Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

I sat on the sidelines, sore, and thoroughly thrashed after our light sparring exercise. It was no surprise that Iona utterly outclassed me, I just hadn’t expected to be outclassed so hard. A good reminder that physical Classers, true physical [Warriors] at my level were better than I was. That I only had one direct fighting class, that I only had [Sentinel’s Superiority], compared to the round dozen or more skills a [Warrior] had.

That, and I was out of practice. I wasn’t doing this every day. I didn’t have sparring exercises I practiced every morning. I was focused on a hundred and one other things, and sparring wasn’t one of them.

A poor decision, one I was fixing, when we were planning on fighting a wyrm in the near future.

For now, I was watching Iona practice one of her katas, her proper forms and positions with her brand-new shiny glaive. I could just barely make out the dreamsteel blade as she moved from form to form. Iona started off excruciatingly slowly, making sure every muscle was in the right place, that the pose was utterly perfect. Then she slowly transitioned into the next one, making her full way through the entire dance before the last position seamlessly merged into the first one, repeating the cycle.

She sped up slightly on each repetition, eventually turning into a whirling, blurry storm of flashing metal and striking blades. Thrusts and sweeps, blocks against invisible opponents and strikes to vital points, Iona’s dance was a thing of glorious beauty.

I lied to myself, calling it training and practice to watch, that it would help me better coordinate with her.

In truth?

I simply enjoyed the display.

I stared up at the gates of the castle.

The castle was frankly one of the weirdest parts of the city. There was the rest of Sanguino, which faintly reminded me of Remus in the style, culture, and more.

Then there was this great big honking castle plopped down at the end of the water, stone walls triple the height of the city walls, patrolled by heavily armed guards, with the occasional Bloodsworn knight taking a stroll along the walls.

Interesting that. The Rangers and the Bloodsworn Order shared a building? I suppose the castle was pretty big…

The guards at the gate were similarly well-armed, looking like they were ready for a fight, overdressed for the weather, and eternally grateful for the shading Ash keeping the hot summer sun from finalizing their roasting.

The castle had a classic moat. Given how trivial a water barrier was to most Classers, I wasn’t quite sure of the point.

Then again, my point of view was skewed. Maybe to some people it’d be an impediment.

What was a ton of fun was I could detect two tunnels dipping under the moat! Secret entrances!

There was a large plaque near the end of the drawbridge, and I scanned it as I passed by.

In commemoration of the glorious triumph of the Exterreri Empire over the Punic Lands, let it be known that the valiant soldiers of the Exterreri Empire stood tall against the invading Punic hordes. Through their unwavering strength and courage, they secured a decisive victory that shall echo through the ages.

May this plaque stand as a testament to the bravery and sacrifice of those who fought and died for the glory of Exterreri, and as a reminder to all that Exterreri shall always stand strong against the forces of tyranny and oppression.

Stormwatch Keep was the crown jewel of the Punic Lands. After their defeat, the legions of Exterreri demolished it stone by stone, carted it 700 miles, and rebuilt it here, as a reminder to those who would stand against us.

Nihil Sine Sanguine!

Most of the plaque was in High Elvish, with only the end being Creation.

I looked up again at the castle, and whistled.

Building a castle was impressive enough. Architecture, quarrying stone, the logistics of building it… I could only barely scrape the edges of what went into building a castle with my imagination, and I was boggled at how they did it with a bonus carting the 700 miles and building it in the middle of a crowded city.

Talk about making a statement.

Enough delaying. Time to get a move on.

I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t taken a look earlier. Fear, perhaps. That it would all come to nothing. A sense of loss. That I wasn’t a Ranger anymore, that these weren’t my people. It was a little too close to home. A little too close for comfort.

Yet it was where I found myself now, on one of my last, strongest attempts at finding Night. Amber’s [Information Broker] had known something.

I steeled myself and approached the guards.

“Hi! I’m Dawn! I’m looking to talk with the Rangers, if I can?” I asked the guard.

She didn’t even look at her partner.

“Want to file a complaint about something?” She asked.

I nodded.

“Yup! Got an issue with [Gangsters] that I thought might be appropriate.”

“Through the gate, enter the bailey, go down the main entrance, second hallway on your left, third door.” She answered, like she’d said it a thousand times before.

“Thank you!”

I entered the castle, awed at the thought of not only someone building this place, but picking the whole thing up and moving it. The gates were well and properly reinforced, looking like they were more than merely decorative, and they anticipated use. Every brick was enchanted, and I made way for a pair of Bloodsworn knights moving across the field before entering the keep proper.

The grand hall was obvious. A hundred trophies lined the wall, each one neatly encased in glass with a little card explaining which wanna-be despot Exterreri had slain and why, an epic mound of the defeated that the empire was built upon. A broken great sword as long as I was tall, a melted crown of silver and gold, a shattered staff that was still trying to grow a little sprout, only for it to wither again, a cracked ring filled with jewels, each display was its own.

I found the room in question, and after waiting - damn the realities of bureaucracy - I was invited to chat with one of the [Scribes].

He sat ramrod straight, half his face melted and missing an entire arm.

“Name, issue?” He barked at me.

“Dawn, [Gangsters] running an extortion racket, would you like me to do something about…” I made a small gesture towards him.

“Nasty curse. Don’t bother. Tell me more.”

I gave him the quick rundown on the [Gangsters], the location, their threats, everything, trying to keep it concise and to the point.

Like I’d been trained to give Ranger reports. Thinking about how Artemis and Julius had drilled me on it nearly brought a tear to my eye. I wanted to see them again. I wonder if they’d gotten my letter? If they could even come?

Maybe I should send another letter offering to pay for their travel or whatever they needed to make it happen.

“... I came here because I’m not concerned for my safety, but I don’t want to injure them. If it was as simple as asking the local [Guards] to intervene, they wouldn’t be a problem.”

The [Scribe] paused.

“You haven’t talked with the local guard first?”

I shook my head. He frowned.

“We are not unsympathetic to your plight.” The [Scribe] said. “But we’d like to ask that you let the [Guards] have a crack at the problem first, especially with what you’ve said about lacking concern for your personal safety. Please do not kill anyone, or look to put yourself in a position where you need to self-defense others to death.” He gave me a pointed look at that. “If the guard is unable to handle the issue, then return.”

Disappointing, but not entirely unexpected. The Rangers seemed to fill a slightly different, but similar role - escalation. Let the guards have a crack at the issue, then they’d step in. Saying I didn’t feel threatened by them was true, and… yeah, okay, I could see why I was considered low-priority. Only so many resources for so many problems.

I felt like [Gangsters] semi-openly operating was a significant enough problem… but what did I know?

“Thank you. Um. I’m Oathbound. Are you sure you don’t need me to take a look at your injuries?”

I got a Look from the [Scribe], then he sighed.

“I do not request your healing. I do not want your healing. I do not believe your healing would manage to improve my situation, and has the potential to cause me harm. Go forth, be free of your obligation with a clean conscience.” He paused a moment. “That good enough for you?”

I nodded. I was in the clear now, and could leave without a devastating System-penalty.

I thanked the [Scribe] and left, figuring this would be a good time to get conveniently lost. Wander around a bit, see if I could identify any hidden rooms or secret passages that indicated the Sentinel’s meeting room - if it still worked that way - and see if I could backtrace it.

Or… wait, no, I was being dumb. I’d already seen tunnels from the outside. I should trace those. Walk around the castle and see if I could spot anymore. It was in the middle of town, I wouldn’t look that strange.

Much better than wandering around a military outpost where I didn’t belong. I wasn’t a Ranger. I didn’t know the laws and penalties. For all I knew a Bloodsworn knight would run me through and leave me to die, and it’d all be legal.

The similarities Remus had to Exterreri was luring me into a false sense of knowledge and confidence. The two were not the same.

I left, and found the two tunnels I’d noted. I took a casual stroll along the outside of the wall, shooting the occasional admiring glance up at the walls.

They weren’t idiots. They knew I was circling around and looking at the castle. If I tried to hide it, that looked terrible. By showing that I was actually looking at it, I hopefully looked like a tourist. Which wasn’t wrong, I was fascinated by the castle.

I wonder if it had a library? I’d certainly smelled enough parchment and ink while inside.

I noted three more tunnels, bringing the total to five. I remembered that Ranger HQ in Remus had an underwater tunnel to the training island, and given that Stormwatch Castle was on the bay, it wouldn’t surprise me if they had underwater tunnels as well.

I could dive down easily enough, all my biomancy and runes could potentially give me days of survivability underwater, but that went from ‘tourist’ to ‘secret spy squirrel up to no good’ and Iona would next find me crucified on the side of the road.

No, I had enough leads already. I picked one tunnel at random, and started to follow it along the city. I might’ve looked a little strange at first, leaving the castle along a road with one of the secret tunnels… but then again, so were other people.

I followed the twists and the turns, crossing through rows of buildings, making educated guesses where it was on the other side, and generally trying to follow a single string in a maze.

I was feeling proud of myself when I traced the tunnel to the city walls. I couldn’t go over the walls, not without pissing off the guards something fierce, so I simply noted it, and went through the gates. Once on the other side, I picked up where it continued on, getting dirty looks from the guards on the wall. I traced the path, feeling their stares boring into my back - after all, there was no good reason for me to be at this part of the wall, not when it was so far from the main roads - and followed the tunnel.

I gave myself a silent fist-pump when I found the end of the tunnel in a boulder, a hidden, cleverly designed door marking the other end. It wasn’t Night, it wasn’t anything I could use, but it worked. There were secret tunnels coming from the castle, and I could trace them with [The World Around Me].

[*ding!* [The World Around Me] leveled up! 75 -> 76]

Should go digging for more secrets if I wanted to level [The World Around Me]. The question was, what to do next?

I could go back to the castle, find another tunnel, and trace that one through, rinsing and repeating. Or I could sneak into this tunnel, and explore from the inside.

Sneaking into the tunnel was likely to happen if none of the surface-level exploration panned out. See if there were side-branches I’d missed. I couldn’t imagine Night making it this easy to find him, I couldn’t be the only one who could see underground, and besides, I’d seen people living and traveling in the tunnels. They couldn’t be that off-limits, right?

Yeah, it couldn’t be that easy. Why trace all the tunnels out, only to start going ‘wide’ on each of them, when I could just go ‘wide’ on each tunnel as I found it? They might even intersect with each other, which would make my job easy.

I looked down at everything I’d brought with me, and shook my head. I went to the inn, dropped off everything except a tunic and my sandals in our room, then returned to the stone door.

I had no confidence in my ability to pick a lock, but walls were only a minor impediment. I followed the tunnel back towards the city a bit, found a nice big bush growing over the tunnel, and crawled into it. Hopefully it’d hide my clothes and sandals well enough, and I could pick them back up on the way home.

I focused on [Channeled Blink], building mana as I selected the spot to end up in. With a slight pop of displaced air, I ended up in the tunnel.

[*ding!* [Channeled Blink]leveled up! 41->42]

It was completely dark, which came as absolutely no surprise. [The World Around Me] gave me excellent ‘vision’ of what was going on around me, and my hearing would let me know if there was anyone else in the tunnel with me.

That, and whatever light source they used. True Darkvision was rare, and not a particularly useful skill. Seeing with low levels of light was much more common, and I’d stack my ability to catch a tiny amount of light against most skills any day of the week.

If someone came, if I was at risk of getting caught, I’d just teleport back to the surface and… well, I couldn’t exactly mix in the crowd completely naked, but it wasn’t like I’d be making a huge disturbance. I’d gotten a few pieces of clothing in my spell book for situations like this, but if I made clothes, they would stay behind when I blinked back out. Giving strong evidence for the next few years that I’d been down here.

No, better to leave no trace.

I started down the tunnel, noting what the bottom of it looked like. Much rougher, a mixed dirt and stone path with the occasional overlapping boot prints in the dirt. The tunnel was in occasional use. Whoever dug out the tunnel didn’t bother paving it or anything fancy. If it was supposed to be an emergency escape, or discreet exit from the castle, who needed it to be ‘proper’?

Interesting that it was dry though. I wondered how that worked?

I almost laughed as I crossed under the city walls, and one of the omnipresent threads was there. I hit the first branch in the tunnel, and decided to take a left. It was sloping downwards, promising new areas I wouldn’t be able to see from the surface.

I opened up a new book in my [Astral Archives] and started making a mental map of the place. Easy navigation! I continued down the path, cross-referencing the tunnel to what was above me.

I noted a few more threads working their way through the tunnel, and-

Wait.

I stopped, turned around, and bolted with everything I had. I lit up my anti-friction runes to help give me speed, trying to get out of the city section of the tunnel as quickly as possible.

I’d seen the threads moving before, but always on new things. Always on temporary things.

Never in a well-established stationary location. And the threads I’d seen were all ‘stopping’ their creeping the same distance from me. I didn’t know what they were, but it couldn’t be good news.

The threads came alive like some monster, no longer subtly creeping along the tunnel walls, no longer silently integrating into every part of life.

There had to be a powerful Classer at the end of them, one hostile to law-abiding citizens checking out the… how secret could these tunnels be?

Given the sheer pervasiveness of the threads throughout the entire city, I was outclassed by multiple orders of magnitude. The System allowed for all sorts of crazy nonsense, I wasn’t going to let even a single thread touch me.

Easier said than done. The one thread that had been on the ground snapped around my leg. It bit deeply into my shin, some crazy skill letting the practically-invisible thread not break against my full speed and momentum, flexing and moving with me instead.

A shame really. With just a reinforcement skill it might’ve sheared clean through my leg, which would’ve removed the thread as an issue, and barely caused me to slow.

I stumbled, and started to trip. I pointed a finger at the part wrapped around my leg, and let a full-force [Nova Lance] rip.

[*ding!* [Companion Bond Between Elaine and Auri] leveled up! 477 ->480]

[*ding!* Congratulations! [Butterfly Mystic] has leveled up to level 450->460! +8 Strength, +8 Dexterity, +70 Speed, +70 Vitality, +70 Mana, +70 Mana Regen, +70 Magic power, +70 Magic Control from your Class per level! +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Speed, +1 Vitality, +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Magic Power, +1 Magic Control for being Chimera (Elvenoid)!+1 Strength, +1 Mana Regen from your Element per level!]

Oh fuck I was so fucked 10 levels for burning a single thread? That was nearly outside my Class’s wheelhouse?

Fuck fuck FUCK!

Not the time to get distracted, notifications off.

[Nova Lance] managed to burn through the thread, the end of it curling into a blackened crisp, and severing the rest from the source. I used my training and dexterity to turn my stumble-trip into a somersault, and came back up running.

Not fast enough.

Too deep into the city.

I split my mind into four, ready to fight in any way I could. Sorcery. Wizardry. Physical. And any other means I had available, which included healing and shielding. Each mind was tasked with a job to fully focus on, entirely confident that the other parts would properly handle their role.

I was intercepted by threads coming the other way down the tunnel right as the ones chasing me caught up.

It was like a tidal wave of silk crashing over me. I used [Mantle of the Stars] to create a little ‘sheath’ around my arm, letting me slip through, giving the seeking threads my shield instead of my arm. I targeted and aimed my fingers at the tightest knots and clusters of threads, using [Nova Lance] to burn a few threads, hacking away at the wave. Physically I twisted and turned, contorting and dodging to avoid a few threads I couldn’t handle, all while twisting my fingers unnaturally to keep the [Nova Lance] flickering to the right spots.

On the wizardry front, I went with Fire. Lots of fire. I teleported the appropriate spell book out of [Bookwyrm’s Hoard], instantly snapping to the right page thanks to [Reading]. Mana coursed through the runes, burning the page and creating an inferno centered on me as I sent the book back.

Why not? I was immune to Fire, it was a nice trick.

My wizardry fire wasn’t nearly at the same tier of power, heat, burning, or oomph as my Radiance was though, and the threads were clearly not just plain silk or whatever they were made out of. They shrugged off the flames. Even when I dodged a thread, it twisted in the air, wrapping around me. I could burn some threads, but each one took time and mana, and I could only launch 10 [Nova Lances] at a time. No matter how they spun around me like a crazed lightshow, I could only do so much against the unceasing assault of threads.

At least they weren’t injuring me. They started to wrap around me, dozens, hundreds, thousands, encasing me like a bug inside a cocoon.

I summoned a different spell book as I started to cast [Channeled Blink], aiming for a spot above the tunnel, praying desperately that I’d be allowed enough time to channel the skill.

Unlikely, but I was out of options. My mana was dropping rapidly, and I was losing even before I ran out. The second I went out of mana, the fight was OVER over.

I snapped the second spell book open, and went for one of my less-tested spells. Blades of pure Darkness erupted out from around me. Some cut through the strings, but they were quickly muffled and smothered. The threads forced my fingers closed as they all yanked, pulling me down the tunnel at high speed.

I didn’t bother screaming, but to my horror, I noticed my mana rapidly draining away. I stopped [Channeled Blink], but it still dropped to 0.

OVER over. But I would not go quietly into the night.

I struggled with all my might, pressing down the fear rising up in me. Had I finally fucked up one time too many? Had I poked my nose in the wrong place, and was about to die for it?

Was this it? Was this the end?

I would not go quietly into the night.

I bit. I twisted. I snarled. I struggled. I put every last muscle to work, fighting against the relentless bindings as they dragged me through the tunnel at a speed I couldn’t hope to match. I mapped each twist, each turn of the tunnel, noting where I started to get pulled deep underground, trying to keep some semblance of direction and orientation. My biomancy augmentation prevented me from becoming dizzy, helping me know exactly which way I was going at any given time.

At last I came to a stop. I was still wrapped in threads, hung from the ceiling by my ankles.

I got a solid look at where I was.

I was deep under the Bloodmoon Bay, in a large domed room made out of glass. Dim light lit the room, pretending like it was from the sun above, but there was no sun above us. Just hundreds of thousands of pounds of water, and a gigantic cloud of Ash blotting out the light. The view was fantastic. Fish swam nearby, nibbling and darting through coral reefs, while a shark lazily swam nearby.

The setting was nice, the rest of it, not so much. I continued to struggle against my bonds, determined to find some way to escape. My mana was being drained as fast as it regenerated, but thanks to a little quirk in the System, I could channel the mana into a skill before it was whisked away. I had ‘dibs’ so to speak. Utterly worthless… except for [Channeled Blink].

It would take about 20 minutes to channel enough mana for me to blink out and escape. Maybe a little less. I was hung near the ceiling, and I was aiming for the bottom of Bloodmoon Bay. I was entirely confident in my ability to swim through the water with all the modifications I’d made, and it was a better shot than trying to run through the threads.

Speaking of threads. Countless numbers of the tiny buggers were throughout the room, vanishing into various tunnels that all centered here. Sitting at the center of them all, wearing a black outfit with a stylized bat in red, was a woman, looking up at me with a sardonic grin. Her eyes were red, with the tell-tale indicators of a Forest element. Her hair was predominately silver, with flashes of other bright colors here and there throughout. Combined with her pale complexion and the hint of fangs, she was obviously a vampire.

[Long-Range Identify] gave me [Artisan - 2145].

I was so fucked.

She spoke with an accent I’d describe as posh and clipped.

“Oh my, it appears that a little butterfly has fallen into my web.”

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