145: Never Meet Your Heroes
Chapter 145: Never Meet Your Heroes
COVEL
The thornrender had been gone for a long time, now.
Covel still did not dare to move, even if he could feel the dull ache of his mana circuits starting to complain about the Blending spell still maintained. If there were any chance that the beast would hear or sense him as he left his hiding place, the elf did not want to risk it. Even with all his training and magic, Covel couldn’t hope to take down one of those. He knew his limits.
His ears picked up a lovely twittering noise, and at last he sighed and let the spell collapse. The small crevasse he’d been uncomfortably wedged within was now exposed, and his scent would be able to escape into the air, but he didn’t worry about that any more. Squirming, he pulled himself out of his hiding spot, tumbling down to roll and land at his feet on the ground beneath the narrow opening in the wall.
“Thanks,” Covel called out as he brushed himself off. He fished his arm into the crevasse once more and tugged out his pack, slinging it onto his back with a groan and a quivering stretch of his cramped tail.
“What would you do without me, Master Covel?”
The musical voice let out some laughter before its owner landed lightly upon a crumbling pillar not far away. Shimmerstreak trilled playfully before shifting her weight about, resettling her own gear.
He sighed at the title she gave him. The term had been… unfamiliar at first, but this far from the Empire many of the splinter communities had come up with very different cultures over the centuries. Some thirty days ago, they’d passed through the edge of a small nation that had a strictly-divided caste system, one in which rooken were the servants of the elves. They’d had to pretend Shimmer was his pet, which had been a source of friction at first.
She’d found much more entertainment in it after they’d “accidentally” disrupted the city-wide power system that kept the rooken under control.
“How much farther?” Covel checked his dart supply as he asked that, and then adjusted the sword lashed across his back. Most Aravel preferred the ancestral spear, but he wasn’t most Aravel. A dwarven-forged sunsteel blade was much more his style, with his particular class combination.
Shimmerstreak hopped forward and across, landing on a collapsed pillar an tilting her head toward him. “Not far, but we’ll want to be quiet. I see signs than we are not the only ones that have found our way here. Several elves are in the ruins, and I saw signs of underfoot as well. Signs of battle. No bodies of either.”
Ears splayed as Covel walked onward over the broken road, his pace slowing to a more cautious one. Shimmer would likely warn him of any danger, but no sense in making her job more difficult. “No bodies? So either they were fighting something else, or one group needed the other. And given where we are…”
“Cultists,” Shimmer chirped in agreement. Her tailfeathers shivered. “Almost assuredly. They’re very active out here of late. Probably Cult of the Dungeonborn, if they’re out here.”
“Probably.” Covel didn’t know, but didn’t care. The strange branches of religions that cropped up in the Madness Lands were a constant nuisance to everyone, but the chaos of the mana rarely allowed the Empire to reach far enough to quash them. Isolated pockets of civilization struggled with the almost feral New Aravel that kept appearing.
It hadn’t always been this way, he thought to himself with a sigh. His memories only went back about six lifetimes, but the eldest of them had heard tales of when things were more stable. First Emperor Loren had only been dead for a few lifetimes at that point, and the progress since had been incredible… but so had the troubles that had grown.
He activated his Bloodline, that special power that had awakened recently that none of his previous lives could boast. The world erupted into strange, impossible colors as he looked about the area, the crumbling remnants of a once-great city awash with mana. Shimmerstreak’s feathers glowed with an impossible combination of colors, reflecting the enchantments layered within.
To his side, a fae ghosted into visibility, watching him walk through the city in silence. He waited for a Quest notification, but the ephemeral being faded back into the ruins without issuing one. He’d gotten out of that problem… out here in the Madness Lands, fae rarely gave Quests that made much sense. Things usually worked out, but he didn’t really have the patience for the distraction.
Covel drew his sword as he crept closer, now following the tracks Shimmer had pointed out. He really hoped they were Cult of the Dungeonborn… those fanatics were dangerous if encountered, but he could leave them out here to get eaten without much worry. The other option, the Cult of the Beyond… he’d have to take care of. That was his Imperial Edict.
A faint chirp alerted him that Shimmer had finally found where the group had gone to, and in another few moments, he had also seen it. He flinched as he saw the symbols crudely painted on the remnants of the grand hall. It had once been a dungeon entrance, so he’d hoped they were Dungeonborn. Instead, he found something else.
The kind of symbols drawn there at the entrance were not Cult of the Beyond. He had no responsibility to hunt them down and destroy them. They were distasteful symbols, even so. He knew them well, as he’d received Quests to eliminate them twice already in his wanderings.
“Reythists,” he grumbled under his breath.
This was personal.
Covel pushed mana into his legs to leap upward, bypassing any possible guards and joining Shimmer in squeezing into one of the gaps in the upper floor instead.
It was time to work.
Although Covel’s Mana Sight allowed him to know exactly where the cultists were, it did not help him find his way through the shattered remains of what had once been a sort of maze. He’d left Shimmer outside to stand watch – something she’d readily agreed to do, given how poorly rooken did in tight quarters – leaving the extermination to him alone. Yet even if he could memorize the way out, it still took time for him to find his way down to the cult.
The words they were speaking were familiar, but he tuned them out. He knew the Reythist creed. It was something of a shame they held the name, too. According to everything the Empire had on the enigmatic First Dragon Maiden, she had been a kind and pleasant woman, if distant from others. There were many mysteries about her life, especially with so few remaining memories of firsthand accounts.
The Reythist extremism only focused upon fragmented stories that inserted their own desires into the events. Each sect tended to focus on one particular story of the ancient holy woman. He had a sinking feeling of which one this was. The presence of underfoot here had made it self-evident, almost.
The Purge of the Scourge.
At last, Covel found his way into the main chamber. He squirmed through a narrow gap, activated Blending once more, and settled atop the ledge to look down at the assembly below. It was as he’d feared, after all.
A dozen of the hard-shelled underfoot were bound and held in a shallow depression in the middle of the room, half-buried in debris and kindling. Torches surrounded the site, and so did about four hands of cultists. More than he’d like, but Covel was no stranger to uneven fights.
If he could take out four or five before they knew exactly where he was, the battle would be grueling, but unlikely to be a true threat… unless they had someone much higher level than he anticipated. He wasn’t that worried about it. Reythists rarely reached high levels, for some reason.
Then he hesitated.
Normally, he’d received a Quest by now. Solen had twice before given him a Quest to eliminate the cultists when he’d encountered them… but this time his notifications were silent. Not that he needed a reason to kill them… but it was very curious.
“Someone is approaching. Unarmed. Elf.”
The words formed in Covel’s mind, sent via the Missive that Shimmer had prepared. He was glad that she’d stayed to keep watch, now… but an unarmed elf out here in the Madness Lands was even stranger. It screamed at him to be cautious.
He sent Shimmer a quick confirmation, and squat down to watch what would happen.
That’s when the stranger walked in, striding through the entrance without a care. The cultists stopped speaking their dogmatic chants and whirled about as one… only to stop and stare.
Covel received the notification that told him why, at the same time they did.
| ACHIEVEMENT: Encountered Reyth the Second |
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| Rank: 8 |
| Description: You have encountered the reincarnation of Reyth while she was aware of her identity. |
| Effect: None. You were in the right place at the right time and did nothing else to earn this. |
“This city is my home, ruined though it may be.” The elf – Reyth – spoke with a calm cadence, neither judging nor welcoming the cultists. “I have been told you are here to honor me. This is not what I made my life’s work. I created roads and counseled the lost. Will you deny me that?”
Covel tightened his hand on his sword hilt. He trusted the System, and while he was feeling a pounding heart at the realization of who he was seeing, he also knew cults and how they worked.
As he’d guessed, the cult leader strode forward, opened his mouth, and began to denounce the ‘false messages’ from the ‘Temptress of Desire’ before him. Covel readied himself to move… but he still had no Quest, so he hesitated a heartbeat.
That was all it took for the leading elf’s body to tear itself apart without warning.
The grisly display stunned everyone, even the squirming underfoot that were still bound in the pit. Only Reyth was unsurprised, letting out a long, sad sigh. She swayed her tail, then addressed the survivors.
“The System will not tolerate this. Please, find something else to pledge your lives upon. I am just a woman,” she claimed. “Release these creatures.”
If any of the cultists still doubted who they were looking at, it didn’t matter. The display of power had convinced them to move, and they almost fell over themselves cutting the thin cords that wrapped around the hard-shelled creatures. The skittered away, and Covel couldn’t tell what they were saying. He’d never really liked the underfoot, so avoided them when he could.
He just didn’t like to see them murdered in cold blood, either.
With the cultists stammering apologies, they quickly fled as well. Covel wasn’t sure about letting them go alive, but after seeing the torn and mangled body of their leader, he wasn’t about to reveal himself. He’d wait and watch this play out.
Not that he was given the chance.
“You can drop the spell, Covel. I know you’re there, and you have nothing to fear from me.” Reyth didn’t even look at him, but Covel’s body stiffened as he heard his name spoken so casually by this legendary figure.
He dropped to the ground floor, banishing his spell. The sword was sheathed in a slow, nonthreatening motion as he looked over the Aravel that claimed to be the First Dragon Maiden. She let him stare, her ears lightly perked and tail swaying in a patient, lazy, contented motion.
“How… how are you here?” Covel finally asked. “And why now? I don’t understand. I’m not even a believer.”
Reyth suddenly burst into laughter at that. “Believer? I’m not a goddess! At least, not yet. Perhaps some day, but right now I’m just enjoying another life… with my memories this time.” Her ears perked up at him.
“The System tells me you’re a good person, so I helped you out.” The explanation came from her with such a simple logic it was hard to refute, despite the extraordinary claim. “Things are changing. You happened to be here, where I wanted to be. Just chance, nothing more. You and your companion should start to make your way home.”
She paused. “Or not. If this is the life you enjoy, I have no reason to stop you. I only know that the world is going to need heroes again, soon. It always has, but their role will be different now, I think.”
“What makes you say that?” Covel looked over the elegant Aravel cautiously, his tail swaying in a wary unease.
“Mmm… just a feeling,” Reyth murmured, before her ears lifted as the next notification appeared.
| SYSTEM NOTICE |
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| The Age of Silence has ended. |