Aidan

The Realms

Fifthday, 2nd week of the 10th month, Age of the Chosen 1

Dawn

Caer Macht's entrance, Ceallach Macht, Mistvale Highlands

Congratulations! You have reached level 20 in Dominance.

Aidan stretched and groaned as he waited for Ysbail's party to arrive. Sunnild mumbled something in a sleepy voice and cuddled against his side; Aidan let his arms fall and hugged her to his side. "Are you ready to do another dungeon dive?"

"Mmph. Are you sure ya want me along? I am so much lower level than everyone else. I worry that I will not be able to keep up against the boss." Sunnild looked up at Aidan, vulnerability shining in her eyes.

"You'll be fine," Aidan assured her, stroking her downy crest feathers. "It's the rest of us that are over-leveled, as far as I understand it."

"Mm," Sunnild offered, seeming to pay more attention to Aidan's touch than his words. "If you say so. I trust ya."

The pair waited together as the sky outside the tunnel began to grow lighter. Several minutes later, a voice broke into their silent companionship.

"And lo, at the dawning of the day does she come, the hero of a hundred tales, sovereign of shadows and steel! Take heart, for Wulfryn is here!" Aidan watched in bemusement as the raven-winged harpy he'd encountered training with Ysbail plummeted out of the sky in front of the tunnel. Her wings snapped open at the last possible moment, sending the early morning mist swirling around her as she made her dramatic entrance.

Sunnild seemed less than impressed. "Loud," she complained, raising one wing to shield her face as she burrowed her head further into Aidan's chest.

"Is that...? Sunny! It is you!" Wulfryn launched herself at Sunnild—and, thus, Aidan—with a stroke of her wings, then squawked and backpedaled as two of Aidan's bodyguards materialized in her path. "Ummm, oops?"

"We are not even in the Labyrinth yet, and you are already getting into trouble, Wulfryn?" Ysbail chuckled as she emerged from the billowing fog left in Wulfryn's wake.

"You know each other?" Aidan asked Sunnild as he signaled the all-clear to his guards.

"Mm," she agreed. "If she was not so loud, I would call her a friend. One of the few who did not make fun of me at the Aerie."

Wulfryn gasped and clutched her hands to her chest as if shot. "Oh, a grievous blow! My heart aches to see this betrayal."

Riama prowled out of the shadows in the tunnel, stalking up to Wulfryn and staring balefully up at her. "This minion dares to call herself a lord of darkness? Master, convey my words to her so that I might educate her in her folly!"

"Oh, lord," Aidan groaned, "they're multiplying." To his familiar, he sent, "I will do no such thing. She's just a bird fluffing up her feathers, trying to appear bigger and more dangerous than she is."

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Wulfryn crouched down and stared into Riama's eyes. "What is this?" she asked. "I can feel the dark energy around you! Can it be? Has a rival emerged at last?"

"There can be no rivalry between us when you sit so far below me!" Riama yowled back at the harpy.

There should have been no way for Wulfryn to understand Riama, but she gave a solemn nod. "It is so! Come, my furry foe, let us compete to prove which of us is the true twilight terror!"

"You have no chance! My claws and fangs will rend all asunder!" Riama spun in place and walked back to Aidan, head and tail held high.

"Well, that happened," Ysbail drawled. "It is good to know that the training is paying off, at least, if you have this much energy." The huge centaur woman tousled Wulfryn's purple-black crest feathers. Wulfryn shivered at the touch and leaned into Ysbail's hand, then blinked and puffed out her cheeks when the Adventurer stopped.

"Ysbail!" she complained. "Not in front of my rival!"

"Well, you lot are cheerful this morning," said a thick-bearded mountain centaur clad in heavy armor as he walked up to them. He bowed to Aidan, saying, "Good morning, Lord Aidan, it is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Labhruinn."

"Likewise," Aidan said, giving him a nod in return.

"Good, everyone is here," Ysbail said. "Before we begin, I want to make one thing clear. Lord Aidan, out here, you are the boss. You have power to spare and a bright vision that you are guiding us towards. I follow you willingly. In the Labyrinth, however, things are different. I have more experience clearing dungeons than the rest of you put together twice over. I want your word that you will obey my orders."

"By all means!" Aidan exclaimed. "Honestly, it's a relief to be able to follow someone else for a change. Lead on, I say!"

Ysbail shook her head and chuckled. "I should have known you would be reasonable about it. Alright then, adventure awaits!"

Aidan

Mid-Morning

The Labyrinth, First Stratum: Viridescent Treetops

"What is that?!" Aidan exclaimed.

"Arboreal Devourer," Ysbail said, leading the party past the powerful foe. "This one we can just walk right past. There are others later on that we had to get more creative about."

"Wait, the boss is uglier than that? This thing looks like a cross between a leech, a spider, and a pile of shit."

"Oh, yes," Ysbail chuckled. "Poor Ceirios almost lost her lunch when we found it. These guys are cute in comparison."

"Cute? I am not looking forward to this..."

"Oh, stop whining. There, up ahead, those are the stairs down."

And, sure enough, two quest prompts popped into Aidan's vision.

You have completed a Quest!

Viridescent Treetops—Sunlight Piercing the Canopy

Make a map of the path from Caer Macht's Labyrinth entrance to the stairs down—SUCCESS

Map completion percentage—99%

Reward: 25,000 experience, 2 Essence of Dreams, 2 Essence of Air. Quest: Viridescent Treetops—All-Consuming Foes

As the sunlight falls further and further behind, the threat to intrepid adventurers grows higher and higher. Danger lurks in the shadows, waiting to devour the ill-prepared. How deep dare you go?

Goal: Make a map of the second floor of the Viridescent Treetops; reach the stairs to the third floor.

Reward: Access to the third floor.

Optional Rewards: various, based on your map's accuracy and completeness.

"Well, that's not ominous or anything," Aidan quipped.

"What, the second floor's quest?" Ysbail asked. "There is actually a clue in the description. See if you can figure it out before we show you!" She grinned at Aidan.

"A clue? Hmm. There isn't much to work with. Let me think about it while we head down to the next floor."

"You do not have much time," Wulfryn commented. "The stairs are not as long as you might think."

Indeed, they were not. The staircase spiraled around the inside of the tree once, then opened up onto a branch leading west. The wooden pathway extended a short distance before ending in a swath of leaves, most of which were bathed in a beam of golden sunlight. Another Arboreal Devourer crouched at the back end of the greenery, directly opposite the stairs leading back up. A shortcut extended off the branch to the south.

"Um, is that thing going to chase us? I'm sure we can beat it, but it'll drain resources we'd be better off using to fight the boss." Aidan eyed the Devourer warily. He wasn't sure how or why, but he could feel the power rolling off of it. Its intensity wasn't overwhelming, but he could tell it wouldn't be as easy a fight as the Treetop Tyrants and Rafflesias they'd dispatched easily on the way to the first-floor stairs.

"Nope!" chirped Wulfryn. "Permission to demonstrate?" she asked Ysbail.

"Go ahead." Wulfryn launched herself into the air and flew toward the leafy patch.

"Yoo-hoo! Hey, ugly, come and get me!" she shouted, attracting the Devourer's attention. It reared up on its multitude of thin legs and heaved itself forward, letting out an ear-piercing roar that shook the branch.

"Is she going to be alright?" Sunnild asked, worried for her friend.

"Just watch," Ysbail responded.

The monster chased after Wulfryn, moving first along the shadowed section of leaves, then plunging into the sunlight. As soon as it did, however, it shrieked, thrashed, and curled up on itself. As Aidan watched, amazed, the shiny slime covering its body turned dull and hardened, locking the creature in place.

"It turns out," Ysbail said with a grin, "that these things are weak to sunlight. They react like that every time."

"Is it dead?" Sunnild asked. "I didn't get any experience..."

Ysbail shook her head. "No, and do not attack it. That wakes them back up. As long as we leave them alone, though, they cannot chase us into the sunlight."

"That's all well and good," Aidan said, "but doesn't that depend on there being sunlight to lead them into? I can't imagine it's always this easy."

"Ah, but that is the trick!" Wulfryn exclaimed. "For the light is within our means to control! Hark, look above; what do you see?" She spiraled into the air, throwing her arms upward.

Aidan looked up. There was far more distance above them than there should have been, given the distance the stairs covered, but he could just make out...

"Wait, is that the first floor way up there? The branches look different than on the background trees."

"Yup!" the raven-winged harpy confirmed. "You know how passing over these leaves makes them fall out? And you know how there are patches of leaves up there with sunlight falling on them?"

Aidan's eyes widened. "'As the sunlight falls further and further behind, the threat to intrepid adventurers grows higher and higher. Danger lurks in the shadows, waiting to devour the ill-prepared,'" he repeated. "When you break the leaf cover, it lets the sunlight through, and that removes the danger from the Devourers!"

"Got it in one," Ysbail confirmed. "And, luckily, once we clear out a section in the sunshine, it stays that way for around a week. Having to clear out the path every time would be tiresome. Although to be fair, the shortcuts let us avoid most of them. In fact, this floor will only take a few minutes."

The Adventurer led the party south, between an immense tree trunk and a large patch of leaves, then across another shortcut bridge and left into a smaller tree. Within was another staircase and another pair of prompts.

You have completed a Quest!

Viridescent Treetops—All-Consuming Foes

Make a map of the second floor of the Viridescent Treetops—SUCCESS

Map completion percentage—99%

Reward: 50,000 experience, 3 Essence of Dreams, 3 Essence of Air. Quest: Viridescent Treetops—The Roots of the Problem

Having finally reached the end of the first stratum, new challenges await intrepid explorers in an altered environment. And, at the end of the path, something sinister awaits...

Goal: Make a map of the third floor of the Viridescent Treetops; reach the stairs to the second stratum.

Reward: Access to the second stratum.

Optional Rewards: various, based on your map's accuracy and completeness.

"Wait, why am I getting credit for ninety-nine percent map completion? We barely covered a tenth of the floor if it's as big as the first one." Aidan was confused.

"We all had slightly different quest objectives," Labhruinn replied. "If I had to guess, yours was to make a map of each floor?" At Aidan's nod, the bearded centaur continued, "Then my guess is that you only need to have the map, not traverse the entire floor yourself. Since we already have complete maps of the first three floors, you get off easy."

"It makes sense," Sunnild added. "You're being rewarded for encouraging exploration of the Labyrinth. I bet you'll get quests every time someone reaches a new floor from this entrance."

Aidan frowned. "But I didn't get these quests until I reached the stairs down myself."

Sunnild shrugged. "Maybe because you have to defeat the first boss yourself for a different quest? Dunno, but I'm sticking to my bet."

The party emerged from the stairway into, as the quest description suggested, an altered landscape. Instead of branches as wide as roads hundreds of feet in the air, the third floor was a maze with gnarled roots as the walls. The darkness was even more oppressive here; without Wulfryn's Darksight Boon spell, Aidan doubted he would be able to see more than a foot or two ahead. The scent was different as well, the clean air of the canopy exchanged for the smell of wet earth and rotting vegetation.

"As you can tell, this floor is a bit different," Ysbail said as they emerged into the open air. "Fortunately for you newbies, we figured out the shortcuts here just before finding the boss, and there is one that leads right to it."

"This feels like cheating," Aidan grumbled as Ysbail walked to the southern root-wall.

"We can take the long way if you want..."

"No, no, you're the leader."

"Correct answer," Ysbail snickered. "The boss will give us plenty of things to worry about without having expended resources going the scenic route, I assure you. Now, watch this." She extended her hand to touch a small cluster of flowers on the nearest root. Aidan heard a loud click, then a hidden door swung inward, revealing a secret passage.

"Anwn was the one to spot the flowers," Ysbail explained as she headed through the short tunnel. "It turns out that they only exist to mark these secret doors. Anyway, around this corner, through this tree, and here we are."

The path opened up into what Aidan could only describe as a boss arena. It was a rough oval in shape, with root-walls towering and arching overhead almost like a cathedral. A narrow beam of sunlight lanced down to illuminate the rear of the area—and the immense monster lurking there.

At first, Aidan only saw a mound of dirt, mud, dead leaves, and other detritus. Then it moved. With a crackling groan that sounded like an entire forest toppling to the ground, the creature rose in fits and starts. The dirt and leaves tumbled from the boss monster's back, revealing a slick, chitinous shell lined with spikes that resembled huge, rotting splinters. Six pairs of eyes gleamed along the front of its carapace, each set decreasing in size, though the smallest were still as big as pumpkins.

Its bulk lifted higher and higher into the air, dark, gooey fluids dripping from revealed appendages. It resembled a horseshoe crab—if those harmless arthropods were thirty feet long and had a hundred spearlike legs, a whiplike tail tipped with a glowing nodule, and two grabbing claws the size of Ysbail. Once it reached its full height, it stretched its forelimbs skyward and let out a chittering screech that had Aidan ducking and covering his ears.

Power rolled off the monster in waves, battering against Aidan with a force that felt physical. His hands and legs trembled with the effort required to keep from turning and running. Beside him, Sunnild wrapped her gleaming silver wings around her in a protective cocoon. Even Labhruinn and Wulfryn, who had encountered this creature before, grimaced and broke out in a heavy sweat. Only Ysbail seemed unaffected, and she stepped forward, hefting her massive greatsword.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, this is the fruit of our labor these last weeks. We know nothing about this thing other than that it is ugly as sin and twice as unpleasant to smell. I can shield us from the passive effects of its Aura, but there is no telling what it can do in battle." Ysbail began to emit wisps of golden-red energy, and immediately Aidan felt the physical and mental pressure emanating from the boss decrease.

"Watch out for the claws and tail in particular," Ysbail continued. "Get ready, everyone—this will be a hard battle. If you are hurt too badly to fight, try to withdraw behind us. Aidan, you will have to act as our healer if that happens, so keep well away from its attacks. Unleash as much firepower as you can on it as soon as you see it is engaged with us."

"You don't have to tell me twice," he muttered in response. He already had his Obsidian Salamander and Golden Fawn summoned, so there wasn't much more in the way of preparation that he could do.

"Wulf, stay back with Aidan and keep up your enhancing spells on the rest of us. If you have time to try and debilitate it with shadow magic, do it, but keeping our armor and weapons enchanted is your priority."

"Yes, captain!" The young harpy had a serious look on her face as she cast her short-duration Metal Magic buffs on the frontline party members.

"Sunnild, you did well against the monsters we encountered in the upper levels. I know you are not as sturdy as Labhruinn or me, so I want you to focus on evading and parrying hits rather than absorbing them. Your wings might be almost impenetrable, but they will not absorb all of the force from its strikes."

"Understood."

"Labby, you and I are on damage detail. I do not like the look of that tail, so that will be my priority at the start. You start whittling away at its health from the front with Sunnild."

"Aye."

Ysbail raised her sword to shoulder height, tip pointed toward the towering enemy. "Is everyone prepared? Good. Then, Aidan? Fire for effect."

"Yes, ma'am," he said and sent his Burning Barrage spiraling towards the boss.