The Apprentice of Ouroboros [Monster Evo LitRPG Adventure]

Neska's assessment proved correct when they descended downstairs and began exploring the rooms. Some didn't have regular doors, but large accordion partitions that allowed them to open up fully; no door required. Large metal carts lay about, carrying discarded pallets of metal scrap and loose arcane circuits.

"Spare parts, gimmie," Trevor said with glee.

"You're robbing a grave, kid," Durim grunted. Trevor stammered, then his face turned sour when the dwarf let out a deep-throated chuckle. "I jest, of course. But only a little."

"This 'robbery' is actually commandeering ancient technology to protect humanity and the Awakened, thanks." His jaw clenched; he stuffed some of the metal scrap into his dimensional pack and slung it over his shoulder. "It's all about end use."

Inside one room, it looked uncannily like a machine lab, something Risha had described from time to time. At one point, advanced magical technology was used to keep the monsters at bay when Class powers weren't sufficient. As if technology could overcome the monsters' evolution powers that kept pace with and exceeded them.

Ancient steam machines lay silent, the exposed gears covered in spotted rust. Billets of metal sat in dusty piles, waiting for skilled hands to turn them into mastercraft parts the envy of the world. Dozens, if not hundreds, of hand tools were littered about in neat rows. In one box, Neska found a set of gauges capable of measuring down to thousands of an inch.

“What did they make here?” Juni asked, poking at a cast metal shell that appeared to be a conical-shaped hollow with a semispherical bottom. Wires and other pieces hung out of the assembly, half-finished.

“Likely? Golemcrafts. Artificial ones of stone and metal, not the creatures that you occasionally find in the deep places of the world,” Durim answered, running his hands longingly over a wrench set. It was as if these devices and tools called out to him, his eyes fascinated by the room. “We're not back on track at all! The map isn't working as intended. This is virtually untouched. I’m surprised no one scavenged these yet.”

“What I wouldn’t do for some of these for my magitech and artifact lab in my dorm,” Trevor murmured. “Is it theft if you plan to put them to good use, and honor the memory of those who came before?”

“Trevor, lad, you’ll run out of pockets before your eyes run out of wonders to witness down here,” Durim chuckled, waving them forward. “I’m more worried about why it's undisturbed. We’ve had plenty of teams though the area, but this? I swear we should be further along in charted territory than we are. We’ve seen ambush predators lurking in the ruins, feeding on vermin and the fungi down here. Plus, you also find some underground forests. Weird sight, you know? A jungle, underground.”

“How can this place be so criminally underexplored?” Neska breathed. While this machinery might not be of immediate use, precision instruments and machines could make runesmithing a much easier task. Trevor was selectively pocketing several tools, humming contentedly.

“Do you ever run out of pocket space?” Brent grumbled. "I can imagine your demise: too slow to evade a hungry monster because you got greedy."

“These are cutting-edge dimensional satchels, reinforced and expanded for maximum loo–um, for maximum scavenging capacity of dead monsters and alchemical sampling,” Trevor corrected.

“Please don't dissect our corpses should we fall in battle? That would be so not cool.” Brent sniffed the air, frowning. “I got a draft of an air current at the back end of the room. It smells like sinter, metal, and oil. I don't like it.”

Durim reached for his axe, tapping the hilt gently. “I don't hear anything out of the ordinary.”

“No. I can smell trouble coming. Scavengers?” Brent seemed tense too. “Plenty of underground opportunist monsters, even discounting Varadur specimens.”

“Question: how do we tell apart ordinary monsters from the Varadur?” Neska asked.

Durim sounded surprised by that question from Neska. “Well, actually, it’s not so easy to tell. Usually the tells are that the Varadur are organized, intelligent, and they’ve only been demonstrating increasing cunning over the years. However, native monsters–those not affected by the evolutionary power system–it’s quite easy: they’re typically territory-oriented, like any natural creature. They hunt, birth young, and typically appear more mundane, less aggressive. The evolutions, depending on the trait, can make their appearance vary greatly.”

"Speaking academically?"

"No, practically. It's a lot easier to study them after they get an ax-plication of brute force and dwarven fury."

Neska let out a low hiss. "Bad pun is bad."

Juni let out a giggle. "You should talk. We're going to need a bigger container for the amount of coins you've tossed in your pun jar. Anyway, you were saying, professor?"

The dwarf eased another door open, only to find a storage closet filled with junk metal and one very lonely rat skeleton, before closing it. “As an example, Syra has chosen the ‘Mimic Form’ feature that allows her to assume a humanoid appearance. Not every monster species has this power, or it manifests differently. Also note her anemone-like hair; some have a constantly flowing jet of water, enhancing their powers with higher fluid pressure, or may have other growths, such as horns, coral, or even the ability to generate ice shards and steam.”

"You ever think what she'll evolve into?" Juni asked, fascinated.

Neska frowned. "Juni...I don't think she wants to. I don't know if everyone does. I admit, most of my changes have me still looking very me. But some Major Evolutions will be...different. I can only imagine the choice Syra would have to face." She saw the grim look on Brent's face out of the corner of her eye, but it faded after a second.

"Not uncommon," Durim shrugged, continuing on. "The more you go up the evolution tree, the more varied the individual monster will be from the baseline. It’s why some people skip certain evolutions. They…don’t want to lose certain features.”

Interesting. Neska had given no deep thought to her next evolution, though she had thought of several that might prove useful. She was lacking on the close-quarters front still, and needed something to cover her vulnerabilities. Otherwise, she was increasingly unmatched in magical power and crowd control between her venoms and hexes. Some of her skills were lagging, only because they had more niche use, or needed an ability evolution to fully maximize their potential.

Neska pointed at Brent, who frowned. “Okay. What about Brent?”

Durim regarded the wolfling thoughtfully. “He has a strange subset of sonic and telekinetic abilities. Something he did early on must have promoted the prompts of such abilities. I’ve also got a theory that some may become available through Title unlocks. Some titles unlock a broad swath of evolution powers within the individual Tier. Some are, themselves, Tier locked, and only available once you advance. The same applies to Classes. Can you name an ability Risha had that you do not yet?”

“Yes. Her [Inferno Hex] was potent. I assume it is an upgrade, a new ability, or an evolution of the [Ember Hex] ability,” Neska answered.

“Right. It’s funny how the evolutions and the class powers mirror one another, although not in a direct one-to-one manner.” Durim tapped his battleaxe handle, a dull metal thump ringing through the room. “We should keep moving. Keep an eye out for any movement. And definitely don’t touch anything that looks magical. I’m surprised we haven’t run into any ancient mouse traps.”

"I resent that. They all use the wrong bait. Fruit is the right food," Juni fumed.

"Oh, now I know how to catch a mouse when she scurries under the bed," Neska grinned.

"You have a five-foot-long tail! Or fifteen. Actually where's your tail start?"

Neska pointed at a spot where her body narrowed. "About there. And our next misadventure is that way."

They walked down a flight of stone slab stairs to the next floor, the pathway a gentle slope that did not hinder Neska’s progress. Durim peered around as they walked through the hall, where another mechanical lab lay below the first, though filled with different devices. These appeared to be for fusing metal, and a strange lift with platforms attached to hanging chains led up to the floor above.

“Automation?” Trevor asked, confused. “Professor, this is all connected by a platform drive. See? A steam engine powers it, though it’s unlit.” He walked over to the large vessel, an opening on one side closed by a metal hatch made of bolted plating. He tugged at it, and a cloud of soot fogged outward. The wizard got caught in the sooty haze, sputtering and hacking from the particles.

“Coal dust.” Good for the body,” Durim said with a grin and thumped Trevor on the back as he struggled to breathe. “I was born in it, lad! I was steeped in the miasmas of the underworld and all the poisons and toxins of the deep earth. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!”

“Or gives me miner’s lung,” he wheezed during his coughing fit. After a monent, he stooped to peer into the machine. “Well, that’s interesting. I don’t know if that was coal! It might be depleted mana crystals.”

“Depleted how?” Neska asked.

“You can take raw mana from biological or mineral sources and convert it to a variety of simple outputs: heat, cold, acids, energy charges. It’s really a lot of basic alchemy,” he answered.

“I do infuse some potions with mana, but I’m still not sure I fully understand the process in minute detail. I focus on stuff, and magic happens,” she admitted.

“All magic, once attuned to, becomes like second nature. Though the skill ranks are a nice way of tracking that overall proficiency, not just by raw power,” Trevor responded. He peered around, shrugging. “Still no idea what they did in this room.”

“I see wires and scrap in one bin,” Juni pointed out, showing them a section. A metal plate was covered with hundreds of hanging metal wires. Between the junctions of wires, small crystals formed a switchboard. “Maybe this was a magitech manufacturing site. Could make a heck of a lot of things with this.”

“Yes, you could! Except this is…well, it’s more advanced than what even my family makes.” He turned the roughly one-foot piece in his hand, peering closely. “I’m not getting anything on the intent. I think I need more ranks in this power, or more pieces of what’s attached to it to intuit its intended function. A shame.”

He set the device down, and they continued through the hallways. Neska noticed murals drawn into the faded tiles of the walls, and she stopped to read one. “This is some kind of script language. What’s it say?” she called out.

Trevor turned back and pointed his finger at the lettering, reading slowly. “‘Forge of Innovation, of our Royal Magineering Corp.’ It's old Valosian, a much older dialect, so I might be misinterpreting. I find it eerie that this place is abandoned. Hell, get a broom and a dustbin, some grease, and some power sources. We could get this place up and running in a month! Imagine it!”

"This is not a suitable snake nest," Neska sighed. "Way too far underground. Plus I'd have to import my favorite food, eggs." But Trevor was already excitedly jotting down the details. Neska had never seen anyone write so fast in a journal before; his hands were a blur.

“Why does it look like all the people just…vanished? Why abandon such valuable tech? We’ve seen signs of damage, but no bones, no corpses. It looks like a battle might have been waged in some parts, but no bodies or weapons to demarcate it.” He scribbled and asked questions at the same time

“Seen that elsewhere, too. Though in some spots, the corpses lay where they fell. Nothing but bones and dust after a few thousand years underground,” Durim said, the grit in his voice returning. “I don’t know, Neska. We think the people and corpses were…taken. Well, minus the few we've seen, but we're talking a city that could have housed tens, possibly hundreds of thousands. You could fit all of Rivilat and the Academy down here with plenty of room to spare."

“Taken where? By whom?” She still felt an uneasy crawling along her scales that reminded her of the hive. Whether it was tension or the subtle corruption process of the hive, she didn't know. This place felt almost like that: an invisible dread, growing ever closer.

“Dunno. But deeper down. We’ve barely scratched the deeper layers of the city and tunnels. I’d wager we’d hit the hells if we went deep enough. We got hell enough on the surface, thanks to the Varadur and madmen Kings who wanted to be Divines.”

He put his ear to the stone slab, listening intently, fingers splayed across the surface, tapping gently. “And those machines…not as far away. Not as deep down. Still no idea what they are.”

“Guys? Has anyone else reported these machine sounds?” Brent asked, now seeming at attention.

“A few times. We figure it’s ancient magitech on some cycle. No idea what. If we had the full might of the academy to search, plus the military, we could map this place out fully. That’s the dream, anyway,” Durim shrugged. “Why?”

“A theory, I keep thinking to what Kalloway said." Brent tapped his chin, frowning. “There are three possibilities that seem probable. Automated machinery still going, for thousands of years without any outside help and a contained or sustainable power source. Unlikely, but possible. The second possibility is someone running some operation down here with repurposed equipment. I’m more favorable to that theory.”

“What’s your third?” Neska had a dreaded feeling she wasn’t far off the mark with her own concerns.

“Markus. Working down here on some demonish machine.” Brent pointed at Syrona, still stowed away snugly in Neska’s satchel. “We should use Syrona to cover more ground. We haven’t run into any other obvious threats down here, and she’s harder to detect.”

"Speaking of which." Durim clicked his relay. "String bean, you still alive up there?"

"Of course," Kalloway huffed. "We ran into some strange stuff up here. Lots of fabrication space. There seems to be some kind of lift that goes down, possibly to where you are, but the controls are jammed. Can't get it to budge."

"Same. Keep an eye out for any working construct tech. Could be useful." Durim clicked off the relay. "So, you sending out the mini-snake?"

“Agreed. Hey, sleepy! We’re up!” Neska stroked the coatyl’s wings. One eye opened lazily, and she let out a yawning hiss. “Okay, how about some leftover fish as a bribe?” She proposed, showing a piece of the smoked fish they’d saved from earlier.

Syrona chirped and snagged down the first offered chunk, gulping it down in a single swallow. Neska raised her arm, showing the known area that Durim had mapped. “Take a look around, and if you see anything that’s a danger down these halls, you let me know through our link, okay?”

The coatyl nodded and flapped off to sail through the corridor, soon disappearing out of sight. “She’ll be fine. Unless she finds something else to snack on,” she said.

“There’s a common thread between you two snakey cousins: you both can be bribed with food,” Juni said smugly, elbowing Trevor as if he should pay attention.

“I appreciate food. But as I demonstrated earlier, I can still hunt and earn it.” They eased another doorway open, but this room was different, and looked like there had been a struggle. She found more signs of battle in the corridors as they descended to the third-floor basement. This time, there were corpses. And not all of them were humanoids.

Durim knelt beside her to look at a withered husk of a corpse; blackened, crumbling bone and a scorch mark on the floor indicated he’d probably died on the spot from whatever infernal blast hit him. There were several other corpses nearby. “Another worm?”

“No, you’d see this whole building collapsed. I think this was a magical attack. Or…some other creature with fire-based abilities. I see a kobold corpse over there.”

“This far down?” Juni asked, skeptical. “Last I checked, I wasn’t too impressed with the average kobold’s ability to weather fear and danger. Are you sure the kobold wasn’t part of this civilization?”

“Speculation. We’d need more proof,” Durim countered. “You know, if this enigma Markus is down here, it begs the question of why he left this place untouched. I knew that lizard before and after he was Awakened.”

Juni glanced up, surprised. “All we’ve heard is the story of after he became a monster. Not before. Kalloway and Serkin both seem reluctant to share the ‘before’ part. You pick up on that, Neska?”

“I did. Like it’s a painful memory.” Durim frowned as he traced the bones and examined scraps of metal on the ground. “You got something, professor?”

“Maybe. Bits of…maybe magnesium? It’s light. You can use it for some alloys, but it also burns hot if you can get it ignited. Really hot. Hot enough to make even a dragon think twice.”

While she focused on the discussion of dwarven metallurgy and they theorized on what had happened here, she felt a faint connection back to Syrona slowly coming into focus. The coatyl had been gliding through the empty rooms for some time, ducking under alcoves. Neska also noted her clever workaround to bypassing locked, rusted steel doorways through small vents where the bars were wide enough for her to squeeze through. What worried Neska more was that more signs of combat were apparent. Melted stone, crushed glass, and partially vaporized corpses formed a trail, all long since collapsed to bones and dust.

And the trail of bodies ended at the landing down to the fourth-floor basement, the stairwell steps long since collapsed. Even Syrona backed away, trembling.

She could feel the fear trickling in from her companion, knowing something lurked in the shadows. She just couldn’t put a finger on it. “Professor Durim, why is it everyone avoids talking about Markus from before? I feel like I’m missing a piece of the picture.”

He set down the metal bits into a pouch, sighing reluctantly. “Who Markus was–or more importantly, is, is quite important. I know they protected his identity. But bits slip through when you work with your colleagues long enough. Markus was supposed to be royalty.”

“Whose?”

“Arivol.”

Neska stared at him, mouth agape. “You care to elaborate on that one? Because last I checked, Lachmir’s son, the only male descendant, died five years before the Sundering. Lachmir couldn’t cope with the loss, quickly turned to dark and dangerous magic, roped in Risha, and she unwittingly gave him the key to crack the Shoal. And either Lachmir is dead, or more likely, he is the Radiant King, some twisted version of himself after he crossed the barrier of the Shoal. That’s my working theory.”

Durim shook his head. “No. There’s another path.”

“How?”

Trevor raised a hand. “Uh…are you suggesting that Markus is a bastard?”

“In more than one way,” Durim muttered. “I knew that man from before. Dark hair, dark eyes, matches up pretty well with the known descriptions of Lachmir the Damned. Not well known, but it was rumored that well before the fall of Arivol, he’d sired several other children.”

“And this matters, why?”

“Because if Markus was the last kid standing, he’s the inheritor of all of Arivol. Not that I’d be thrilled about inheriting rubble and a giant monster problem, but still. Before his Awakening, he had a potential opportunity to rule a good chunk of the continent, post-war, after the monsters were defeated.”

“Would he still have that opportunity if we wiped out the monsters?” Neska asked.

“No. Any opportunity he had to inherit anything disappeared with the passage of the legislation protecting and directing the Awakened to be funneled to the academy and the military,” Durim answered, glancing at Neska in particular. “After death, all claims of nobility, land, wealth? All null and void."

Trevor nodded, a bitter look on his face. “One of the more repulsive aspects of that particular piece of legislation, yes.”

“So, Markus not only lost any inheritance to a broken empire, but he also lost any claim to anything else he might have had access to, had he survived?” Neska pressed. This was one facet of the laws she wasn't aware of. They had...literally nothing to look forward to? No inheritance, no land, no recognition?

They'd be forgotten. A chill ran down her spine. Vivi... sometimes I fear we make our own monsters.

You're not the only one to think that, Neska. Unfortunately.

Durim looked unrepentant. “I don’t claim to make excuses for what was written into the law, or why. I know that Markus got the shit end of the stick. The fact that the Awakened usually know what they’re getting into is reason enough it doesn’t get brought up. But…Markus? Being the first? He didn’t have a say.”

“Risha robbed him of his choices. No, that can't be right; they didn't have those laws in place when he was Awakened.” Neska would have felt more comfortable swallowing acid than saying those words twice. “Small wonder he wants to kill everyone and everything. Does he know his father could be the source of this world catastrophe?"

"Likely." Durim muttered a curse word in the presumptive stwuergar language of the dwarves. "Neska, I know you don't like talking about the recently deceased witch, but she did make mistakes."

"She miscalculated."

"She was still human. I've heard Kalloway talk about her, worked with her a few times, though not as much as others. You can do terrible things for good reasons. And we can only predict the outcomes of choices we understand. Risha...may not have fully understood them all."

"She did more than anyone. She gave her life for the cause." Even as she defended her, Neska felt another crack in her perception of her witch form.

Markus was indeed her greatest failure. Or maybe only second to letting Lachmir betray her trust in his feigned altruism to defeat death, or whatever the hell he'd promised her. And Risha did her best to fix her mistakes.

But you can't fix a vase shattered into a thousand pieces, any more than you can fix a person broken by death, denied a future, and firmly entrenched in the belief that the entire world was his enemy. It led to a sobering thought, explaining why. At least, partially.

He stopped caring. He became the monster they believed him to be.

She let the others continue the discussion and split her focus to Syrona’s vision. With the last few proficiency increases, Neska found she could split her focus a bit better. The coatyl was on alert, peering at shadows bouncing off the corridor walls, and the clank of metal and stone grew loud. She perked her head up, screeched, and suddenly flew off, letting out a trilling wail as if something frightened her.

Syrona, return to us! Neska cut the connection so she could focus on the team. “Everyone, heads up! Something’s coming! Barricade the doors; whatever it is, it's huge!"

Brent and Durim slammed the doors shut, activating the locks in the stonework that slid down metal pillars, and locked them in place. They then placed lab benches to reinforce the door, while Neska reached out for her roots, anything to fortify their position. A few mushroom growths were all she had to work with, and she used the mycelium to thread a thin but powerful weave over the doors.

The metal and stone clanking grew ever louder, and Neska heard a warbling cry nearby. Syrona slithered through a small hole in the wall and immediately flapped toward Neska and clung around her shoulders for dear life, shaking and trilling rapidly and baring her fangs at the narrow opening she'd retreated from. Everyone grabbed their weapons or activated their abilities, with Juni lending a stony protection to Trevor and the others.

A massive thud echoed through the still air, the stone tiles fissuring, and Durim grimaced. “Ah, bleeding hells, I knew the calm was too good to last! Stringbean, we're down on the second floor, and trouble's coming!"

"It's already here! Syra, blast them!"

The relay cut out as Kalloway presumably engaged in combat. The wall fissured again, and a dull groan of metal and scraping stone emanated from the other side. Neska fired up her barrier to shield everyone.

The wall exploded outward in a spray of stones and dust, and a new threat emerged.