"What is everyone planning for the day, now that the house is ready and the essentials have been taken care of?" Carlos asks, clearly looking for something more exciting than buying discount gear to fill his day.
"Me and Kone want to try the Stone Giant Dungeon without Cain. No offense, but you face roll stuff your own level and we want to try out our new skills. I got more holy flame abilities, including group heals based on holy flames damage, and Kone got improvements to her spell repertoire as well as healing and damage." Misha says, sticking her tongue out at Cain when she mentions his power level.
"I'll join the ladies then, I could use the exercise, and then we can invite a few more members here this afternoon to see the beach?" Carlos says it as a question, but there's no doubt they'll agree.
"Sounds good to me. You all be careful. I can send a Vala with you if you'd prefer, though you likely want to test out your own healing skills." They both nod that he is correct, they want to see the extent of their own jacked up and merged abilities.
With all the Summons both from Kone and now from Misha, they should be more than fine even just bringing one DPS class and no tank, especially when he's 50 levels above the regular Stone Giant Dungeon content.
"Do you want some puppets to mine the place for you?"
"Oh good idea. But we'll grab Symbia on our way. She can curse the instance to create them and then let it dispel when we leave." Carlos agrees. That works too, and leaves Cain entirely free.
'Let's play in the Desert. I have a Good Feeling about it.' The Oath Breaker whispers in his mind.
"Alright then, I'll be heading to the desert to go scout out our chosen castle location. Maybe I'll find something else that's good out there to pass the morning. I'll send a Guild message if I'm going to be late." Cain says and the group breaks up, the Companions joining him to head towards the south gate while the others head East to go get Symbia and harass the Giants.
The procession gathers attention the evite way there much to Cain's amusement. Vala and Cain are both quite tall, standing out from the crowd and her milky white wings trimmed with black and gold armor really attract attention. But it's the ever affectionate Nemu, who has adopted a half human form, more like the Catgirl species transfers can get, or more correctly the mostly see through black silk outfit she usually wears and the fact she's hanging off of the Onyx skinned Nila in her brightly colored pirate outfit that is garnering the most double takes and lingering glances.
It's a good thing the girls have gotten used to being merged when out in public. All this, but with twins would cause chaos in the street. It's just a hassle to move that many people in a group, especially when they get easily distracted and bored.
"So, how are we getting there?" Laura asks from her perch atop Vala's shoulder when they reach the city gates.
"I could call back Danni. He's likely the fastest flying mount we have."
"The Dark Phoenix is faster than any dragon. They skim between dimensions to travel, much like the Oath Breaker does to ambush." The usually quiet Nila points out, petting Nemu's fluffy tail as she speaks.
That solves it then. Cain calls forth his full compliment of sixteen Dark Phoenix at Epic Quality and admires the beauty of the ash black bird wreathed in light blue flame. It's a deadly idea to touch them on a regular day, but summons won't harm their Summoner or his party.
Unlike Danni, they're only big enough to carry one person each, not counting the diminutive form of Laura of course. So Cain steps to to the nearest mythical bird and sends a mental image of where they want to be and that they're in a hurry.
The dark Phoenix squawks in annoyance, so Cain pets the bird's head before mounting, the flames licking around his hand to warm his whole arm.
"It won't be that bad I swear." He laughs and the birds hum happily as headpats are distributed by the group. The true difference between summons complying and assisting happily is definitely headpats.
The sensation of flying on these birds is much like traveling with the Oath Breaker, a stomach turning lurch then a feeling of weightlessness in the void. Only this time it lasts nearly half an hour before they emerge, looking at the stone gazebo over the portal to the lost city of Muzz.
The winds have blown the area bare, the shifting sands of the desert revealing much of the area around the portal to the underground city. There are many more ruins here, all of the same black stone. But a set of four obelisks stand out as unnaturally placed. They're all in a row, evenly spaced but with the tops broken off, so they're wider than they are tall, keeping them stable over the centuries.
Cain wonders if these might have been surface portals to other cities, there's a large amount of debris in the ways that suggests buildings were demolished to place the obelisks, so there's a good chance they're hiding something impressive.
Cain calls out a pair of Mountain Giants at Legendary quality and orders them to move the first stone. He was right, it is hiding a gate, but not like any that they've ever seen.
"Anyone know what that is? I've never seen a portal like that before." Nila says, walking over to inspect. It's like a normal portal, in that it shows a second location at the other side, but the entire scene is dyed blood red.
"A red gate? That can't be good. But look at the ground here. The obelisks were dragged through to block the location after the area was in ruins, it even ground some of the rubble into the gaps between flagging stones." Vala points out.
Cain removes a pair of the Oath Breakers he's merged with to have them inspect it. "Any clue what a red Portal is all about? Does it lead to a Demon Realm or something, like a bright red danger do not enter signal?"
"No, Demon Realm Portals are shadowy black, because of the lack of natural light. That looks like a regular city in the desert, but I've never seen the red before."
"Let's move the others and see if they give us any more clues." Nemu suggests, looking at the three untouched obelisks. In a few moments the giants have cleared them, but the questions remain.
All four show identical scenes of a desert village in the distance, dark stone against light sand but they're all tinted with different colors. White, Green, Blue and Red.
"Could they be special dungeons? You know, difficulty levels?" Nemu asks, throwing a stone at the white one.
"Yeah, like easy, normal, hard, and 'sweet baby Satan no' level difficulties?" Vala suggests.
"But how would they even get here? The place was ruined by the time the system was formed, and well before the first dungeon spells were cast, at least according to Lloran." Laura frowns as she tries to understand what these things are.
"Check the area for clues. Maybe there's something left that will tell us more. There might be something left behind by those who tried to enter, or the ones who buried the portals under Giant rocks." Cain says, walking around the portals, looking for clues in the debris. Most likely anything that was here was destroyed or carried away by the sands, but there's a chance.
"I found a skeleton, multiple broken bones, but it looks like he was stripped bare, not even a scrap of cloth remains." Nila says, adjusting her hat to keep the sun out of her eyes.
"There's writing on this stone here. Nila, can you read it?" Vala calls, holding up a flat Granite stone.
"It's damaged, but looks like it used to read public bath. If we dig in the sand there we should find the tubs, if they survived." So an original bit of rubble.
Nothing much is found in the next half hour, and they've expanded their search radius when the Mountain Giants actually find something. They come back, holding a bronze sign, and the writing is in the common language.
"Danger. Area unstable due to bombardment. Do not Enter." The giants don't speak common, but they Grunt and point to a number of other locations, where the group finds identical signs. The entire area must have been demolished during the great war a few hundred years ago, the one which created the dungeons. Which means these ruins were likely used as a military complex.
"Well, we've found a good clue. Next up, sacrificing a victim to the pursuit of knowledge. Oath Breaker Clones, please pick a portal and enter. Let us know what you find, and the base Oath Breaker you are cloned from can tell us if you die a horrible death upon entry." Cain directs and the demons laugh, jumping through the Green and Blue portals in the middle of the lineup.
[They're not dead. In fact, they found things to kill.] Sounds in his mind.
[Are they different difficulties? Is one having a harder time?]
The response takes a while, like the Oath Breaker merged with him needs time to think. Or maybe he's just enjoying the spectacle of watching and feels no urgency.
[They're different species. Green holds Elves, Blue has Dwarves. They're all insane, but it's a dungeon for sure. The clones think they used the portals to hide and protect their camps, then got hit with a dungeon spell, time locking them. Because both have identical layouts, and the portal underground with its shelter is still standing in both, meaning both are what this exact location looked like at the time.]
So multiple armies took shelter here during the war and got trapped. The excess magic should have faded over the centuries, but they'll have to search the area for active spells if they're going to build a castle here.
[They're signaling an incoming attack and a quest notification that I can't accept came up.] The Oath Breaker says confused.
[Assist Elven Guard to survive the battle. Sent from the Royal Castle in Muzz.]
[Assist Dwarven Nomads to survive the attack. Sent from the Guard Armory in Muzz.]
The dungeons are a time locked moment when someone set quests for people on the surface. They clearly failed, because the only one in the city that could have done it was Lloran, and he said nobody ever completed them. So the groups to be rescued were doomed from the start, and are now trapped in a dungeon, reliving the last day of their lives, most likely driven insane by the spell.
Or they're just not happy to see a Demon during what they think is the middle of an inter species war.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺