Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

"Oh-ho, look at this!" Glenn smiled to himself as he sent a gust of wind at the high stone chair that stood at the top of the tower, cleaning it from the dust and sand covering it. There was nothing there aside from that chair and a breathtaking view over the desert.

"After all that riding, I think I deserve to sit on the highest throne," he muttered to himself with a smile.

Diamanes scoffed. "You call that a throne? Who are you to say that's not some elaborate toilets, huh?"

"...I feel you make a little less sense every day that passes."

"That's simply your brain decaying, don't worry. Anyway, nice view."

Glenn chuckled and leaned on his closed fist. "Nice view indeed."

Beneath the twin moons, covered in a pale blanket of light, the black sand stretched in wavy dunes forever. The night's wind kicked up a few clouds of sand, swirling in the darkness like stringless puppets.

It was beautiful, if a little empty—

Glenn straightened himself up, squinting. He rubbed his eyes, unsure.

"Say, Diamanes. Is it me, or is it glowing out there?"

If Diamanes could have blinked in confusion, he would have. "Glowing? What the hell do you—oh. It is glowing."

The moonlight revealed something in the dunes, hidden lines that glowed in the night with a pale iridescence. These lines stretched out of the tower and into the distance, to some unknown direction. Glenn stood up from the chair, shocked, but the sight disappeared instantly.

"The fuck is...huh?"

The moment he sat back down, the strange glow in the black sand reappeared.

Whatever these lines the moonlight showed him, they were visible only from the top of the high chair.

"That is some... weird yet familiar magic," groaned Diamanes. "Don't ask me where, but I know I've already seen this before."

"Of course you did," muttered Glenn. He activated his Observer, keeping his eyes on the glowing lines. He quickly drew the directions they went in, helping himself with the integrated compass. His notes taken, he jumped off the chair just in time to welcome a shocked Sahro and Lucian, alongside a puzzled Liara.

"Glenn, the Mana is off the rail—"

"There was a shaytan alrimal—"

Sahro and Lucian stared at each other before both taking a deep breath. The Prince tapped the side of his head, frowning.

"As I was saying, the Mana around here is off the charts. I don't know what's going on, but it might be worth looking into alongside our little sabotage mission."

Glenn raised an eyebrow. "Is it? I didn't notice—oh shit!" He was not prepared for the blinding light awaiting him when he activated his Mana Sight, the magic in the air thicker than tar.

"How did I not notice that...?" He scratched the back of his head, surprised. Sahro cleared his throat, an old root clenched in his prosthesis.

"That's not all. I met some sort of... sand projection in the underground floor, a Dark Elf. It spoke of a... a plant that would save them." The Black Heir's face crumbled as he realized how stupid that sounded.

"A Dark Elf?" Liara repeated with a somber expression. She tugged at her silver white hair, her olive skin appearing quite lighter than Sahro's. The cross tattoo on her forehead gleamed under the moonlight, a symbol of royalty amongst Black Heirs.

Sahro shook his head in loss. "I don't know much else. I just picked up this root, and it made the man of sand appear. It said its thing, then collapsed."

"A man of sand..." Lucian rubbed his chin before leaning over the edge of the top of the tower. "Milena, ever heard of a man of sand—ah, blast it, she can't hear me. Give me a second."

The Prince jumped off the tower, only to return with Milena under his arm a second later. Milena hurriedly pulled herself away from the Prince before sighing. The roar of Pebble in the distance echoed in the night, the dragon probably off chasing some Orcs or other tasty beasts.

"A man of sand?" she said after hearing the gist of it. "And it seemed like it had memories? That's something that I would understand coming from my grandfather's automatons, not a pile of dust."

Glenn raised his hand with a frown. "Actually, I have already encountered something similar in the past. The first Heart of Darkness I took down controlled some sort of ink... black goo substance, and I think the soul of one of its victims communicated with me through it. Perhaps it was something like that?"

Sahro looked down at the root with conflicted emotions. "No, no, it felt... connected to me, somewhat."

"If you're actually a Dark Elf hiding in a Black Heir's skin, that would certainly make sense," laughed Lucian as he walked on the edge of the tower, balancing himself dexterously. Glenn clapped his hands together, drawing their attention back to him.

"I've also discovered something." He turned to Liara with a mischievous smile. "If Her Highness would like to sit on the throne?"

Liara scoffed while Sahro and Milena rolled their eyes, Lucian watching with a smirk. The Black Heiress sat on the high stone chair, her eyes suddenly widening. "What is this?"

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"Now I'm curious," Milena muttered, before jumping and sitting right next to Liara in the tight chair. "Oh, it glows?"

"What a bunch of morons... Wasn't this supposed to be a search and destroy operation instead of an archaeological mess?" Diamanes grumbled. His voice made the cheery mood crash as all realized they had no time to waste on dealing with yet another mystery.

Glenn sighed and slapped his thighs. "It pains me to admit it, but Diamanes is right. We will come back to this once we're done with the war."

The group nodded in agreement as Liara and Milena climbed down the high chair. Glenn still turned to Lucian with a hint of curiosity. "How did you know about this place?"

Lucian tapped his Observer lightly. "Our scouts found it. They didn't explore it, since they were on an even tighter schedule than we, but they marked it on the map."

Glenn nodded slowly. "We'll need to come back here at some point. But first, let's find these Orc factories and burn them to the ground."

***

"Oculi Aquilae?"

"Oculi Aquilae."

"Huh. Oculi Aquilae. Oh wow. That's a neat spell."

Glenn and Lucian were lying down on a dune, their presence concealed by Milena's sorcery. Sahro and Liara were on standby, the first on Pebble's back and the other on Whitey. The bright sun was beating down on them with crushing heat. Thankfully, Glenn still had his soul-bound Mimetic cape that protected him from the heat. As for Lucian, he was a Prince. Glenn had yet to see a single drop of sweat on that unnervingly perfectly chiseled face of his.

'He probably owns some sort of cooling artifacts, or something like that. That's what I would get first if I were rich,' Diamanes laughed in Glenn's mind, disturbing his concentration.

"That's one of the first spells I learned," said Lucian as he peered into the distance. "Eagle Eyes. Oh wow, look at all these supplies. That's some fresh troops if I've ever seen one."

"Why this and not something more... attack-oriented?" Glenn asked as he stared at an Orc's column a dozen kilometers away. He could see them as if they were right in front of him. That Eagle Eyes spell truly was very practical.

"I was restrained in the Royal Tower back when I was a kid, because I always messed around too much. So, to distract myself, I learned it so I could see what our citizens did in their lives," explained Lucian while entering information about the Orc detachment on the Observer.

"Huh, you got a voyeurism problem, or...?" Glenn mocked. There were five hundred Orcs, at the very least, going toward the place they'd ruined the previous day. Most of them bore minimal armor, only wearing skirts made of strips of leather hanging from their waists, and wielded spears. Among them, there were officers—at least Glenn supposed they were—wearing additional armor, with the shoulders covered in those same leather strips and their chests hidden beneath a segmented bronze armor.

Glenn had already noticed that the first time he encountered the Orcs, but their 'fashion-style' really made him think of the Romans of Antiquity, back on Earth. One Orc in particular stood out, with a mask chiseled into a golden face, his glaive shining brightly under the sun as he directed the troops. The leader of the detachment, undoubtedly.

"Hmm... Voyeurism... I wonder how you dealt with Diamanes when you went to sleep with Liara back then, during that party," Lucian stated placidly.

Glenn choked on his saliva and punched Lucian's shoulder, trying to stop him from laughing. The Prince shook his head with an amused smile.

"We can't attack them, unfortunately. If we do that, they'll understand they have intruders on their territory, and our mission will be a failure. But I can at least warn our allies that they're coming. That's the least we can do."

"Let's hope there won't be too many casualties." Glenn sighed and checked his Observer. "Let's see. It looks like they came from deeper west, maybe north-west."

Lucian nodded. "Let's wait for them to pass by, and we'll follow their tracks. It's a little too risky to have Pebble and Whitey come down for now. If I could master Eagle Eyes at the age of six, no doubt an Orc mage can do so as well."

Glenn grunted, continuing to spy on the Orcs. Eventually, the detachment passed by. The spell hiding their presence faded away, and Milena climbed up the hill, tired.

"Can someone carry me? I'm exhausted and I need to recollect my Mana."

Glenn didn't have time to come up with an excuse as Lucian knelt down and patted his lower back with a playful smile. "Please, Duchess Milena, you can rest on my royal back".

Milena rolled her eyes and climbed up, with the Prince laughing mischievously before taking off to the sky, joining Sahro and Liara to inform them of the new direction to take. Glenn wiped the sweat off his forehead and sighed.

"What, you want to keep your back for dear Liara? How cute!" Diamanes mocked.

Glenn looked at his left hand for an instant before smirking. "Look who's jealous. And yeah, my back is only for the one I like. What can I say, I'm exclusive on this type of thing!"

Diamanes sneered. "Had Liara heard that, she would have fallen heel over you again. Egh, too much romance, and not enough blood, I swear."

"I've been massacring Orcs like lambs to the slaughter for the past months, what are you talking about...?"

"Shut up and go already, you bastard."

The group followed the tracks diligently, stopping whenever they saw Orc patrols or avoiding encampments. Munirp's scouts' work had been fundamental to them avoiding being spotted or running into an Orc's camp. Eventually, they reached the end of the tracks.

"Huh." Lucian checked his Observer again. "I... uh, I was certainly not expecting that."

Glenn rubbed his chin, staring at the black sand before him.

There was nothing.

The tracks, left by five hundred orcs dragging material, war supplies, and weapons, simply stopped in the middle of nowhere. They were far from the Horizon Gates and Munirp's army, maybe a walking day or two away, and there was nothing.

Just more black sand ground up into another bloody dune. Sahro looked at the sun above them. It was about to set down and leave its spot for the eternal twin moons.

"We've wasted... so much time," muttered Milena dejectedly. "How many Munirp souls did we lose just because we followed tracks in the desert?"

Liara silently patted her back in a placating way, but the Duchess wasn't done. "We could have protected them, instead of risking it and coming here. But no, we had to play the heroes again, and now thousands have died, just because of our selfishness—"

Sahro grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look into his eyes. "Shut up. You're talking nonsense."

Milena, exhausted from constantly casting spells to hide their presence in the desert, went to punch him in the face, but Lucian added his weight to it.

"He's right. This was, and still is, the correct choice."

Milena lowered her fist and sat in the black sand, sighing. "I... I know. But what if we came all this way for nothing? C- Couldn't we have been more useful elsewhere?"

Glenn, his back turned and his arms crossed, cleared his throat. "Actually, I don't think we could have been. Heads-up, everyone."

With his Mana Sight activated, he could see it.

A crack, remnants of a powerful spell that shattered the fabric of reality.

"Oh, I should have known!" Diamanes blurted out.

"Teleportation!"