The next day, I awoke surprisingly well-rested. It was obvious the headless innkeeper took good care of his establishnt. Just a sha I was one of his only custors.
I packed up my gear and headed to the ground floor of the wooden hovel, where I found a warm breakfast waiting for . Ten minutes and a full stomach later, I bid goodbye to my gracious host, who sent off with a gurgle that I decided to interpret as a goodbye.
I hadnt fully placed the previous days happenings, though. Truthfully, there wasnt much to consider. Even without his direct presence, I was well aware that the dry man had a proverbial knife to my throat. There was no escape. My only hope was that he would stick to his side of the deal. If I got back to his territory on ti and maybe even received a good reward, I could still co out ahead from this.
That made think... the dry man hadnt seed like he wanted my help, he had acted like he needed it. Maybe I could push that angle...
h, that was a thought for later. For now, I had a dungeon to focus on. Or a castle, or whatever. I supposed I would have to wait and see what this place was all about.
The dry man hadnt let slip much about the place, only that the artifact inside held more historical value than practical. A matter of wounded pride, perhaps? I wouldnt put it past the church to place importance on sothing like that. To any big organization, pride and reputation were their lifeblood. To be fair, the dry man hadnt ntioned this in so many words. If anything, his attitude towards the relic had been suspicious. As if it was no big deal for the cup to disappear. Sothing about this whole thing was suspicious. One thing was for sure, though. I was never inserting myself in squabbles between tier 6es again. I hadnt even gotten started and a headache had already co on.
Once I got out of the village, I summoned Revan and hightailed it out of the cursed place. I wasnt sure whether to attribute my latest chance encounter to that little shithole or simply to fate, but I couldnt care less at this point.
At least my new skills had gotten a proper workout. My [Onyx chain wind] had worked exactly as expected, no, perford even better than expected, while [Sword laser] had even been powerful enough to attract the areas ruler. Not altogether surprising, considering the crater I left on the nearby hill.
The artifact was about an hours travel away from the village, and I was well prepared to dig that old thing out of whatever dung heap I ca across. Unfortunately, the sa couldnt be said for my troll-sized companion.
While we traveled, Revan gave the cold shoulder. I had told him what had happened the day before, and he had only snorted, before refusing to give even a passing glance from that point on. It didnt take a genius to figure out that he was mad I hadnt summoned him in the thick of battle.
I had to admit that after the most recent tournant, where all summons had been strictly prohibited, I had grown overly used to fighting by myself. It didnt help that I was probably still underestimating Revan subconsciously. All the sa, he wouldnt have made a difference against the dry man, though I appreciated his courage.
In hindsight, I probably should have given Revan the proper respect and summoned him.
I told my bony friend as much, but he seed unimpressed, only snorting a second ti.
As such, we spent the rest of our journey in silence.
-scene transition-
What part about this is a tiny dungeon?! I scread at the sky, demanding answers.
In front of , an average-sized castle dominated the landscape. Actually, it would be more appropriate to say it was dominating the view. You know, since it was floating.
The castle. Was. Floating.
The obsidian-coloured compound seed ready to float into the clouds at any mont, if not for the lengthy steel chains that held it several hundred ters above the ground. Each chain was about two ters thick and attached to a tal peg that was nailed into the side of the hill the castle was floating above.
I had had a hard ti seeing the castle from a distance because of the mist, but now that I saw it up close, it beca more obvious that this wasnt a dungeon.
For one, it was too small. For another, it was floating. I had never heard of a floating dungeon, and I doubted one such as this would just be left alone by the nearby classers.
Revan and I continued to scout around the base of the hill in search of a way up, but we found none.
That left two options. Either I used [Overloaded step] to catapult myself up, or Revan and I crawled up the chain.
Both thods had their own issues. Number one ant alerting all the monsters in the vicinity and any enemies that might be laying in wait inside the castle.
Number two, on the other hand, left us a sitting duck while we were climbing. If we could get up there silently, great, but if we failed, then we were back to square one.
In the end, I decided to go with the second thod. At least that way, we had a chance of success. Revan agreed wholeheartedly, perhaps because in this plan he was involved.
A few minutes later, we had decided on which chain we would climb. There was a single chain right underneath the floating castle. It was the steepest, but also the shortest, which was the clincher to our decision. Its shorter length and the fact that it was taut ant it wouldnt swing around as much.
I jumped back onto Revan and held onto his ribs like a ladder while he approached the first link carefully. I had considered climbing up by myself, but was too afraid that any classer inside the castle would notice the shift in dark mana. Furthermore, the oversized links were far too large to climb by hand.
As such, Revan had been delegated the task, an assignnt he took to with great fervor.
Too great a fervor, in fact. Contrary to my expectations, the rusty chains were as fragile as glass. The mont Revan clamped one of his sharp claws onto the tal, it bent under Revans grip and weight, nearly shattering.
For a tense mont, we floated two ters in the air, waiting for the chain to fall on top of our heads. But it didnt.
The chain held, if only barely. I told Revan to head back down and try another chain, but he was far too stubborn. Instead, he started climbing higher and higher. Cold sweat dripped down my back as Revans claws dug into the brittle tal, leaving claw marks on each chain we passed. And yet, each chain held.
Like this, we climbed higher and higher, Revan ever careful not to shift too much weight onto a single link. Before I knew it, we had reached the chain boom, our sneaky way into the castle.
The chain boom was just large enough for Revan to squeeze into, and after a bit of climbing, we found ourselves inside a stone chamber, which was filled with separated links and smaller chains. A maintenance room of so kind.
I had to wonder why the creator of this place would first make a castle float, only to then nail it down to the ground. Were the chains acting as so kind of anchor? The existence of the chain boom and maintenance room was evidence that these chains were deliberate, not so haphazard attempt to spite an old enemy by trapping him in the between lands...
Slowly and carefully, Revan and I headed deeper into the old fortress, which didnt look like it had recently been occupied. In fact, the nurous skeletons that might one day have been undead were now as lifeless as... well, an actual skeleton. It was as if the necromancer controlling the undead guards had left centuries ago, and left so of his units behind. Was this why the church was confident in sending ? Had they known this place was deserted? Had they known the dry man would seek out...?
I shook off the panicked feeling and distracted myself by focusing on my environnt. A defenseless fortress was all well and good, but I still had to find the tier 6 relic, a chalice of so kind.
After a few rooms, I found myself in a dusty parlor. Golden goblets lined the table, that seated several dozen skeletons hunched over and covered in cobwebs. Light from the sun filtered in through windy, gaping windows, giving the room an almost ethereal glow. I grabbed each goblet and stored it, but found none out of the ordinary. I had to continue the search. A few hours later, I had inspected all but one room, the cellar. All other chambers had been so variant of a typical necromancers hideout. Embalming room for ghouls and other esoteric undead, butcher for normal skeletons, a few dozen rooms that I could probably find in any castle, like a kitchen or a bedroom, and a grand hall with a throne at the end.
All of them represented what must have once been a rather comfortable castle, apart from the necromantic rooms and such.
Unfortunately, none of these deceptively ordinary rooms had held the item I was looking for; the relic.
That left one final room to check. The cellar. I had called it as such because it was the lowest place in the castle, even lower than the chain boom and prisons on the lower levels. A seemingly endless set of twisting stairs hidden behind a bookshelf (the oldest trick in the book, by the way) led to what was undoubtedly the deepest part of the castle.
I left Revan in the throne room, which he filled up nicely with his bulk, and headed down the single-file stairs, which twisted and turned around other rooms until it passed them and ended in a small hall with a black set of doors.
Both were adorned with ornately carved, black bones, which represented so kind of animal skull. Strange, for a necromancer. Most of their kind stuck to human corpses, for so reason. The ability for those skeletons to wear equipnt, maybe?
I attempted to open the doors, but was instead thrown back. It was only after I recovered and sat up that I noticed that so of my mana had been absorbed by the doors. I got up and tried again, only to feel next to no resistance this ti. The doors gave and opened up to show the true identity of the room. A treasury.
And, sure enough, on a pedestal in the middle, a single wooden chalice was on display, unmarred by ti.
Reviews
All reviews (0)