Chapter 310: Blood and Steel

Chapter 310: Blood and Steel

I sniffed, noticing the smell of smoke, caramel, wine, and the various other odors that four additional people would bring with them. My enhanced perception could pick out individual heart rates and breathing cadences. The temperature in the room had even gone up a degree or two from the extra body heat. None of that had been noticeable a few seconds beforehand.

“To answer your question as to how everyone avoided your notice,” said Drift, “various auras and Stealth evolutions. I’m very good at making my party members as undetectable as I am.”

“I haven’t been able to sneak up on Arlo in years,” said Myria. The dark-skinned woman dramatically swept her hair back over one shoulder. “It’s like I’m young again!”

Lito pulled out a reed and stuck it in between his lips. “You were objectively worse at sneaking around when you were younger, Myria.”

“Sure, but everyone I spent time with in my youth was much less talented than the people I spend time with now.” She tilted her head. “I may not have been as good, but it was still easier.”

“Fair enough,” Lito said around the reed, then began chewing on it.

I stroked my beard, pleased to find no flakes of frost-bitten skin hidden in its depths. I considered what I’d just witnessed and my various resistances.

“Drift,” I said. “Did any of that involve mind or soul fuckery?”

“I doubt my abilities fall under the umbrella of that colorful characterization,” he replied. “I avoid skills that invade the minds of others for various reasons. For one, it’s dreadfully difficult to earn trust from someone who knows that you have the ability to Mesmerize or Dominate them. People spend all their time second-guessing themselves around people like that, trying to figure out whether or not they’re being magically manipulated.”

“Aside from that, I’d never hear the end of it from the rest of my house. Mind-affecting Charisma builds aren’t well-loved by Ravvenblaqs. However, I’ve found ways to use the attribute to counteract other, less-savory Charisma wielders. I passively buff all defenses, including social defense, fortifying us against those pesky mental debuffs. I even have some limiting cleansing abilities specifically for hostile mental effects, along with some pure negation.

“I do have a couple of ways to stun people, but I don’t count that as a mental effect, just a good idea to have in the kit,” Drift continued. “Otherwise, my ‘fuckery’ encompasses illusion, subterfuge, sleight of hand, and so on. Tangible illusions, by the way, not induced hallucinations or anything of that sort.”

“That’s surprisingly comforting,” I admitted. Both Xim and Etja had some potent mental debuffs, but we were as close as family. Neither had ever given me any reason to feel threatened. I could imagine the reaction of someone new finding out that Etja could passively Mesmerize everyone nearby without any thought or effort. They might not find the mage quite as endearing as the rest of us did.

Ishi silently positioned herself closer to the center of the room, her body language and presence naturally inviting the rest of us to shut up. It was subtle, but at the same time, you couldn’t miss it.

“Most impressive, Lord Ravvenblaq,” she said, then looked around. “Do the rest of you intend to apply to be in my party? I am afraid we only have one position left.”

“Just me,” said Ember. The sturdy archer pushed away from the bar with her hip and crossed her arms.

“The rest of us came for the free drinks,” said Cole, waving his tumbler around at the group. “Some minor consideration was given to the quality of the company to be found as well.”

Ishi took time to look Ember over, as did I. I’d visited her and Cole during my escapade into Hiward the week before, but had intentionally focused on making that a friendly social visit. Questions about Ember’s recently acquired levels and alarming rate of progress had been reserved for a more professional setting. Looking around at the horde of Hiwardians starting the project of drinking my lounge dry, I decided that this was perhaps slightly less professional than was desired.

“All right,” I said. “We’re still doing tryouts. The trespassers are welcome to stay here while the rest of us finish up in the armory.”

“Trespassers?” said Myria, pouting. “I’ve never trespassed in my life.” Lito nearly choked on his reed at the blatant lie.

“Playing hardball, eh?” I said. “I’ll add borderhopping to the list.”

“That doesn’t seem–”

“Unlawful entry just got added.”

“But–”

“Illegal immigration, as well.”

Cole grabbed Myria’s shoulders. “Myria, stop!” he stage-whispered. “You’re going to get us arrested! I’m too beautiful to go to prison.”

She looked between me and Cole for a few seconds. “Unlawful entry and illegal immigration are the same thing,” she quickly said. The woman couldn’t help herself.

“I’ll let Grotto know that smuggling is also suspected. A golem will be by shortly for a cavity search.”

A flex of my will took Ishi, Ember, Drift, and me to the armory before Myria could get another word in.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Vaulty was there–he practically lived in the space–performing extensive repairs on his frame. Although, as we’d seen during his ‘spar’ with Ishi, it turned out he had at least one backup. Nuralie was giving him some assistance, and I wondered whether her involvement would add self-repair to the Spectral golem’s entire frame.

A quick look over the warehouse-sized firing range showed it clear of any Delve Cores or golems doing live weapons tests, so our trio stepped out into the reinforced no-man’s land.

Ember was Level 17, which put her in an awkward place as a potential party member for the princess. Ishi was Level 21, Joma was Level 20, Vaulty’s level was unknown, but he could clearly punch above the normal Level 20 weight class. Drift was Level 18, and that was already starting to get low for Ishi’s party.

Now, the reason that Ember was being considered at all was because she’d gone from Level 10 to Level 17 in about the same length of time as it took Fortune’s Folly to go from Level 12 to Level 16. What’s more, all seven levels were Platinum, whereas the archer triplet’s first ten levels were Gold. She’d briefly outpaced us, although she’d been Delving for about a decade longer.

Such rapid progress begged the question: how? Again, I hadn’t brought it up during my visit to her and her brother’s vineyard, but Ishi was definitely going to insist on knowing what was going on. For Ember to have any hope of joining Team Princess, the archer would have to spill the beans.

Hopefully, the beans didn’t taste like a Faustian bargain.

Ember had a traditional Hiwardian look to her: pale skin and white hair, with a pair of bright blue eyes that were a more vibrant shade than the Ravvenblaqs. Her hair was long, down to her mid-back, but she kept it tied into a tight braid. She toyed with it as a restless tick.

After a minute of polite conversational maneuvering by Ishi, Ember told us a tale.

I will confess that I did not like the story one bit after hearing it for the first time.

“When Orexis killed my sister, Ashe, I dealt with it… poorly,” she said. “One moment she was there, and the next she was dust. I saw it happen, but it took a week to really set in.” She wound her long braid around a hand, running a thumb along the pattern. “I went looking for trouble. I got involved with Lito and Myria while they went after the peasant Delvers we’d discovered.”

She glanced over at me. “We hunted a few people down who’d escaped during our assault on the Calvani Caverns. Orexis was using the obelisk in the cave we found him in. He’d make somebody a Delver so long as they worked for him, then drip-fed them Delve locations so they could gain levels. There were rumors that there were other obelisks like that one, but the leads dried up. After that, Umi-Doo was happy to put the whole thing to bed.”

I nodded in response to her filling me in on that loose end, but didn’t want to interrupt her momentum. She turned back to Ishi and continued.

“That investigation had us circling a group called the Obsidian Court, who run a black market working out of a few warehouses in Foundation,” she continued. “Lito already knew about them and didn’t want to stir things up, so we kept our distance. After Umi-Doo killed the investigation, I went and started asking some questions of my own.”

“You weren’t satisfied with how the investigation ended?” asked Ishi.

“I didn’t really care one way or another,” Ember replied. “Orexis had gone off somewhere else. If regular people want to find ways to become Delvers, then best of luck to them.” She dropped her braid. “I didn’t go back to ask about the peasant Delvers. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but I knew the Court dealt with a lot of the darker side of Delving. The stuff nobles don’t want people knowing or talking about. Skills and abilities we don’t want new Delvers to find out about. They sold the kinds of items Central would throw through a portal to nowhere before losing the weave combination.

“I fell into that world for a while, made friends, made enemies. I went down a rabbit hole with resurrection, which was a well-worn path ending with the words ‘it’s impossible.’” She turned out her hands in a frustrated shrug.

‘Resurrection is impossible’ was common knowledge with Delvers. That didn’t stop people from speculating, or even claiming there was a conspiracy keeping the magicks restricted to only the most powerful. Having the truth confirmed by a seedy, cloak-and-dagger secret society of black market vendors must have ended any conspiratorial fantasies Ember had been harboring.

“While I was doing all of that, I also started working on my Divine Magic,” she said. “I was never much for it, no gods or goddesses that called to me, but it was one of the things Ashe loved. Her whole build was centered on Luck, Divine Magic, and summoning.”

Ember stopped and took a moment to center herself, while the rest of us let her have whatever time she needed.

“It was slow,” she said. “It didn’t make sense to me. The patrons I picked out didn’t respond to my prayers. They probably thought I was being insincere, I don’t know. Then I pissed somebody off in the Court and got burned pretty badly, so I cut my losses and decided to take a shot at running a vineyard with Cole. He already had the contract lined up, and I just came in and dumped all my money into it.

“Turns out Cole’s got a good head for business,” she continued. “And between his Physical Magic and other skills, he can make some damn good wine. The vineyard’s reputation helps, and the samples he sent to the right people did the rest. He already has us selling out on vintages that aren’t even done aging.” She leaned in. “Do you have any idea how much one bottle of wine can sell for? A bottle of magic wine?”

“I do,” said Ishi with a knowing look.

“Small fortune,” said Drift.

“A lot?” I said at the same time as the other two. Drift gave me a consoling pat on the shoulder for my philistine nature.

“I’ve already made more than I ever did Delving,” said Ember. “Not that I helped with the wine. After giving Cole all my chips, I mostly shut down and drank all the stuff he deemed unworthy.” She blew out a breath. “And he deemed a lot of the existing stock as unworthy when we first got the place.” She took a moment to stare dead-eyed at the ground.

“I rotted away until I got the phase transition notice,” she said. “I realized that while I was wallowing in my own self-pity, you were out there doing things. Varrin had lost as much as I had, seen worse than I had.” She glanced at Drift, who gestured his understanding and permission to continue without derailing things on account of his own feelings. The man said a lot with one hand and half a frown.

Ember’s eyes returned to Ishi. “I wanted to get back out there, but I didn’t have a party. Cole was happy to call himself retired; everyone else I’d run with had outleveled me, died, or was enjoying the quiet life like Cole was. I figured I should work on my skills, give some serious consideration to the System message we’d all gotten and how to become an ‘escalated’ Delver, and maybe I could find a party and make the hop to Platinum. I thought Dungeons were a good place to start, so I took most of my earnings from the vineyard, went back to my contacts in the Obsidian Court, and offered bounties for Dungeon locations that matched my skills.

“The first legitimate lead that came back was for a Divine Dungeon. It wasn’t ideal, but I decided to give it a shot, hoping the Dungeon environment would fix whatever I was missing with the school of magic. It did. The thing I was missing was a patron that I understood and who understood me. That’s what I found in the Dungeon. The moment I stepped foot inside, Chalgoth greeted me. He kept me there for six months, then dumped me out inside a Labyrinth.”

“Wait, stop,” I said. “Chalgoth? As in, ‘Father of Blood, Master of Steel’? The psychopathic blood god claiming to be Sam’lia’s brother? That Chalgoth?”