Chương 29: Echoes in The Deep.

Dominic's face dropped.

"God damn it Nythera, did I not make it clear how valuable that hammer was?" Dominic said slowly.

"I thought it over and realized this would pay off the best." she answered nonchalantly.

"Please tell me, that ring, it is at least a cinder tier item? Something essential?" Dominic begged.

"It's a leech ring." Nythera said, her eyes sliding away from him to the ground. Dominic's jaw dropped. Hugh stared straight at her, then burst out in laughter.

"The Lord certainly has a way with items, doesn't she?" Hugh chuckled''I don't even want to know why, when we get to Rustreach we are going to find an appraiser, and if that leech ring doesn't make you sprout wings and breathe fire at level 100 I am going to throttle you." Dominic said and stormed off. The group made their way back out of the dungeon solemnly, the desire to proceed further having long since left them. Hugh lugged back the body on his back while Dominic took on an extra load of treasure.

They arrived at the camp to find Oswin and Shelly busy cooking dinner.

"Oh, how'd it go? Had a jolly good time…" Oswin's voice stalled out as he caught sight of the body bag.

"I don't see Ludwig… is that Ludwig?" Shelly asked, her hand darted to cover her mouth in shock.

"It's ok, we take from dungeons, sometimes dungeons take back. Get the booze ready." Dominic ordered. Before long a blazing bonfire was set up, Ludwig's body had been tied half way up the side of the cliff to keep animals from getting at it. Everyone had a large pint of beer in their hands.

"To LUDWIG, WHO DIED FIGHTING VALIANTLY!" Dominic shouted, raising his glass.

"To Ludwig!" Everyone shouted and raised their glasses. Dominic drank followed by everyone else. Shelly struggled with the pint, but Nythera had it down in a second.

"You guys are great, I can't believe we got that far." Nythera mumbled out.

"It was your destructive power that let us get that deep. I've never seen anything like it." Kennick practically whispered over his pint.

"Aye, the lads right, your firepower was… far higher than I expected. You'll make a powerful lord." Hugh laughed.

"Nythera, with power like that, by the time you hit the first class evolution, you could solo these dungeons, it would provide far greater gains than going in with a group." Dominic seemed sad to admit this.

"But you should still use a group when you can, teamwork is important to develop." he added. Hugh laughed, "Have you checked your status yet? How many levels did you get?" Dominic asked. He shot her a stink eye "That fucking leech ring probably halved your gains in there.". Nythera opened the annoying messages. Level Acquired! x 31 Multiple skills have leveled up! Nythera's eyes bulged out. She held out her glass.

"Another pint". Hugh filled up her glass on the spot, hefting the barrel over her glass.

"Yes, of course Milady." he bowed, spilling some booze onto the grass. She chugged the whole glass.

"Is it that bad?" Dominic winced.

"We were in there for you, you know. You're supposed to get stronger before the next battle." he said with a sigh.

"Oh well, fucking leech rings".

"31" she said.

"31 levels? That's pretty damn good considering you had a leech ring on. Damn lucky tier zero brats getting paraded through high tier dungeons." Dominic shook his head and took another drink.

"Dont spend those threshold tokens while you're drunk, just in case." Dominic added. Yeah… that didn't go well last time either. Shelly stared straight at her. Nythera refused to make eye contact and started on her next glass of beer. We need more energy here! Nythera stood up, held her beer glass out.

"TO LUDWIG!" She shouted.

"To Ludwig!" everyone mirrored. And down went her third glass.

"Child, if you drink too much, I will intervene to stop you from spending tokens." Talvik's voice echoed in her skull. She looked around the clearing, but couldn't see him anywhere in the fire light. I wonder how my skills are doing, did that damn skill level up more or is it still useless? I could really use a booze based skill? I wonder what would…

Aether Culverin (lvl 11>15) (2 tokens) (capped) Flux Sight (lvl 6>7) (1 tokens) Artillery-Command (lvl 6>8) (0 tokens) Giant-Slayer (lvl 5>7) (0 tokens) Flux-Condenser (lvl 1>3) (0 tokens) Grand Administrator (lvl 2>3) (1 tokens)"What in Kronan's funny head ahhaha." she laughed at her own joke.

"Is this? Why does administrator level NOW?" she laughed with vigor, slapping her knees. Hugh watched with one eye brow cocked.

"I think the lord has had a tad bit too much." He took her glass "Don't worry Milord, I'll fill this right up." and then promptly hid the glass. Class Level Threshold Reached: 1 Upgrade Token Acquired 1 Augment Token Acquired"Thank you my peasant, nowwwwww It is time! To spend my new tokens! WOOO" Nythera shouted, throwing her arms up in cheer.

"I think you should wait Milady, spending your tokens while drunk could be… dangerous." Dominic cautioned.

"She did this last time and woke up with nary a token to her name". Shelly laughed at the recollection.

"And you didn't stop her?" Kennick whispered over his pint.

"Nope, it was hilarious, why would I stop a gal when she's having fun?" Shelly replied. They partied merrily until each fell unconscious, and Kennick and Oswin were all that remained. … MY head is like thunder, OW. Nythera awoke on something hard, clutching at her skull.

"Come on Nythera, time to get up, we got ruins to explore today, no time to waste." Shelly's voice called out from the light. I hate light. She curled into a ball.

"Rise and shine." Shelly pulled Nythera into the sunlight. She was given a glass of water, which she huddled over for the next hour. The thought of her newly gained free stats spurred her to action. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. How many did I get again? 31 levels so…. A lot? Free stats: 155 By Kronan… Her jaw dropped.

She pulled up her stats Strength - 20 Dexterity - 40 Constitution - 45 Endurance - 27 Intelligence - 24 Wisdom - 95 Charisma - 21 Flow Quality - 194 Flux Control - 169 Resonance - 240 Hmmmm, I could easily double my dexterity and I could use a dab more constitution. She dumped 18 into dexterity and 14 into constitution. I'm nearing the point where I can consider evolving the Culverin again, but I don't have more evolution tokens… More resonance should mean more Hyper-Flux right?

That would be the best thing I could get right now. Without another thought all remaining 123 free stats went straight into Resonance. Resonance - 363 Flux: 9, 054/10, 527 Hyper-flux: 13/105 Talvik's voice suddenly echoed in her skull "Your flux has reached the point where certain beings… might be attracted to your mere presence, do not raise it further until your prepared for the consequences of such." he scolded. They were soon underway through the undergrowth, making way southward.

Dominic and his group would stay at camp to pack up and prepare for the next stage of the plan.

"You drink too much, have you considered coffee? No hangovers from coffee, you can drink as much as you want, when you want, and never have a problem..." Oswin rattled off. When did he become a coffee merchant? Before long they arrived at another cliff face, this one was much taller than the last one and the stone was a different, darker shade. Shelly was panting, but Nythera barely felt a difference. Heh, guess I'm kinda strong now, at least, stronger than her.

"We can't get in of course, but I heard some… quiet whispers of a certain lady who might have a way with old doors." Oswin chuckled and winked. Nythera strode right up to the entrance. The doors were huge and simple, perfectly set into the stone and clear of any marks save at the center. She looked back, Shelly and Oswin had turned their backs to the door, Oswin was whistling some kind of tune.

"Oh would you look at that tree, I think it's from an ancient society." Shelly said and pointed at random. Oswin nodded "Yes, the ancient society of tree-brains I think". Nythera put her hand onto the door, the familiar pinch on her thumb indicating success. The wide doors swung inwards and red lamps on the wall flickered on.

"Huh, would you look at that! The door suddenly opened." Nythera exclaimed with fake shock.

"Wow, you don't say." Shelly said. They proceeded down into the structure, a gentle ramp of stone descending into the depths. The tunnel was perfectly carved from the rock, a simple square shape tube, with no hint of blasting charges or pickaxe-work along its walls. Kinda eerie honestly, who or what carves out something like this? After nearly half an hour of walking they reached a wider central chamber, the roof wasn't much higher but it was considerably wider. And stuffed full of machinery.

There were massive floating metal carts scattered throughout the room, some of them appeared to be tied to some kind of track.

"Fascinating, it does truly appear to be a mining operation." Oswin said, staring in amazement, eyes darting from one oddity to another.

"This ore, I've never seen anything like it myself, but it does match the description for Aetherite." Shelly said, picking up one of the chunks of rock in the minecarts. It had small blue crystals scattered along its surface. There were shafts, nearly a dozen, descending further into the depths, all smaller than the entrance shaft they had just climbed down.

"Hey, come check this out." Shelly's voice called out from across the cavern, echoing through the halls. God, I hope there's nothing living down here. Nythera shivered. Nythera and Oswin stumbled into a smaller cavern, this one with a pit sloping downwards. Filled to the brim with Aetherite. But is this what they were actually using? It hasn't been refined yet… I think? Each part of the pit was sorted by purity, with the highest purity ore being nearly entirely blue. Nythera picked up a piece and puzzled over it.

What did they want with this stuff? Why did they need so much? Nythera sent some flux into the rock to probe its nature. It flew upwards and smashed into the ceiling.

"Hey guys, I think I found out what the mineral does." Nythera said.

"It floats when fed flux… that's a commonly known fact" Oswin said nonchalantly while examining his own piece.

"But I've never seen so much, or such pure samples, this is incredible. But what could they want it for? It's famously unstable and prone to destroying whatever you attach to it." he muttered.

"Oh." Nythera's cheeks reddened.

"I wonder if it's worth much?" Shelly puzzled over her own piece.

"I've heard in Greymere it was a toy for over-eager researchers trying to sell promises of flying ships to nobles with too much money." Nythera strode about the room looking for anything interesting… after she had already shoved a dozen chunks of the ore into Boxy. On one of the walls there was more of the darkened marble that Aurendor so loved to work with. She searched around the wall, looking for any inscriptions, but found nothing. Until her foot ran into something hard.

OW, you'd think they would have smoothed out the fucking ground. She grabbed on the metal she had kicked and pulled it out of the rubble. A head sized metal sheet. Full of Aurendorian runes. She hastily deciphered what she could on the spot.

"Shipment of …. Transfer to Fire Island Refinery on … Ore at 68% purity. Extraction rate at 23%. Refined shipment consigned for Myrraval Northern Shipyards at …. Signed Chief Merion Verenic" Nythera hastily flipped it over to see if there was more. She was met with erratic etchings, crude and fast.

"It awoke. WE AWOKE IT. send help now. It's drinking from …. At a rapid pace. Nothing works, its spawn spreads. The Depth-Hall has fallen. The entrance won't open. …. Is at its zenith. It has moved." That was it, all she could extract from the text.

"We need to leave, now." Nythera said, striding out of the sub-cavern.

"What? But we just got here? I would like to explore deeper." Shelly complained.

"Aye, I agree with Shelly, I want to see how they extracted ore. Perhaps we can find why they abandoned mid-harvest." Oswin said. Nythera thrust the tablet into his hands and scanned around the now well-lit cavern. We are fools, we basically broadcasted our position to whatever's down here. If it can close the entrance….

"What does this say, are these… Aurendorian runes? They look rather crude." Oswin complained, yet examined them as closely as he could.

"You don't get it. On one side they talk about a shipment meant for "Fire Island"." Nythera flipped it over, showing him the neat and orderly script.

"And on the other." She flipped it back over.

"They talk about something they… awoke in the depths. They don't say what, but there is something down there, but it's responsible for the mines being shut down. It likely killed all these workers, well it and its "spawn"." Nythera informed him, keeping a cautious eye on all the tunnels she could as they made their way back to the exit tunnel. SHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK All three heads snapped toward the farthest tunnel.

"We need to go, NOW." Nythera urged and began running up the incline.

"Aye, I think that'd be wise." Oswin agreed. They ran up the slope as fast as they could. Nythera peered back. SHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK ITS BEHIND US. She picked up her pace as much as her body would let her. I am so investing in endurance and dexterity after this. Oswin was far out-clipping her and Shelly, surprisingly fast for his age as he barreled up the passage like a rocket.

The shimmer of daylight soon reached the group and they practically dove out of the entrance, turning back around to face whatever came out.

"Nythera, close the doors, we need to reseal this." Oswin ordered. Shelly grabbed on one of the doors and swung it shut, Nythera did likewise with the other. As it closed she watched the cracks. Two massive yellow eyes stared back at her from the dark. SHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK"AAIIIIIIYEEEE" Nythera screamed and slammed the rest of the door shut. She could feel something locking into place on the other side. She and Shelly collapsed onto the grass.

"What the fuck was that?" She asked.

"Fluxspawn? Maybe they found a dungeon down there and had trouble controlling it?" Shelly suggested.

"That wasn't a fluxspawn, not a regular one." Oswin said, shaking his head.

"Are you sure you read that tablet right? You sure it said "spawn"?" Oswin asked in a whisper.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was "spawn", why?" she replied.

"Its probably a natural god, but it could be a natural guardian as well… or even something older…" Oswin said, drifting off into his own thoughts.

"Something older? What do you mean?" Nythera asked. He faked a smile "don't worry about it, it's nothing but fairytale, it was probably just a natural guardian, they sometimes make offspring." he explained.

"Say Oswin" Shelly said between breaths "You think Fire Island is what I think it is?".

"There's no other possibility. The Aetherite refinery is on Volkion."