Chapter 69: Secrets in Plain Sight

Subject: Caim Location: Riventread - Outskirts Just inside the border of the Riventread festerfont, Caim kicked the rock he believed to be a concealed krust. A blightbeast. He just kicked it out of nowhere with one of his heavy leather boots. The rock sailed away and smashed hard against a faraway boulder with a sharp *clack*. It lay still where it landed for a moment and Caim began to think he’d chosen the wrong rock. He felt supremely foolish. *Crack* The unassuming rock began to move. It cracked apart, revealing jagged limbs composed of the same substance as was on its reddish exterior. *Hisssss* It hissed. A rock was hissing at Caim, as thick black plumes of smoke seeped out. It was safe to say that the krust had interpreted Caim’s kick as an act of aggression. It was definitely safe to say that. “Scion, that is the enemy. Kill it quick!” Caim ordered, so taken aback by a moving, hissing, smoke-spewing rock that he became terrified. Removing the enemy, Scion chimed. The krust scuttled rapidly for Caim, and he panicked, trying to decide how to react. Scion’s projectiles sparked against the hard surface of the creature, pushing it back slightly but not enough to deter it from advancing on Caim. Blightbeasts didn’t seem to interpret Scion as a threat. At least, the ones he’d faced so far had behaved like this. The krust leapt to the side of Caim and then hurtled at him from a different angle. One of Scion’s projectiles narrowly missed. The creature swiped at him in the air with one of it’s jagged limbs. He jumped out of the way, watching Safeguard’s additional protection temporarily deactivate. If I keep dodging, Scion will have a more difficult time hitting it. I’ll recalibrate Safeguard for stationary defense and tank the hits. It took all of Caim’s courage to stand his ground when the krust skidded around and launched itself at him again. Caim brought up his armored arms to block the impact and Safeguard provided him with its passive support. *Clang* His arm went numb on impact, but the defenses just barely seemed to hold. Without stepping out of Safeguard’s triangle, Caim kicked the krust back a little. Scion continued attacking, managing to chip off a portion of the creature’s external shell. The black smoke thickened ominously. Caim regained feeling in his arm, but now pain was most of what he felt. It wasn’t broken, but it was definitely heavily bruised. The krust rushed forward again leaving a trail of smoke behind it that didn’t easily disperse. He didn’t understand what the smoke was. Hopefully it wasn’t harmful to breathe in. The attacks from Scion continued, and Caim strained against the weight of another blow. The sleeve of his cloak tore this time, but the hardened armor segments were more than enough to ward off this particular blightbeast’s attacks. More chips and cracks rippled across the blightbeast’s body, accompanied by more smoke and a much louder hissing. Caim was happy he didn’t choose to fight this thing at night. That would have been a frightening experience. The third blow sent a wave of tremendous pain down Caim’s arm. It hung limp by his side. Broken or just dislocated, he didn’t have the life experience to tell which this was, but it hurt just to let it hang there. Fighting through the pain, he kicked the krust away much harder, accidentally stumbling outside the triangle of protection. It deactivated and he fell onto his backside, clutching his incapacitated right arm with the left. Scion, he implored. The metal protector responded, diving down between Caim and where the krust had landed. It continued to barrage the blightbeasts with luminous missiles. It actually responded to a new command. Is it going to take the next hit for me? Can it even withstand it if it does? Caim watched the blightbeast reorient itself and scuttle back for Caim. He couldn’t even stand in time, not facing this level of pain. When the krust strafed Scion to target Caim, Scion darted to block it, firing a projectile at the same time. Scion’s attack hit the beast just before it made impact with the metal protector’s body. Caim reached out with his left arm, but he didn’t know why he did it. Scion wasn’t alive, it was like an autonomous protector that only responded to basic commands. And yet, he felt for the creature. The heavily damaged krust collided with the metal body with a loud *clang* of rock on metal, sending a shower of sparks, rock, and shimmering silver particles raining down on Caim. Scion [ Destroyed] Scion was destroyed. He reached out with his good arm to block the next attack, but through the plume of black smoke, the attack never came. When the smoke had dissipated, there lying in gravel sat a small yellow blightseed.

Subject: Gire Location: Riventread - Core It was something far beyond anything he could be prepared for. This discovery would shake the Guild to its foundation. This can’t be made public. It would cause a panic. But we can’t study this without outside support. Do we trust the government to advocate for the people’s best interests? Gire knew that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was getting back to the Guild with the data so his superiors could decide how they wanted to handle it. The tunnels interwoven throughout Riventread’s core were nearly impossible to navigate without some kind of sensory magic. He didn’t have that, but he did have a tool that would help him find the closest seekerstone. The tool, a small gray stone, pulsed at increasingly short intervals as one drew closer to a seekerstone. It would also glow dimly along one of thirty-two axes to indicate direction. The tool was quite helpful. Coarse sand crushed softly underfoot in the silent dark. Gire’s lantern blushed dimly, so as not to draw the attention of the many dangerous creatures lurking here. He came across a softly twinkling seekerstone, glanced at its surface, and turned left to follow a tunnel leading out. Reading these stones, he felt safe. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle the blightbeasts in a Placid Clarion festerfont. Even in the core layer, there was nothing an experienced agent of the Maliscade Blightbane Guild struggled against. Yet, it wasn’t his role to make a disturbance here where the blight locus would respond and seek to aggressively excise him from its depths. No, that was just it! He was relying on old data. This festerfont needed to be reclassified. Placid Clarion my ass. Too long had it been treated as a hunting and harvest ground for inexperienced seekers. Though, the outskirts were indeed safe. What it was now was a trap to lure overconfident freshbane deeper inside. No one had died yet, but that was just how insidious the trap was. This discovery held implications for every festerfont in the region, not just Riventread. The Guild might have to make sweeping reclassifications. Gire's heart pounded at the very thought of his home, a calm valley of promise, turning into a twisted and festering wasteland. What right did the Blight have to take from the planet like this? Just get back. Focus on that. As he was passing a bend on the way to the next seekerstone, Gire saw one of the walls move. Ever so slightly, it a less observant passerby wouldn't have noticed. The shadows played tricks on the senses, so he quickly turned the knob on his lantern to cast a brighter glow. He stopped and stared at the spot where he’d seen movement. The wall looked normal. It was a jagged amalgamation of red and white stone. There were rounded bumps across the surface that appeared to be concealed mineral veins, but that was it. Gire kept walking, leaving the lantern at it’s brighter setting. He touched a free hand to his compact sidepack, and then slid the hand down to the weapons strapped at his waist. A ranged weapon wasn’t easy to use in close-quarters. The daggers were his best bet if something appeared. He heard a faint *squish* sound behind him and turned. One by one, blue orbs appeared on the wall. The rounded protrusions weren’t covered mineral veins, they were eyelids. This was not a wall. A soft rumble reverberate through the tunnel, and Gire knew he needed to make a split-second decision. Lives were at stake. Subject: Metis Location: ??? The most vulnerable population seemed to have died off. Metis, who’d selected subjects largely at random, didn’t think far enough ahead to anticipate who might be around however far into the future. She’d never been forced to think about these things before. Vital longevity and mortality were strange concepts when you lived your days far removed from harm and the passage of time. Two of her subjects happened to be very close to one another at this moment, though they’d never shown any indication of having met before. These strangers edged ever closer on a sand-scarred gameboard. They’re going to die today. Metis was sure something was wrong with her. Once her duty was over, she would put in a request for an evaluation. Hopefully, it was a curable sickness. Why should they have to die today? Thoughts like these came ever-more-frequently. They interfered with day-to-day tasks. She’d also decided that thinking more about one subject compared to the others was even more concerning. First, this had only been the case with Inis. Now, there was another one. This human happened to have had numerous brushes with death in a short span of time. Though, he was probably more likely to live than the other one close to him. Given how many notable events were occurring on that border region of Shroud, she’d considered relocating even closer. Metis’s decision not to was a result of her fears that she might make a poor decision if worse came to worst. And that’s just what’s concerning. There is nothing good or bad about these people living or dying. They are objectively inferior. I shouldn’t be... inferior by association. A third interesting subject was in the city, living a boring life buying and selling out of a small store. His stagnant routine wasn’t what gave her pause. It was his discovery that made him attractive. Attractive. That's what he is, isn't he? He and the others attract my attention when I should be distributing it equally. I want to know more about them. This merchant by day, amateur researcher by night, had discovered a way to use an often-overlooked tool to give him the edge in unlocking more secrets about the nature of the tool. This self-sustaining research endeavor had great potential, but it was useless in his hands alone. Strangely, his motives were doing so seemed unrelated to the insights he could glean, and more related to a pervasive loneliness. Metis wished she couldn't relate, but enough about him. On the other end of the spectrum, here was the Traveller, having just woken up from a near-death deep sleep, ready to head off to meet the next danger. Metis supposed that she should account for his background when measuring his actions. He and the other, less interesting subject were indeed in danger. She resolved herself to refrain from “accidentally” aiding this pair if their lives were in imminent danger, as she had done with Inis. That gust of wind down in the blighted land had probably saved her life. But why should they have to die today? Metis repeated in her head. I know I'm sick for thinking this way, but why should they have to die ever?