Neophyte World Builder

Chapter 133: The Deep Watch

BORAN

After thirty years of planning, everything was finally coming together.

His followers were not the greatest minds in vaskan society, but they were the best he could find who were loyal to his cause. He crossed his arms as he looked over the dimly-lit formation, nodding approvingly at the careful motion all of them followed. It was almost time.

Time to prove his theory correct.

Twelve of the best and most innovative casters he could find all stood ringed around the marking on the floor. The place of highest concentration of mana, the marking was directly over a node sunk deep underground. His family fortune had been almost completely used up in the search for qualified mages and in the construction of this underground sanctuary.

That was fine. He was sure that he was right.

Boran nodded approving as he saw all twelve in their proper places, and he stepped forward to join the circle. He might have been able to do this with only nine, but a total of thirteen would ensure success.

“If any should wish to step away, now is the final chance,” he intoned to the others. “Once we begin, the results are unknown. No one has seen a new dungeon in twenty years, and this will be the first. If the rumors are true, its formation may prove deadly to us all.”

He waited for any protests, but as he expected, none stepped back. All were as eager to prove themselves as he’d anticipated. Even if they did not survive, the very act that they had created a dungeon would ripple through history, to see their names spoken for generations to come.

Just as Boran’s would be.

He gave the signal, and felt the light touch of their auras connecting to his own. Much of what they did would be outside the System, but the System could still aid them even in subverting the rules of the world. Each of them had a variant of the Mana Link ability, allowing them to feel and synchronize their adjustment of the raging mana around them. The delicate procedure would require everyone to work together.

Interruption would be fatal, but Boran had stationed enough guards up above to protect them from the ravenous fell-walkers that stalked the area. The Fell was such a dangerous and high-mana area that they’d already lost several of their number, despite being an elite – and very expensive – force.

Boran didn’t leave all the work to those mages linked to him. He concentrated, feeling the intricate flow of mana filling the chamber. Like the others, he bent it toward the center, where the stone rested upon the floor. A stone that would soon melt into a puddle of liquid, if he had his way.

They had to do it without the System. The System operated within the rules of the world, and while there was likely a spell that could ‘melt’ the stone easily, that would be changing the stone… not the rules of the world.

It would not cause the anomaly they needed to form a dungeon.

The task was difficult. The ability to ‘feel’ mana was rare, and even then it was more based upon intuition than a true sense. Only the most innovative of mages, those who constructed new spells regularly, could guide mana with such precision despite being unable to directly sense it.

On top of that they were trying to ‘break’ the natural operation of the world’s laws. Stone did not melt at this temperature. They needed to change how the very structure of matter operated within this narrow boundary. It needed to be a localized, yet permanent change.

Nothing had changed yet, but Boran felt it. He felt the mana questing into something different, something unknown. Even if this failed to create an anomaly in the System, it would possibly break open a new study of magic technique. At this point, even a failure would be a gateway to success!

The faint feeling of ‘pressure’ on the boundaries of the universe built up.

Boran pushed against them, backed by the power of his twelve disciples.

Something was about to happen.

Abruptly he felt a weakening in the connection. The threads were unravelling, and reality rebuffed his attempts to change it. He felt a painful lance of mana burn shoot through him before he regained some control.

To his left, Horda vomited blood and collapsed, the blade of a sword erupting from her chest.

“Who?!” Boran cried out in a panicked tone, mentally yanking back from the experiment. He felt the mana link dissolve as another of his disciples crumpled to the ground, a spray of blood spewing from the man’s neck. Once again Boran saw the flicker of a blade, which vanished after delivering its deadly strike.

No. It wasn’t just out of nowhere. Boran could feel it, and for a moment almost see it. That ripple in the air, like a section of the cave smeared with almost-clear oil. He knew that hint of blurriness.

His arm itched as he remembered his Totem Hunt. Of losing one of the hunting party to the same distortion in the air. There weren’t supposed to be any nightsleeks in the area, but one had found them anyway.

He wasn’t a child any longer, though. He knew how to handle these creatures… and those dangerous vaskan who managed to acquire them as a Totem.

“Allavasa revele tensu!”

Boran’s words echoed through the chamber, resorting to the long-memorized incantation to help him order his mana and shape it properly. He clenched his jaw as the Cruxis mana tore apart inside his body to reform, forcing it with his own mana core to reshape into Lumin. The burst of magic from his spell rippled through the chamber, washing away the Umbral veil that the assassin had cloaked himself within.

Even doing that, Boran was too late to save the next disciple. The rippling effect of the camouflage vanished just as another of the mages dealt with an impalement of slick, enchanted iron. The attacker wasn’t revealed until his victim slumped to the ground.

The man who stood before Boran was tall and glowering, eyes a pitch black with no irises. A rough mane of black hair tumbled from his head, where two elongated bestial ears peeked out from the dark thatch. A subtle muzzle showed on his face, and his legs were animal-like, walking on his toes with elongated feet and shortened lower legs. A tail lashed behind him, the crisp leather armor modified to allow for the Totem Stigmata.

He was not a nightsleek, despite using their powers.

“DEEP WATCH!” One of the others shrieked, stumbling back from the assassin.

Boran hissed sharply, also stepping back. The organization was more myth than fact, and in all his research he’d only heard rumors. The appearance did match the few pieces of description he’d found over the years. He’d never been sure they existed… and certainly had no idea how they’d found this remote place in the middle of the wilderness.

“He’s visible, restrain him!” Boran yelled out the instructions to the others while reaching for more mana. He had several spells that could slow or even stop even the strongest assassin. For that matter… how had the man snuck past his defenses? His alarms?

His guards?

Boran chose a spell and prepared the incantation, but something else interrupted him.

Mana rushed through his arm, and he felt an explosion of pain as the still-forming spell ran wild and tore the flesh from his bones, splintering his hand in a spray of gore. Dimly, he heard someone screaming… and realized it was his own voice. His own body spasming in pain as mana was sent through conduits far too frail for the massive amount of power lingering this close to a node.

Boran blinked away blood in his eyes and forced himself calm. He was not an amateur. He could control the mana manually. He had to force it outward, away from his body, reducing the power going through his blood and bone. The horrific damage was still there, bruises all over his arms and legs, but he could feel his heart slowing as he took command of the mana that would normally boost his abilities beyond that of a normal man.

He was now as weak as a child, but he was alive.

Through blurred vision, he watched his disciples writhing on the ground, screaming and sometimes tearing themselves apart, or spontaneously erupting into flames. Whatever had cut Boran off from the System, it had done so to everyone else as well.

Except for the relentless assassin, who didn’t give any of them a chance to recover. Ruthlessly, he struck down the screaming mages. Each strike cold, efficient, and immediately lethal. Boran couldn’t tell if he was cold and emotionless, or mercifully putting them out of their misery. Even if the mages survived, most of them – possibly every one – would have been crippled for life.

Boran glanced down at the ruined mess of flesh that had been his left arm.

He wheezed softly and forced himself to calm as the last of his disciples died. The stranger flicked the blood from his sword and grunted softly.

“Thank you for the assistance. I should have been prepared for a dispel.”

Boran blinked as the man spoke to… someone. And in the time he blinked, there was someone there. A child-sized, blue creature wearing a simple tunic, tail flicking behind it.

“It was the least I could do,” the creature replied. “I really should do it earlier, but I can’t read minds and I’m a little busy. I didn’t realize what they were doing until they’d started, and I saw you were here.”

The man grunted back. “You shouldn’t bloody your hands with this. It’s our job, and it is an honor to perform it.” He kicked one of the lifeless disciples in the side. “Usually we catch them earlier than this, but there are always idiots who think breaking the world is a good idea.”

That received a wrinkled muzzle and twitching tail from the blue creature. “You don’t have to. I know I don’t speak to your bloodline often, but every time I show myself to one I say the same thing. Your bloodline is a gift. You don’t have to serve me or my father. The debt is already paid.”

“We don’t serve you,” the assassin chuckled. “We serve the stability of the world. What greater purpose could we ask for?”

He turned to Boran and started walking forward.

“I just wish there were a way to punish the people who did things like this.”

As Boran felt the blade plunge into his neck, he had just enough of his consciousness left to hear the small creature reply to the man.

“That, I think I might be able to help with.”