Chương 25: A Dragon's Greed.

"Nythera, stop playing games, what in Kronan's blasted head did you draw on my map." She squinted hard at the marker.

"Shelly… it wasn't me, I didn't draw this." Nythera said.

"You… aren't joking? That would be, this is…" Shelly looked straight at Nythera.

"A ley-insight." Nythera finished her sentence.

"You wouldn't happen to know what this says would you? Blast it, I'm going to need to hike the mountain and get Oswin" Shelly suddenly turned serious.

"It reads, "Aetherite Mines"" Nythera answered. A look of shock surfaced on her face "You can read this? How? Nevermind, I need answers, now" She rolled the map up and stuffed it in a wood tube.

"I need to go. Now. I'll be back for dinner. Probably." Shelly threw her coat on and rushed down stairs.

"Child, you have found a good mentor for your profession, perhaps this choice will prove to not be folly." Talvik's voice echoed in her mind. She glared back at the bird.

"What is aetherite? You have any idea, Talvik?" She muttered.

"Aetherite was a foundational material for Aurendor to build and control these lands." Nythera's head whipped back. How does he know this? Is he bluffing? How could he know? That was like ten thousand years ago. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she didn't prod any further. Fine, keep your secrets. Nythera ate a hearty breakfast with the tea that Edwin left out and tucked in for the night. Shelly did not return that night. … Nythera heard shouting from below. Do you really need to turn the house into a warzone?

The sun is barely even up. She got up and went down to check.

"Come on! Just let Oswin come over for a bit, I need to show him this map and I can't exactly move it, can I?" She yelled across the table.

"Absolutely not! I will not let that bastard into this house!" Edwin shouted back. Nythera crept over to the table to nibble on her breakfast while open war was waged above.

"Come on Edwin, get over it already, Oswin didn't even do anything wrong, you admitted it yourself!" Shelly screamed back at him. Edwin glared back, "No, that is final" and fled down into the cellar. Shelly angrily ate the rest of her breakfast, fist slamming into the table several times.

"Sorry about all that, Edwin and Oswin really do not get along, but I want Oswin to come on this trip and it's a lot easier if he was staying here." Shelly sighed.

"Oh, speaking of it, just so you know we leave tomorrow morning, make sure you're all ready by then, won't be back for at least two weeks." Shelly mumbled through her toast.

"What happened between them?" Nythera asked and took a sip of tea.

"Apparently, Oswin broke one of Edwin's finest tea cups, and tried to replace it with a jar he excavated from a site…" Shelly looked at the ground, "This was nearly a decade ago and they're still at war over it. How ridiculous can siblings be." Wow, I've seen a lot of problematic families, but a screaming match over a teacup is a first.

"So what are we doing today? Done making maps?" Nythera asked.

"Yup, just get ready for the upcoming trip. Lance also said he wants you to meet him in the plaza for something at lunch, I have no idea what it is." Shelly said.

"Huh, ok" Nythera took a long morning bath, got dressed and headed out the door, the sun already loomed well above the horizon. She made her way through now-familiar roads with haste, Talvik soared far above her head, he had taken off the moment she had opened the door. The center of the plaza was entirely walled off with wooden barriers. What in Hel is going on here? She walked around the blockade and found one side open, the walls spiraled around, hiding the center.

Lance stood, arms crossed waiting at the entrance. I really hope it's not related to that creepy cult that keeps trying to murder me.

"Hey Lance, I heard you need me for something?" Nythera called out.

"Little Miss Lord, you're here, good, let's get started then." Lance beckoned. Nythera entered the spiral of wooden blockades and went until it opened up. The depot rock sat in the middle, undisturbed.

"Lance, what's the meaning of this?" Nythera asked, a confused look painting her face.

"Do you remember when you told us you could read these things? I figured it would be best to have you take a proper look at it without any interruptions. I know you ran to Amplewoods the minute they found a new one…. So?" Lance said in an increasingly hushed voice as if an enemy would jump out of the woodwork at any moment. She grinned. Finally, something decent happening around here.

"Lance, go back to the entrance…. I'll be done in like, an hour. Can you make sure no one enters until then?" Nythera asked. Talvik swooped down and landed on her shoulder. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Yeah, I reckon I can do that, I don't know what you're going to do here, and I don't want to." Lance said, walking off. She checked over her shoulder three times to make sure Lance was truly gone.

"Go Child, none watches. It is time to claim another piece of your legacy" Talvik's voice whispered to her. Nythera pushed her hand onto the top of Myrraval Supply Depot #3, the all-too familiar prick on her thumb indicating success. As the entrance slid open, she hopped inside, sliding down the ladder with ease. The door above slid shut and she was cast in the familiar red glow of the alien lantern above her. A grin full of avarice lit up her face, social etiquette cast to the wayside. Finally!

More upgrade tokens? Maybe an evolution token? How about a sword that kills everything in one hit? Nythera ripped cabinet after cabinet off the shelves, her health ticking down slowly to repair her ever-bleeding thumb. Before long she had assembled every single cabinet in the room on the center of the table.

"I am concerned about the effect of these depots on your mental state, you seem to be afflicted with a dragon's hunger for treasure." Talvik said with a worried note. He waddled across the table, as if in thought.

"This greed… runs in the family, Aurendor's were famed for their greed for all that glitters and glows." Talvik explained. Yeah, as if you were around to see them. Legend is just that, legend. Even if you were… well I'm just following my ancestry then. Nythera attempted to shoo him out of the way, but he waddled with incredible speed. Nythera had long since ceased collecting the marble rations, their texture was horrible and she didn't need hundreds of days of rations.

The 16 sparks she pulled out of a cabinet however, went directly into Boxy.

"Hah hah! I'm rich!" She exclaimed. When the next cabinet's lid popped off. A token glittered in the dark, unlike any she had ever seen before. She held it against the light. An evolution token… I can upgrade another skill to Primary with this! She jumped up and down.

"Child, you should consider with great thought, which skill would serve well as a primary skill, or whether you should save it to upgrade your existing primary skills" Talvik rained on her parade.

"Yeah yeah, I get it, keep enough evolution tokens to upgrade both [Aether Culverin] and [Synchronized Thunder] before upgrading anything else…" Nythera grumbled. Nythera, not letting Talvik rain on all her fun, rushed to open the next cabinet. Come on, Come on, Come on! More tokens please. From beneath the lid she pulled out a dusty old tome, turning it over onto either side, just revealing a flat, grey cover. She moved to open the book.

"HALT, DO NOT OPEN THAT BOOK." She dropped the book and clutched her head, Talvik's voice painfully thundered within.

"Talvik…. Please no need to be so loud." Nythera complained.

"Do you have any idea what you have found, child?" Talvik inquired with intensity.

"Some dusty old book? What's the big deal? I doubt it's worth much but maybe it has useful information" She said"That is a skill tome, opening it will bestow a skill on you. I have not the faintest clue why it was stored here, these are supposed to be kept in the vault… there's also usually some kind of indication of the type of skill you get, but this book has no obvious indicators" Talvik explained. Nythera stared at the tome with newfound wonder.

The plain grey cover seemed to beckon to her, its desire to be opened apparent. A skill? I could get a free skill from this?

"Hey Talvik, how much would this sell for?" She asked. Talvik merely glared back at her and shook his head in disapproval. Nythera ripped through the last two boxes like a typhoon. Something useful has to be in these last ones!! She stuffed her third inert Communication Array into Boxy as soon as she pulled it out. Just like the two prior, this one was completely inert. I'm going to sell these to a collector if I don't find a use soon. The last cabinet redeemed the entire depot. She pulled out her third Boxy.

She slapped it down besides her double box on the table and immediately tried out several configurations. Boxy oh Boxy, what would I do without you? The box got stuck on the top end and melded into the other two boxes.

"Take that Talvik! I got three of them now! I bet that pocket space will be massive!" Nythera said. She opened the lid to find a familiar interface present. [Enter] The space was vast, considerably more than it was before. And hot. HOT. Nythera immediately broke out into a sweat. The grey stone walls and floor seemed to radiate intense heat. With all that super-charged flux coming out of the walls, no wonder.

"What happened to my pocket space? Why is it so hot?" Nythera complained, surveying her new territory. A basic workbench sat against one of the walls. The heat was degrading her ability to think rapidly. She whispered the exit word. Back in the depot she collapsed on the floor.

"What the fuck? it's barely even usable anymore. My own pocket space roasts me." She huffed, sweat rolling off her brow.

"A standard skill of Aurendorian classes is some form of heat resistance. Patience Child, it will come eventually." Talvik said. Nythera hoisted herself out of the depot, leaving behind a mess of haphazardly strewn cabinets and sandy marble rations. She waited until the door slid close, watching the surroundings like a hawk. She went over to find Lance guarding the entrance.

"Thank you Lance, I got what I needed… I should get home now." Nythera said, walking out of the wooden barricades.

"I hope it'll make a difference, you've got a lot of fighting ahead of you." Lance said with a nod. Nythera nodded back. She skipped all the way back, humming a tune she didn't really know. Given I get an evolution token after reaching level 100, before my class evolution, and I already used one on the Aether Culverin, I have an extra! What to do, what to do? Nythera made her way straight up the stairs to the mapping room.

"What did Lance want? Did it go alright?" Shelly asked without glancing up from the map she was working on.

"Oh, he just wanted to give me a present, nothing too important, can I help here?" Nythera deflected. Shelly looked up, one eye-brow cocked in suspicion.

"Yeah, start packing parchment in that bag in the corner, we need as much as we can carry" Shelly said. Nythera shoveled map-making supplies one after another into an overly filled pack.

"Shelly, how do you intend to carry this thing? If I put another stack of ink-wells in here, it's gonna weigh more than you" Nythera whined.

"What you think I'm just gonna haul around a fifty pound pack on my shoulders with nothing to support it? Bags enchanted dummy, look at the bottom" Nythera focused on the bottom of the bag, where a high density of flux moved in strange patterns.

"It'll weigh maybe… about a quarter of the total once I put it on." Shelly mused. Nythera and Shelly spent the day prepping for the journey tomorrow. Edwin had a similar pack stuffed to the brim with alchemical potions. Nythera tucked in for bed, completely exhausted. Talvik clung to his usual perch on top of her dresser. Just as her mind drifted off he decided to become a nuisance.

"Someone is coming, someone who can help you. Survive until they arrive and we can forge you into respectable Aurendorian royalty" Talvik's voice blended in with her slipping mind.