The crash of stone echoed through the outpost like thunder and heavily shook the ground it landed on. A massive boulder, hauled by Deacon, was flung aside with a grunt, slamming into the broken edge of a collapsed fountain that was filled in with sand, which caused the surface of the packed sand within it to shoot out of the fountain and create a cloud of sand that covered both him and everything around in a fresh sheen of sand. He took a couple of steps back while coughing and swiping at the air in front of his face.
Jass ducked low and pushed past him with a crooked grin, and was only lightly touched by sand, unlike Deacon who was covered from head to toe. "Next time give us a heads-up before you try to start an avalanche, yeah?"
Esmerelda followed a half step behind, her cloak drawn close to shield her mouth from the dust. "I'm still picking sand out of my mouth from the last cave-in I dealt with, Deke."
"You're the ones who said I should do something other be on the lookout for 'nothing'." He grunted in amusement, clapping his hands together three times to shake off the dust coating his Mycelial Grasp gauntlets. The slap echoed against the sides of the ruined buildings around him, as he made his way away from the fountain, he felt the slight tug of unfamiliar leather against his calves.
His new gear.
He cast his eyes downward and activated Identify across his new attire, a flicker of blue mana flashing over his legs and feet.
Item Name: Windkissed Boots
Type: Footwear – Light Armor
Rarity: Uncommon
Description:
Supple leather boots reaching mid-shin in length, dyed a dark brown with blue enchantscript stitching along the seams. Woven with minor wind enchantments by a forgotten manatouched leathersmith, rumored to have outfitted entire regiments of scouts and courier-blades in the Southern Reach of Neververa, these boots grant the wearer speed borne of the breeze itself.
Effects: Self-Repair & Minor Increase in Total Movement Speed
Provides: +10 Agi
Requirements: Humanoid, Lv 5+
Item Name: Soldier's Leggings
Type: Legwear – Medium Armor
Rarity: Uncommon
Description:
Thick leather leggings reinforced at the knees and thighs with waxed straps and double-stitched hide. Favored by infantry platoons in the Highland Campaign of Neververa. While they are not flashy, they've kept many a soldier walking long after they should've fallen.
Effects: Self-Repair
Provides: +10 Vig & +10 End
Requirements: Humanoid, Lv 5+.
Deacon flexed one leg, then the other. These were obviously not items that were outfitted to those residing on the Isles of the Damned, these were items belonging to those who arrived on the isles on the behest of their kingdom or ruler. If it were an Aztec's the boots would have been sandals, and the leggings would have been thick leather leggings.
He rolled his shoulders and glanced toward the last ruined building as Jass and Esmerelda slipped through its half-ajar doors.
Inside, the place was barely standing; the wooden rafters above were sagging with age, rotten and useless, judging by the water droplets dripping from them. Vines clinging to the gaps of the cracked walls, effectively integrating itself into the foundations of the building and any attempts at removing them would cause the building to crash down on them.
Shafts of sun pierced the crumbling ceiling, creating bright, dust-filled beams through which Jass stepped, her boots creaking softly on the warped floorboards.
"I swear, this was probably a quartermaster's station," she muttered, eyes scanning the room. "Also, Esme, be careful about the water."
"Why?" Esmerelda asked as she sidestepped the dripping water coming from above. "The spirits aren't telling me that its dangerous… hmm, some of them just grumbled right now."
"I think it's sewage water," Jass grimaced as she went to the other side of the building. "I don't wanna close it in case the chain reaction it could cause of it closing brings down this whole place on us."
Esmerelda knelt near a toppled crate, gently parting the lid with the butt of her wand. "No lock," she murmured. Inside: crossbow bolts, rusted brackets, and–
"Boots," she said aloud, drawing one up and holding it aloft.
Jass looked over and gave a low whistle. "Those are more Windkissed. That's six pairs total now, with the extras from the storage room." She brushed her hands together with a satisfied nod. "That puts our haul: coins, enchanted gear, and goods, up to ten thousand nine hundred seventy-one, give or take."
Jass stood, tucking the boots into her satchel with the others. "Not bad for an hour of digging around in bird and rat crap."
Esmerelda smirked and elbowed her lightly. "You're getting spoiled. Remember when we had to kill those men who tried to corner us when we snuck out of the academy to go have a girls' night out?"
"Vividly. I also remember you were also with me when we had to run into the sewers to escape because after we accidentally pissed off another gang, and caused a gang war."
"You were the one wading through knee-high crap."
"Bitch, you pushed both me and you in it when you saw a rat appear on the sidewalk."
They chuckled softly, their voices low amid the creaking of their steps within the ruined building they stood inside. Through the doorframe, Deacon leaned with arms crossed, watching them with a quiet sort of satisfaction.
"What's this I hear about sneaking out of the academy?" he called.
"Like you're one to talk, Mr. I dipped out of the academy in the middle of the party just before graduation," Jass replied.
Getting a tad closer to the west wall, she ran her hands against the rotting planks. "The west wall looks off... There's too much open space on the other side based on the outside layout."
"I can punch it open with a Wind Arrow," Esmerelda offered dryly.
Jass chuckled. "Let me try something less 'cave-in the ceiling' first."
Fully pressing her hand against the wall, mana traveled from her fingertips through the rotten wood and into the stone bricks within the wall. She then used her mana to reinforce the entire stone wall. Then, with the wall reinforced, she used the reinforced stones to tear into the rotten wooden paneling on her side of the wall and create a gap large enough to fit through, while also revealing a hollow space about the width of a corridor.
"What's this make on the number of hidden rooms we found?" she said with a crooked grin. "Twenty-three? What are the odds we actually find something in it?"
Deacon stepped in, Ignis flaring brighter over his shoulder. The revealed passage reeked of stale air and rust. "Yes, and 10%."
After searching through the room for anything and finding nothing, yet again, the Trio began to turn their sights onto the cave fissure that was connected to the outpost.
The cave fissure widened with each step that they took - its narrow entrance giving way to a cavernous expanse. The ceiling arched high above them, reminding them somewhat of the cathedral's ceiling in the central district on Floor Zero. Its stalactites on the cave ceiling gently glinted with minerals within them that sparkled off the light of Ignis, now as a slow-burning, candle-flame shape that hovered above Deacon's fallen left hand.
Before them stretched an enormous underground lake, still and silent. Clumps of thick, tall vegetation, pushed up out of earth that seemed too rich for such an isolated place, grew in wild clusters along the beach. Moss clung to the cavern walls beside the tattered hems of discarded banners, belonging to those who Deacon assumed owned the outpost outside. As they moved within the cavern, Deacon's eyes narrowed at an underlying scent of something familiar that pricked his nose.
Echoform Reliquary was already out, resting in its broadsword form in Deacon's right hand. He held it low, blade angled behind him, its mirrored edge catching and bending the faint glimmer of Ignis' flame into warped shapes across the cavern.
He quickly crouched to the floor, letting the candle-like flame hover beside him now.
His free hand went up and began to motion sharply toward Jass and Esmerelda.
"Human Footprints. Lots of them. Muddied, deep, and fresh."
There was more: broken twigs, streaks of something uncomfortably dark smeared across stone, even... feces. He crouched, running his hand near a heel-mark, then looking to his companions. His expression darkened, eyes narrowing with quiet urgency.
He pointed at the shrubs to the side.
Jass and Esmerelda's postures snapped to attention as they caught sight of his expression and the footprints on the ground. They dropped low into the shrubs nearby, silent and sharp-eyed, as, without Sam being present with them, Deacon was the one who scouted for the team.
The further he crept, the thicker the scent became, answering his unvoiced question of what that smell was. Blood.
Then he saw them, half a dozen figures, crouched in a loose circle not far from the water's edge, almost entirely naked.
Their bronzed skin was daubed in crude, crimson paint, streaked across chests and arms in uneven patterns, with dark green smears painted on their wrists, ankles, and around their necks like crude ceremonial bindings. One of them dragged a broken, red-slicked jawbone through their hair to keep it up. Another danced around the large altar around them, all the while letting out soft cackles.
On the altar was one of their own.
The body was already dead - her ribcage was cracked wide open like a split melon, the skin of her body was flayed and sorted into a pile beside her. One of the cannibals gnawed at her arm, snapping bone with their teeth. Another was scooping out her liver with their bare hands.
Deacon's stomach turned.
He clamped his mouth shut, almost instantly, while pressing the back of his hand to his lips, holding back the bile that surged up his throat. His breath shook once before he forced it back down.
He glanced over his shoulder and gave the signal to Jass and Esmerelda. "Fight. Now."
From the thick brush nearby, Esmerelda's hand tightened around her wand, and Jass slowly unclasped her glaive from across her back.
In a burst of speed, Deacon darted from the brush and into the circle of cannibals. Echoform Reliquary sang through the stale cavern air as the head of the closest cannibal was off his shoulders before the others could even scream.
Blood sprayed in a fine, diagonal arc as the first cannibal's body crumpled to the floor.
The other cannibals around him shrieked in panic, some scrambling to their feet, others hissing through broken teeth, red-painted fingers flexing to release their claw-like nails
Deacon twisted through the next one, blade flashing again, cleaving through the female cannibal's shoulder and spine with ease.
A second body fell.
Behind him, Jass burst from the brush, glaive spinning into a wide, brutal arc. She caught a third cannibal mid-turn, the blade cleaving through hip and thigh. He folded in two, blood erupting from both halves.
One of them lunged at her with a rock in hand, but they were too slow, as she pivoted, brought the shaft of the glaive up, and cracked it across their temple. The cannibal spun and hit the ground hard, and she crushed his head underfoot.
To the side, a crack of magical pressure could be felt by both Deacon and Jass as Esmerelda launched a Wind Bolt. It struck the cannibal near the altar square in the chest, tearing through his chest and shooting him backwards, before he could even take a step from where he stood. He flew back and slammed against the cavern wall.
Deacon stepped over the half-flayed body on the altar and locked eyes with the last of them, a wiry-looking one, taller than the rest, teeth filed to needles, clutching a stone dagger daubed in blood.
It rushed him.
Deacon met the charge with no wasted motion. He ducked, parried low, and drove the point of Echoform straight through its gut. The cannibal spasmed, then went still.
*[Human Lv 0] has been slain – XP has been given.*
**
*[Human Lv 0] has been slain – XP has been given.*
"Humans, my ass," Jass spat atop the cannibal she cleaved in two.