Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Three |
When Adam landed back in Silt, the others had found three horses. They weren’t the spriteliest of animals he’d ever seen, but they’d received them for free, since they’d saved the village, so it was hard to be upset.
Seo-Yoon looked at Adam expectantly.
“What?” he asked as he handed the box with the true flame to Chien for safekeeping.
“Since there aren’t enough horses, I will fly with you,” she said.
“I told you we can share,” Natalia said.
Seo-Yoon pretended she couldn’t hear her.
Adam shrugged. “Fine, you can fly with me, but you may not like it.”
Her melody filled with excitement and she spread out her arms. “Up and away!” she exclaimed.
Adam laughed and sent his gauntlets over to grab onto her firmly.
Seo-Yoon squealed excitedly as they flew off, while the other three did their best to keep up on their horses as they left Silt behind.
Although they had a quest for the village, the most important part was to avoid the black riders and protect Gothershall. The city would become an important staging ground for taking on the forlorn knights on the fourth day, and they also had to deal with the intruder, who would compromise the city’s defence if left unchecked.
According to Beck, the forlorn bulwark and the forlorn herald would lead the assault on the city’s walls, flanked by an army of a thousand soldiers or more. It was meant to be unwinnable by design, but he had said that it theoretically should be possible to push back the army if they took out the herald, since it was the one herding the majority of the soldiers.
Granted, if we don’t deal with the riders first, then we’ll have five knights all in one place…
There was another knight in the hamlet on the other side of the river, as well as two guarding the throne room in the castle. There was one that would appear in the ruins of Gothershall if it fell to the forlorn army, and the last would be in the castle dungeons.
It’ll be a lot to take them all down, and doing so permanently requires we either stack their corpses or rely on Chien to deal the killing blows.
Thanks to Natalia’s new ring, they should be able to take down the three riders if they could defeat them all.
I think the goal will be to stack as many afflictions on one of the riders as possible before I use the mantle of atrophy to spread it to the two others.
He wanted to employ a similar strategy to take down the forlorn army, but he was quite worried about the pain backlash.
Maybe I can put on the hobgoblin pendant and nullify the pain.
I’ll have to do some testing first.
The trip from Silt to Gothershall was about the same distance as going from Silt to Old Town, and it took them north towards the mountains that formed the boundaries of the stage, while the Oath Spire passed by them to the south.
Adam thought back to the twisted symbol he’d used to awaken the ritualist. It seemed likely there could be more to it, since he was fairly sure the only thing they’d done was awaken the forlorn knight early, since it would’ve undoubtedly awoken once the Forlorn Shadow reached the summit.
There was also the ritual in the middle of the chapel. Maybe you need to use the ritualist’s wand to do something there, or it involves the twisted symbol in a different way.
From what he remembered of the ritual setup, there had been spots for ingredients, or ‘tolls’ as the Tome Keeper called them.
It could be another thing like the ritual chamber in Alepheria’s Tower, but without dozens of random ingredients on hand. Figuring out what would go where, even with the compass, would be quite difficult though, and some ingredients might even be required from other stages…
“Is that the forlorn army?” Seo-Yoon asked as they cleared the obscuring wall of the Oath Spire mountain. In the distance, it looked like a black carpet was huddled up against the large blue river, near the church where they’d obtained the ember on the first day. The Forlorn Shadow was with them, its tendrils reaching across the water like the fingers of an enormous hand.
“It is,” Adam confirmed.
The others below did not have the ability to see above the rolling hills, so they would be spared the dread of knowing how close they were to the incoming wave of darkness.
He knew from Beck that there’d be a knight at the head of the army, carrying a banner spear and a horn, spurring the puppeteered corpses to the walls of Gothershall.
The city of Gothershall was like a white block of stone on the northern horizon, its walls a quarter of the height of the tall mountains the city nestled against. It was the sort of architecture that only made sense in a fantasy setting, but Adam would be lying if he didn’t think it looked cool.
As they continued towards the white walls, they simply grew and grew, their true scale being even more preposterous than Adam had assumed. At its foot they were but tiny ants, and it seemed absurd that the forlorn army would have any way of breaching it.
It likely has less to do with their army and more to do with the Forlorn Shadow’s power.
Adam brought him and Seo-Yoon down to the road as the other neared the large gate that was the only way in or out of the city. It was made up of a brilliant silver portcullis in front of wooden doors that must’ve required hundreds of trees to produce, and whose pale wood had to belong to Centennial Oak.
Unsurprisingly, there was a long line of people desperate to enter the perceived safety of the city. They had likely come from smaller settlements, such as Silt, hoping to escape the incoming darkness.
Adam and his party pushed past the line, but were stopped in front of the barely-open gate by a contingent of eight guardsmen in battered plate armour.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Do you possess an urgent note of entry from Old Town?” asked the main guardsman.
“We don’t,” Natalia replied.
“Then it’s to the back of the line to wait your turn,” he said.
Chien stepped forward. “We have brought a true flame to the city.”
The people waiting in the line nearest to the gate all started whispering amongst each other.
“Is this true?” asked the guard. His melody told Adam that this was their ticket into the city. For a moment he had been a bit worried about having to wait hours in line, since Beck hadn’t mentioned anything about it.
“I would open it to show you, but the flame will go where it is needed if I do,” Chien said. “We were told by Father Adam to bring this to Gothershall. Please take me to where it is needed most.”
The guards man told someone else to take over the gate duty and pulled a second guard with him, before escorting Chien into the city on his own while everyone else waited outside with the horses.
Adam was able to track the two guards and Chien as they climbed what had to be an unfathomable amount of stairs up the wall. The others quickly got bored with waiting, but Adam roused them when Chien and his escort came to a halt somewhere near the top of the wall.
< < Quest Complete > >
< Carry the Flame >
< Brought a True Flame to the city of Gothershall >
< < Optional Stage Objective Complete > >
< Helped the Church rekindle the True Flame across the Forlorn Kingdom >
A pulse rolled through the air as a brilliant golden light shot out from one of the many holes in the wall that would normally be designed for archers and artillery.
The people in line cheered and started weeping.
Then the guards told Adam and his party to enter the city, clapping them on the back as they passed and praising them for what they’d done.
< < Settlement Discovered > >
< Gothershall >
“Is that it then?” Natalia asked. “Did we save Gothershall?”
“Not yet,” Adam said. “The true flame won’t keep Gothershall safe on its own, but it should keep the Forlorn Shadow from crawling over the wall with ease. We still need to get rid of the forlorn intruder who appears in the tournament, but we have to do something to make sure he shows up when we need him to.”
Since Adam had never done the sequence of events before, he was heavily relying on Beck and Emelia’s descriptions, and neither had been as in-depth as he would’ve liked. If they failed to get the intruder to appear, Adam had no idea whether he would show up somewhere else or just not even show up at all.
They waited for Chien to descend the wall and join them, and as the guardsmen left him, they told him that him and his party would be welcome to stay at the guard barracks for free if they didn’t have a place to sleep.
“I don’t think I’ll be doing any sleeping…” Natalia remarked. “I’d just have nightmares about being paralysed.”
Diwa nodded.
“We would’ve been dead if you hadn’t broken free,” Adam said.
“The Guardian told me that I received a gift for my performance in the Floating Sea, and I guess that’s what that must’ve been,” Natalia replied. “I wonder if he knew this would happen?”
The Guardian’s quest for stage seven was to befriend the slug dragon with the aura that inflicted obsidian rot, and somehow obtain its heart as a result. It sounded incredibly difficult, at least based on how Cathy had said it needed to be done, so it was likely Natalia was understating what a challenge it had been.
“Where do we go now?” Chien asked Adam.
“We need to find a collector and make a bet,” he said. “I don’t think people will be too happy to see me flying around, so I need someone to lend me a horse.”
Diwa ended up letting him ride hers while she sat on the back, and Natalia and Seo-Yoon shared another while Chien rode alone.
“Follow me,” Adam said.
Using his compass, he steered them through the city, which was paved with large pale-white flagstones, with buildings that looked like they’d been made of the same material lining the streets. Most of the people they saw wore fancy clothes and were all heading in the same direction: the tournament arena.
“I wonder how they keep it looking so clean?” Natalia remarked.
A second later they saw a crew of people with long brooms and water scrubbing down a house.
“Oh… That’s a bit of a disappointment somehow,” she muttered.
“Even with the enemy on their doorstep, they are comfortable enough to focus on propriety,” Chien commented.
“The routines of normalcy can be a good way to endure the troubles of the world,” Adam argued.
They veered down a road where the nice houses were replaced with opulent mansions, and Adam brought them to a stop as the compass pointed to one with a two-and-a-half-metre-tall man covered in heavy dark-green plate armour standing in front of its entrance. The armour obscured his entire form and he looked like a copper statue that’d been oxidised by decades of exposure to the sun and weather. A huge shield was planted in front of him and he casually leaned a massive two-handed weapon against his shoulder. The shield and sword were the same dark-green hue and both seemed like impractical statue armaments, but when they stopped in front of the gate outside the mansion where he kept guard, the giant showed the ability to move both with disturbing ease and fluidity.
That must be the ‘tower guard’ that Beck mentioned we have to fight.
Adam told the others to wait outside as he approached the guard.
“What do you want?” the big man asked, two dark eyes peering out of the grill covering his face.
“I’m told your master is a collector. I’m looking to find something specific,” Adam said.
“Your friends stay out here.”
Adam nodded and walked through the door when it was opened for him.
Inside he was met with a trophy room full of taxidermized animals and monsters, some preserved in their entire visage and others mounted on plaques.
Another bodyguard, this one human-sized and wearing normal plate armour, quickly met him in the lobby and escorted him to his master on the second floor. They passed through room after room of trophies, oddities, opulence, and tomes, until reaching a study where a fat man with a gilded monocle and chubby fingers studded with rings sat behind a Centennial Oak desk. He had a small grey moustache and wore a green brocade vest over a white shirt. Behind him was a small window that Adam hadn’t noticed from outside, and he could see his entire team through it.
The collector ran his eyes up and down Adam. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a blood mage visit me. I must warn you, my spells are quite expensive.”
Interesting. It may be worth raiding his libraries later.
“I’m not here about your tomes,” Adam said. “I want to buy the key to the Forlorn Castle’s dungeons.”
The collector grinned. “I will not be parting with it easily. Are you entering the tournament? If so, maybe we can make a wager. It will be more fun that way. I assume someone will be entering on your behalf?”
Adam nodded. “It will likely be the one with the large katana.”
“That should prove entertaining. So, are you interested?”
“I am,” he agreed.
< < Quest Unlocked > >
< A Friendly Wager >
< Defeat Alexander Tobias’ champion in the Gothershall Tournament >
< < Optional Stage Objective > >
< Participate in the Gothershall Tournament >
“When we win, you’ll hand over the key without issue?” Adam asked.
“If,” the collector stressed, “but yes, of course. I am nothing, if not a man of my word. When my champion wins, you will do something for me instead.”
Adam reached out to shake his hand with the gauntlet, but Alexander Tobias did not reciprocate.
“I am wise to the tricks of blood mages,” he responded.
Adam grinned. “That makes it easier then. You know what will happen if you don’t hold up your end of the wager.”
“I shall look forward to the match,” he said, before gesturing to his bodyguard to escort Adam out of his mansion.
Once Adam was back outside, he gave the tower guard a quick look as he returned to his team.
“I assume you all received the quest?” Adam asked.
“We did,” Natalia replied. “But what is the tournament about, you haven’t told us anything. Who will we be fighting for the quest?”
Adam pointed back to the guard by the door. “That guy.”
“We should be able to take him,” Diwa said, though she didn’t seem entirely confident.
“There’s one minor problem,” Adam told them. “Only one of us can enter the tournament, and they don’t allow magic users.”