Chapter 60: Acquiring The Shard
And so, it began.
Orodan, Zaessythra and W78 were standing before the periphery of Shadowmoon City. He’d brought up the idea of going in alone. Of course that was immediately shot down. Without W78 camouflaging them, the trio would be almost instantly detected by one of the dozens of scans constantly running through the planet passively. Zaessythra held the fail-safe weapon and was the only one who could reliably kill Orodan before the Hegemony used the shard upon him.
The fail-safe provided by the Conclave - otherwise known as an Embodier’s Sacrifice - was a one-time use destructive weapon of unfathomable power. One that had even caused the Lord of Night - a Celestial skill bearer of level 149 - to immediately become serious. He’d done a bit of reading before they’d stepped onto Narictus in this reset, and knowledge of them was rather sparse. Although what records did say was that the weapon’s creation involved the death of a being at the Embodiment-level.
Lady Sujana, Knight Commander of the Conclave, had no issue with sharing a bit more about it. According to her, it was a gift from an ancient benefactor of theirs. Who the benefactor was, how they’d died and what their relation to the Conclave was, she didn’t say. Still, it was essentially the soul of a slain Embodier was all she’d revealed, and Orodan hadn’t pushed further past that.
He could infer that it was a soul detonation of ridiculous proportions.
Fail-safe aside, they were now stood before Shadowmoon City, and stealth was no longer necessary when they now knew the location of the shard and who held it. It was time to test his newfound skill in a practical capacity.
“The moment you begin using that skill the wards will detect us and any soul specialists they have will sense it too. This close to the city, there’s no way to remain undetected when wielding the quantities of soul energy that you possess,” Zaessythra said.
“Information: percentage chance of detection: one hundred,” W78 said. “Solution: subject advised to develop sense of self-preservation and reconsider planned actions.”
“Heh… you think so too, huh?” Orodan asked. “Mayhap someone smarter would plan and find a creative way through this hurdle, but I believe you’ve come to know me. If there’s a fire, the only way I know is through it.”