This Quest is Bullshit - Chapter 163

[cliff ahead]

Chapter 163 - Getting Rid of the Damned Thing

“For safety’s sake, I want to check the leyline first,” Eve said as she turned away from the vault door and towards the side passage from which echoed the familiar roar of rushing Mana.

Lumy flashed confused purple. What? Putting off the immediate reward in favor of doing things carefully? That doesn’t sound like you.

“Always check the exits, or whatever,” Eve replied. “Mostly I just think this field of the accursed thing that’s making all those undead is based around the leyline. I need to get close enough to influence the enchantment’s nexus if I want to shut it down.” She paused and glanced down at her Mana pool, sitting below a third after the drawn-out fight with the rock worm and friends. “And I could use a top-up.”

There it is, Lumy sent. The only thing that’ll keep you from immediate exp is an empty Mana bar.

“And not even that most of the time,” Eve said. “I just don’t want to be blindsided and out of Mana when we find out whoever built this place left more defenses behind than we thought.”

Thinking ahead. Will wonders never cease?

Eve smirked. “Told you I can be serious. Ooh! Check out this rock.” She stepped up to a nearby stalagmite with a very… particular shape and proceeded to grasp it in a manner many might’ve found inappropriate.

Lumy sighed.

Eve laughed at the harvester’s exasperation, removing her hand from the phallic stalagmite, wiping it on her pants, and continuing down the passage. It wasn’t long before the white light coming up from the path ahead overwhelmed that of Eve’s eyes. A few steps after that, the cave grew bright enough that anyone else would’ve found themselves squinting.

Having been forged inside one, Eve’s eyes didn’t particularly care about the blinding light of the leyline. She walked on.

Unlike all the Burendian-built leyline access points she’d come across, here the floor didn’t open up to reveal a torrent of Mana below. Rather, Eve rounded a bend to find the leyline raging directly in front of her, a veritable wall of flowing Mana marking the end of the passage.

In under a second, Eve’s Mana pool capped out.

Looks accessible to me, Lumy commented.

Eve nodded. “Getting out of here in a hurry won’t be a problem. I wonder about the…” She paused, directing her focus to the area around her, feeling as delicately as she could for the enchantment behind the field of the accursed. “There it is.” She grinned.

Found the field enchantment?

“Oh, better than that,” Eve answered, raising her hand and snapping her fingers for effect as she issued the mental command.

You have left a field of the accursed.

“I’m sure Annie will appreciate us solving her undead problem.”

Except to find out it was us who solved her undead problem, she’d have to find out it was us who broke into the bank and left a fish on the floor, Lumy rained on Eve’s parade.

“Maybe we can tell her we found another entrance to the…” Eve sighed. “She wouldn’t believe that, would she?”

Not at all.

Eve shrugged. “That’s fine. Having done a good thing is all the reward I need.”

Lumy laughed.

“Speaking of rewards,” Eve said as she leaned in to peer closely at the leyline before her. “I think I might’ve found one.”

Indeed, something sat at the bottom of the torrent, little more than a dark shape amidst the blinding glow of the leyline, but visible nonetheless. At about the size of her head and seemingly perfectly spherical, Eve didn’t need Appraise to figure out what it might’ve been.

“Right at the anchor spot for the enchantment that makes the place dangerous,” Eve muttered to herself, “sounds about right.” She dug into her pocket, removing the cloth bundle containing the eldritch ring and setting it carefully on the ground next to her. “Be right back.”

Lumy sighed. Even as she stops for due diligence, she still manages to find a way to put exp first.

Eve didn’t bother replying to the snark, simply stepping forward and letting the leyline take her. She dissociated the moment the Mana touched her, the lines between what was Eve and what was leyline blurring beyond discernibility. Her consciousness willed itself forth, traveling further into the line until it reached the dark shape. The moment her will brushed against it, a notification appeared.

You have cleared the dungeon: Forgotten Caverns: +2t exp!

If Eve had had a mouth at that particular moment, she would’ve grinned. Instead, she tried to carefully nudge the dungeon core back with her. It didn’t budge.

As it turned out, moving physical objects while personally incorporeal wasn’t, in the most technical sense, possible. Considering all of Eve from her flesh to her armor dissolved on contact with the leyline, it made for quite the conundrum.

Fortunately, the Defiant had something in her possession sturdy enough to withstand the force of all that Mana: a certain griffin-bone club.

What followed was a particularly awkward exercise in forming the bone club, Jetting it in the rough direction of the dungeon core in the half second it was considered still in contact with her, and reabsorbing it once it’d hopefully set the core rolling in the right direction. Lumy, presumably, spent the entire time laughing at Eve’s efforts.

It’s just a dungeon core, Lumy sent after Eve missed for the fourth time. You can leave it.

A high-level dungeon core, Eve corrected, using telepathy in place of the mouth she temporarily didn’t have. It’ll be worth a pretty penny when we get back.

Right! Lumy sent with revelation in her tone. How could I forget? Mana isn’t the only way to distract you from exp. Money works too.

And scones, Eve added. Don’t forget scones.

And scones, Lumy sent.

Actually, Eve realized, scratch that. I think it’d be more accurate to say exp is distracting me from my scones.

Lumy sighed.

It took another ten minutes for Eve’s awkward cross between golf and billiards to successfully roll the dungeon core to a place she could pick it up. With a flare for the dramatic, she reformed her body as she stepped out of the leyline, crafting the appearance of stepping out of a portal. Lumy telepathically sent the concept of slow clapping.

Once the core was successfully secured in her pack and the cursed ring returned to her pocket, Eve led the way back to the main cavern, stopping to give the phallic stalagmite an affectionate pat on the way.

“So,” Eve said as she and Lumy approached the circular vault door, “thoughts on opening this thing?”

Get as much info as we can before cracking it open, Lumy replied immediately. There could be traps hidden in the enchantments that’ll attack, or worse, seal the door permanently. On top of that, any clue as to what’s inside will be valuable. Remember, we came here to investigate. We don’t have to open it.

“Yes, but I want to open it,” Eve replied. She patted the outside of her pocket. “Besides, the sooner we get rid of this cursed-ass ring, the better.”

Just be careful. Whatever’s inside could be dangerous.

Eve shook her head. “We can take dangerous. Misty boy wouldn’t have sent me here if he thought I couldn’t handle whatever’s inside. Also, it’s a vault, not a jail cell. It’s meant to keep people out, not in.”

Maybe he sent you here to die.

“Nah. If he wanted me dead, he could’ve just killed me at the wedding. I was unarmed, unarmored, alone, and way lower level than him.” Eve exhaled. “Either he was telling the truth and he just wants me to get stronger, or he wants whatever’s in this vault. If it’s the latter…” Eve grinned. “It’s gotta be valuable, right?”

And we’re back to the money thing.

“I’m a simple woman,” Eve said. “I like exp because it’s a way to get money. I like money because it’s a way to get scones.”

Just be careful, Lumy repeated herself.

Eve winked. “I topped off my Mana for a reason.” With that she turned away from the phantasmal harvester to focus her attention on the vault itself.

It was an impressive thing. The door glimmered with enchantment that seemed almost Burendian in nature, yet somehow well beyond anything she’d seen at the capital in terms of complexity. As her consciousness ran along the various channels and mechanisms within, Eve developed the growing suspicion that even a professional enchanter would’ve struggled to fully grasp it. Eve was no professional enchanter.

Eve was a queen.

Burendian, pre-Burendian, or something else entirely, the tangled web of magic unfolded before her, bit by bit unbinding the metal door from its frame.

As the entire structure groaned with its first motion in untold years, Eve wondered exactly what alloy could handle such complex and powerful enchantment, concluding that Ar-iron—or even Ar-silver—had to be involved. If only she could pick up the whole vault door and bring it back with her. It’d probably be worth a lot of money, but taking the door away would somewhat defeat the purpose of storing the ring there. Vaults without doors tended to be less secure.

With a screech of metal on metal the likes of which had never before tormented Eve’s poor ears, the vault jerked open. Only a pair of inches stretched between the frame and the ajar door, only a narrow opening revealed the inky black space within, but it was enough.

Eve stood at the ready, prepared for anything from a blaring alarm to a burst of flame to some tentacled monstrosity ripping free and trying its level best to devour her. She wasn’t expecting the fog.

White mist spilled from the hole, floating up to pool on the cavern ceiling before managing to pass through it and vacate the cave entirely. It only took a moment. Eve had no opportunity blast it with annihilation, no chance to try and steal its Mana, no time to slam the vault shut.

She stared up at the ceiling where the mist had vanished, and cursed. “Loia’s bloody middle finger, that asshole lied to me.”

You think the mist is his?

“It’s gotta be,” Eve answered. “He sent us here.”

Well, it didn’t try to kill us or anything, Lumy replied. I don’t like him keeping information from us, but it doesn’t look like the end of the world.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Eve acknowledged. She leaned in, shining the light of her eyes through the opening of the vault. It was empty. With a shrug, she dug the eldritch ring from her pocket, tossed it inside, and shut the door.

Secondary Quest Complete: The World’s Most Cursed Piece of Loot
Rewards: The Mistlings go free, +3t exp

Level Up!

Statistic Growth Upgraded!
+5 Intelligence/Level

“Welp, that counted for the quest,” Eve said, relaying the contents of the notifications telepathically. “I don’t like the bit about Mistlings going free.”

If it’s considered as a quest reward, it has to be a good thing, right? Lumy asked.

Eve shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Either way, they’re gone, Lumy sent. We’re finished here. Ready to go?

“I guess so,” Eve said, staring off towards the leyline. “I wanna see how much progress Wes and Preston have made on their new house while we were—” She cut off as a crackling sound echoed to her left.

She turned to find a ring of purple light the size of an apple floating at eye level. A slender hand with familiar dark gray skin reached through it, opening up to reveal a folded piece of paper. As Eve grabbed it, the hand gave a friendly wave and vanished back through the miniature portal. A second later, said portal blinked out. Eve unfolded the note.

I finished with your diary. Most of it was a bit pointless, but one bit near the end seemed important. I had to put my Long Range Hand Portal on a three week cooldown to get it to you, but Carl and I figured you’d want to see this.

-Brady Midden

Eve scanned through the included excerpt from the decoded Burendian diary, her eyes widening further and further the more she read. Her heart pounded. Her breath hitched. The entire world seemed to narrow in on the words before her. “Shit shit shit shit shit.”

What is it? Lumy asked. What’s wrong.

Eve mentally beckoned her forward, turning paper around so Lumy could read for herself. She didn’t wait for the harvester’s own reaction before voicing her conclusion.

“The man of the mists wiped out the Burendians, and I think humanity’s next.”

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