[Beastborne: Voracious] (Book 5) Chapters 41-43

Author Note: Beastborne chapters are now going to be released in 3 chapter bundles weekly on Sunday!

Chapter 48

Durvin was a dwarf on fire.

The rage inside burned with an incandescent heat that Hal was surprised he couldn’t feel.

Aside from some opportunistic monsters-turned-memories, there really wasn’t that much for Hal and Mira to do. They cleaned up what Hal thought of as “adds”, monsters that aren’t the main deal but are important to deal with all the same.

They weren’t very powerful, and he was less than halfway through his [Magicite] when the third [Memory Receptacle] was destroyed. This last one was more personal than the others. It was a woman, quite handsome for a dwarf, that he had once loved. Apparently, they were set to be wed, and a raid from the Undergloam put an end to that with crimson finality.

The three of them, with Hal wearing Vorax in his cloak-form, walked away from the funeral that had turned into something that Hal deeply wished was not founded in reality.

I don’t think I could handle it if I was forced to fight a risen version of Noth’s corpse, Hal thought to himself with a small shiver.

And before that, there had been a rather violent row between Durvin and his father. Something that, based on what was said, Hal figured Durvin still holds himself accountable for.

If he hadn’t left his father at that moment to go into the depths of the Undergloam in a fit of rage and anger, would the poisoners have been able to get close enough to do the deed?

There was no way to tell, and Hal wasn’t about to go prying. The dwarf had, whether he meant to or not, shared more than Hal ever thought he would see of the old dwarf’s life.

Mira was uncharacteristically silent as they headed into the next room. Hal was hopeful it would be the last. Once again, he scooped up the intact [Memory Fragments]. Something in his senses told him he could use them in Aetherochemy and he still had experiments to do with [Magicite].

Maybe I can convince Tristal to give me a smaller piece to mess around with, Hal thought. She has others; I know that much. And as much as it seems like a good gift, giving me the strongest [Magicite] she owns, it’s also a bit of a white elephant gift. It’s so large I can’t possibly wear it, and that means one hand is always occupied holding this damned orb.

The next room was unlike any of the others. There was a deep malevolence to it that Hal was not expecting.

By the rules as he understood them, this would be the deepest wound he carried in his soul. Durvin, so full of fire and anger at seeing his past mistakes paraded on display suddenly deflated and sagged to his knees.

In one moment, he turned from an old powerful dwarf to a child barely past Hal’s knee. The room, unlike the others, looked comfortable and soft for a dwarven room.

It was a bedroom, Hal realized. All the furniture and items built to the size of a dwarven child so that Hal and Noth felt like giants.

And that was when Hal noticed the other child, who looked like the spitting image of Durvin except he had black hair.

Durvin hadn’t moved. He stood still in the middle of the room. There were toy battle axes, swords, shields, and all manner of devices that would entertain a young royal dwarf to no end.

There were fake stuffed goblins to hit and… well, it all looked a bit more normal than Hal would have expected. This was something other than what Elora had experienced.

While it seemed to hold true that the deeper within the Dungeon you went, the farther back in time the events were, this seemed to be a very old memory indeed.

In Elora’s case, her greatest fear wasn’t her oldest memory or pain, it was her fear of the future.

The two couldn’t have been more different. Durvin looked to the past, while Elora feared the future where Hal became worse than Rinbast. A person she had helped to get to that point.

It’s less about time, and more about the depth of the pain, Hal reasoned. For some people, a Dungeon like this would be linear, others would skip around based on their fears and desires.

Despite Durvin’s request to let him deal with this in his own way, Hal dropped to one knee beside the young dwarven boy with fiery red hair and put a hand on his back. “You’re not a child any longer, Durvin. You’ve grown. Learned from your mistake, whatever it is. This is just a memory, another enemy to face.”

That stiffened his spine, but he wasn’t changing back. That wasn’t a good sign.

Mira looked over at the young boy playing with his wooden war axe, running around and trying to sing raucous dwarven songs at the top of his voice. Even as children, dwarves had strong lungs and deep voices, like the caves and tunnels they call home.

A well-loved sword was in Durvin’s hands. He cradled it like a baby, unable to see either Hal or Mira at his side.

When the black-haired child saw that Durvin wasn’t paying attention, he called his name, “Hey Durvy, come look at what I can do. Look!”

The boy did a rather impressive cartwheel that collapsed halfway through as he laughed and laughed, but the laughter was cut off when he realized yet again that Durvin wasn’t paying him any attention.

All of Durvin’s attention was on that beautiful wooden sword.

So, like a child who has probably never heard the word “no” in his life, the other dwarven boy came over and took the sword from Durvin’s fingers.

Now that got the response he was looking for. And though Hal didn’t have any siblings—the Kinslayers didn’t really count—he could sense that Durvin must have been the younger of the two.

For a moment, Durvin fidgeted unsure of what to do, but then that typical dwarven rage boiled up and over. He rushed toward the black-haired boy and they tumbled together, fighting for the sword.

Fists, knees, and elbows joined the fray as the playful fighting soon took on a sinister and foul edge. Hal and Mira watched as the two brothers kicked and punched and bit each other as they tried to gain control of the expertly crafted wooden blade.

In the end, as is usually the case, the older brother won the bout and Durvin was curled up on the ground crying in both anger and pain by the sound of it.

Unhappy to be just the winner, the older boy kicked Durvin square in the middle. This normally would have had the desired effect of teaching the person down on the ground to stay there and that they had, in the most definite way of schoolyards all over the multiverse, lost.

Then, because this was the way of little cruel boys all over, he got on what Hal presumed was Durvin’s bed and began to bounce on it and proclaim his victory.

But there are some people who, when pushed down and their faces ground into the dirt, find a deeper wellspring of strength in their rage and shame.

Hal remembered a small animal being tormented by school kids and at that moment, he could have closed his eyes and seen exactly what was going to happen. He had lived it before, but unlike Durvin, he hadn’t been strong enough.

Fire in his eyes to match his hair, the younger brother surged up with more strength and fury than the older brother could have ever guessed. His head came up like a piston and clocked the black-haired child in the chin so hard that Hal could hear his teeth slam together.

The boy toppled backward and fell from the bed. There was a resounding, echoing CRACK as his head hit a stone chest near the foot of the bed and the boy dropped to the ground in a tumble of limbs.

He went very, very still.

To Hal’s horror, and likely to Durvin reliving this horrible memory, the boy began to twitch and rise. Hal could sense the Dungeon altering and adjusting the memory, keeping Durvin trapped in a child’s body while simultaneously resurrecting his brother.

Like every other battle before, this had never been part of Durvin’s memories, but it was birthed from them as a sort of cancerous tumor.

Hollow essence was cruel indeed.

“Durvin!” Mira shouted. “This isn’t real. You were just a child, and you did not mean to kill him!”

Durvin, fear in his watery eyes as tears streaked down his baby-soft cheeks, looked at his hands, then at the twitching, reanimating remains of his brother. “I knew,” he whispered. “I wanted him dead. I was so angry. He always bullied me, but he was me brother. I loved him. He did not deserve this.”

“He is gone,” Hal told him as kindly as he could. “This is not him. This is a blight on his memory. Will you let his memory be tarnished like this? Will you let the Dungeon abuse him while you stand powerless?”

Durvin’s lip curled in anger. “No.”

The walls rippled and changed, but even as the stuffed goblins multiplied and became leaking horrible creatures out of a child’s nightmares, Hal and Mira were ready. Drawing [Fetter] free, Hal whipped out the sword into one of the nearby quasi-goblins and tore its head from its body.

Mira leaped through the air and landed in a fiery conflagration on the other side of the room. Her spear twisting and piercing into any creature that came within striking range as if she wielded a bolt of silver lightning.

Durvin grew and grew until he was the slightly wizened dwarf Hal remembered. Tears sparkled in his fiery red beard as he lifted his axe and raised it over the rising body of his brother.

“Ye ain’t him,” he said definitively.

And yet, when the boy’s hand raised in defense, Durvin hesitated.

Long enough for the boy to kick out and sweep Durvin’s legs from under him, a difficult prospect that required dwarf-on-dwarf combat. But Durvin wasn’t a little kid anymore. He had been in countless battles since this day and he rolled with the attack, bouncing to his feet at the same time as his brother.

The black-haired boy was no longer a child, but an adult dwarf that towered over Durvin by a good head or more. He spoke softly to Durvin, setting his face to fire with unspoken grief and rage, but his form held firm.

Good going, Durvin, Hal thought as he ducked the rusty blade of an oozing, dripping goblin-esque creature that had far too many heads and limbs for his taste.

Carve would have been nice to use, but he had learned rather early on that it didn’t work on anything considered “alive” and so that was out. But he did have Cushion which worked well to block and slow attacks, allowing Hal the time to whip his sword around.

The segmented blade of [Fetter] stretched on fine silver wires and the flowing blade cut through the creatures three at a time as Hal tapped Convergence and bolstered his Strength.

Like the other memories, Hal and Mira were only there to keep the other creatures off Durvin while he was able to deal with his problems head on. He was glad that only Athagan was left.

The younger dwarf couldn’t have that much trauma, surely?

Hal didn’t hold out much hope, especially if he came to Murkmire with Durvin. That must mean he was loyal to the Steelhearts before they became the Boulderguts and hid who they truly were.

I rather like the name Boulderguts, Hal thought. He would likely keep that thought to himself all the way to the grave. Now that he knew where it had come from, it didn’t seem to be so fitting.

Steelheart just seemed so formal. Regal. Which, now that Hal knew the full extent of the truth, it was. A fitting name, and yet he couldn’t help but wish that Durvin wasn’t royalty.

Because that would mean one day, he would leave. He wanted the best for his friend, but he also wanted them to stay in Brightsong. To build a new place together. That had been the dream, hadn’t it?

If Durvin took the Steelheart name again and marched on the Anvil, Hal would go with him and be glad for his friend even as he wished they could have stayed.

An oozing creature leaped out and latched onto Hal’s side, biting and taking out a small glittering dagger. Before he could react, Vorax, acting as his cloak, opened one mouth and swallowed the offending creature whole.

The fanged maw that appeared on Hal’s cloak burped and the glittering dagger clattered to the ground, frightening the other creatures toward Mira.

“Gee, thanks!” she called out to him.

Chapter 49

Despite her annoyance, Mira handled herself just fine with the influx of creatures, giving Hal the opportunity to wipe them out from behind. His chainsword whipped out, slicing into their backs.

Durvin defeats the [Memory Receptacle | Lv.??]

You gain 4,500 Beastborne Experience Points.

You earn 450 Sparks.

Quest Updated: Long Live the King

Protect Durvin long enough for him to reclaim the lost portion of his soul and ensure he does not succumb to the memories that haunt him. Like many other Dungeons, there appears to be a Memoria Crystal here. With your familiarity of Dungeons, you can sense its presence alongside the Dungeon Core. What you do to the Dungeon Core is your choice, but you will need to bypass it in order to approach the Memoria Crystal.

Objectives

· Keep Durvin alive. (Complete)

· Destroy [Memory Receptacles] 4/4 (Complete)

· Decide the fate of the Dungeon Core

· Attune to the Memoria Crystal

Rewards

· Variable Experience and Sparks.

· Dungeon Lore.

The monsters surrounding them fell into puddles of ooze, littering the floor. Technically speaking, the [Memory Receptacle] was the only monster. The rest didn’t seem to account for much, as if they hardly were alive.

Which, given the abilities of the receptacle, Hal guessed that might be the case.

Durvin was cradling the cracked glassy orb that had paraded about as his brother. He was weeping as only a dwarf could, which was very loudly and with a noticeable amount of horn-honking nose-blowing.

It wasn’t necessarily his fault or anything, but Hal couldn’t help but feel bad about the whole affair. It was necessary, but just because a thing was necessary didn’t mean it was good.

Bathing was necessary, but doing it in the freezing waters of the Shiverglades was hardly enjoyable. A heated tub could be kept warm for all of five seconds in the cold swampy land. And that does nothing to speak of the bathroom situation. Which was something he planned to deal with, assuming he could get the manpower—or rather, the dwarfpower—to enact his plan.

Until only recently, they had been so busy building longhouses and the like that Hal didn’t want to divert any resources from those operations.

Hal brought himself back to the moment and knelt next to Durvin. “That wasn’t him,” he told him, and felt a bit foolish at the glower from the older dwarf. “I know you know that,” he added. “But it helps to hear it, I find.”

“Aye,” the dwarf said with a shaky voice.

Shutting his eyes, Hal spread his senses out. From his time as a Dungeon Guardian, he was uniquely tuned into the senses of a Dungeon. And now, at the heart of this Dungeon, he could feel the Core close by.

It was scared, having sensed him when he first came in. He tried to assuage its fears because the one thing a Dungeon Core feared most of all was being disposed of. They were resilient and fiercely guarded, but this Dungeon had been corrupted by a fragment of Durvin’s soul.

Its guardian was formed from Durvin’s own memories and his own trauma. And while Elora had gotten over hers as well, Durvin was a different beast altogether. The older dwarf had barreled through the obstacles and deadly traps with hardly a thought.

Every bitter memory tore at his heart, but he did what was necessary in the end. You couldn’t keep a good dwarf down for long.

The childhood dwarven room, having lost its guardian, began to fade and ripple like a mirage. The toys and beds vanished, the walls shimmered, replaced by green stone flecked with blue shining gems that reflected the omnipresent light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“I mean you no harm,” Hal called out, knowing that the Core could hear him. He had helped another Core, he hoped he could help this one.

They could not change what they were any more than Hal could stop being a Beastborne.

A door, completely hidden in the stone wall, opened with a grating sound that filled the empty room.

Durvin was on his feet immediately. He dropped the receptacle, the glass tinkling on the stones.

Hal, with more levels than Durvin at the moment, was able to easily outpace him and put himself in the doorway to bar his access.

“Lad, ye got a good head on yer shoulder but yer too durned thick sometimes by half!” he shouted at Hal. “That blasted thing stole me memories! Used ‘em against me! I will have a reckoning.” The last words were said with quiet conviction.

“No, Durvin,” Hal told him. “The Dungeon is not at fault anymore than a wild animal. It doesn’t know what to do with the memories. It’s confusing and scary for it. It only knows how to create and unleash monsters and traps, that’s what a Dungeon does. You gave it a template to draw from, that’s all. It doesn’t want the memories. I can make sure they are returned, safely, to you.”

“Aye, and I can make sure they’re returned as well,” the dwarf said, hefting his axe meaningfully. “Won’t take but a mo’.”

“Durvin, as your friend, I’m asking you to let me handle this.”

“And I’m sayin’ this as the rightful king o’ the Anvil, yer tryin’ me patience, lad!”

Mira made her way to the doorway, turned and leaned against the stone nearby. “Could we stop this measurin’ contest before it gets bloody? Even if you had your Levels, Durvin, you know it’d be a bad idea to force Hal into a fight. You’ve seen what he’s been doing with the dragons. You want to tangle with that?”

“No dwarf is afraid o’ Dragonfire,” Durvin muttered, but it lacked the conviction he had earlier. “And I won’t be bullied!” The fire was back in his voice now.

“I’m not bullying you. I am not your enemy. I’m trying to help you,” Hal told him soothingly, using Silver Tongue to smooth things over. The Charisma-based ability granted him a high chance to heavily influence a person to make a decision in his favor.

For a moment, Hal was worried the dwarf’s natural resistance to magic would overcome it, but after a moment or two the tension bled out of Durvin’s thickset shoulders.

“Aye, lad… I’m just a bit worked up after….”

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” he said softly.

“I know.”

“But he made me so mad! Always picking on me, bullying me. He was da’s favorite, and it always hurt him to see me instead of me brother, Hurin.”

“Try having a parent that feels like that, but you’re an only child,” Hal said, trying to go for a bit of levity.

Durvin shook his head. “Go on then,” he told Hal. “I won’t interfere. But ye get me memories back, lad. They belong to me!”

Hal gave him a slight bow at the waist, noticing the bright twinge of pain that radiated out from his hip. Hal peeked at the rent in the blue cloth and saw one of the bone plates of his armor had cracked.

Good thing I ended up making some armor. Vorax isn’t a replacement. But he still did an excellent job.

He patted the cloak on his shoulder, which summoned a purple tongue that licked his hand affectionately. “Good boy,” Hal said as he headed into the inner sanctum of the Dungeon where he would find the Core and a bit further in, the Memoria Crystal.

Why did every Dungeon have a crystal at the end? He didn’t know for sure, but the answer seemed tantalizingly out of reach. If he could just increase his Dungeon Lore a little, he might find the answer waiting for him.

Like with the Ancient Dungeon, there was a pedestal and a room beyond the guardian’s chamber. In the chamber behind, a heavy thunk announced the arrival of a Dungeon Chest.

Any reservations Durvin might have had about the Dungeon clearly did not extend to loot, because Hal could hear him scrabbling to be the first to open the chest.

Hal left them to it. He reached a hand out to the Dungeon Core. This one was in the shape of a pyramid for reasons he didn’t fully understand. It was just something Cores did. They weren’t all the same shape or size and most of the time, this had no bearing on their actual strength.

Though, as close as he was to the Core, he could sense its power. There was a resonating effect with his own Monster Core that told him it was stronger than his. Not much of a shock there. His Core was fairly new. The Dungeon Core was somewhere in the realm of Brass. So, stronger, but not much.

It was only a Rank above his own Core.

“I only want to help,” Hal told it, gently resting his hand on one plane of the pyramid and sending his thoughts into it, showing it what he had done with the Ancient Dungeon and its broken Core. How he had repaired it, saved it.

The words came into his mind without bothering to pass through his ears. It sounded like his own internal voice, but he knew it wasn’t.

The Wanderer.

“Yes,” Hal said, after it had shared—in the form of monsters—a complicated series of images and meanings that were still hard to decipher despite his progress.

The images showed him as a Dungeon Guardian, a powerful ally that not only had freed itself from the Dungeon Core itself, but had replaced it with another, more fitting Dungeon Guardian.

Something that had never been done before.

Somehow, though Hal couldn’t begin to fathom how, the Core knew of him as if the Ancient Dungeon had spoken about it. Hal had only shown it a brief glimpse, just enough to show it that he meant no harm, and he felt nothing rummaging around in his head.

He was used to the feeling and would’ve been able to recognize it immediately, especially since Besal wasn’t in there doing the same thing all the time.

“Do you… talk to other Dungeons?” Hal asked.

Fathomways.

Hal nodded, understanding. So, Besal was right. The Fathomways connected to the backs of more than a few Dungeons. Was this one he had seen the entrance to, or was that something else?

“Are there Dungeons below you, ones that are inside the Fathomways?”

Anchors.

Hal frowned, unable to fully grasp the meaning of what the Core was telling him. He could see the imagery, but it made no sense to him.

“I have Hollow essence that I can’t use, it’s hurting me. But if I can infuse it into you, you’ll be able to use it. Would you like that?”

Wary gratitude.

This Dungeon Core was a proper one, unlike the one that had trapped Naitese.

The Core was weakened by Durvin’s memories, but it had a great deal of potential. As Hal opened himself and pushed out the foul and corrupting Hollow essence, he felt like he could finally breathe, as if his lungs were stuck together with Velcro until that very moment.

While he purged the illness—that was how he saw it at least—the Core gratefully drank it up and when Hal was about to stop because he was afraid of damaging the Core, it pulled on the essence, drawing more out of Hal by force and sending a spike of alarm into his chest.

Chapter 50

Hal struggled for all of three seconds before he realized that the Core was growing stronger from the Hollow essence. It was, after all, a Dungeon essence. Incompatible with his own Monster Core unless he wanted to forever change himself into some sort of abominable walking Dungeon.

No, thanks.

And so, Hal happily let the little Core infuse itself with his Hollow essence. He had expected at least two more Dungeons to fully rid himself of the vile essence, but as the Core siphoned up the foul blackness, he felt his channels and essences open up from their prisons.

He had fully expected to fight and battle his way to the freedom of his locked essences, but this felt… natural. Right. As if he was healing a festering wound that had resisted all other medicines.

Hal let out a sigh of contentment as the last of the Hollow essence left his body and he felt, for what seemed like the first time, the full breadth of his Monster Core and essences open to him.

No Kol’thil Bleed, no locked essences, no corrupted eyes from Strain, and a Monster Core where it always should have been.

He was finally free.

Quest Update: Long Live the King

Protect Durvin long enough for him to reclaim the lost portion of his soul and ensure he does not succumb to the memories that haunt him. Like many other Dungeons, there appears to be a Memoria Crystal here. With your familiarity of Dungeons, you can sense its presence alongside the Dungeon Core. What you do to the Dungeon Core is your choice, but you will need to bypass it in order to approach the Memoria Crystal.

Objectives

· Keep Durvin alive. (Complete).

· Destroy [Memory Receptacles] 4/4 (Complete).

· Decide the fate of the Dungeon Core (Complete).

· Attune to the Memoria Crystal.

Rewards

· Variable Experience and Sparks.

· Dungeon Lore.

Hal released his hand and bowed thankfully to the Core. It pulsed and a small shimmering twist of light lifted out and streaked through the wall as if it wasn’t there.

Durvin’s soul.

“Thank you,” Hal said once more. In the process of absorbing the Hollow essence, the Dungeon grew stronger. Its Core was nearly twice the size, though Hal wasn’t sure if that really meant anything.

However, he could feel its strength towering above his own Core.

Bronze. Immense gratitude.

Once more, the words simply entered his head as if he had thought them. “You help me, I help you,” Hal said. “It’s the way of the world.”

He went into the adjoining room where the Memoria Crystal hovered and spun gently, filling the small space with shimmering blue light. Beneath the crystal was a pool of water that further bounced the light around.

Hal wasted no time attuning to this one. He was interested to see where it led to within the Fathomways, but he was injured and going into there as ill-prepared as he was would be suicide.

No, for now, he needed to go back. Returning would be a simple affair.

Athagan’s Dungeon awaited, and while Hal no longer needed to attend him while he went, he would all the same. If only to speak to another Dungeon Core and attune to another Memoria Crystal.

There was nothing holding him back anymore as he thanked the Core again and waltzed into the Guardian’s room. A swirling font of aether sprang up from the center of the room, offering them a way out courtesy of the Core.

It would reset in time, repopulating the place with proper monsters that weren’t pulled from Durvin’s memories. And with the attunement to the Memoria Crystal, Hal now had a back way in.

The Core would let him pass unscathed, straight to the entrance, granting Hal a very circuitous type of fast travel.

Granted, it was only in the Shiverglades, but it was useful nonetheless. The only problem was using the Memoria Crystals used up a lot of mana and if he didn’t have enough, it took it from either stamina or health. Nobody really wanted that, least of all Hal.

It meant teleporting around was less of a proper strategy unless he was able to pull in a lot of people and then immediately rest and recover. Without proper Alchemists to make potions, they were limited in how they could recover for now.

As soon as Hal stepped into the boss room, he received a notification.

Quest Completed: Long Live the King

Protect Durvin long enough for him to reclaim the lost portion of his soul and ensure he does not succumb to the memories that haunt him. Like many other Dungeons, there appears to be a Memoria Crystal here. With your familiarity of Dungeons, you can sense its presence alongside the Dungeon Core. What you do to the Dungeon Core is your choice, but you will need to bypass it in order to approach the Memoria Crystal.

Objectives

· Keep Durvin alive. (Complete).

· Destroy [Memory Receptacles] 4/4 (Complete).

· Decide the fate of the Dungeon Core (Complete).

· Attune to the Memoria Crystal (Complete).

Rewards

· 12,500 Experience.

· 12,500 Sparks.

· Dungeon Lore.

Just as Hal was looking over the Experience gains, he knelt next to the large chest that was so wide it could have easily doubled as a feeding trough, and examined the piles of loot inside. A deluge of prompts followed with his net gains from the Dungeon as a whole, the portion of the loot that was assigned to him, as well as additional rewards for completing the Dungeon.

Unlike Elora’s Dungeon, which was anything but normal, this one seemed to have more classical rewards. Hal couldn’t help but think that the Dungeon Core’s Ascension to Bronze meant that the rewards were better.

Swiping away the Experience and [Sparks] notifications, Hal focused on the Skills and Levels he gained. He had received a hefty sum of [Sparks] and Experience from not only the Quest but from the chest as well.

While he would have preferred an awesome weapon like the double-headed axe Durvin received, it seemed neither Hal nor Mira received anything other than a heaping of Experience and [Sparks]. Not that Hal was complaining.

Getting 2 Levels of Beastborne was difficult at the best of times, not to mention the slew of Skills for himself as well as Vorax.

Your Dungeon Lore has risen to Tier III.

Dungeon Trap resistance +50%.

Dungeon Loot +15%.

Woah, that’s a good boost to my Lore Skill, Hal thought. The trap resistance was incredibly nice, but the additional loot was even better.

If only it wasn’t so hard to raise Lore Skills to higher tiers. His Gem Lore Skill was still only Tier I. Maybe I should go pay Lurklox a visit, he mused. She seemed to know a great deal more than he did about gems.

Beastborne reaches Level 37.

You have 5 attribute points awaiting distribution.

Beastborne reaches Level 38.

You have 10 attribute points awaiting distribution.

Your HP, SP, Spirit, and MP are fully restored.

With his HP still under a thousand, Hal put all 10 points into Vitality, bringing it up to 1,005. A glance at his Status told Hal that his Vitality was now his second-strongest attribute.

Not exactly what he would have expected, but it did mean he took significantly less damage. That was a worthy tradeoff, especially when Dragonfire relied so much on physical constitution to properly function. Now he could turn his attention to getting his stamina up over the 4-digit.

Your Gold Kol’thil (Manatree Marked) has risen to Level 43.

Your Copper Kol’thil (Manatree Marked) has risen to Level 43.

Vorax (Familiar) reaches Level 44.

Vorax’s Mimic Magic Skill has increased to Level 37.

Vorax’s Mimic Armor Skill has increased to Level 7.

Vorax’s Mimic Storage Skill has increased to Level 6.

Your Leadership Skill has risen to Level 58.

+1% Party damage.

+2% Leadership efficacy.

Your Exploration Skill has risen to Level 28.

+10% Faster drawing speed.

+3% Discoverable range.

+0.5% Hidden location discovery.

Your Sword Skill has risen to Level 44.

+1% Sword damage.

-0.25% Sword durability loss.

Your Evasion Skill has risen to Level 39.

+1% Evasion speed.

-1% Stamina cost.

Hal hoped, as he guided them toward the swirling aetherfont that warped them to the entrance of the Dungeon in the Shiverglades, that Hamrin the Gourmage would be able to solve the problem of potions and recovery items.

With a steady and solid food supply they could grow Brightsong and, in time, expand not only the main settlement, but satellites as well. And what better place to put towns and outposts than near a Dungeon?

They were practically friendly to Hal, and they didn’t kill anybody. Not really. The monsters were re-summoned, going about their business, and the Guardians were functionally immortal.

Hal doubted most people who entered a Dungeon could even easily find the Core and get access to it.

If a person died in a Dungeon, they were simply ejected with a penalty of rejoining only after a timed debuff wore off. That meant they were perfect for training and loot gathering.

Both Dungeons and adventurers prospered, which was probably why the Adventurer’s Guild and the Founder, Rinbast, were at odds with each other. The Guild suffered here for his choices. But Hal could change that.

At least in the Shiverglades.

The return trip home was somber and quiet. They spoke occasionally about anything other than Durvin’s memories.

They had been in the Dungeon all night, and the sun was just peeking up over the eastern horizon, gilding the swamp and cutting through the steam that rose off the frozen ground.

“Thank ye,” Durvin said once the half-sculpted towers of Brightsong were visible in the morning light. “I ain’t one fer teary words or nothin’, but ye did a great service for me, Hal, Mira. And yes, ye too Vorax, ye scoundrel!”

The cloak laughed in its bubbly little mimic laugh, “Shahaha!”

Hal patted it affectionately. Of the choices he had made going into this, having Vorax was his best one yet. It had cost him the time to create the new quasi-equipment that was Vorax-the-cloak, but now that the melding process with the mimic was over, they were together.

What happened to Hal, happened to Vorax. They could separate, but it was easier for both if they were joined.

It wasn’t like Besal, however, which Hal had been worried about. He was concerned that Vorax wanted to replace his Khaeros wholesale, but that wasn’t it.

The mimic wanted a closer bond with Hal, a proper soulbond that would allow them to help one another but stay completely separate entities.

Vorax would turn into just about anything either of them wanted. He could attack Hal’s enemies, defend him, but he couldn’t give Hal any of his own HP, SP, or MP.

That was forever cut off from Hal, and he was okay with that. It was past the time he should rely wholly on his own strength to see him through any conflict.

“Anything for a friend,” Hal told him with a smile.

It helped that Vorax had insulation through the roof. Even with his Dragonfire, Hal could feel the bite of the cold at times. But with Vorax on his shoulders? He might as well have been having a nice spring stroll through the Ballard commons.

And, of course, it was doubly nice that Vorax’s life was now tied to Hal’s. If Vorax was injured too badly, he would retreat into a small pocket dimension where he would recover and could be re-summoned later.

If Hal died, well… that was what the Manatree was for, right? Functionally, that meant that the mimic was immortal. What had happened to his poor mother, where Hal had first found him mourning her dead body beneath the Sanctum of Murkmire, would never happen to Vorax.

“You know Athagan is going to want to go out next,” Mira said, fiddling with a shimmering scale that had been removed from her armor. “Now that he’s the only one left, aside from Ashera, that is.”

“I’ll go with him,” Durvin said at the same time as Hal.

The two looked at each other.

“I thought ye said yer essences were fine and dandy now?” Durvin asked. “Ye ain’t got to go, lad.”

“No,” Hal agreed. “But it wouldn’t look right if you went, and I didn’t, would it? We’re allies, and besides, Athagan has done some great things for Brightsong. I should go. It’ll suck a little that I can’t get any essences from the monsters, but that’s okay. I’ll be able to help and smooth over any issues with the Dungeon.”

Hal stretched, and his cloak did too, making him look a bit like an umbrella about to unfold. “That being said, there’s another reason it’d be good for me to go.”

“Aye?”

And so Hal told them about the Fathomways and the Memoria Crystals and his use of them. He explained all of it, every last detail, mostly because he didn’t want to be like Rinbast, always keeping some secret or another.

The conversation lasted all the way up until they entered the Gap and Hal had to admit he felt a surge of pride when the two of them craned their necks up high to see the work he’d done on the mountains.

It had been done in a fit of inspiration, and it was rough for sure, but all the peaks of the Gap that led from Brightsong out into the Shiverglades proper were transformed into sheer sided cliffs.

“I reckon we could finish what ye started, lad,” Durvin said, looking at the stately spires that Hal had made out of the farthest peaks on either side of the Gap.

They were meant to serve as beacons or perhaps watch towers. Something that Hal could use as a means of defending but also highlighting where the settlement was.

The time for hiding was at an end. The Trinic Call that he had been part of, though he hadn’t known its name at the time, would draw anybody with even an ounce of magical ability in their blood to Brightsong.

Most of them would be curious, likely only sending scouts or even just scrying on them. But that meant that Brightsong was no longer able to hide its location, and if you couldn’t hide, you might as well project strength and power.

It would make them look far more advanced than they actually were and help to prevent some opportunistic attackers.

Of course, it also meant that they would undoubtedly have to back up those claims. And Hal hoped that with his powers finally unleashed, he’d have the time to catch up to where a Founder of his status should be.

With the snows coming any day now, they would slow down any visitors as well. Though, the twelve tribes of the Shiverglades were still coming. They were out there somewhere, gathering and marching toward Brightsong. The snow wouldn’t stop them.

Hal smiled to himself.

The tribes were expecting a weak guild that was huddled against the mountains and struggling to survive as only outsiders were able to. They would not expect the carved sheer stone walls of the mountains, the twin spires, and definitely not the magical food he dearly hoped was coming.

“Athagan was building a farm the last I saw,” Mira said, as if reading Hal’s mind. “He might have finished it by now.”

“The lad’s quick,” Durvin agreed. “He wants to get a proper supply chain up and running as fast as possible so we can get to tradin’ with the others.” He tapped his broken nose meaningfully. “If we can get down to these Fathomways, then we’ll have a supply route to Murkmire and then ye’ll see a true explosion of growth for our fair Brightsong!”