NOVEL NEXT 120 - They’re Starting to Trust Archmund Again…
Rory, Beatrice, and Archmund tumbled through a portal into a cacophony of verdure.
"That bastard!" Beatrice said. "This is the rainforest in the Uppermost Subtier! He made us traipse around this place like street performers all the way down, while he was relaxing up here?"
"Cut him some slack," Archmund said. "As far as I could tell, he was focusing really hard on avoiding me."
"I'm not sure that's really proof of his superior elven magics," Beatrice said. "Didn't you just start doing this strength-through-cannibalism technique today? You can't be that good at it already."
"I've always been a quick study."
"Sure," Beatrice said, snorting. "So where is he?"
Rory raised his staff, feeling through the magics with it. Archmund took his cue and opened his eyes to the flows of magic.
It was impossible to tell anything. The trees and trunks were slicked in dew and miasma, branches and vines and shrubs and trunks flowing into each other as if they were one great superorganism. (The Dungeon itself may as well have been one such example.)
Motes of Gelias's magic were scattered about, slipped between the wrought vines of miasma, and to trace then would be to follow a thread through a thicket.
"Did you send Monsters after him?" Rory said, frowning.
"I didn't have too many other ways of finding him," Archmund said defensively. "He was very careful not to get debuffed in such a way that would make him susceptible to my Influence. And I could never control Monsters up here all that well, even before I gave up the seat. My control faltered up here."
"So you sent Monsters after him, but lost control of them when they got close to him?"
"…Maybe?"
"How the Hell did you convince yourself you were singularly brilliant and suited to controlling this place?"
"I am pretty brilliant in a lot of ways," Archmund said. "And I did try to use all your help. Just… not in an actually fair way that was sustainable and best long term."
"He is pretty good at a lot of things," Rory muttered.
"And that was enough? You were good at some things, so that was enough to be convinced you were good at everything?" Beatrice said. She seemed to be struck dumb with disbelief.
"It's a surprisingly common affliction among the specialized-brilliant," Archmund said. "No idea how Gelias doesn't show any sign of it."
"Elven magic is truly mysterious."
They forged forward through the jungle. Archmund stuck to his swords, hacking through vines and over branches, instead of using his Infrared Lance or casting fireballs. He didn't want to risk setting the whole place ablaze, as humid and stifling as it felt. Perception and illusion were one in the depths of the Dungeon.
There were, in fact, Monsters this time around. But up here, they were liberated from the structure of the Middle Subtier, no longer forced into the straitjacket forms of clerks. They darted and swung from the trees like free men, their skin as hard as diamond, indulging on the treasures of the uppermost tier that they had won. Where water cascaded from an unknown height in a great cataract, and the plants provided comfort and shade from the rigors of the day.
The threat wasn't Monsters lurking in the shadows — it was Monsters with dangerous enhancements who had been commanded to come here, and then lost contact with their dread master, Archmund from fifteen minutes ago. Loosed from their commands, they followed their instincts to seek comfort, to expend their power as freely as they wished for this land where they could thrive. Eating abundantly of the fruits of the snack tables, and drinking of the fountains.
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Some of the Monsters had big, bulbous eyes, perfectly adapted to see through the dark, and when they saw the adventurers they would bleat like lambs and crying babies. Then other Monsters would fall from the trees, like a black rain towards their party.
And yet for all those tactics they weren't very strong.
Basically? They charged towards the living and their Gems, and they died extremely easily. They were to the Dungeon jungle as mosquitoes were to a real one.
"Why did you send so many after him?" Beatrice cursed.
"I don't think I did. Well, maybe. It was a lot longer than I realized," Archmund said. "But I still don't think I did. Do you think they split apart to be more comfortable?"
"That's stupid," Beatrice said.
"It makes sense if you think about them like real people," Rory said. "If you tied us together, I'd bet she'd try to cut the rope!"
"I wouldn't drop you if we went mountaineering, have some faith in me."
The two of them were just perfect for each other, Archmund reflected. He found himself oddly envious. If only he'd ever found a powerful source of banter that wasn't also backstabbing him in the name of realpolitik.
Still, it reminded him why he often preferred to work alone. It seemed like so much more just happened when it was just him.
It was a miracle none of them were collapsing of exhaustion, though they were tired. Although each of the Monsters died in one hit and dropped Gems so small they might as well have been grains of sand, the intrinsic act of swinging a sword still strained his arm. If he could've used his Infrared Lance or his Strobe or any of his other Skills, he was sure he could've cleared them out in instants — but he didn't exactly have the power to get his friends to safety.
"I'm going to try something," Archmund said. "I don't want you two to freak out."
"Okay. What?"
He took out the Gemstone Cufflinks. Beatrice wrapped her Shadowed Cloak around her, and Rory stared directly into the light of his Gemstone Quarterstaff.
"Let me explain!"
"If I use this, it'll buff my Charisma, which will strengthen my Influence. I've gotten much better at using it compared to when Gelias left. I might not have the Dungeon's to control Monsters so finely, but I can definitely influence these, and I can force them all to…"
"To kill themselves?" Beatrice said.
Archmund swallowed. "If that's necessary. But there will be one point in this jungle that I can't control. And that point will be Gelias."
"How long do you need?" Rory said.
"Thirty seconds, and then I remove the cufflinks. If I don't…"
Archmund gave Rory a serious look.
"No. No," Rory said. "I am not going to indulge your sacrificial deathwish!"
"What? No. Just knock me out, or wrestle my hands behind me."
"When you have a Gemstone Rapier with Deflection and Disarm? How do you think I'll manage that?"
"I can hold back?"
"We couldn't kill you even if we wanted to, much less disarm you," Beatrice said. "But if you don't let go of it, I'm running. I'm going to the upper world. And Rory… I'll call the Omnio."
Archmund grimaced. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."
Darkness.
Still darkness, woody and earthy and steeped in petrichor.
And then suddenly a thousand forms, like bundles of sticks and ichor, burst with vitality. Not light, and not magic, and not miasma, but something in between, the soliding of aethereal into real.
He spoke not in words but in thought itself. Gemmy was around his aethereal form as a crowning halo of blue, the interface that turned word into ineffable knowledge. He did not kill, but thought instead of a simple mercy: Be unmade.
And then his eyes opened, returned to normal vision, and he fell flat on his back. His muscles ached. Rory and Beatrice scrambled to his side, pawing at his arms, removing his cufflinks. He didn't resist.
"Gemmy?" he thought.
"You've drained yourself to 40% of your top capacity across the board," Gemmy said. "Me as well."
"What were you in there? What was that?"
"You'll understand the more you try it! Did you get what you needed?"
He opened his eyes to the world of magic — a greater feat than it had been moments before — and the darkness had abated. Though the trees were woven of miasma, they no longer shifted in the dark like a wandering wood, and now the green streaks of Gelias's magic pointed a clear path back to him.
"You've cleaned up your mistakes," Gelias said, as they approached him in a clearing. A magic light floated in front of him — the org chart he'd created so long ago. The bottommost tier of the chart, made of motes of light, was slowly dissolving into nothing.
He stood up, his eyes gleaming with magic sight. "Looking clean. Whatever you need me for, I'm in."
Archmund sighed. "Even answers?"
"Answers?"
"You had some idea of what was going to happen before it all did," Archmund said. "Why leave us to it? Even if we're not that close, why leave them?"
"I've felt things like this before," Gelias said, haltingly and slowly. He clutched his bow. "It's not just memories of Skills that are borne by this bow. There are harsher memories as well. But the issue with looking through all my ancestor's memories is that it's hard to parse. Problems repeat. Solutions never do."
He fixed Archmund with a solemn gaze. Archmund swallowed. There were more answers to come.