Chapter 51: Cursed Rift
“A Cursed Rift… And there is a Fiend,” Captain Edric said, fingers of his right hand clenched tight around the sword’s handle. He tapped the jewel in the pommel with his other hand, the darkish lights simmering down, the frequencies of its cries quietening as the Templars stepped slowly by his side. His scowl looked sharp enough to cut through stone when he glanced up at the barricade. “Looks like it doesn’t have Authority.”
Valens shuffled stiffly front to their line, Fireball still burning over his hand, feeling each breath like a whisper of his own, cursing that here of all places he’d become conscious of the damned thing.
“A strange place for a Fiend.” Garran drew his sword as he scoffed at the cold walls, Dain following him in tow. The design of each weapon looked similar, but it didn’t slip past Valens’s notice that Dain’s sword was longer than the others, and wider as well.
“To my experience,” Captain Edric reached forth with the sword and began drawing lines over the giant rocks with its sharp tip, sending a sprinkle of sparks down the ground as the metal scraped a painful cry against the hard stone. “Shadows almost always choose strange places to dwell.”
“What is a Fiend?” Valens had to ask.
“A dweller that has completed its Second Trial,” Garran said. “Which is to say it's over level 200. You better start getting ready.”
“For what?” Valens frowned at him.
“For a show,” Garran smiled wickedly at him. “’Cause if there’s a Fiend, there’s no way it's waiting for us beyond that line all alone.”
Oh, so it's like that Necromancer? Was he a Fiend as well? Guess not… He was human through and through.
“Fancy that,” Valens said, pointing a finger at the seams around the large rocks. “But for some reason, I can’t seem to bring myself to believe that shadows are purposefully keeping away from the town. Those holes look big enough for them to pass through.”
“The Cursed Rifts are different. There is a set inside,” Captain Edric shook his head when he finished with his rough lines. Valens didn’t know what he expected to see, but turned out all that work was for a hexagon roughly placed in the middle of the forefront rock that supported the barricade. “The dwellers can’t breach the set, not unless they have Authority.”
“And what is that, if I may ask?” Valens said.