Runeblade-Chapter 188B2 : Looking Forward
Kaius sat around a table laden with the most delicious food he had tasted in his life. His armour was damp, soaking the cotton and leathers of his traveling clothes beneath. Thankfully, it was also blessedly clean.
Picking up the dainty silver fork in front of him, Kaius cut through the hunk of roast duck in front of him. It was…divine. He had no other words for it—perfectly cooked and spiced, juicy, with crispy skin.
It was far and away the most refined meal he had ever had—the poultry being paired with delicately charred vegetables and a sweet citrusy sauce.
Taking another bite, he felt the meat all but dissolve in his mouth and struggled to bite back a moan. It wasn’t enough to stop Rieker from meeting his eyes and giving him an easy grin.
Kaius smiled back, but didn’t stand on propriety as he shoveled another mouthful in.
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The meal had been a long affair, starting with breads and jams, then some sort of spiced scorched beef skewers, and now the duck. Whenever he thought it was about to be over, Rieker just pulled more unimaginable acts of gastronomy out of his storage artifact.
The guild master had been plain in his intentions. He wanted them fresh—which meant time to rest, ready themselves, and top off their resources.
Rieker had even gone so far as to supply buckets of water, clothes, and soap—giving him and Porkchop the chance to properly clean themselves of the filthy remnants of their battle with the infernus hound. Thankfully, it seemed the guild master was in no great rush. When Kaius had informed him that he would need extra time once his mana had fully regenerated to prepare his spells, Rieker had only waved him off. Though, there had been a shine of curiosity in the man's eyes.
Evidently not enough to press him on the specifics—but Kaius got the sense that was mostly because he wanted them to have an edge in their upcoming confrontation, and the guildmaster seemed to have a propensity for trying to figure things out for himself.
No doubt the man had some sort of mana sight—most people got it at some point from their general skills, at least if they had some sort of sensory one, which was almost all delvers. With that he’d be able to see much of the process anyway.
The conversation so far had been rather casual, discussions of their fight with the spider and the hound, what they thought they did well and similar. Kaius didn’t expect that to last too much longer.
Afterall, even if Rieker did want to save some suspense for their massively unequal spar there were far too many things of import to discuss as it regarded their plans for the coming months.
“So.” Rieker said, looking between him and Porkchop as he broke the silence. As he spoke the guildmaster placed his cutlery back down on the table with immaculate and refined precision. “I know that Ro already sourced a couple of Masking artefacts for the two of you, but they are not going to cut it, and Ianmus needs one as well.”
“Sounds expensive.” Porkchop cut straight to the point, leaning on the advantage of his mental speech to continue to chew through some duck.
A booming laugh filled the hall as Rieker leaned back in his chair. “Normally, it would be. Luckily for all of you, as members of a special guild initiative—which this whole Aspect thing firmly counts as—you get plenty of advantages that others do not.”
“So we all get them for free?” Ianmus asked hopefully.
“Yep.” Rieker said simply. “It’s necessary. If we’re going to be getting you to do appropriate levelled missions in an effort to level you as quickly as possible, we’re going to need to hide some of the changes in your status. It’ll be too obvious something’s up if you’re shooting up in level every time you leave on what should be a routine hunting mission.”
“Now, we’ll call the debt on the old artefacts even, but these new ones will remain property of the guild. They’re going to be too valuable to just straight up give them to you. Once you’re strong enough that hiding your strength is pointless, you’ll need to give them back.” the guildmaster continued.
Kaius nodded at the man's words. He could accept that—after all, they were getting them for free, and it sounded like they would have free and exclusive use of them until they were no longer needed. He just hoped it wouldn’t take long. Artefacts of the kind of calibre that had those sorts of stipulations were expensive, hard to make, and lengthy to procure.
Guts twisting at the thought of having to wait weeks to get back in the field, Kaius couldn’t help but frown.
“Don’t worry,” Rieker said, grinning at his expression. “Ro’s working on my orders; she’s using the guildhall's link network with head office to requisition some—they should be here in a couple of days at worst.”
To his right, Kaius saw Ianmus’s eyes widen in surprise. “That quick?”
“What? You think you guys are the first we’ve needed to nurture in secrecy?” Rieker responded with a shrug. “You might be the most ridiculous, but the guild has a stock of potent masking artefacts on hand for all sorts of uses.”
That was…suspicious. Kaius doubted that their use case would be the primary thing they were given out for. It seemed even the honourable Delver's Guild had some level of cloak and dagger to it—though he shouldn’t be totally surprised given the warning he had received on his first step through the threshold.
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Still, they were benefiting, and he wasn’t one to bite the hand that was feeding him. It was mostly the missions he was curious about. While there were plenty of beast hunts available at the moment, before the shift they were by far the minority of tasks that delvers took.
Most were sanctioned delves looking for specific monster parts, reagents, and more from within the depths. Hells, even just delving without a specific job was common—and encouraged by the guild. Thanks to the accords, the guild managed all delves within a city’s domain of control, and oversaw taxing the income drawn from it—to be split between them and the local powers.
“Why not delves? It’s easily the most expedient way to get us up in level if you can get us into a delve over the tenth layer.” he asked, the question itching at him too much to keep to himself.
Rieker winced. “I would if I could, lad, but Depths entrances are linked to mana levels in some way—finding something deeper than layer ten is hard in the central regions. The phase change might have started increasing the mana, but it hasn’t changed the entrances. Yet.”
That was surprising. He hadn’t realised there was a relationship between mana density and how common deep entrances were. It did make some level of sense—everything in the system was geared towards pushing people higher. With deeper entrances being in higher mana density zones, it would encourage the powerful to push further out and claim those zones for themselves.
It also explained why the elves and dwarves were so much more powerful than humans—at least on average. They wouldn’t need to spend months or years pushing deeper into the Depths just to get access to an appropriate biome to level in.
That said, Kaius didn’t miss the way that Rieker had said that the entrances hadn’t changed. Much like the guildmaster, he suspected that it would happen eventually—whether it was once the mana zones stabilised at their new higher baseline, or in a future phase.
If entrances to the depths changed, and lower layer ones became less common, it would put even greater stress on the cities. Without ready access to low level beasts or depths-born, it would be far harder for the weak to grow. Especially since the rising danger of the wilds would discourage people from ranging further to find something suitable.
Still, even if deeper entrances were still rare, he doubted the guild didn’t know of at least one that they could use.
“There’s truly none?” Ianmus asked, mirroring his thoughts.
“It’s not that. They’re used too often and too closely monitored—it’d be impossible to hide.” Rieker explained, before he paused to have another bite of duck. “Thankfully, it's only temporary. Once you have the strength to delve the twenty-second layer, I know of a rarely used entrance in the surrounding area. The plan would be for you to keep pushing down until you hit the second tier—once you’re there, there will be much less need for secrecy.”
“So we hunt beasts until then. Makes sense.” Porkchop said with a bob of his head, before he returned to viciously attacking his food.
“You will, and I already have a few missions in mind that could be a good fit—though I will withhold making any decisions until I have tested you for myself, and you have shared some of your growth patterns with me.” Rieker said with a nod.
Kaius grinned. That wasn’t so bad, especially if the guildmaster held up to his promise of helping them with skill training. It wouldn’t take all that long for them to reach the point of being ready for another delve, maybe a few months—most of which would be spent traveling.
That, and doing missions meant gold, so even if they were missing out on the bounty of a true delve, it wasn’t like they would be destitute. Rieker had already told them that due to the increased level of the spider, their reward had been increased to a full one-fifty gold. Nearly enough for a decent artefact.
Their other missions would likely be similar. Kaius suspected that the man would be picking missions that were much the same—nominally within an understandable range, but ones that were likely to have grown into a greater threat.
Afterall, it was the easiest way to avoid convoluted cover-ups that could blow up in their face.
Unfortunately, they were going to be in dire need of gear upgrades, and soon. Common and uncommon artefacts just weren't enough to bridge the gap at the levels they were fighting at.
Kaius could only hope that the assistance they had managed to gather would extend to helping them on that front too.
…
Despite their plan being laid out, it seemed the guildmaster wasn’t done. After pausing for a moment to allow them to get through more of their meal, the man softly cleared his throat, catching the attention of Kaius and his companions.
“No doubt by the time you leave, you’ll be stronger than me—at least as far as raw strength goes. There will be plenty more for you to do, but you won’t find it in Deadacre. I’ll grease a few palms to introduce you to a few people who could help path your way to Wight’s End.” Rieker continued.
Kaius looked at the man sharply, seeing Ianmus do much the same. Wight’s End? Even he’d heard of it. A city deep in the southern mountains, as much dwarven as it was manish, it was supposed to be the place for elite delvers to gather—and also the seat of the guild's power on Vaastivar.
It was also dangerous, right on the border of a high mana zone. If you weren’t in the second tier, you had to travel there via a heavily defended dwarven deep road.
Riker cocked his brows at them. “What? You think you’re getting inducted into a secret guild initiative—and have some of the highest potential I've ever seen—and you think I wouldn’t get you to the head office? It would be a waste not to.”
Kaius found himself grinning, though he did his best to suppress the hardened edge to it. Sure, it was a legendary city, and no doubt easily one of the best places for them to go if they wanted to grow truly strong, but that wasn’t the only thing.
Oh no. Afterall, it wasn’t just the Guild that was supposed to make their home there. While he’d only heard rumours, there were plenty enough of the city having an underbelly. Strange night markets, grey-market auctions, contraband, and murder-for-hire.
The Onyx Temple—he was sure of it. With the guild supporting his growth, they would have to know something about his enemies. He would just have to prove himself—make him and his team so strong and valuable that they would have to share what they knew.
And when they did, he would strike.
