Fates of Grenora: Return of the Night

They ventured to a part of the dungeon where the once vibrantly green woods and jungle turned into rotted and dead woodlands with greying soil. Aldrin knelt and scooped up a handful of the dirt to let it sift through his fingers. "Feels more like sand," he commented on the texture.

Evie scanned the horizon, noting the splotches of areas where nothing grew, not even dead trees. "Magic," she whispered quietly.

Pierre frowned. "How can magic do any of this?" he asked, staring in disbelief.

"There are magics from forgotten Classes that were once widely known and utilized. There is no telling what sort of Class magic or ability would turn a jungle land into a barren wasteland." Aldrin answered, surprising Evie, "Come on," he commanded, striding forth with his eyes peeled, head on a swivel, and his sphere of awareness on full alert.

Carefully they picked through the desolated wasteland that didn't even hold the slightest of breeze. Aldrin's frown continued to deepen as nothing stirred in his awareness, nor could he see anything whenever he would switch to his predator vision to look for any hints of life. Whatever happened here, Aldrin quickly concluded that nothing would ever grow here again. He filed that bit of information for when he got out of the Dungeon and asked around for any areas with dead magic zones. He knew that there were probably going to be a few, but at least it was a start to figuring out what happened to this part of the world to make it a candidate for a Dungeon to be born.

Pierre came trotting back after venturing ahead of the group, when they started their trek through the land. "Anything?" Jared was the first to ask as he scanned the horizon to their right and left with his Enhanced Vision.

Pierre shook his head. "Nothing, but I did see some flickering lights flying circles around a decently sized tree further up. Should be about a 10-minute walk from here. I steered clear of it in case it turned out to be more than I expected."

"Flickering lights?" Evie asked, frowning.

Pierre nodded. "Like little balls of light but they were floating around this tree. Probably something significant?" he wondered.

"Or the last holder of the statues we need?" Aldrin grinned, "Lead the way, Pierre."

Pierre led them to the tree, stopping close enough to observe but far enough to not attract them to attack. "There they are," he pointed to them.

Evie was the first to take a step closer, squinting her eyes as she made out the circular shapes of the floating lights. "Are those…?" Then she used Inspect.

Evie shared the lore with the rest of the group.

Pierre released a heavy sigh with his shoulders slumped. "I gotta get some magical weapons…"

Aldrin grinned, then pulled Sin-Screamer from his Inventory, gave it a good flourish as it sliced through the air, then launched himself forward, rocketing forth like the angel of death he was slowly becoming. The Wailing Lanterns saw his approach as he ate up the distance, his great sword glowing with Cleaving Strikes and Leech Imbuement.

The Wailing Lanterns let out a shrill shriek, then all at once, like a raging tornado, they spun in the air and flew to meet the charge of Aldrin. Seeing this, he chose one of his new Skills to test. On the last step that pushed him forward, he shot forth faster than he ever had before, flashing through the tornado with a clean slice down the middle and out of the other side without a scratch on him. He willed himself to stop completely, like Regalas had said to do, and it worked without a hitch.

Dread Charge was going to be one of his staple Skills to rely on when he wanted to close the distance in a quick burst. The Wailing Lanterns dispersed with a few dying from the attacks as scraps of light dissipated, leaving behind piles of shining white goo. With Inspect, it told him it was Spiritwick Ectoplasm. Grinning more to himself, he silently thanked Sin-Screamer for being a magical weapon even if it was an Artefact-level weapon.

He phased into his bat swarm to meet the Wailing Lanterns head on, this time partially transforming leaving only his upper half himself then fully charged forth again as the Wailing Lanterns swirled to reform their tornado, albeit with visible gaps from where they lost their members.

Down below, the rest of the group finally arrived in time to Aldrin clash again with the spirit tornado, this time getting engulfed as they swirled around him, sending little bolts of light. Evie took this chance to try one of her new runestones that was geared toward specific situational circumstances. One the runestone, a black symbol that absorbed all light, flew upwards. Aldrin saw it speed by him as he was defending himself from the light-based bolts.

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The runestone exploded, blanketing the area in complete darkness, which only emboldened Aldrin as his sight quickly adapted to the darkness, allowing him to see with perfect clarity. The Wailing Lanterns on the other hand, buzzed around blindly, bumping into each other and letting loose bolts of light at each other. The chaos the runestone caused allowed for Aldrin to use it to his full advantage as he swung Sin-Screamer with wanton abandonment. Each 5th swing, a lilac colored wave of energy would follow in his wake, decimating even more of the lanterns.

When the darkness from the runestone receded, all that remained was Aldrin holding a miniature mask of Jade that resembled the Wailing Lanterns. He fluttered down, reforming his bottom half before his feet hit the ground.

Proud smiles were plastered on his friends' faces that made him quickly look away in embarrassment. "I'll be the first to say it, but that was pretty badass to watch," Jared chuckled.

Aldrin shuffled his foot that he looked down at. "Sorry guys, I'm not really used to praise," he said when he looked up, but he couldn't help the smile that formed on his own face.

"I'm-" Aldrin started, but his sphere warned him of something coming from below. He pushed Jared and Pierre out of the way first, then launched himself at Evie, tackling her away from where they stood when a large green stinger burst from the ground.

Aldrin quickly recovered, pulling Evie up with him as he readied Sin-Screamer. "Evie don't hold back. It's bigger than we think," he said, his eyes never leaving the massive body dragged itself out of the earth. Two large sounding cracks snapped at the air within the dirt cloud, then it let out a screech.

When the dust settled, it revealed a monster carved from pale green stone with glowing amber veins that pulsed with each movement. Its segmented weathered carapace was cracked from age, yet despite its bulk and the damage it had, it still moved with graceful ease. Its pincers snapped once more in a mechanical rhythm while it poised its stinger high, like a serpent ready to strike, and at the tip of its stinger was a perpetual drip of a viscous amber liquid.

Beneath its plated legs, faint trails of dust swirled around it, signs that it had waited for however long for new prey to disturb its slumber. Its faceted jade orbs for eyes blinked and assessed the group in front of it, then it took a thundering step forward, rumbling the ground when it stabbed its foreleg down.

"Evie, hit it hard while the rest of us do our best to distract it," Aldrin commanded, then flashed forward with Dread Charge while having Sin-Screamer angled for a piercing lunge. The monster screeched like grinding gears as it charged forward to meet Aldrin head on.

They collided, Aldrin and the monster coming to a stalemate for a few seconds, then he realized he started being pushed back. The stinger that loomed above thrusted downward, forcing Aldrin to form into black fog to let the attack sail through him.

Without an almost equal force opposing it, the monster lost its balance in time with its tail strike, making it smack itself with its own tail. It didn't waver even once as it took the hit and scuttled forth to Evie. She only grinned as she threw three colored different runestones, one bright red, one white, and one sky blue. The scorpion covered its head with its massive pincers when the stones made impact with the hard surface of them. The group had to shield their eyes as Evie's fire runestone exploded, augmented by the lightning bolt runestone and giving it a blinding flash from the white runestone.

When the light faded, Aldrin was the first to react as he jumped high, barely missing the swinging tail that swirled from within the smoke. Jared peppered it with elemental arrows from his quiver while Pierre rushed back to Evie, who handed him runestones before he vanished.

Sin-Screamer glowed with Aldrin's attacks as he came down, aiming to sever the tail at its base, but the monster decided then to burrow into the earth, spraying large swaths of dirt everywhere. Aldrin changed tactics, changing into a swarm of bats and flying upwards. He circled once, watching as the Jade Scorpion disappeared beneath the dirt. He could see Jared already making a beeline for the tree where the Wailing Lanterns once were with Evie hot on his heels.

Following them, he got there first, reforming himself on a low branch when Jared reached it. He threw his bow up first, which Aldrin caught easily before setting it down, then reaching down to help Jared up. Once Jared was up, he grabbed his bow and continued to climb up. Evie reached the tree next, easily jumping off the trunk and onto the lowest hanging branch, with Aldrin helping her up.

He stayed on the branch a little longer, keeping a lookout for Pierre when his sphere went off again, alerting him to the massive thing sliding through the earth below them. "It's coming! Brace yourselves!" Aldrin shouted.

There was a hard thunk that rocked and vibrated the tree. Aldrin wasn't worried about falling off from the sensations, but he watched Evie and Jared as they gripped the tree branches for dear life. The monster must've realized it couldn't knock the tree over when it surfaced in a fit of rage as it started attacking the base of the tree. Aldrin noticed that one of its pincers had been completely blown off from Evie's earlier attacks.

That's when Aldrin saw Pierre appear behind it and crawl underneath it, carefully avoiding its maddened dance as it struck the tree. "Get ready!" Evie was the one to shout this time.

Pierre rolled from underneath the monster, then made a mad dash away. Aldrin looked down in time to see another bright light and then the exoskeleton of the monster before shielding his eyes and being rocked back from the explosion. He heard a large snapping sound and then the world fell sideways and stopped with another loud thud that rumbled the earth.

Slowly he opened his eyes, seeing that the world was indeed sideways as the tree had fallen over. He extracted himself from the branches and looked around to see Pierre running back towards them. He turned to the left of him where the top of the tree was to see Evie brushing herself free from branches and Jared come tumbling out of them.

"Good gods warn somebody next time," Jared grumbled as he shakily stood.

Evie giggled, "I did."

Jared cut his eyes to her that made her let loose one of her rare, full laughs. Pierre reached them in time to see Jared beginning to chuckle, followed by Aldrin. He cracked a smile at that, then read his notifications, as did everyone else.

The miniature statues flew from Aldrin's inventory, culminating together with the two ones that were out in the open to make a large jade orb that flashed like a pulsing heart. They all watched with anticipation as the orb jerked erratically, searching for the right direction before jerking northwest, back toward the Jade Carver village.

"I knew it," Jared said dejectedly.

Everyone else grimaced, then begrudgingly trudged back to the village. Knowing their way around since they have spent time traveling back and forth from it and given that it rested in the center of the dungeon, they made short time getting back.