Chapter 31 - Rune Tracker
Waiting for those eggs to hatch was undesirable, so Liesel asked the mages to destroy them.
And they did so with precision. Making sure nothing reached the sleeping demon. Still, the spell awakened the giant spider. Either the web or the spider was sensitive to the Materiality.
It screeched and then shot balls of white substance from its mouth like a barrage of cannonballs.
Kurvam was directly underneath it, so he had no insight into what the spits did. And instead of dodging, Kurvam tried to cut one, and it instantly exploded into hundreds of feet worth of web liquid, and he was buried underneath it all.
"Idiot!" Yehia shouted, and the way her spear was pointed at him, Liesel couldn't shake off the feeling that Yehia probably wanted to use this moment of distraction to hurl her spear into his throat.
Liesel and the others dodged. As the web bombs met the ground, they exploded still, flaring outwards like a blanket. A stray splash caught Sarkot's ankle and Markil's both feet. They tried to cut themselves out, but the web shrugged off the blade's edge. In the end, they used Materiality to cut it.
Kurvam had been dozens of meters away from them. In the chaos of them trying to dodge, the giant arachnid jumped down from its web and landed between them and the junior Vera.
Two of its hind legs wove a wall of webs, cutting the expedition in two.
The spider kept climbing up the web wall as it knitted it. Once it reached a decent enough height, it shot another array of web bombs.
They dodged, and Yehia protected the Observer, who had stepped onto the sticky fluid still lingering on the ground.
"Drag it back onto the ground," Liesel told Jaisel. Despite its initial size, it didn't seem particularly special compared to smaller spiders.
He conjured a massive spell circle in the air, and from it, hundreds of tiny arrows shot at the spider. None managed to get through its thick shell, but they were enough to hollow out the web's integrity, which couldn't support the spider's weight. It started falling and managed to latch onto the bottom area, which was still intact.
Yehia's spear hissed through the air and stabbed the creature in the joint between one of its front legs. That was enough damage to take away its agency, and the arachnid landed on the ground on all its feet.
It hissed again, opening its jaw to shoot more web bombs.
Fiya's chains shot out from beneath, capturing it instantly.
Liesel was tempted to use Soul Unravelling on it, but that would be a suicidal act before so many people.
She did, however, settle on killing it. At least, she could take its blood, a known thing among her teammates.
Alone, Liesel couldn't imagine how unbearable fighting the spider would've been, not to mention that it would have run away easily. But as a team, it was easier. Well, change once they encountered something a little more keen and strong than quite an inept predator before her.
She channeled Materiality into the blade and waited, watching it.
"What are you waiting for?" Garvin scoffed as he trotted toward the spider.
She ignored him, letting Materiality's hum guide her blade, and when it settled between all the right shades, she swung her blade.
[Shade Severing Strike Executed!]
The blood from the demon's body was immediately soaked into the blade, which gave Garvin pause in his step.
"It's scary how many times you perfectly perform a Shade Strike," Garvin uttered in frustration as he withdrew back to his position.
"How many times have you done it?" Sarkot asked, smirking mockingly.
Garvin's cheeks turned red as he shook his head.
"I have six, just so you know." Markil was proud of his announcement.
"Just six?" Yehia raised her brow. "Twelve, and one of these days, I am gonna hit the thirteenth."
Liesel also focused her attention on Garvin, and he shook his head, refusing to answer.
"Don't tell me..." Yehia peered at him suspiciously. "You haven't even had success once."
"I have!" Garvin said defensively.
"I am sure you'd be better than me," Charbil said, sighing. "I have done it like twice."
"That's not important. If you are all really that interested, then ask her why she can do it like it's nothing."
Garvin had successfully shifted everyone's attention toward her, even the mages'. The mages would be a lot more successful, not that they needed to. They learned spells that burned away the soul just as easily as the body.
"Practice. If you hear the hum of Materiality coursing through your weapon, it tells you when it crosses into the Red Shade of Life and the Grey Shade of Soul. There, you swing your sword, and it should work out most of the time."
"Your Materiality tells you that?" Jaisel frowned.
Liesel nodded, and they all sighed in frustration.
"That's a children's story. You cannot hear Materiality."
"Maybe we have a different understanding of things than," Liesel shrugged. "And Garvin is trying to dodge the question."
They didn't pursue it further because there was no productive discussion to be had either way. Of course, she wouldn't say Materiality was speaking to her. It was more of a feeling, and with practice, it was possible to feel its different hum in different shades of reality. The Shade Severing Strike, in Liesel's eyes, was neither special nor that hard. It was just not useful enough for others to spend the necessary time on, and that created its reputation. She, however, lacked the knowledge that she was alive today only because the Custodian was impressed by the same technique that the rest of the expedition crew was.
Once she had absorbed all its blood, she stepped away, and the mages burned it and the webs behind it into ash and dust, which mixed well with the already grey floor beneath them.
"What about him?" Yehia uttered as a warm smile spread across her face. "Surely, he can handle spider sperm, right?"
Kurvam was not even visible. It was a tent of white webs, probably suffocating him.
Sarkot and Markil cut off all the webs and freed the captain, who had been protected by Verka's ward.
Kurvam seemed annoyed, but at least he didn't take it out on them.
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"It's dead already," Kurvam uttered in disbelief, probably feeling somewhat slighted because they stole his chance to take revenge.
Liesel nodded. She didn't think it was necessary to elaborate on how. However, Yehia sniggered.
"Yeah. Without anyone holding us back, it was kind of a weak insect," she said as she tossed the Materiality Core in the air and caught it barely, earning a few sighs of relief from others. It was the largest core they had found so far, "and it would be making us very rich."
Liesel's fingers tightened on the sword as Kurvam shifted his attention to Yehia. Probably because they had dinner together every day, Liesel was tempted to step in more than if it were Garvin or Markil.
She was glad he didn't, though. They stayed there for a few more minutes as Healer Borran made sure there was nothing hidden in the webs that might be harmful.
Liesel regarded the map once more as Farki Jan finished drawing the landmark pillar with the demon face. She frowned. They were going sideways even now, and so, in a way, they were not making any forward progress.
"We are going back. Now that the spider is dead, we can open the path forward," Liesel said.
"What if there are more?" Yehia asked.
"We'll know tomorrow. If that is the case..." Liesel hummed. It was starting to get late, and for one day, they had taken a large stride forward. At this pace, they might reach the Tomb within a week, though it was highly unlikely. The Tomb so far hadn't been dangerous, and the demon that attacked and took Verka's arm wasn't a spider, so they were waiting for those demons to show up as well. At that time, the spiderwebs weren't blocking their passage, so Kurvam had gone very deep into the Graveyard.
Of course, dragging Kurvam back with them after he had been, unquestionably, humiliated would be anything but easy. Or so Liesel had presumed. However, the expedition leader didn't protest and took the lead again. This time, he stayed only a few meters away from them.
Liesel couldn't help but feel he was slowly assimilating into their team, and as soon as they encountered the next demon, he shattered her hopes. This one was a weaker corpse ghoul and was dispatched quickly. But it was not about individual demons. When to act and how to act in conformity with others was the point. No one was going to ask Kurvam to act like that either.
"Do you think... he has ever performed a successful Shade Strike?" Yehia whispered, leaning close to Liesel.
Liesel was about to say yes, as it would be absurd for someone their age not to have done it once, even by mistake. But she paused. "I think it's the intent that would stop him."
"Now that you mention it," Yehia nodded.
Liesel chuckled at the thought of someone like Kurvam performing a Shade Strike, which was just as much an act of mercy as it was a badge of pride.
"If he has, it means he values pride over his propensity toward cruelty and his apprehension of mercy."
They burned a few of the webs and decided to withdraw from the Necropolis as well.
Strangely, it was only late afternoon when they reached the ruins. It should've been closer to late evening by now. Liesel didn't imagine her estimation could be off by two or three hours, but if time flowed differently inside the Necropolis, that was a positive for them. They could spend more time resting in the real world.
The ruin seemed to have lost a bit of its humanity. The vines were darker, thornier, and almost hissing like a snake. The cracks between the stones seemed to be bleeding reddish liquid. And it smelled like a sewer everywhere.
The walk back from the Necropolis's furthest point to the base was two hours, which was quite a significant length of time. Liesel bounced the idea that they might be at the point where they'd prefer to stay inside the Necropolis and establish a temporary base inside. It would be a troublesome reality, but it seemed almost a necessity within the next few days.
********
"Did you hear about the Door Guardian?" Yehia asked as she closed the door with her leg, placing Liesel's dinner on the stool, and she settled on Liesel's bed like it was her own.
"What about him?" Fiya asked. She was frowning for some reason since she had come to her room. Liesel felt it was a reaction to the gemstone that the Custodian had sent her to mutate a demon. She had not seen anything that she could've mutated. After all, it would have to be more than a random demon that she might never find again. The large spider was definitely a consideration, but that seemed a little too bold.
"Well, Farkija was saying the sword key of the Door Guardian was a legend around his hometown. Of a failed knight who was passed the key to the Tomb of Sirmal, and whose job was to protect the key and the door the key belonged to."
"They could've taken the key and sent it to a different realm," Liesel said. "Would've worked out better... On another note, does he mean the Door Guardian was a manifestation of the story?"
"He believes that the legend was a true story and the Door Guardian was corrupted in the Necropolis."
Liesel bobbed her head. She could see it being true, especially when the System recognized him by name. She would need to use Soul Unravelling on a human to know for sure if it would do the same to others, or if the Door Guardian was a figure akin to the Mindeater. That Liesel had a hard time believing.
"He can finish that story for his town," Fiya said. "It's a good thing, isn't it?"
"May... be." Liesel considered for a moment and then decided she couldn't care about it. "In that case, we should ask him if there's another legend about the Tomb that we should be worried about."
"Well, I have another story," Yehia grinned, "I was born in the Saffron Realm too. But the story I have heard is different. The Knight was actually the son of the Saffron Lord. Afflicted with Ashening, his life would've been nothing but misery. So his father decreed a door to be built at the step of the Tomb, and gave his son the key, declaring him the Guardian."
"Lord Saffron is an old title, though, before the empire ever claimed the territory as its own."
"Yeah," Yehia nodded. "Demon General Sirmal's Tomb was built atop the castle of the lord of the old realm. When Sirmal was slain by the imperial generals, the castle was bathed in its blood, and the Laks decided they would build its grave atop the fort. Lord Barkana refused to vacate the Tomb, though some say the imperial force imprisoned him. A general belief is that he was sealed along with Sirmal inside the Tomb. And now everyone believes he is the one who broke out of the Tomb, having taken some of the Demon General's power."
"I don't want to fight something like that," Fiya said apprehensively.
"Oh, I am sure we are going to see him when we are close to the Tomb, if you ask me," Yehia sniggered.
"Why didn't you tell us about that before?"
"I didn't think about it," Yehia shrugged. "I heard Farkiji and was like, yeah, I know that story. Of course, it's dumb when you think about it."
"And contradictory," Liesel nodded. "At no point could his son have been given the opportunity to become the Door Guardian."
"Right..." Yehia nodded, smiling at Fiya, "But it's an old story. We don't know anything, so there's a chance everything is true, and we are probably going to see the Saffron Lord next."
Fiya shook her head, "We are not!"
"If there's such a creature hidden in the Necropolis, we would be insufficient," Liesel said. "A human, no matter how weak they had been then, who has lived inside a Necropolis and claimed its power is no different from an Ascendant Demon, and I fear, if it exists, it would have touched the Primordial Vein, so its vitality and healing powers would be endless."
Fiya gawked at her. "You can't be serious."
Liesel shrugged. Yehia broke into laughter. "Of course she's not. There's no way something like that could exist."
Liesel didn't voice her unease, but it was not as far-fetched as she'd have liked. After all, the Door Guardian was a mindless puppet and, at the same time, a warrior who refused to fight without his sword. His body was afflicted with Ashening.
Once they left, Liesel went to sleep. She had asked Isa for a potion that would basically knock her out. It was great for her body, which needed rest, or she'd collapse.
She woke up seven hours later, and it was still not dawn. Despite having had a long sleep, her head was throbbing with pain. It clearly had not been enough.
Regardless, she had been waiting an entire day to work on the Crest, and after fulfilling her duty to her body, she felt less guilty about it. Of course, her body wanted more rest, and someday she'd give that to it.
She flipped the book and stopped at the Rune Weaving chapter.
The Crest fortunately required only nine different types of runes to be woven.
Unfortunately, it didn't list the exact number and instead asked her to track the runes with the System Trackers.
"System, create a tracker of woven runes for the -------, name the runes based on functionality," Liesel coughed. Her throat ached from using the Primordial Language. Unfortunately, the System wouldn't recognize a Crest, for then it would be too easy to access the information from the Archive. The Primordial Language was sort of an access key to the deepest parts of its knowledge.
The system screen manifested in front of her face, and it sought information from the Archive for close to ten minutes. It was an almost unheard-of amount of time. Liesel had never thought the System could be kept waiting, but that seemed to be happening. Finally, it manifested a list. Besides the names of the runes, there were the runes themselves that Liesel could weave directly from the system screen, though she would prefer to use the book as much as possible.
[Tracker has been availed for following the woven runes:
Required Runes termed after Functionality:
Preservation I: 0/16500
Preservation II: 0/21000
Preservation III: 0/15000
Binding I: 0/35000
Binding II: 0/32600
Binding III: 0/34600
Binding IV: 0/8100
Bond Structures: 0/67000
Rune Cohesion: 0/2400
Surge Suspension: 0/3200
Dispensing Volatility: 0/26000
Discarding Excess Element I: 23250/32000
Drawing Materiality: 0/15000
Total Runes Drawn: 2/308400]