“A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare to the jewel vision of a life started anew.”

Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: quotations from a Life Made out of Poetry

Dust and bits of stone and other detritus, littered the air as Greyson wait patiently for the room to clear out. As he waited he pulled up the information on the Hidden Quest.

Quest: Free Algea

Rating: Hidden (S)

The god Algea has been misinterpreted by fanatics. The god of pain and suffering does not seek out or inflict pain, but instead takes in those in pain and who suffer, offering what sympathy she can. He is brother to the goddess Lethe, who like her river, removes memories. A cult has been formed that worships inflicting pain on those it deems inferior (all who don’t worship Algea). If successful in creating a true embodiment of Algea, the cult will spread pain and misery across the land.

Task: Stop the creation of Embodiment of Algea

Secondary Task: Eliminate the cultists and break Algea free from the cults tethers.

Rewards: 50,000 XP, Mythical Class Artifact (redeemable at temple), Gratitude of a God (redeemable at temple)

Failure: Most likely death or something that would really make you wish for death.

Grey snorted to himself upon reading the information about the quest. He realized that this meant he had also leveled up. He cursed inwardly realizing that he hadn’t changed around his settings since he left he own personal purgatory but then realized something, almost an epiphany like moment, it didn’t matter. His time in the tutorial had revolved around feeling his own body’s strengths and limitations, while in the beginning getting a stat point for his normal everyday routines had been nice and even motivated him, it began to lose it’s appeal once it took so much time in between stat points that he didn’t even know how much time had passed.

Shaking himself out of it, Grey forced down the memories of those days before he found himself falling back into a hole of apathy and depression. With these tinges still tugging at his mind, he turned himself around and made his way over to the shielded ball that held Eloise.

As he approached, he made a quick look over his body to make sure there wasn’t any cultist pieces left on him. His black jeans and suede steel-toed motorcycle boots, while a bit battered and scuffed in places, where about as he remembered them. The dark blue and gunmetal grey plaid button down shirt, stylishly left untucked from his jeans (at least he hoped it looked stylish) seemed to only have a thin coating of dust on his chest, thanks mostly to his knee length pea coat that moved and flapped as he walked. There was dust and some small pieces of masonry on the coat, but at least he didn’t see any blood or other body fluids. One of the advantages of having a construct of pure mana as armor is that the clean up after a fight certainly is a bit easier when you can just let the armor all dissipate.

Coming up to the shield, Grey double-checked that the shield hadn’t sustained any real damage. To his relief, it seemed as though no one had even had a chance to attack it. He certainly didn’t remember at extra mana being drawn from him during the fight in order to replenish it at all. With a slashing motion of one hand, pulled the mana from the shield, the shield dispersing from the top down as if a breeze was gently blowing away a pile of illuminated dust. The process only took a few seconds before Eloise could be seen staring directly at Greyson. As soon as her face was visible, the slight look of concern that had staid on Greyson’s face began to lift as it was apparent that nothing had happened to her.

For her part, Eli had frozen in place when the shield had started to come down. Inside of the shield had been both nice and completely terrifying at the same time. She had felt completely secure inside the shield, just from looking at the shield, she could tell that nothing was going to be able to get through it. That being said, with the shield being so opaque, she hadn’t been able to see a single thing that was happening outside. Instead, she had heard the shouts and clattering of metal as the fight progressed. Finally, for a few moments it felt as if the world was ending around her. A light bright enough to be seen inside of the shield momentarily blinded her and then the deafening thunder had engulfed her. Her only thought with all of this going on was that she was going to be all alone again, for she couldn’t imagine anyone being able to live through something like that. Once the noise had ended and she could see again she had waited inside of her ball of safety, trying to hold back the tears that were forming in her eyes. Then, the shield had started to disintegrate around her. She froze and prepared herself to run as soon as the bad people tried to take her again.

Instead of any of the bad people she was expecting, as the shield lowered, she found herself staring at Grey, who for his part looked concerned as well. As soon as he saw her, he face changed into a sheepish smile.

“Hi.” He said simply, when she still hadn’t even moved a bit.

Without waiting another heartbeat, Eli launched herself at Greyson, jumping up and clinging around her neck and started sobbing again burying her head into his chest again. While slightly shocked, Grey just wrapped his arms around her and began walking towards on of the remaining doors to the room.

“I’m sorry Eli, that must have been a bit scary for you.” He murmured into her hair, slowly tracing comforting circles on her back.

“Dead” She whispered through the sobs.

“Huh?”

“Grey dead.” She whispered again before she started to choke down her tears.

Oh shit… I didn’t think about that.

“Ahh… I’m sorry Eli. I got a bit carried away there. Just know that something that small can’t really even hurt me.” He said apologetically. To this, Eloise looked up at Grey, her face scrunched up into a look of consternation.

“Small?”

“Well, yeah. We were inside and I don’t entirely know where we are. It kind of feels like we’re in a cave or cavern, so I didn’t want to accidently drop the mountain on us. Getting out from something like that is a pain in the ass… err… butt.” He was going through his reasoning while slightly nodding to himself, not realizing that Eli’s eyes had gone even wider. The explosion was something out of the stories that the nannies at the orphanage told of the end of the world, not something that was small. Thinking about it for another seconds and Greyson kept talking about the last time he had set off an explosion inside of a mountain, she decided that she wasn’t going to worry about it anymore. Her new papa was really, really strong and that was all that mattered.

“…and that’s when I decided the easiest way to get out of the mountain was to make a cocoon around myself and just try to blow a hole the rest of the way out. I even used most of my mana for that one, not really sure how far I was underground at that point. That took forever to clean up after. I found pieces of that mountain over 3 day’s walks away from where I had been buried…”

By this point, the two had made it to and through the door, and Greyson left his story end as they looked down the corridor they found themselves in. Small torches lined the wall every three to five meters, the corridor slowly turning to one side until one couldn’t see the end of the corrider.

“Well, guess we’ll see where this goes for now. Worst case, I’ll make us a new tunnel out of here if we run into a dead end.” Greyson stated. At this Eli snapped her head up to look at him again and vigorously shook her head in the negative. While she hadn’t really been listening to his rambling story (but now we know how the mountain in the prologue got the bite taken out of it), she had heard enough to know that this really wasn’t a good idea to let him do.

Grey sighed as he looked at her reaction. Of course, she would still be scared of explosions after that. He should remember that for the next time they came upon trouble. No boom. Grey was a bit disappointed in this, he liked the big booms, there was just something satisfying about blowing up your troubles. Maybe he could figure out a way to get Eli to like them in the future so he could use them again.

They continued on down the corridor for a few minutes until coming up to a split in the hallway, where Greyson paused.

“Which way do you want to go?” He asked her. Eloise looked down both paths, before she tilted her head to the side and her ear twitched.

“People.” She said pointing down the left-hand path. Grey also tilted his head to the side and focusing now, he too could hear people. It wasn’t the panicked or even angry cries of the cultists, but more a general sound of pain and anguish.

Well, I don’t think its more cultists. Maybe prisoners or sacrifices? Hopefully they can give us some directions if we let them go.

“That doesn’t sound like the bad guys to me. Let’s go see who they are and if they can help to give us directions to a town.” Eloise nodded at this as Greyson began to walk down the hallway.

After another twenty meters or so, they came upon a large iron reinforced door. There were five massive blots that were slid closed to lock the door in place from the outside, with a complicated looking lock on the central bolt. Greyson took one look at the door and then promptly turned his back to it. He gently set Eli down and turned back to face the door.

“Take a few steps back and cover your ears” He told her.

Not sure what he was going to do, Eloise quickly did as she was told. A tendril of light came from his hand and wove itself into and a very bland looking hatchet, with a spade shaped blade about seven cm high and four cm deep. Greyson proceeded to set the blade in the slight groove between the door and the frame and then quickly and steadily brought the blade down as if he was opening up a very large letter. The blade passed through each of the bolts without changing pace, the iron shrieking only slightly as it was rent apart. Greyson gave the door a slight push, and was surprised when the hinges did not even make so much as a peep as the door opened.

Inside of the door, row after row of what had to be cells lined the edges of the room. While not all of them had people in them, more were full than weren’t. The sound of the door hitting the wall echoed through the room that had suddenly gone completely silent, save for the whimpers from much farther down.

“So, the cultists are dead and I’m looking for a way out of here. If I let you guys out, can one of you show me the way to the nearest village? I could kill for a bed.” Greyson said in a normal voice to the room. After the silence continued for another moment, he realized his poor choice in words. Chagrined, he added, “Not that I’d kill anyone to actually get the bed, but I can’t even remember the last time I slept let alone had a bed.” He slowly trailed off. He had never been much of a talker, but apparently being around people again had turned him into a bit of a rambler. (Yup, definitely this and not a poor author).

This seemed to break the spell and at once all of the prisoners began clamoring for release.

“Quiet!” He shouted over all of the voices.

“Everyone’s getting out of here, just don’t run off after I let you out.” With that, Grey had Eli follow him as he made a circuit around the room, his hatchet cutting bolt after bolt with each swing until everyone was released. As they made they’re way out of the cells, some prisoners made their way in to help others. A few wept as they realized the person they were looking for had died, and other wept for finally being free. They all huddled together near the exit of the room but did not try to leave yet.

“Now, can anyone lead us out of here?” Greyson asked to the group. His question was met by shuffling feet until rabbit beastkin pushed its way to the front of the group.

“I think I can.” A very timid voice said, her long dirt covered ears drooping in front of her face.

“Great! Let’s be off then.” Greyson grabbed Eli’s hand and they strode out of the door with their group of rescues following behind them.