B6 Interlude 37: Unnerving Encounters (Patreon)

Nast walked across the soft, pink sands. Soaked in the heat of the desert, warmth radiated through the soles of his boots — just a hair on the side of unpleasant. A golden barrier rose tall and strong to his right, so different from the decrepit and forgotten stone it guarded jealously. 

Gods, he wanted to know what they contained. Of the three they’d stumbled across in the inner region of the jungle, only one exuded potent energy. The rest had just been…crumbling buildings. Clearly, the little walled in village had something to do with the Proving — but what? He hadn’t even sensed any creatures or dangerous defences within!

Sighing to himself, he checked behind him to make sure his team hadn’t spread out too far across the rolling dunes of pink sand. They were still cautious for beasts in the canopy above, but with only a quarter hour until their challenge began it was easy to get a little complacent. 

Tokar was staring down the golden barrier like it owed him money, clearly eager to explore within, and the rest of his team weren’t far behind the felborn, their watchful eyes focused upward.

It had been a fraught and dangerous journey to get to this point, but damn if it hadn’t been good training. They’d even been able to snatch a few Treasures for themselves! Mostly stat-fruit, but a couple of more interesting things as well. Working with Helena and her team had definitely been the right call. 

That cooperation had let them take far more risks than they otherwise would have, always sure in the knowledge that there was another team nearby ready to jump in if they got too far over their heads. Plus, they’d been able to team up for things that would have been far beyond each of their groups individually. 

Exactly like the pair of massive shade-leopards they’d taken down only a couple of weeks before. Both of the essence beasts had been Mid Gold! The carcasses alone were a wealth of resources that would boost the team’s coffers nicely, let alone the pair of Treasures the creatures had been guarding. The value of those would be rather obscene. If taken before Aspects had been ignited, they both fortified the soul and empowered the first step of the Path. 

Nast shook his head, smiling as he thought about just how much that could get them. An assortment of stat-fruit, at the minimum — but maybe something even more exotic. It would be a waste to trade it for simple cash or artefacts. No, with how many other exotic Treasures were being discovered in this Shardworld, he’d be trading like for like. 

Helena’s team hadn’t said what they were going to do with their Treasure, but Nast was pretty sure he knew. Payment, for the Droplets they’d been gifted. A few times he’d caught the Gold talking about looking for objects that could repair soul damage — something about an injured Guildmaster with a connection to the Tidebreakers. The treasure they’d found definitely fit the bill.

A sharp whistle cut through the clamour of the canopy above, yanking Nast’s attention to the base of a tree a quarter-league away. Persellia was there, poking out from behind one of the massive roots that snaked through the sands. She was waving frantically.

“Boys! Over here!”

As soon as she’d caught their attention, she was gone again. Nast looked back to share a glance with his team. Bev just shrugged curiously, so they grouped up and made their way over.

Rounding that same root, he saw Helena and her team had clustered around a nook in the tangled roots. Something had their attention. He frowned, walking closer.

Corpses. Three of them, tangled in a rough pile on top of the sands. Their death had not been clean, wounds cleaven into their chests in great crimson ravines that soaked the surrounding leather and chain in a smear of red-brown. Two of them had lost an arm. The other had been decapitated. Nast winced, the poor bastards. Judging by the papery texture of their mottled skin, foul smell, and general desiccation of the carcasses, they’d been left to rot in the dry heat some time ago.

“Think they fell afoul of some beast?” he questioned. There were plenty of nasty things in this jungle that could do a delving team in, even a seasoned one.

Nemtep shook his head, scowling down at the bodies. “The wounds are clean, neat, and precise. That could be explained by some Skill, or a particularly methodical hunter — but there is no consumption.”

“It could have been a herbivore?” Nast said without confidence. Now that the reaver had mentioned it, the wounds were too clean. It wasn’t just the cuts themselves, it was where they’d landed. Powerful, precise stabs to punch through enchanted chain, aimed directly at vital organs; cleaving strikes at unarmored joints. 

This was the work of someone who knew how to kill men.

He frowned, examining the corpses closer. “This still doesn’t make much sense. No one this deep would have been weak. Where is the struggle? Unless someone is outmatched completely, the ferocity of battle should have left these men a ruin.”

It was like they’d been slaughtered.

Tokar stepped up from behind him, walking past Helena to crouch down by the bodies. He tilted his head, horns glinting in a ray of light as his frown deepened.

“Expensive gear…all high rarity tier twos,” he muttered. “There’s still a trace of their energies too — these men were at least Mid Golds. How could they have been taken out that easily? It would have had to be a crew of Platinums, at the very least.”

“You’re missing something else,” Helena said grimly. “Whoever did this, took nothing. Not even that.”

She pointed, directing their attention to a glittering band of white-blue metal that shone on the curled finger of one of the corpses. Nast didn’t have mana-sight, but at his level his senses were sharp enough he could feel the potency of the artefact now that he was paying attention to it.

“Spatial ring?” he guessed.

“Yep.”

The confirmation troubled him. Helena was right, It made no sense! A battle was one thing, even banditry he could understand with the Shardworld drawing all sorts into its reaches — but to not even strip the bodies?

Nast jolted as a notification slammed into view.

*Ding! The Proving commences! As you are a Path-walker within the Shardworld, prepare for teleportation to the edge of the closest designated tier-appropriate zone! Further instruction will follow shortly!*

His eyes went wide, and he lunged forward to grab Tokar by the shoulder, even as Bev grabbed the hand he’d thrown out behind them — a standard caution in the face of hostile teleportation.

Moments later, he was somewhere else.

….

An anxious knot wound tight in Ro’s belly as she gripped her shortswords, braced and ready to break into a sprint at the slightest sign of conflict. Both Azyom and Nyero stood in front of her like the wall of a living fortress, blocking off the wide branch that rose into a gentle hill. Both of them were utterly focused on the threat in front of their group, weapons held low, but ready. Pacha was much the same, her arquebus shouldered but pointed low.

Ro watched the trio of sneering, ethereal giants that stood with the grace of dancers in motion.They’d just dropped out of the higher canopy, landing in front of them without so much as a sound.

Each one towered over her, the shortest a gargantuan eight strides — with the tallest rising more than a handspan more than that. Ro had never seen them in person before — and they were even more alien than she’d expected. Skin of alabaster practically glowed in the desert sun — but it was all wrong. There was no rosy glow of life on their cheeks, like an already-pale person had been trapped in darkness and subjected to far too much bloodletting. It was an absence of variation that just seemed…wrong — something only heightened by the strange perfection of their features. Swooping, almond eyes that flowed with almost sacred geometry, and cutting features that were almost hyperrealised in their perfection.

Even their damn movements were uncanny. Each stood as still as the dead, yet when they did move it was with a measured grace that made them feel illusory and insubstantial. She could have managed the same, with her Dexterity — if she spent years to unlearn a thousand habits of mundane humanity.

Fucking elves. 

Why were they here — and why did they look so gods damned scornful? She knew they had a tendency to be aloof and proud, but the ones on the other side of the branch looked downright vitriolic.

If it came to violence… She took a slow breath. The elves had to be young for their kind, given they were Golds, but that was a small mercy. Elves were not known for being weak, and their natural advantages went far beyond simple nigh-agelessness.

When their silent stalemate continued, Ro eyed the count down on her status warily. There was just a minute left — who knew what would happen then? Maybe it was all the elves were waiting for before they attacked.

In front of her, Azyom shouldered his massive axe and spoke, breaking the tenuous silence that had stretched between their groups.

“You bar our path. Why?” he said, voice hard. It was clear he cared not one whit for the reputation of the beings in front of them.

The lead elf sneered, their face morphing with almost mechanical precision. “What else should I do when I find a trio of moles treading on claimed land?”

Pacha muttered a string of cutting dwarvish in response to the elves biting words. Ro didn’t understand a lick of it — but she guessed the woman was cursing the giant and every generation that had spawned him. The bombardier gripped her weapon tighter — but its barrel did not waver higher.

Azyom held up a fist to silence her, his heavyplate soundless in its movements. He spoke, still focused utterly on the elves. “You have no claim. This not Arboreal Sea.”

Another of the elves grinned wolfishly. “Who’s to say? Our gate was in the forest home, which by ancient right gives us claim.”

“You toy with ancient agreements.” Nyero growled.

The lead elf’s sneer deepened. “Not all of us are happy under the yoke that your people helped forge.”

Azyom twisted his head at the elf. “Autarchs is dwarf? I was not aware.”

Ro flinched as the elves hissed, stepping forward into looming, predatory stances. Now she was damned certain that this was leading to a fight.

*Ding! The Proving commences! As you are a Path-walker within the Shardworld, prepare for teleportation to the edge of the closest designated tier-appropriate zone! Further instruction will follow shortly!*

Before Ro could even finish reading her notification a terribly familiar, ear-splitting crack erupted from beside her. A howl of raw agony and unending fury followed, somehow still sonorous and musical. Banishing her notification in sight, Ro barely caught a glimpse of the lead elf doubled over, clutching the ruined mess of his groin. 

Suddenly, she was somewhere else. Standing on a pink dune, Ro was surrounded by three steel-clad dwarves roaring in basso laughter. 

Azyom spun, unclasping his warmask and flinging his arms wide. “Pachaaa!” he said, drawing out the final syllable as pride was written on his face with all the subtlety of the earlier blast. Nyero just stepped over and clasped the woman on the shoulder, shaking her back and forth as he said something in dwarvish.

Ro just watched in bewilderment as Pacha speared her bayonet into the sand, unbuckling her own face plate before doubling over in laughter. A moment later, she turned to Ro with tears in her eyes.

“You see this? His testicles?” She brought her fists together, before miming an explosion. “Boom!”

“Timing was perfect!” Nyero agreed. “Maybe now he learn respect of his elders, yes?”

“How do you know you’re older than them?” Ro asked, still reeling at the sudden violence and teleportation. She shook herself. “More importantly, was that wise? What if they were moved nearby?”

Nyero growled something in dwarvish. “Common!” he spat. “Respect that his elders have. Young elves. Always arrogant. Sworn duty of every dwarf to help beat it out of them. If they are near, they will learn that iron is found in stone.”

Ro paused. Clearly, there was some extended cultural history that she was missing, if the mention of some ancient treaty wasn’t enough. “And that…works?”

“One, two centuries,” Pacha said, tilting her hand side to side. “Sometimes half-millenium.”

“Or, they die!” Azyom added, belly laughing.

“Or they die,” Pacha agreed.

Ro just groaned. Sheathing her blades, she rubbed her face and turned her attention to the ocean of notifications waiting for her. The deepwardens were….not what she’d expected.