NOVEL NEXT [V2] Chapter 9: The Silver Vault
[Sage ---> Party Notification]
- - - Party invite accepted - - -
> You have now joined [Bold Arrow]
> Select party role [Damage, Damage Support, Support, Healer]
> [Damage Support] selected
> Party Leader: Xander Wolfe (Swordsman, Level 11, Damage)
> Party Members: Rosayn Alrevel (Cleric, Level 13, Healer), Vineta Maurer (Theurgist, Level 10, Support), Bjadir Salt-Hammer (Berserker, Level 10, Damage), Trelen Veil (Sorcerer, Level 9, Damage support), Lisel Kirk (Ranger, Level 8, Damage Support).
> Average Party Level: 10
> Primary Dungeon: The Silver Vault
> Point of Origin: Frostwall, Calvergia
> Party Experience Bonus: 6%
"Alright gang, listen up."
Blychert glanced up from his sage terminal, quietly gesturing for the notification to clear out of his queue as he regarded Xander at the head of the party.
It was an unusually nice day outside, going so far as to render winter clothing and other cold weather gear somewhat unnecessary. The cloud-dappled blue sky above beamed with late-morning sunlight, casting warm rays and a cheery, pleasant atmosphere across the wide plaza within which the Silver Vault sat resolute. The tall, thin conifer trees landscaped around its perimeter wall rustled slightly in the delicate breeze, and more than a fair few birds chirped from within their branches.
The massive, bronze doors were wide open, their edges glistening under the light of day, where small clusters of adventurers hung around them and passed in and out at their own leisure. It wasn't a great surprise to Bly that there were no armed guards present at the doors, for if it were anything like the Gleaming Caves then the entrance threshold prevented anything dangerous from getting out. Likewise, there already seemed to be more than enough guards patrolling the plaza and streets of Frostwall, so much so that such a station was likely redundant.
"This will be the first delve we've done in a little while." Xander continued brightly, the Iridescent Blade now sheathed along his sword belt, "And our first delve as a full party, at that. Taking that into consideration, I think we'll stick to the upper fringes of the second floor today and try to fulfill the daily bonus reward. Trelen, since your only experience with delving is in D-rated dungeons, be extra careful to stick with the party. Dungeons of this high a rating are prone to changing up their layout. And ours just so happens to do just that about once a week. Which means, spawn points can be ruthless down there, and there's just no telling what other dangers you'll come across… take it from me."
Bly nodded.
He didn't need to be told twice, especially not after what Lisel had told him about Norman's death, and the party's run-in with a trapped room on the third floor of this very dungeon. It sent a shiver down Bly's spine, both one of fear and excitement.
"Excellent." Xander grinned. He clutched at the pendant hanging around his neck for a moment, and added, "Alright then, let's head out!"
As if spurred on by his party leader's ritual, Bly reached into his robe pocket and fished around until his fingers traced an outline of the smooth, circular resonance stone that Lisel had gifted him. He pulled the cloudy-white stone from his pocket and twisted it around in-between his fingers for a moment, slow and diligently. Then, glancing up, he whispered, "Wish me luck… Alyse."
[SAGE ---> Winter System Notification]
> Now entering the [Silver Vault]
> Party Status: Activated
> Core Volatility: 6%
> Active Wayshrine(s): Entrance (1), Grand Halls (2), Vault Corridor I (3), Vault Corridor II (4), Opulent Plaza (5), Vault Corridor III (6), Sunken Reaches (7), Halls of Ogrim (8), Glimmering Passage (9), Annex of Scions (10), Vault Corridor III (11), Vault Corridor IV (12), Chamber of the Silversmith (13), Path of the Plunder Dragon (14)
> Daily Bonus Reward: Kill [30] Soulforge Living Armor
The warm light of day was replaced in an instant, swapped for a deep and unsettling gray hue as the party teleported via wayshrine to the end of the first floor, dubbed the Grand Halls. And grand it was indeed, or so Bly thought.
As his eyes adjusted, Bly noticed that massive braziers lit the chamber in which they now stood, giving that deep gray coloration to everything it touched. Intricate and ornate architecture, not seemingly in any familiar style, filled the space as well, with strange and oddly angled shapes, pillars, and stones. On one side, a massive silver vault door remained thoroughly closed, and Bly guessed that it must have been the boss lair on this floor. On the opposite wall, an archway appeared to lead to a bridge spanning a wide chasm, and two much smaller archways lined the adjacent walls, mirroring one another but leading into their own corridors.
It wasn't nearly as sinister looking as the wayshrine chamber outside of Glemberfang's Lair had been, and yet it possessed an unnerving aura that simply eclipsed anything to be found in the Gleaming Caves.
The hairs on Bly's arms stood tall, knowing full well that he had now truly stepped into a whole different world—a different kind of beast, and a more dangerous one than anything he was used to. If the dungeon back in Kelvalder had dished out grueling trials, he couldn't imagine what this dungeon was capable of.
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At any rate, he was more than ready to test his mettle.
***
"Center line—break left now!"
Bly barely understood the words of Xander's order above the sounds of his own haggard breaths and the cascade of noise surrounding the party as they battled a score of blue-tongued goblins. They were only of the basic spawn type, and yet their spawning numbers seemed to swell to such an overwhelming volume that the party never really felt like it was ever able to come off the backfoot.
"Lisel, I need a moment before I can recast." Vineta shouted hastily, as the chromatic vibrance of her spells cut through the darkened corridor, "Rosayn—"
"Already on it!" Rosayn interjected, immediately twirling her staff around. In the same instance, a flash of blue light ripped across the chamber and covered Bjadir's entire body. As he was a Berserker, Bly understood that he was more effective when his health was lower. However, that didn't mean he was invulnerable to damage, and he was certainly taking plenty of it.
"HUAAAAAAG!" Bjadir shouted, itself an altogether unintelligible sound. The sheer stature of his strength, paired with an equally formidable polearm, in the form of a maul, blasted through scores of goblins as if they were no more resistant than stray pieces of parchment.
Repositioning himself towards the front, Bly stifled his heavy breaths and quickly doubled into a multi-cast chain of shield and ensnare, targeting goblins in Xander's general direction to allow the party leader a moment's reprieve from the frontline. He then switched back into a damage role, helping Lisel target goblin archers on the fringes with as many icicles as he could muster.
Vineta had clearly been using the last few months to improve her terrain magic skill, and Bly couldn't help but to admire the way in which her and Rosayn not only controlled the flow of enemy movements across the battlefield but actively used it to create confusion. Vineta's terrain magic formed natural barriers, holes, and switchbacks, causing goblins to pile up and slow down their advances, while Rosayn seemed to use some kind of enchantment magic that affected the decision making of the goblins themselves, which became erratic and unresponsive whenever she cast.
The fighting was intense, and their party chemistry was certainly lacking, given how much healing Rosayn had to pump into them over the last couple of hours' worth of delving, but it seemed to be working, nonetheless. Perhaps with a few more weeks of training, they might just start to look like a true adventuring party.
"Another soulforge spawning up ahead." Xander noted, gesturing down the corridor.
Wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, Bly looked down the length of the corridor to where a slow-moving set of uninhabited armor shambled towards them. It dragged a longsword across the ground behind it, scraping the stone as it drew closer.
This would only make their seventh soulforge living armor kill of the day, if they managed it. Twenty-three more suddenly seemed like quite a daunting task, not that Bly wasn't up for the challenge. Although, he did wonder just how far the party was willing to go.
It wasn't like they ever really discussed expectations, after all.
Snapping back to reality, Bly dispensed several swift shields in quick succession, followed by a bout of elemental spells, concentrating on the large quantity of goblins suddenly gathering on Bjadir's flank.
Before long, the goblin spawns had thinned out considerably, leaving only a few stragglers, as well as the living armor up ahead.
"Bjadir, that armor's all yours!" Xander insisted, as he swung his iridescent blade around in the final seventh movement of his sword art, cutting down a goblin ravager in his path, "I'm on your flank. Trelen? Pump him up! Let's keep this moving."
"Right!" Bly nodded, adjusting his footing somewhat as he prepared to cast his spell. He exhaled, and muttered, "Surging winds, cast unto earth and let his steps be many. Winds of time, swiften his shadow in boundless pace. Hasten."
The spell snatched Bjadir's body, emboldening him quite suddenly with the transmutative magic that then propelled him forward at incredible speed.
Drawing his maul back behind his head, the shambling armor raised its sword to greet the half-giant, though to little avail. Bjadir was quicker—much quicker, and the sound of clanging metal echoed across the corridor, all within the blink of an eye.
A silence cut only by the echoes of panting breaths filled the area thereafter.
"Everyone alright?" Xander called out, to which a few nods and groans replied. Chuckling, he added, "Don't tell me everyone's already spent? We're not even halfway through the floor yet."
They weren't even halfway through?
Blychert had burned through tons of resources, and they weren't even close to reaching the end of the floor! Let alone their daily bonus reward.
And there were twelve more floors after this one that they could theoretically explore?
Sheesh, it really does live up to the hype. Bly thought, wiping more sweat from his face.
He could have definitely afforded to train a lot harder in the last few months. He was probably fit enough for a day of delving the Gleaming Caves, but it was simply undeniable: Blychert was flat out of shape for the Silver Vault.
"Huhggg…" Bly groaned.
[SAGE --> Raven System Notification]
[Experience gained: +245 xp]
[Experience total: 14,552 xp]
[Cumulative total: 21,596 xp]
"Hm?" Bly furrowed his brow as he regarded his sage terminal for a curious moment.
Despite the lucrative yield worth of experience, he couldn't help but notice the notification. Or rather, he couldn't help but notice the 'raven system' component of it. His working theory about that… creature, whatever it was, he'd come across in the Gleaming Caves, and its potential ties to Sage, suddenly made him wonder about the other components.
Was Raven one of these… creatures? Or was Bly simply barking up the wrong tree? He couldn't shake the feeling of foreboding any more than he could the uncertainty.
Why had that thing even spoken to him in the first place? Did his arrival in Frostwall have something to do with what he'd experienced at the tavern last night?
There were too many questions. As it stood, he wasn't necessarily here to uncover them, he'd come to Frostwall to be an adventurer. But… discovering the true nature of who he was—what he was, and why he had these strange visions, and seemed to have a highly unique special skill that interacted with sage in a very peculiar way… these things were just as important as his journey to finding his way in this world.
Whatever "ghost" he was chasing, whatever that strange feeling was, Bly wasn't certain it was in his best interest to stop pursuing it. But more than this, he had to keep a level head as a member of Bold Arrow.
The question was, would he be able to juggle both challenges?
"Hey, Trelen, guess what?" Lisel startled Bly, more than a little excitedly.
"Huh—?" Bly stammered, glancing up at her with a confused look.
Smiling wide, Lisel replied, "I leveled up! I'm finally on your level again."
If only you knew the half of it… Bly thought with a small frown, but offered a smile in return, saying, "Congrats. I'm, uh… really happy for you! You know, one more level and we'll both get to choose a specialization."
"Mhmm." Lisel nodded. However, she looked down the corridor momentarily, a long and distant expression in her eyes, as she murmured, "And then, we'll go even farther…"
Bly narrowed his eyes, opening his mouth to ask what she meant, but hesitated. He wasn't sure she meant for him to hear that, after all.
"Come on! You're all looking like a bunch of old heads out here. Day's not getting any younger. We've got monsters to find." Xander proclaimed all of a sudden, spurring the rest of the party into belated motion before Bly could second guess himself.
Well, if anything, he wasn't the only one in this party with something kept close to the chest. That wasn't exactly comforting, but it was nice to know that he had friends at his side.
In due course, in his own time, he'd tell them all the truth. But for now, it was back to hunting soulforge living armors, and back to doing his best not to keel over!