Ch 224 – Sifting Through Relics
The moment the I-shaped column settled into the marble flooring with a solid thunk, the four of them immediately broke into a sprint, rushing towards the narrow gap between two massive dunes in front of them.
Deacon took point at the front while casting Blood Sense, Bonehead kept himself in the left middle of their formation, and Leon covered the rear while reaching up to grab Valorie and lift her onto his right pauldron.
Whilst sitting on her brother’s shoulder, she locked her legs around both his armpit and bicep to secure herself as he continued sprinting forward while she drew her bow and nocked back an arrow, her aim constantly shifting between different people who glanced in their direction.
On her hunch, the teams that had been positioned on the column's cardinal edges all sprinted in the directions they'd been facing, while the team of twelve in the middle remained where they were and began to—
"Ranged stationary hostiles on our six! On our six!" Valorie shouted to her Guildmates just before the arrow she'd been holding against her bowstring shot forward and embedded itself deep into the exposed neck of a mage, an inch below his adam's apple, who had been aiming his wand at her.
"Arrow incoming on the left!" Valorie shouted, causing Bonehead to shift his slightly inward, only for the arrow to strike Leon squarely in the right side of his lower back, producing a pained grunt from him as the arrow tip struck his heavy armor plating and blunted itself before bouncing off.
"My left, sorry!" Valorie quickly amended just as her newly nocked arrow shot forward, the projectile covered in a heavy sheen of stamina that pierced clean through the upper right portion of the studded round shield a warrior had raised to block her shots and embedded itself into the forehead of the archer who had struck her brother.
In that same moment as her arrow caused the archer's head to snap violently backward, another arrow fired from the eastern direction slammed into the side of the warrior's neck, whose shield her arrow had just penetrated, coming from the team who had sprinted eastward.
"Other teams are firing back at them, too!" Valorie relayed that the team of twelve in the middle was now being attacked in retaliation by all three teams that had sprinted in the cardinal directions.
Another arrow left Valorie's fingers, only for it to bounce off harmlessly as the person standing at the center of the middle group pulled out a large red banner from their inventory and slammed its pole down into the ground, instantly creating a shimmering translucent red dome around their entire group that successfully deflected all incoming arrows, fireballs, and manabolts being fired at them from multiple directions.
"Banner from Floor Four!" Valorie shouted to inform her team as she aimed at a red-robed mage who had turned to look directly at her, only to barely jerk her head to the side just in time as an Ice Spear spell nearly took her head clean off, immediately followed by a Mana Bolt that struck the ground directly behind Bonehead from a second mage who had shifted their focus onto attacking their fleeing group.
However, just before Valorie's retaliatory arrow could leave her fingers, the spell Leon had been holding while running released as his right foot struck the ground, and from that impact point a fissure of earth rumbled backward before a massive Earth Wall erupted behind them, causing the two Ice Spear and Mana Bolt barrages being fired at them to splash harmlessly against the stone barrier.
"Our backs are covered, book it!" Valorie shouted as she smacked the side of Leon's shoulder beneath her, pulling Deacon's attention away from watching the red silhouettes of other teams through Blood Sense that had descended from different columns scattered throughout the chamber.
Turning to glance back over his shoulder, Deacon could see that the Party in the middle was now sprinting toward the smaller Party of mixed races that had run westward, having already culled their numbers from five to just two survivors, and were now disengaging from attacking the other three groups in favor of securing an easy kill and looting what they could from them.
"We're clear from the back!" Deacon relayed to his team as he made a sharp right at the fork at the end of the narrow crevice between dunes, leaping cleanly over the corner edge of the dune on his right with his Guildmates following hot on his heels as they sprinted for another fifty meters before he took a hard left, his eyes constantly darting between the numerous Parties running across the tops of dunes or through the narrow spaces between them.
The Hoarder really fucked everyone over and pushed almost everyone into a kill-or-be-killed mindset, Deacon grimaced as he saw more and more red silhouettes fighting each other. This Floor just became that much harder.
After successfully creating enough distance between themselves and every other team that had arrived on Floor Thirteen alongside them in that initial wave, the four of them finally began to make use of their limited time to begin sifting through the countless relics scattered that made up the dunes around them.
Standing at the top of a particularly large dune, Deacon grabbed hold of a large wooden heater shield covered in numerous arrow punctures, deep sword cuts, and a fist-sized hole punched clean through its upper left side.
Raising the damaged shield up to face level to get a better look at it, Deacon used Identify on the relic.
Item Name: Shield of the Nameless Soldier
Type: Broken Relic
Rarity: Common
Effect: Allows the user to enter the inner world of the lingering soul to fulfill its dying wish.
Description: A battered shield, pierced clean through, bearing the marks of a soldier's final stand. Within it holds an echo of a soul belonging to a soldier who remained stalwart at the front of battle to protect his homeland from the invaders of a neighboring kingdom. Within the first hour of battle, the soldier's shield was pierced by a lieutenant’s spear, continuing through his chest and out his back
Difficulty: High–Feeble
Shit, way too difficult for a feeble soul's reward, Deacon summarized to himself before casually tossing the shield over his head and sending it tumbling down the steep slope of the dune.
Unfortunately for Valorie, the shield bounced into the air as it tumbled just a few meters before reaching her, and its corner edge struck her squarely in the small of her back as she was hunched over, digging through relics, eliciting a garbled, pained choking noise from her.
"Sorry!" Deacon called out quickly with a grimace that brought the end of his lips to his chin from hearing the horrible noise she'd made before going back to scavenging through the relics scattered across the top of the dune.
His apology was answered moments later when he was struck firmly in the back of his head with what felt like some kind of half-pipe object that clanged against his skull before rolling off his back and landing on the sand behind him.
"I deserve that," Deacon acknowledged with a shrug as he reached down to grab whatever Valorie had thrown at him in retaliation and brought it up to Identify.
Item Name:Hilt of Joyeuse
Type: Broken Relic
Rarity: Rare
Effect: Allows the user to enter the inner world of the lingering soul to fulfill its dying wish.
Description: A worn blade hilt, its weapon long since lost. An echo of a fallen monarch lingers within it — one slain before he could claim the throne. Bound and controlled by witches who sought to prevent a prophecy foretelling their end, his will was shackled until the moment before his execution, when their hold was lifted, and he was left to face death, never once seeing who orchestrated his death.
Difficulty: High–Moderate
Oh shit, this is actually pretty good – a sword relic! Deacon mused in surprise as this was his first High-Moderate difficulty relic that he'd successfully Identified in the half hour or so that they'd all been searching through.
"Thanks!" he shouted over his shoulder toward Valorie as he moved to carefully pocket the relic in one of his empty belt pouches so he could continue searching for other relics that spoke to him.
He had approximately an hour and a half remaining to search for some before they would all reconvene and discuss whether anyone had found a relic they wanted to use, at which point whoever felt ready would delve into the inner world of their chosen relic to attempt fulfilling the soul's dying wish, and upon completing it they would exit and relay what the experience had been like and what boon they'd received.
Of course, of which to subtly solidify Valorie and Leon’s trust in him; he would volunteer to be the first one to attempt a relic dive as he'd promised earlier, keeping his word so he wouldn't come across as a hypocrite.
"Hello," a feminine voice whispered directly beside his left ear, causing Deacon to immediately leap away from where he'd been crouched down and whip around to face where the voice had come from, hands drawn out the twin daggers that had been sheathed just above the small of his back and held warily in front of him.
However, no one was anywhere near him — Valorie was still digging through relics at the base just below him, Bonehead was searching through the top of an adjacent dune, and Leon was at its base doing the same.
As his eyes darted around, trying to locate who had whispered those words directly into his ear, his mind suddenly recognized the voice.
"The Djinn," he muttered quietly beneath his breath while his hand instinctively moved toward Echoform Reliquary.
"Correct," the Floor Guardian answered in that same whispering tone that sounded as though she was speaking directly into his ear once more, despite being completely invisible, causing him to swipe retaliatorily in the direction before immediately leaping backward defensively and continuing to search for any sign of her physical form.
"What do you want from me?" Deacon hissed out quietly while his eyes continued darting around, trying to locate her.
"Nothing threatening, I assure you," she responded, and he could practically hear the smirk in her voice despite not being able to see her face. "I'm actually here to help you – though it might be best if you stop swinging those around like some maniac."
She has a point... and I already owe her a favor from Floor Nine, Deacon scowled internally as he slowly lowered his defensive guard somewhat while still remaining wary of her true intentions, though her next words raised all the hairs on the back of his neck.
"Don't worry yourself unnecessarily, I'm not here to call in the favor you currently owe me," she chuckled with apparent amusement. "This is separate from that debt entirely."
"Then what exactly do you want?" Deacon asked while keeping his voice low enough that his Guildmates wouldn't overhear.
"Cup your palms together and hold them out," she advised him cryptically.
Frowning deeply at her strange request but ultimately deciding to comply, believing if she wanted him dead, she could have done so already, Deacon brought both his palms together and held them out in front of him.
The moment he did so, a small object suddenly dropped from seemingly nowhere in the sky above and landed perfectly in his cupped palms.
"A….riser?" he mumbled in confusion as he slowly recognized the bow part.
"It belonged to a kinsman of yours," the Djinn's voice informed him, with a slight purr that tickled his ear.
Deacon's eyes widened before quickly using Identify on the relic.
Item Name: Cracked Riser
Type: Broken Relic
Rarity: Rare
Effect: Allows the user to enter the inner world of the lingering soul to fulfill its dying wish.
Description: A splintered bow riser, worn smooth in places and cracked along its frame. Within it remains but an echo of a young, prodigious archer - one whose life was cut short before he could embark on his dreams as the greatest hunter. As he returned from collecting firewood, he had just been in time to witness his parents being gutted and trampled under hoof by a demonic boar who chased after bandits who believed they could capture it. In his attempt to flee, the young archer tumbled off a cliff and awoke days later to find himself in shackles and enslaved within a mine without any feeling in his left arm. Taken advantage of by both his fellows and masters, the young archer died before he could set foot outside; never given the chance to reclaim his freedom or seek retribution.
Difficulty: High–Moderate