the same connection.”

Putting his pen down, the Guildmaster waved at the projection again. It zoomed out to take in the full scale of the arch. A moment later, the projection shimmered and a yawning portal snapped into existence within it. Giant, fungal growths erupted from a rocky slope in towering columns of red. They flared into great, gilled caps that shaded the mountain side like the boughs of a forest, with web-like mycelium creeping out from the base to cover the surroundings. Through the growth, Kaius saw flashes of a mountain pass, dipping down towards a flat basin. There, the fungal forest grew wild with virulent green puffballs, and tall, slender black-caps that seemed to melt into ink. 

Through a thin sliced gap between two mushroom chunks, Kaius could see something else rising out of the basin. Another arch, the glossy black glass and glowing runes making it stand out like a sore thumb.

His heart pounded in his chest — they were so close! Did it mean the arches were common?

“This was our first glimpse of the Shardworld, visible through the gate,” Guilewind said. “Unfortunately, this is no Depths portal — it is a doorway. This is open. Permanently. And we don’t know if things can cross through from the other side.”

Kaius’s mouth went dry, his excitement dying. The System had stressed how dangerous the Shardworld could be. If the place was teaming with high-tier monsters, or worse, essence creatures, it could be a slaughter if they migrated through. 

“I assume we have plans in place?” a voice said from the front row. 

Kaius looked down the tables. The man who had spoken was Plantinum, one of a bare few in the room. The aura was unmissable, even if he was dressed in nothing more than a simple grey tunic and black trousers. Sprawled out on his chair, he watched the projection with a calculative look. 

Guilewind nodded. “So far, the plan is to staff branches next to each of these that are found, with a minimum population of high-tiered. It will be necessary, even though I don't think it is needed for defence. Despite the danger, the gates have proven to be a rich resource. Every major power on Vaastivar is going to want a presence around at least one of them — I expect delving towns to pop up around them in weeks.”

The projection zoomed in further, highlighting the small slice that revealed the second, distant gate in the far off basin. “We spotted this, for those that missed it. There was no corresponding gate in that heading on Vaastivar, not even at triple the distance. We do not know if that means the placement of these greater gates is not linked to our world in the same way as the Great Depths, or if we simply missed it.”

“There hasn’t been an expedition to reach it?” someone asked.

“There were three. The first lost all hands, the second returned after running afoul of a pack of Gold beasts, the third — a team of three Platinums —  returned after they spotted a Mythril creature blocking their path forward.”

Hells, a Mythril beast would be a death sentence, even for them. This Shardworld was proving to be every bit as dangerous as the system said it was. Still…who knew what a second gate being so close meant. These gates had to have been spread globally, and Kaius expected that a shard of a world was smaller than a full one. Perhaps the place was quite small? Or, maybe the System had just placed the gates close together.

That itself grabbed his interest, things could get messy if there was an easy way to traverse the continent between gates. It would be convenient, sure — but what if a hostile group seized control of a gate? It would be the perfect invasion tool. Not to mention how cramped it might get in the Shardworld itself. Encounters with unknown strangers in the wilds could be testy at the best of times.

Guildwind gripped the podium, his stout claw-like nails digging into the wood. “I cannot stress this enough, this place is dangerous. So far, it seems like the zone surrounding the archway itself is relatively calm, if roving packs of Steel and Silver beasts can be considered as such. Outside of that bubble? It is every bit as lethal as the central regions of the Arboreal Sea, the southern jungles, and the deep caverns. The next thing you stumble upon could be nothing more than an Iron boar, it might even be likely — but it could just as easily be a Celestine behemoth who will slaughter your entire team in a second. Worse, there’s plenty of evidence of essence creatures, and the realm itself seems to be flooded with the stuff in an uneven density."

Kaius remembered the realm Xenanra had taken him to for his last trial in the Crucible. Essence had flooded that place too. The fucking grass had been unyielding, even with his Peak Steel strength. If there were zones of essence in this Shardworld, what would it do to the creatures who lived there?

More importantly, what rewards lay in wait?

After pausing to let his point sink in, Guilewind scanned the room. “I need to stress this. Until and unless you have unlocked the capacity to ignite your Aspects, you must avoid the depths of these places if you go to the Shardworld. I don’t care if you are a Platinum dragon slayer and all you can see are a handful of Silver creatures, you at minimum need to have ignited all three, but preferably have embodied them and begun to grasp Authority.”

“Bullshit, it can’t be that bad,” a Gold said. “Tyrants have been dropping like flies — sure, they’re tough, but it's nothing that can’t be solved with overlevelling.”

Guilwind snarled, his ripping teeth on display as he scowled at the man. “That is exactly the mindset that will get you killed! A Tyrant is a single creature, powerful but isolated. This is a region where the very air will feel like it is reaching out to choke you from within. A single battle or a flare of powerful aura could draw stronger enemies to your position. Stay safe, stick to the outskirts, and make out with what you can.”

“What’s the bloody point, then?” 

Kaius was thinking the same thing. Even if his team was set up well to take advantage of these high-essence zones, there had been an awful lot of talk about how dangerous the shardworld is, and not much about why anyone would even want to enter in the first place.

Guilewind sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “The place has resources falling out of its pockets. The first expedition team went into an essence zone and found some sort of treasure that allowed someone in the second tier to unlock their Aspects if they missed the chance. It was their last message. The second expedition team found rare reagents that normally require deep dives or braving the most dangerous wilds to even have a chance of finding. The last team, who got the deepest, found similar, and spotted a tree growing multiple Natural Treasures, though they couldn’t reach it.”

As the room exploded into excited shouting, Kaius knew why the guildmaster had sighed. Every bit of his warning had vanished from the minds of Baanswell’s senior delvers. This was a group who had risked their lives for strength and coin for decades. Some of them for centuries. An opportunity like that was an almost irresistible poisoned chalice.

As the crowd settled down and mostly returned to their seats, one vanguard in a slablike breast plate leaned over his table, staring down the guildmaster.

Kaius could already feel what was coming. Guilewind had said he would use them to make a point. 

“Exactly how dangerous are we talking here? Because from where I'm sitting it’s looking plenty worth the risk if it gets me a shot at Aspects. Those are seeming more and more important for keeping up with the changing world.”

Guilewind just waved in his direction.

Kaius sighed, and stood up. “A low-Silver Tyrant nearly paralysed a Peak Gold when we fought it outside of Deadacre. It was strong beyond reason, and the only reason we survived is because of this.”

Reaching deep into his soul, Kaius flared his aspects. Searing heat roared off them as his crushing Will descended on the room, pressing down on the assembled delvers. He pushed it hard, throwing every scrap he had gained from repeated Refinements behind it. The room went silent as he hurled the iron surety of his own strength in their face.

“At the third stage of Refinement, none of us can use Authority to do more than defend ourselves or bolster our natural uses of Will. We’re not even close to being able to use essence itself. This might be uncomfortable, but it is crushing when facing an essence creature. Worse, essence fortifies in much the same way mana does. They’ll be tougher, stronger, and sturdier than anything you have faced, and all the while you will struggle to even move, and every wound will linger..”

A lean skirmisher with two sabres belted at his hip got to his feet, a stern frown on his face. He was Gold.

“Prove it.”

“Sorry?”

“Fight me, and prove it. If you’re the caliber we need to reach, then show it to us.”

There it was — he’d been waiting for it to happen. It had been obvious it would as soon as the guildmaster had all but invited him to slap an entire room of high-tier delvers in the face. Here he was, the youngest in the room by multiple decades at the least, flaunting his strength. He knew it wasn’t really about proving the necessity of Authority — half of the room was nodding slowly as they contemplated the feeling of it crushing against them.

No, this was about being accepted as one of them.

A hungry grin slid across his face.

“Okay.”