Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Six |
The arena attendants cleaned up the sand and got rid of the blood, while the crowd filled with excitement about the final match.
Many of the other fighters had found their way to the stands and were now mixed in with the spectators.
Guard captain Tabian sat down next to Adam and his group where an available spot had magically appeared when they hadn’t been looking.
“Well fought,” Chien commended him.
Tabian nodded. “She is a quick one, that Traveller.”
“I’m surprised a guard captain would just leave their post to participate in a tournament,” Diwa said.
Tabian smiled, taking no offence at her remark. “I came to Gothershall to hunt down a traitor,” he told her. “It was merely good timing that the tournament happened today. I had some time to spare since I am waiting to get word back from an informant.”
< < Quest Unlocked > >
< A Traitor behind the Walls >
I didn’t realise he had a quest.
“Isn’t the traitor Alexander Tobias?” Diwa asked.
Tabian looked thoughtful. “There have been a lot of rumours, but nothing concrete. My informant is looking into one of his warehouses as we speak.”
They looked to the booth with the four important men and noticed that the collector was missing.
That can’t be a coincidence.
Then Natalia emerged from the tunnel at one end of the arena and Adam immediately stood up.
A dark and sinister melody flowed from the opposite tunnel, just behind the melody of an eager and arrogant person.
“At last, a challenger has been decided after many rounds of fighting! Give it up for the Traveller!”
The crowd roared.
Diwa, Seo-Yoon, and Chien all got up as well. Tabian looked at them and decided to also stand.
“I take it you have advanced information,” he remarked.
“Be ready to fight,” Adam told him.
Tabian put a hand on the pommel of his sword. His helmet was in the crook of his left arm.
“But will the Traveller have what it takes to unseat our reigning champion!?” the announcer exclaimed. “Give it up for our five-time tournament winner, Patroclus!”
The audience’s excitement hit a fever pitch as people got up around Adam and his group, stomping their boots into the floor of the stands and shouting the names of the two fighters.
Patroclus emerged from his tunnel, grinning from ear to ear and waving at his many fans. He had olive-tan skin and wore a golden-bronze suit of Ancient Greece inspired armour, which was shaped to have the appearance of muscles. His weapons of choice was an oval golden-bronze shield and a xiphos.
No sooner had he stepped onto the arena sand than a shadow broke from the tunnel behind him, a head taller than him and wearing an old blue tabard over rusted plate armour, along with a triangular shield with a faded insignia on its face.
The moment that Tabian, Adam’s team, and the other spectators noticed him, it was already too late to do anything.
With a loud screech of metal and crunch of bones, the forlorn intruder rammed his halberd through the back of Patroclus, lifting him into the air like a trophy, before tossing the body aside and striding across the arena towards Natalia.
The audience screamed and fled for the exits, leaving only a few people behind, most of whom were the tournament participants.
Adam didn’t dare move until the announcements came.
< < Quest Complete > >
< The Gothershall Tournament >
< Won the Tournament >
< < Optional Stage Objective Complete > >
< Won the Gothershall Tournament >
< < Optional Stage Objective > >
< Defeat the Forlorn Intruder >
Adam jumped down from the stands, floating himself to the sand as his team followed him down. Tabian, the Nightfarer, the Elphin with the spear, Alicia the duellist, and several of the other tournament participants, who hadn’t been seriously injured, followed their lead.
“Don’t forget to let Chien deal the killing blow!” Adam told his team as he mixed blood and fire to create liquid blades that he swung against the intruder, causing sand and smoke to obscure the figure, and buying the others time to get into position.
Diwa, Chien, and Tabian were the first to rush into the melee range of the boss, although Diwa brought up the rear since her amalgamated armour slowed her down a lot. She just barely avoided the wide slash of the intruder’s halberd as it tore out of the obscuring cloud Adam had created.
The axe-head of the halberd struck Chien’s war hammer and sent him tumbling across the sand, with foul black energy lingering on him. Tabian was able to deflect the strike, but the same tainted energy spread down his weapon and into his arm.
Adam coated the fingers of his left raiment gauntlet in sticky flames and shot them at the forlorn intruder in rapid succession while Natalia charged in with the other tournament fighters.
Seo-Yoon held back, waiting to use her sun flare until the time was right, but she fired a few attacks with her spell-staff.
To Adam’s continued frustration, his attacks were feeble against the dark magic that covered the intruder, and even when they struck in places the knight was not protected by its power, the damage was immediately covered by the Shadow.
As Chien got to his feet, Tabian tried to parry another attack, but the taint affecting his arm made his movements sluggish, and he wasn’t able to bring his sword up to properly intercept the powerful halberd, causing its blade to shear through his forearm and nearly detaching his dominant hand in the process. Diwa caught the tail-end of the strike against her shield and was knocked back onto her ass.
The tournament healers were some of the last non-combatants sticking around, and they clung to the edges of the arena, ready to assist but clearly scared to get too close to the intruder.
Tabian tried to retreat, but the injury and dark affliction slowed even his legs.
The intruder took a step forward and swung again, but before the axe-head could cut Tabian in half, Alicia the duellist stepped into its path and a loud clang echoed across the arena, knocking the weapon sky-high.
Then Natalia leapt past, activating her katana’s special skill and causing a breeze outward from her, ruffling Adam’s hair when it reached him.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Her skill decapitated the forlorn knight, but the Shadow instantly bridged the gap and held his body together.
Adam sensed a shift in the knight’s twisted melody.
“Watch out!” he yelled.
The other fighters tried to get in close to deal damage, but the intruder suddenly released a black pulse and the Shadow rapidly spread across his body and weapon. Those nearest to the boss were blasted with a dense wall of tainted energy and punched several metres away, their bodies broken and twisted.
Then the intruder leapt forward, crushing the Elphin spearman under his metallic boots as he landed and sending a destructive wave across the sand to strike the Nightfarer, cutting through his lantern shield and body as though he was made of smoke.
“Look at me!” Diwa yelled at the knight, forcing him to focus entirely on her as she moved his line of sight away from everyone else.
Adam pulled as much material out of his raiment as he could without disabling the skill, and created six hands of blood, bone, and flesh, crushing them all against the intruder to keep him in place.
“Now!” he yelled at Seo-Yoon.
At the same time, Chien charged across the sand with his war hammer lifted.
Seo-Yoon launched her sun flare, stinging the eyes of everyone nearby.
At the same time, the Shadow slammed against Adam’s constructs, trying to break free and rapidly destroying them in the process. Unlike the amalgamated knight, it wasn’t able to immediately take over the control of his spells.
Maybe that only works when we’re fighting inside the Forlorn Shadow’s reach.
Adam moved one of the hands away just in time to allow the flare to zip into the intruder’s shadowy armour, dispelling the magic. Then he pulled all of the hands away, managing to retain about sixty percent of their mass.
Chien swung his glowing war hammer into the intruder’s exposed chest, sending a ripple of holy magic washing over him.
He swung again, separating the bonds keeping the head attached to the neck.
Before he could strike a third time, the announcement came.
[Forlorn Knight defeated.]
< < Optional Stage Objective Complete > >
< Defeated the Forlorn Intruder >
Adam reabsorbed the six constructs into his raiment, and then scooped up the two dead bodies as well, lest they become a part of the Forlorn Shadow’s army. He got some sour looks from the people around him, but the alternative was far more unpleasant, so he ignored them.
A healer was already treating Tabian’s arm and another was trying to dispel the taint that had afflicted Chien and the duellist.
Adam went over to the dead intruder’s body where its weapon had been dropped and cracked open its torso to retrieve the core of darkness, before inspecting the halberd. Seo-Yoon, Diwa, and Natalia joined him to see what it was.
< < Secret Weapon Obtained > >
< Tainted Halberd (Rare) — The halberd of the Forlorn Intruder >
< Unique Skill ( Severing Darkness ) | Slash the blade downward to release a wave of shadow that cleaves through armour and inflicts Necrosis on contact >
They shared a few looks, but none of them wanted the weapon.
Chien came over once his affliction was gone to take a look as well, and Tabian was right behind him. The healers hadn’t been able to fully fix his arm, but it was bound up tightly, so it would perhaps recover in time.
“We owe you a potion,” Natalia told Tabian.
“Don’t worry about it,” the guard captain replied. He knelt down next to the dead knight. “Now, the question is, how did a royal knight make it past the wall and into Gothershall?”
< < Quest Updated > >
< A Traitor behind the Walls >
< Find out how the Forlorn Intruder got inside Gothershall >
Adam looked around, reaching out with his blood sense to try and locate the dead body of the tower guard.
It’s moving…
He couldn’t sense any tainted melodies, so he was fairly sure that the tower guard’s body hadn’t been reanimated. Yet. However, it was clear that whoever had brought the intruder inside Gothershall had some means of hiding its presence.
“Follow me,” Adam said and moved down the tunnel that the intruder had emerged from.
The others quickly followed him, Tabian included.
“What about the prize money??” Natalia asked. “Don’t tell me I fought that hard for nothing!”
“I’ll make sure they don’t cheat you on your prize,” Tabian assured her.
They stopped where the tunnel branched left and right. The left path would take them back to the entrance, and the right led to where the fighters had been waiting between matches.
“Is there a door leading out from the room in the back?” Adam asked Natalia.
“There is,” she answered.
He went right and she kept up with him as they found the back room, where benches and tables with refreshments crowded the space. A large set of doors led out of the arena tunnel. A stone coffin had been cracked open and discarded near the doors. It was similar to the one they’d seen inside the chapel atop Oath Spire.
That explains how they got the intruder into the city at least.
“Was that coffin here when you were waiting?” Adam asked Natalia.
“It was,” she replied. “But it was intact.”
Tabian nodded.
“They must’ve used the coffin to smuggle in the intruder,” Adam guessed.
“Now the question is, where did it come from?” Tabian responded.
Adam went out through the doors and they followed him into the sunshine.
“Where are we going?” Natalia asked him.
“To wherever they took the tower guard’s corpse, and I’m assuming the other bodies too,” Adam explained.
“Usually, the corpses would be taken to the church,” Tabian said.
“Which way is that?” Adam asked.
“In the city’s northwestern corner.”
“They’re to the east, not west,” Adam replied.
“That would lead towards the workshops and warehouses,” Tabian said.
I’m glad Natalia didn’t kill this guy in their match, Adam thought.
He hadn’t realised just how insightful the guard captain was, nor that he had a quest tied to him.
Guards were out in force as they followed the melody Adam was sensing, but it seemed that the citizens were starting to calm down, now that the threat was gone.
“What would happen if the tower guard were resurrected by the Forlorn Shadow?” Diwa speculated.
“We’d likely end up with another forlorn knight,” Adam guessed.
They reached the workshop area of Gothershall, where smiths and their assistants were busy creating weapons and armour for the city’s defence. Much of what they made was carted off towards the wall where the guards seemed to have their barracks, but some was also stored into nearby warehouses for later.
Adam’s blood sense brought them to a warehouse on the very edge of the city, placed directly up against the mountainside.
“Do you smell that?” Natalia asked.
They all could. It was a stench like carrion.
Tabian stopped near the locked door of the large warehouse made of stone. He was looking at something that’d dropped to the ground. It looked like a bloodied gauntlet.
Adam placed his glass hand on the blood and saw the final moments of a man as two armoured guards grabbed him and slit his throat.
“This belonged to my informant,” Tabian said with a frown. “He was one of Alexander Tobias’ guards.”
“The person who wore that is dead,” Adam told him.
“Let’s get this door open,” Seo-Yoon said eagerly, pointing her spell-staff at the doorframe.
“I’ll do it,” Adam said and stepped up to the lock. He elongated one of the fingers of his left gauntlet and shoved it into the lock, before spinning the cylinder and forcing it to open.
As he pulled the door aside, the stench they’d been smelling came flooding out of the warehouse.
Inside, lit only by the sun that fell through the open door, were racks of hanging decayed bodies. The warehouse dug deep into the mountainside, and there were easily eighty dead bodies hanging within in neat rows. It also looked like there was a tunnel running further into the mountain and potentially leading out of the city.
< < Quest Complete > >
< A Traitor behind the Walls >
< Identified the Traitor in Gothershall >
“It’s a goddamn secret entrance!” Natalia exclaimed.
“We should blow it up,” Seo-Yoon said.
“I’ll handle the bodies first,” Adam told her and went inside, absorbing the corpses while spreading out his blood sense to try and locate Alexander Tobias.
It looks like he already made his escape from the city, Adam surmised, since the collector’s melody was moving through the mountain, accompanied by five or six other people.
Maybe if we hurry, we can send a fireball up their asses.
Adam located a convenient oil lamp and called Seo-Yoon into the charnel house.
“Use this to fill the tunnel up ahead with an oil-based mist. We’re blowing up this secret entrance.”
Seo-Yoon grinned from ear to ear. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I got the Cloudmaker staff,” she said.
“Well, you can even have the honour of lighting the fuse.”
“And it’s not even my birthday!” she remarked excitedly.
Adam located the tower guard’s giant body. Unlike the rest of the corpses, it had been placed on a slab and sown back together in a hurry. The large helmet and weapons lay next to the slab and the face of the big man stared blankly up at the ceiling of the warehouse. His face was covered in scars and he had been shaved bald, with the only hairs on his head being his eyebrows and eyelashes.
Adam absorbed his body along with the rest. The power of his raiment was nearing 700%.
When both of them were done with their work, they left through the doorway and Adam told them to back far away.
Then Seo-Yoon cast her sun flare into the fake warehouse, before running over to where Adam had constructed a, hopefully, blast-proof chamber for them to hide in.
Captain Tabian said nothing about Adam’s profane magic, which he thought was somewhat odd, but he did seem quite laid-back about most things, since not even the serious injury to his dominant arm had fazed him much.
When the sun flare struck the dense mist of oil that Seo-Yoon had pumped into the narrow tunnel, the sound that escaped out through the warehouse was like a dragon’s roar, accompanied by a shockwave, and then followed by bright-burning flames spewing straight out of the warehouse’s doorway. A moment later, the stone building collapsed under the pressure, covering the secret tunnel entrance in rubble.
“Alexander Tobias is dead,” Adam told them as he observed the fleeing melodies wink out and disappear. He hoped they’d be burnt to a crisp and ruined badly enough that the Forlorn Shadow couldn’t reanimate their corpses, but even if they were made part of its army, it had lost access to many more potential soldiers inside the Gothershall defence, so it was a net positive.
Perhaps this quest is integral to defending Gothershall successfully.
“I should go alert the city’s captain about this,” Tabian muttered. “Good work everyone. Come find me by the barracks in a couple of hours, I should have managed to secure the tournament prize and your reward for helping me find the traitor by then.”
They watched him leave the warehouse area for a moment, and then Natalia asked, “What was the point of all this? How are we going to get the key to the dungeons now?”
“That part is simple,” Adam replied. “We let ourselves into his house and grab it.”
“Hopefully he did not take the key with him,” Chien remarked.
Adam paused. “Uh, yeah, let’s hope not.”
I hadn’t thought of that possibility…