Chapter 46

Needless to say, when Jason, Kera, and Lumi arrived outside the lodge, heads turned.

Jason drew the most attention, decked out from head-to-toe as he was in a highly-enchanted suit of unusual design. However, they’d all decided on making something of an entrance, so Kera and Lumi drew their own fair share of attention as well. Lumi had taken some brief time that morning to polish her armor with something Jason had whipped up on the fly, and as a result the golden highlights of her otherwise black armor gleamed under the dawn’s light. Between that, her high Appeal, and her slightly-suggestive armor patterns, she turned heads.

Kera, meanwhile, rode confidently beside Jason upon Echo’s back, her head held high as both she and Echo proudly displayed Kera’s newly discovered form: that of the Storm-Touched.

Upon waking, while Jason was making breakfast, Kera had decided make use of the ring Jason had made in order to run through all the fox aspects she could. In yet another strange upset to how Jason kept assuming the system should work, the combination of light and lightning had created a form that was made of something akin to an elemental plasma.

At the time, Jason had grumbled about yet more flagrant ignorance of actual science on the part of the system, such as had been the case with the gunpowder trait, but Lumi had pointed out there was at least a kind of logic there. After all, lightning was only one form of plasma, and plasma was the most common form of matter in the universe, because it was what stars were made of. And the theme of stars -and that of the sun- was heavily intertwined with the Light aspect.

As far as Jason was concerned, that didn’t really explain why Storm was the Sparkpup’s ultimately associated aspect, but frankly Kera had been far too cute as a tiny, static-charged fox puppy for him to keep belaboring the point.

Besides, now as a Storm-Touched Kitsune, she had presence.

As a Storm-Touched, Kera had undergone what Jason had jokingly referred to as a ‘palette swap’: her basic form had remained the same, but instead of a black tail with silver highlights, she was now the other way around. Her hair was still shoulder-length, but was now mixed heavily with streaks of grey and silver. Black, elegant, tattoo-like patterns reminiscent of Lichtenberg scars ran down across her now-bare arms to her fingers, and occasionally a small, barely-visible line of sparks would race along them from her shoulders down to her fingertips.

Kera had dropped her Charisma and Appeal back down, having reshuffled her free stats into primarily Might and Stamina in order to prioritize close combat, and had long since dropped the kitsune’s supernatural appeal trait, but Jason still vaguely felt like he wanted to turn and stare. Not because of the attraction he still felt, but rather because she seemed surrounded by a sense of expectation. A kind faint premonition of an oncoming storm, brought on by what seemed to be a half-imagined, faint thrum in the air around her, accompanied by the faintest scent of ozone.

Like her mistress, Echo had changed as well. Through some combination of [Ritual Magic], [Feral Bond], and [Evolution Surge], Kera had managed to lend her mana-touched status to the rockhound; she'd changed color as well. Her hide was now a shimmering white, with purple-tinged crystals and spines that occasionally threw off sparks with a faint crackle as energy arced between them.

Jason, Kera, and Lumi weren’t the only exotic-looking set of adventurers in the square, not by a long shot, but nevertheless they all drew eyes, both from the locals who’d turned out to help load wagons, and from the adventurers themselves.

Aldin, who’d been lounging against the outside wall of the lodge where he could wait out of the way, gave a long, low whistle.

“So this is the end result of the ‘secret project’ you were talking about?” he asked as he pushed himself upright. “Talk about some project. How long have you been working on…? No, wait, obviously you can’t answer that.”

Jason grinned at him. “Got one or two things for you and Ravs, too,” he said. “Where is she, anyway?”

While Kera climbed down from Echo’s back and gathered Ceri into her arms, Aldin gave a nod towards the far end of the market where a pair of large, horse-drawn wagons were being loaded with supplies. Jason turned in the direction he’d indicated.

Ravs was standing in a small, open space that had been fenced off with rope, an intense look of concentration on her face and mist pooling around her. Aurion and the seer woman stood nearby, watching as a series of crates popped into existence in front of Ravs. She then sagged with a clear sigh of relief, releasing whatever spell she’d been casting. Immediately, several workmen grabbed up the crates and began loading them into the wagon.

Aldin motioned for Jason and the others to follow as he began moving in her direction. “Aurion asked her if she’d help speed us up a bit by shifting in as much as she could. She agreed because its good practice for teleporting small groups, and she’ll have plenty of time to recover on the trip.”

“He wants your assistance, too Jason,” Aldin added as they approached. “Something about boats.”

“Not that I’m objecting, but what happened to change the plan?” Lumi asked.

“I’m not sure,” Aldin replied with a frown. “I think some last minute thing made Aurion change his mind about how fast he wanted us in position. He showed up at our room at the inn an hour before dawn, looking for Ravs.”

“Wait…our?” Kera asked. “The inn? I thought you had separate rooms at the Lodge.”

Aldin stopped walking abruptly and turned a slight shade of red, his ears twitching rapidly in agitation, and stammered. “Uhhhh…”

Lumi laughed lightly, covering her mouth. “Kera, you didn’t realize?”

“I didn’t know either,” Jason interjected, “though I kind of suspected.”

Lumi leaned over and stage-whispered in Kera’s ear. “F. W. B.”

Then she straightened as a slow expression of dawning realization crept over Kera’s reddening face, as if several pieces of a puzzle had suddenly come clicking together in her mind.

“I thought it was kind of obvious,” Lumi said. She gave Aldin a mischievous wink and a grin.

“It… it was?” Aldin stammered.

Seeing his mortification, Kera ducked her head and apologized to him. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have pried. Not my business.”

Jason grinned and nudged Aldin with one elbow. “Hey, it's cool. Good for you two. Where we’re from we have expression… ‘you do you’. None of us are going to mind, much less judge.”

“It’s not…. we weren’t…” Aldin looked away for a moment before looking back at Kera and clearing his throat. “I mean, it’s not like a secret or anything. I just…”

Lumi threw her arm around his shoulder in a one-armed hug of reassurance.

“You like your privacy,” she said, “and we’re still relative strangers. We get it.”

Lumi stepped away from him. “Enough of embarrassing our teammate,” she declared. Then she turned and began striding away towards Ravs and Aurion, beckoning everyone to follow. “Come on, let’s see what’s up.”

Ravs was leaning heavily against one of the wagons, catching her breath and presumably waiting for her mana to recover. She looked up at their approach, and her eyes widened.

Aurion noticed, and turned to follow the direction of her gaze.

“Ah Jason, just the pers—”

He paused mid-sentence, blinking hard as he took in their combined changes. He open his mouth, visibly changed his mind about whatever he was going to say, and closed it again.

“Ah… you’re just the person I wanted to see,” he said after a moment, recovering from his surprise. “Ordinarily I don't like to make requests of delvers the day of an operation, because the Guild wants its members to be in top form. Circumstances are forcing my hand a bit here, unfortunately: we’ve had some alarming news from our forward scouting party about how fast the Dungeon is making changes. As a result, I wanted your assistance with something.”

“Shoot.”

Aurion gave him a sharp look, and Jason sighed internally. It seemed so strange to him, the near-random nature of what colloquialisms people in this world understood, and the ones they didn't. He'd come to suspect that more than likely, he and his friends were not remotely the first Earthlings to have ever come to Verdania, but he still had yet to get much of a grasp on what had been picked up, versus what hadn't. Or maybe it was whatever language translation the system seemed to have shoved into his brain wasn't quite one-hundred percent accurate. He still wasn't sure if that was a thing or not; everyone seemed to speak perfectly fine English, but with something altering your mind, how could you ever tell?

“I mean go ahead,” Jason said. “Happy to assist, that’s why we’re here after all.”

“I’ve been told by Sevani you have some sort of.. reassembly skill, a part of Artificer, is that correct?” Aurion asked.

“Far more than just that,” Jason replied. “I can break down and reassemble just about any object in moments, repair broken items, and have a even skill that helps me vastly speed up putting things together from random bits of scrap as well.”

Aurion visibly sighed in relief. “Would you be able to disassemble a small boat? And then reassemble it quickly once we’re on site?”

Jason rubbed the back of his head. “Well… I’ve not tried something that big, but more than likely. I mean, I’m sure Sevani, uh… told you about the barricade. That was large but it wasn’t complex. I’m game to try though. Shouldn’t be an issue, I think.”

“Good, then that means Kaerlin’s prediction was accurate,” Aurion said without elaboration. He handed Jason a pair of oversized sacks that Jason immediately recognized as being for large-scale spatial storage.

“Ravs can teleport you to and from the warehouse where we’ve had the locals working overtime to put together our transport,” Aurion said. “If you can simply disassemble the boats and store all the parts away, and put them back together on-site, we can save ourselves a huge amount of hassle and cut down on our travel and setup time.”

“Don’t lose these,” Aurion emphasized. “They’re highly enchanted, directly from our Guild Vaults, and the Grandmaster expects them to be returned.”

Jason examined the bags briefly before nodding. They seemed to be crafted from only two different runes, but strung together with such incredible complexity that it made his head hurt just looking at them. He shook himself and hooked them onto his belt.

“Understood,” he replied to Aurion.

Jason then reached up to his left shoulder, and pressed a hidden catch a the base of one of his ‘pockets’. The skin of his armor closed over the space with a hiss as the storage module came away in his hand.

He passed it to Aurion. “Speaking of… these are the [Breath Pebbles] you asked for. I’ve also included a limited quantity of small candies. The teal ones with dark swirls will let you see underwater, and the clear ones will make you sink like a rock and free up your movement, in case anyone thinks they’d be better off fighting with solid footing underwater. Tell everyone they’re limited duration, though; the effects will only last an hour and the spell is only good for a few weeks until the candy goes bad.”

“I can think of at least one group who’ll want them,” Aurion confirmed.

“Finally… uh…” Jason said hesitantly, “I have something that… Well I guess you'd say it’s both functional and will be great for morale before we head out. Once we make camp, could you call a general meeting so I can pass it out just before the first groups head out?”

“Depends,” Aurion said. “I was planning on it to begin with. Will your addition take long?”

“Not really,” Jason replied. “Lumi or Kera can fill you in on the details while I see to the boats.”

“Very well. Get moving.”

When Aurion had said ‘boats’, Jason had assumed he meant a handful of the classic, four-to-six-person rowboats which in his experience were so common to every video game or movie that ever happened to involve small boats. He had been completely wrong.

Instead, what the townsfolk had put together turned out to be something on the order a dozen and a half three person, pole-driven canoes called ‘punts’. With an extremely shallow draft and a wide, flat head, a punt had a single ‘pilot’ who simply stood at the back of the boat and pushed it along with a wooden pole, as opposed to being propelled by several people manning oars or paddles. This allowed the punt to be maneuvered easily through alternately shallow and deep waters of a swamp without needing to worry much about the water being too shallow.

[Deconstructing] the punts and breaking them down into their component parts had been a simple matter for Jason. Between his own increased spirit and the enhancements from his armor, he’d had more than enough mana to break them down without needing a potion. Neither he nor Ravs had even needed to exert themselves in storing the pieces either: as part of the process, Jason had been able to simply float each segment away into the wide-mouthed storage bags that Aurion had lent him.

As a result, a task that should have taken close to an hour and required multiple workers, multiple wagons, and several horse teams in order to load all the punts for transport was reduced to mere minutes. Ravs warped Jason back to the square, where soon horses were provided to everyone, and the band of adventures departed along the northern road with only a mere handful of wagons in tow.

Hours passed as Jason rode quietly along the forested road amidst his fellows. At first, conversation was generally subdued thanks to the early hour, though the steady encroachment of cloud-cover that gradually darkened the skies elicited more than a few mutters. Gradually though, the exertion of riding a horse woke everyone up, an banter between various groups arose, and everyone seemed in good cheer.

That all ended when they arrived at leading edge of the dungeon’s corruption.

At first, off in his own little world where he was busily contemplating the possibility of using air blast enchantments to make a hover-wagon, Jason didn’t notice the slow die-off of conversation around him. The sky had been threatening rain all morning as well, so when the first fat droplets of rain began splattering down on him from the canopy above, he simply laid a finger on his collar, causing his helmet to sping up around his head to keep out the rain. It wasn’t until his visor enchantment alerted him to the fact that the rain drops were tainted with some kind of blackish-green mana aspect that he really took in what was going on around him.

Twisting around in his saddle and taking in his surroundings, Jason realized that the forest had begun to change. Not in some abrupt, dramatic fashion as if some continent-striding deity had drawn a line between two radically different biomes, but rather as if someone has spilled a bucket of clean water across detailed woodwork, and you were now looking at the splatter.

Here in there through gaps in the trees, Jason caught sight of pockets of wilting vegetation sitting in pools of stagnant, filthy water. A variety of strange, rotted-looking hanging moss had become a frequent feature, where last he’d walked this road there had been none. Patches of waterlogged mud were everywhere, and something about the rapidly darkening skies alarmed Jason in a way he couldn’t put his finger on.

He wiped some of the rain from his faceplate with one hand and looked down at it.

“Analyze Aspects.”

Aspects Detected: Rot, Disease, Water, Forest, Swamp

Gross.

Jason flicked the water away from him in distaste and then unconsciously attempted to wipe his hand on his pants, only to remember that he was currently covered metal plates rather than cloth. At least he hadn’t actually touched the stuff.

He gave his horse a light tap with his heels, splashing through steadily increasing mud in order to catch up to Ravs, who’d been riding ahead of him.

“Very important question,” he said as he drew alongside her.

She looked at him, raising one eyebrow.

It wasn’t truly raining yet, barely even sprinkling, really, so Jason wiped another bit of water from his helmet with one finger and gestured with it.

“Please tell me the mana aspects in this stuff aren’t harmful to us,” he said. “Aria told me a person could handle the Wastes’ corruption for a month or two but….”

He gestured to a small, wilting bush up ahead, which appeared to have algae already growing in the water pooling at its base.

“This stuff has Rot and Disease aspects in it, among others,” he said. “Is that a problem for us?”

She scrunched up nose in an expression of disgust as she flicked away a droplet that struck her hand.

“Not unless things go badly and we don’t finish this quickly,” she said.

“Are you sure…?” he asked. “If—-”

Jason was cut off by a sudden commotion from the front of the caravan as someone up ahead called a stop. He spotted Aurion, Kaerlin, and a few others gather together for a quick conference, before a request was back along the line for Hebran and someone Jason didn’t know to make their way to the front.

Jason watched as the pair passed him. After about a minute of silently wondering what was happening, a loud, constant grinding sound began to echo from up ahead. Orders came down the line to ride single-file. The wagons began moving again, followed by everyone else, and shortly Jason found his horse stepping upwards slightly onto a series of of wide, stone sheets that were layered across the top of the road, like planks. To either side, Jason could see that what had once been the packed dirt road was now very deep-looking mud choked with loose grass floating amidst pools of standing water.

They continued traveling that way for perhaps another hour. During that time, the intermittent raindrops increased to a light drizzle, and the faint smell of decay began to tickle at Jason’s nose, turning his stomach and reminding him that he had yet to put any kind of environmental control enchantments into his armor. The clouds and sky continued to darken as well, further and further until it seemed that the skies above the canopy and faintly glimpses cloud-cover must have been cloaked in some kind of supernatural darkness. The word that came to Jason’s mind was gloomy. It made the trees around him seem darker and more sinister than they actually were, giving the arching branches the appearance of closing in around them, and yet he could still see everyone clearly in what little light there was.

Jason began to really wish that he didn't know the plan was to make camp until nightfall. He was a veteran outdoorsman, and something about the whole place already screamed ‘unnatural’ to him. Thinking about navigating around at night out here put him in mind of Japanese horror films.

He gave a small shudder, attempting to shake off his unnerve. He only partially succeeded, as it was shortly afterwards that the expedition turned east off from the road suddenly and into the trees. Shortly, a final halt was called, and several members of the expedition were called out to lay out stone and earthworks, while others, like Lumi, were called to use air magic to secure layers of canvas and sheaves of thick leaves overhead to keep out the rain.

Jason was called forward as well. A man whose name he didn’t catch directed Jason to one side of the swiftly-erecting encampment, where deep mud gave way to algae-covered swamp water. Hebran joined him, conjuring a series of raised stone posts and slats in the form of a hastily improvised pier. Jason quickly got to work with [Arcane Reconstruction], reassembling the punts one after another, while Hebran laid down small piers wherever there was room between the waterlogged trees. Several other adventurers stood by to assist in tying down the punts and loading them with a few minor supplies.

The speed at which camp was set up shocked Jason. Thanks to the assistance of both skills and spells, the whole thing took perhaps a grand total of ten minutes, after which they were surrounded by a kind of massive canopy tent. Leaves and canvas sheets shielded them entirely from the rain, and provided walls. Layers of heavy stone tile kept out the worst of the mud, and mounds of shaped earth provided fire pits. Someone had even conjured up a some sort of miniature, elemental slime-creature to just bumble around, vacuuming up the remaining mud and grit into its watery body only to spit it back out into the swamp.

Jason thought the critter was almost cute as it shuffled its way across the floor, and he found he was delighted by the idea of using elementals as some kind of roomba. He made a mental note that if he ever managed to complete any kind of extradimensional mansion, that was definitely now on his to-do list for features.

After the wagons were unloaded, the horses were taken care of, and the several town guards who’d come along were placed on sentry duty. Then, in front of the main fire pit, chairs and tables made from all manner of materials sprouted up from nowhere, courtesy of numerous conjurers, and the general meeting was called.

As he took a seat, Jason was briefly distracted by the fact that the flames seemed to give off warmth and light, but yet didn’t scorch the canvas up above nor give off smoke.

Some sort of illusion? Jason wondered. Or is it some kind of instant safe campfire spell or skill for travelers so they don’t accidentally create a forest fire? Wish I’d had something like that when I first arrived. Would have saved a lot of effort.

He was broken out of his thoughts by Aurion clearing his throat to address the assembled group.

“Alright everyone, listen up. I’m sure you’re all curious about the sudden changes to our timetable, and I’ll get to that in a moment. First though, a bit of extra formality.”

“Now, most of you are aware we’ve had some last-minute additions to the class, which resulted in some party-shuffling. You’ve probably seen them around the training yard, and even may have even fought beside them, but until now there hasn’t been a good time to introduce them properly. As they are a part of our forward assault group, now’s the time.”

Aurion beckoned to each of them in turn. “First, their party leader, Lumiriel Dun’val, a multiclass [Spellblade] with a mixed elemental focus. Her chosen combat role is that of a front line defender, and she was instrumental in keeping the merrow’s attention long enough for the rest of us to take care of the swarm.”

Lumi stood and moved to the table closest to Aurion. She had Jason’s grocery bags with her, which she placed on the table before turning and bowing to the audience without saying anything.

“Next up is Kerali Vakar, a feralist mage and a beast tamer, and a changeling on top. Get used to seeing her in all sorts of shapes and sizes, as I gather she changes frequently.”

“That’s me!” Kera said with a wave of her hand. “The big rockhound I was riding is named Echo, and this guy here”—she gave Ceri a pat on the head, who preened at the attention—“is Ceri, my skydancer drake.”

“And last of all,” Aurion concluded, “Jason Elric, whom you may be familiar with as the consummate Artificer who was responsible for providing so many of the armaments put to use by the town militia.”

Jason stood and approached the table. He turned and gave a brief wave to everyone, along with a simple “Hi.”

“Now,” Aurion said, “to forestall any of the potential complaints or questions you might have about my allowing someone to join the class two thirds of the way through and just before the practical, I would like to remind you that several of your number were already given similar considerations. Some of you, for instance, were allowed to simply skip the rigorous physical examination segments because you were already established adventurers in your own right, with Guild records, so we already knew you could handle yourselves in a fight. Others, like Velan, are sometimes allotted extra weight to the written exams because while you may not be the best students of lore, you nonetheless possess knowledge and experience that is acutely valuable to us.”

Aurion gestured to Jason. “Particularly relevant to all of us today, Jason here possesses an apparently unique skill that presents us with an extra edge when it comes to raiding dungeons. Namely, he’s worked out how to apply the traditional potion-crafting process of forcing mana into a catalyst to a normally wholly mundane skill: Cooking.”

There were a few guffaws from amidst the crowd as Jason began assisting Lumi and Kera in withdrawing an entire feast’s worth of food from his preservation bags. As Aurion talked, they laid out several kinds of jerky, large serving bowls of fruit and spinach salad, the dressing for the salad, and four small kegs which he’d picked up from the market that contained a low-alcohol, spiced berry drink.

“You laugh,” Aurion warned, “but the results speak for themselves. With only a minimal expenditure of arcane dust, Jason has been able to provide us with enough enchanted food here to equal the same benefit as….”

He looked over at Jason, who did some quick math in his head.

“About…. nine mid-tier potions-worth per person, I think,” Jason said as he unstoppered a bottle of dressing and placed it on the table. “Assuming you eat your fill and include a little of everything, the Feast of Spring’s Bounty effects will boost all of your stats by two, greatly enhance both stamina and mana regeneration, and will last for six hours without saturation issues.”

There were several sharp intakes of breath.

Jason lowered his helmet, snagged a strawberry, and ate most of it in two large bites. Then he grinned at everyone else, gesturing. “Plus, you know… benefits of not missing lunch.”

Meanwhile, Aurion smirked at the other students. “Let that be another lesson to you: never underestimate the usefulness of even the most ordinary of skills. You never know when some oddball combination will be the key to unlocking a unique skill.”

Aurion then waved to someone who was standing off to one side, and wooden plates and forks were delivered to the table as he motioned for people to begin serving themselves. After a few moments of organized chaos, he began to speak as everyone dug in.

“Now… the reason for our haste.” Aurion gestured all around, to the surrounding swamp. “Who can tell me why aquatic dungeons are so dangerous, and why swamp dungeons are one of the absolute worst?” he asked.

“Undead?” someone from the rear asked.

“Well, that’s a reason they can be unpleasant, but that’s not specific to aquatic dungeons,” Aurion replied. “In fact the vast majority of dungeons that deal with such creatures are some form of Death aspect.”

Lumi raised her hand. “Uh, I actually think I know,” she said. “I mean, we’re still playing catch-up, so sorry if I don’t know all the right terms, but it’s because they have such a vast, renewable food source, right? Even plain old fish don’t stay in one place most of the time, they swim all up and down the place. A dungeon who’s entrance is sitting in a river is like a giant krill scoop, just sitting there sucking up huge quantities of stuff. Then there’s all the other stuff that lives in and on the water… insects, algae, amphibians… moving water is chock full of life.

“Exactly,” Aurion confirmed with a nod. He began pacing from side to side. “Not only does an aquatic dungeon have a readymade food source that requires little action on its own part to bring in, its minions are still capable of ranging far and wide to bring anything they can. In fact, so close to the actual claim, I’m surprised we aren’t yet seeing evidence of logging.”

“That aside… what makes swamp dungeons able to grow so aggressively is the sheervolume of surrounding life for it to consume through three separate vectors: its minions, the rot and decay of waterlogged plants, and the water itself. Likewise, their type supports all manner of different creatures capable of thriving in diverse environments, be that on land, in the air, or underwater.”

Aurion pointed upwards to the sky. “And that is a sign that the dungeon is getting stronger by the second. We aren’t even in the dungeon's Claim yet, and already we can see the effects it is having on the weather and surrounding terrain. And that is merely the effect of the wasted mana it is pumping out, now spreading rapidly through the region.”

“Now, normally I would have you waiting til at least nightfall to send everyone out, ideally til tomorrow so you’re refreshed and at top performance. However, if the dungeon has already reach the stage where it is actively manipulating weather patterns already outside its immediate Claim, I’m willing to take some risks.”

“Dreja, Sanders… your teams leave now. Kaerlin and Abaht will be your evaluators, and you have a dispensation to ask for assistance. Find that entrance, and report back every single detail you can about any of the surrounding buildings so we have a good idea of what to expect. Do not engage if at all possible, and definitely don’t lead anything back here if you do. Remember: scouting only.”

“The rest of you: eat up, relax, and wait for your turns. If you happen to know a thing or two about steering a boat, maybe show a few tricks to people who want to learn. You’ve got some time on your hands until we sent you out.”

“Dismissed.”