Chapter 112: Seeing a Friend Off

Will had developed a method for carrying the urns one-handed: The rim of the urn was fairly strong, able to support the entire thing, so Will just flicked the top off and grabbed it by the rim, balancing part of its weight on his left arm, dumping it into the pit before receiving the next from Loth’s insects.

Loth was currently booby-trapping the shit out of the rest of the underground smithery. There were only a few minutes before the next rotation came in to use the refiner at the center of the underground smithery. Once that happened, their presence would be discovered and they would immediately be under pressure.

“It’s so hot in here,” Jason said, wiping sweat off his brow as he scooped out a shovel-full of dull ash from the edges of the pit.

Will paused and stared at Jason for a moment. His junior at the orphanage was wobbling on his feet, seemingly close to falling asleep…or passing out from the heat.

Come to think of it… Will thought, glancing at the lava pooling opposite the storage tunnel, where they used the enormous pools of liquid stone to pre-heat the stars.

How hot is it in here, anyway? Was Jason getting slowly baked because he didn’t have any Resistance?

“Go back outside and wait for us to finish, Loth left a rope.”

Nuh-uh. I’m gonna see this happen.” Jason said, stubbornly shaking his head. His skin was red and irritated.

“Fine. you can watch, but sit right there.” Will said, pointing. “There’s a column of fresh air moving through that spot.” He’d noticed it as he trotted around the workshop getting everything set up.

Jason nodded, stumbling away from the pit and collapsing down to his knees in the stream of fresh air. “Oh thank the gods.”

The next group of bugs handed him the next urn.

Will stared at it for a moment, not getting any flashes of inspiration.

“Next,” Will said, handing it back.

The next urn, as soon as Will touched it, he had a brief impression of kissing a boy in a barn before the angry men arrived with drawn steel and torches.

“This one’s got some juice.” Will said, dumping it in.

“Next.”

Will went through three before he got another that drew him into a memory of their last moments. Always angry graneshians with swords.

The number of duds was beginning to clutter the opposite end of the workshop, which would normally be incredibly rude, but Will wasn’t feeling like cleaning up after himself.

Are the duds not deceivers or are they just…lacking a certain something? Will thought, his shoulders beginning to burn as he threw one urn after another into the swirling bowl of black stone beneath him.

It was very possible that Will was only adding a certain type of Deceiver with strong psychic potential into the mix, rather than a solid representation of them, but that was acceptable. He’d much rather err on that side rather than add the ashes of a regular human who’d been killed by mistake.

That could dilute the ash with unwanted effects.

Will paused to pick up Jason’s shovel and scrape the dull outside of the swirling ash away, glowing brilliantly blue near the center as some unknown process dragged all the miasma inward.

That reminds me of something, Will thought. It was nagging at the back of his mind, but it wasn’t critical to what they were doing right now, so he set the thought on the shelf to examine later.

“How’s it going?” Loth asked, emerging from one of the tunnels.

“Almost done. I can’t believe our luck that they’ve been away this long…” Will realized it as soon as he said it. “What did you do?”

“I just set fire to a few buildings. No children involved. I know you humans are touchy about that.

“Because we don’t lay clutches of a dozen eggs,” Will replied, scraping up and tossing nonmagical ash aside.

“True. Putting out the fire and then investigating its origin should keep the craftsmen in town busy until we’re done here.”

“Hopefully.” Will mused, handing the shovel over to her while he continued testing the urns for the ones with ‘the right stuff’.

“Getting pretty bright,” Loth murmured. “I can barely get the shovel around the core.”

Will leaned over the massive stone bowl and squinted his eyes against the brilliant blue energy swirling around the center. Just like Loth said, the bright swirl of energized ash was nearly reaching the edge, making it difficult to run a shovel around it.

“Let’s let it shrink for a minute,” Will said, removing the ashes of the Tomahawk of the Serpent from Dimensional Storage and dumping them straight into the center.

He glanced down and ran his thumb over the lump in his glove that concealed the Ring of the Eidolon.

It was absolutely critical to his build…and it formed a soft-set with half the things he carried.

“I’m thinking about destroying my soft sets and adding them to the mix,” Will said. “If I can get their effects on the axe, I can save enough space for another soft-set.”

Loth stared down into the swirling Miasma, her features lit from below.

“Why just the axe?” She asked, glancing back up at him. “That’s a lot of charged miasmatic ash. More than you need for just the axe.”

Will’s eyes widened. If he added a soft-set’s ash into the mix and its effects spread to the other pieces…

“I/you could make an actual Set,” Will and Loth came to the same conclusion.

Sets were rumors, wildly exaggerated stories of Lords from generations past, and Climbers who claimed to have found a set piece in taverns. Nobody had ever actually seen one, because if they had, they wouldn’t brag about it for fear of being killed.

Maybe the soft set’s ash would be drowned out by the deceiver ash, diluted down to nothing, and I would be essentially throwing them away.

…I’ve survived without the soft set before, Will thought, making up his mind, fetching the bolt-cutters from the wall.

In a matter of minutes, Will had destroyed the Ring of the Eidolon and the Glove of the Aetherhawk, adding their ash to the swirling mixture. Whatever came of the ash, it should hopefully be good for Will’s Phantom Hand.

While they were waiting for the ash to mix, Will glanced over at Jason, finding his friend peeling his boots off to inspect his feet.

Jason’s feet had large discolorations on them.

Will tapped Loth on the shoulder and together they went over to Jason.

As they approached, Jason tried to put his shoe back on before they arrived.

“Hey guys, what…what’s up?” Jason said, looking guilty.

“Lemme see.” Will commanded.

Jason heaved a sigh and took his boots off, revealing massive blisters on his feet, popped and bloody.

“We’ve been running…a lot, recently,” Jason said.

It hadn’t felt like it, but of course Will and Loth had set an inhuman pace without thinking too hard about how difficult it would be for Jason to keep up.

“We can’t take him with us,” Will mused. Loth nodded. Sooner than later, Jason was going to reach the end of his pain tolerance and collapse. It was practically a miracle he hadn’t already.

“HEY!” Jason shouted, wincing as he rose to his feet. “You are not ditching me here!”

Will caught Jason’s shoulder as he wobbled in place.

“Look, we’re not ‘ditching’ you. We’re following the plan. We’re going to give you food and water and your Sacrifices. And you are going to get your Class.”

“…What?” Jason asked.

“Here,” Loth said, pulling out the ‘supplies’ she had acquired from the 5th Floor.

It was two rings and an amulet tucked inside some boots, along with a sword, each raising Strength, Kinesthetics and Resistance by a significant margin. The Relics didn’t have any special effects or synergies, but doubling a young man’s physical prowess was a great way to make sure he passed the Trial, regardless of his Class.

Strength is Strength, Will thought wryly.

Once Jason brute-forced his way through The Trial, then they could get him gear that matched his Class. In the meantime, he was much safter being stronger, faster and tougher than he had any right to be.

“These won’t have any effect until you get your Class, but once you have it, put them on. They should make passing the Trial as easy as possible.” Loth said.

Jason’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he accepted the Relics.

“We’ve got two weeks of food and water,” Will said, hustling over to their packs and moving all the food and water to one bag, bringing it over to Jason. “Stay in the Sacrifice room until your feet heal. DON’T leave that room unless you’re at 100%. The danger of The Trial hits immediately.”

Jason nodded, his expression becoming more and more excited.

“Finish your Trial, but don’t take the exit Door. That’ll bring you back here. Catch a ride on a caravan to the nearest Stronghold, and we’ll find you. understand?”

Jason nodded.

“Alright, tell it back to me, what do you need to do?” Will asked.

“The ash is fully baked.” Loth interrupted from the center of the room. The miasmatic ash had taken on an opalescent look, with flashes of brilliant color emerging from the flakes of glowing ash, the massive swirling lump having shrunk down to only a bathtub worth of material.

“Shoot,” Will cursed and hustled back to the center of the room, taking off his Kit and tossing it in the chest they’d set aside.

Will added the Dimensional Assassin’s Amulet in, followed by the Mask of Manifestation, the tomahawk, the Cloak of the Fade, his pants, boots, and secondary weapon.

Seven items. I’ve barely regained enough Charge over the last day to make this happen.

“You want me to wait in the Sacrifice room until my blisters heal,” Jason said, grabbing the bag of food and water and slinging it over his shoulder, wincing in pain as he walked over to them. “Get my Class, put on the Relics. Do my Trial, then catch a ride with a caravan to a Stronghold.”

“That’s right,” Will said, huffing as he took a shovel of the pure, brilliantly glowing miasmatic ash and dumped it on his kit, bracing the shovel against the wrist of skeletal left hand.

Sourdough.

35 -> 0 Charges remaining.

Will targeted all seven items with the newest variation of the Sourdough ability. In three weeks, Will would be able to see how they turned out.

Loth followed the single scoop of ash with another, and another, burying the Relics in highly charged miasmatic ash as Will turned to Jason, checking his friend’s bag, making sure he had everything slung over his scrawny shoulder.

Once he was satisfied, he released Jason’s three Sacrifices from Dimensional Storage.

As he placed the Sacrifices in Jason’s hand, a brilliant yellow Door opened behind the young man.

Will placed his skeletal left hand on Jason’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes.

“Be careful.” Will said, slipping a greater healing potion into Jason’s bag. “The Trial is trying to kill you. Don’t let that extra Strength get to your head. One bad wound and you’re done.”

Jason nodded, his expression serious.

Back in my day, I had to do The Trial in the nude, missing a hand, uphill both ways…because it was a canyon, Will thought wryly, unable to stop a small smile from taking over his face.

“You’re gonna do grea-“

A glimmer of light from Will’s left prompted him to shove Jason through the Door.

Will watched in horror as a crescent blade of projected energy passed through the space Jason had been, severing Will’s freshly-regrown left hand, causing the skeletal hand to tumble through the yellow door on it’s own momentum.

SCREEECH!

Will rolled to the side as Loth shoved the chest filled to the brim with Will’s entire Kit through the Door an instant before the glowing yellow portal vanished.

“Oh come ON!” Will shouted, pointing at the freshly severed stump of his left arm, glaring at the graneshian swordsmen creeping towards them from main entrance, aiming to surround them “I JUST regrew that!”

Thankfully the veins hadn’t been full size yet, so it didn’t bleed much.

“William Oh,” a familiar massive armored figure emerged from behind the surrounding warriors as Will stopped the bleeding, standing stoically in front of Will and Loth, his gaze scanning Will standing there in his underclothes.

“You seem to be out of Kit.”

“You don’t say.” Will said, ushering Loth behind him as they edged away from the armored giant, backing away towards the hall of Deceiver ashes, where there was a hole in the roof they might be able to bolt out of.

“I’d like to make you an offer. You’re an exceptional example of a Deceiver. You’ve come further than any of your kin that we know of. Surrender and we will keep you alive as an object of study.”

“So you can kill children before they become exceptional?” Will said, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”

“We would also like to know what Sacrifices you gave our Prophet.” The armored giant continued without acknowledging Will’s rebuke. “Frankly I think we’d like to know that a little more than how you became what you are.”

“You do realize you almost killed him?” Will asked.

“Orders from on high,” The massive paladin said, pointing up. “We’d rather remove the Prophet from the board than see him used against us.”

That means they’re going to hunt him down on the first floor as soon as word of this encounter gets back to them.

“Loth, would you please bring this mountain down on top of us?”

The paladin’s eyes widened.

“It would be my pleasure.” Loth said from behind him.

PANG!

The assembled warriors looked up as a massive crack formed in the basalt ceiling above them, the sound travelling through the hard stone with an odd echo.

Will and Loth took that moment to run.