NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 42: The Lost Forge Of Ur’Thul
Hiral barely took the time to register the words, the memory of the vampire fresh in his mind, and mentally hit the Yes button without asking the others. However, instead of the familiar portal opening, another notification window popped up.
Note: The Exit to Wild Dungeon – The Lost Forge of Ur’Thul will not appear at the same location as the entrance.
Do you still wish to enter Dungeon?
Yes / No
Different exit location? Even better!
Hiral again mentally hit the Yes button, and this time a portal opened.
“Go, go!” he ordered the others, one eye on the window while he cancelled Foundational Split.
His tattoos emerged from his skin while the others darted through the portal—they didn’t want to deal with the horde any more than he did—and he then followed them inside. One last quick glance over his shoulder as he went showed him a pale hand grasping the windowsill as if pulling itself up, but then the portal closed.
Hiral let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, but it only caught in his throat again when he turned to look at the others and took in his surroundings. The party stood on what could only be described as a wide bridge, maybe forty feet from edge to edge, while a truly massive room spread around them. It wasn’t like the natural cavern of The Buried City from the last dungeon. No, this was all intricately worked stone, fitted together perfectly to construct some kind of huge welcoming hall.
One looked like some kind of evolved lizard, giant wings stretching from its back while actual fire constantly streamed from its mouth. Another, a hunched humanoid, had eight powerfully muscular arms reaching from its back, while the thing next to it could only be described as the literal stuff of nightmares. The stone itself was barely visible within a fog of hanging darkness, perfectly round, coal-like eyes glaring out from within the shadows. Even though Hiral couldn’t truly make out what waited within that darkness, some primal part of him shied away from it.
Tearing his eyes from the creature of pure Night, he forced himself to look at the army on the opposing wall. Ten statues lined that side, all armed and armored in similar fashion, and all the same race: Lizardmen. Unlike the Lizardmen the party had fought back in The Mire, these ones radiated power, as if the ones in the earlier dungeon had been a cheap imitation. While several carried spears like he’d seen before, others carried swords and shields, while one even had a pair of floating books like Seena.
Their carved faces stared down the force of monsters on the opposite side, like they planned to stand against the legendary creatures, and somehow, something about the statues made Hiral feel like they could succeed.
“What is this place?” Wule asked, breaking Hiral out of his statue-inspecting trance.
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, I feel like a weight’s been lifted off my chest,” Nivian said. “Don’t you all feel it?”
Hiral turned his attention internally, and just like Nivian had said, there was a sense of easing within his chest—right behind his central Meridian Node. He quickly opened his status windowand nodded when he looked at it.
“Check your solar energy capacity,” he said, noticing for the first time the lack of glowing plants. Despite that—and the complete lack of other light sources—they were practically being bathed in solar energy. Had Hiral not known better, he’d have sworn he was on Fallen Reach soaking up the natural sun.
“Absorption rate is back to normal,” Seena said, looking both directions along the bridge. Only one side seemed to have an opening, the other clearly sealed. “From that notification, we only have one shot at this dungeon, but that’s not really so different from usual. Just no safety net. Still, let’s take this chance to get to full—or as close to it as we can—before the dungeon urges us to move.”
“I’m going to be a bit,” Seeyela said. “I’m pretty much tapped out after those last portals.”
Hiral activated Foundational Split, Left and Right peeling off, and Left quickly shaped his Banner of Courage.
“No way the dome is bigger than this room,” Hiral said with a shrug as the golden aura washed over them, further increasing their solar absorption rates.
“Does… does…” Yanily started, his tongue darting to his lips as he spoke. “Does anybody feel like the energy in here tastes different?”
“Tastes?” Nivian asked.
“It’s not the right word,” Yanily admitted, “but I can’t think of a better one. Something is different. I noticed the same thing outside, like the energy near the window was… different…”
“Why didn’t you say something then?” Seena asked, sitting down on the stone roadway.
“I did,” Yanily said. “Remember?”
“You just said you preferred over by the window,” Wule pointed out. “Nothing about how it tasted.”
“Same thing,” Yanily said, squinting like he was trying to see something. “I don’t know what it is.”
Hiral nodded anyway. The necrotic energy that’d slowed Wule’s healing had infused the whole city, corrupting things even to the point of affecting the dungeon. What if solar energy and necrotic energies weren’t the only types?
“Hey, Yanily, give me your hand,” Hiral said, stepping forward and holding out his spread hands a few inches apart.
“Uh… you’re going to test something, aren’t you?” Yanily asked nervously.
“Of course I am. Hand.”
“Do I have a choice?” Yanily asked Seena.
She looked from Yanily to Hiral, then back to Yanily, and shook her head. “You know he won’t let it go.”
“I won’t,” Hiral said. “And it might help us all.”
“Fine,” Yanily said, lifting his hand and holding it up between Hiral’s outstretched hands. “What now? Do you want to interlock fingers? Whisper sweet nothings into each other’s ears?”
“No,” Hiral said at length. “I just want you to focus your energy down into your hand, like you would if you were going to use an ability. Just… uh… don’t actually use one. Hold it in your hand.”
“Okay,” Yanily said, and Hiral brought his hands closer to Yanily’s without touching them.
“Hope this works,” Hiral said quietly, which widened several sets of eyes—including Yanily’s—as he pushed a small thread of solar power into his Rune of Energy. A soft sphere of glowing light appeared between his spread fingers, bathing Yanily’s hand within it and revealing sparking arcs of lightning along his skin.
Yanily jerked his hand back like he’d been burned, but then immediately paused, looked at his perfectly normal hand, and slowly pushed it back into the light. As soon as it entered the glowing sphere, arcing electricity appeared where the light touched until, once again, Yanily’s hand was engulfed up to his forearm.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Yanily said, his eyes spellbound by the caged lightning. Most of it stayed running along his skin, but small bolts occasionally stretched out for the limits of the sphere, like they were probing their surroundings. “How are you doing that?”
“Need more testing. Nivian, you’re next,” Hiral said, though he had to shoo Yanily away. When the tank—nervously—pushed his hand into the sphere of light, there wasn’t any electricity. This time, instead, his hand was sheathed in what looked like a glove of tight-fitting solid light. “Okay, one more. Seena.”
“Why me?” she asked, though she stood and put her hand in when Nivian removed his.
“That’s why,” he said, nodding at the slight flickers of flame crawling along her skin within the sphere.
“What’s it mean?” she asked.
“I think Yanily liked being closer to the window because of the storm outside. More specifically, because of the lightning. His new class, Stormstrider, changed the type of solar energy his body prefers. Actually, I don’t know if type is the right word. Flavor? Either way, I bet he absorbs solar energy tinted with lightning better than normal solar energy.”
“And me?” Seena asked. “I don’t have an advanced class like he does.”
“No, but I think you’re the closest to getting one,” Hiral said. “Your newfound direction towards fire-related abilities… I don’t think it’s a coincidence. The rest of us will have the same gloves of light like Nivian, because normal solar energy is what our bodies want.”
“How is this going to help us?” Seena asked, still staring at flickering flames on her hand in the sphere.
“Mainly you, for the moment,” Hiral admitted, cutting off the flow of solar energy to his sphere and dropping his hands to his side. “And it’ll let us test my theory.”
“Am I going to like this?” Seena asked.
“Depends. How do you feel about campfires?”
“Campfires?”
“We should build a small fire. If you feel any difference in absorbing solar energy with the fire nearby, we have our answer. And if anybody else gets an advanced class, we just need to figure out which type of energy their bodies like best.”
The rest of the party just sort of shrugged at each other—somebody even mentioned a campfire was one of Hiral’s more tame tests—and then Nivian pulled out some of his cooking supplies.
“Might as well heat some stew at the same time,” Nivian said before looking very specifically at Yanily. “Since somebody dumped the last pot.”
The spearman held up his hands. “Don’t worry. Learned my lesson. I’m staying over here until it’s ready. But, do we have time for this? This dungeon only opens once, and we have three hours to complete it. Shouldn’t we be starting?”
“It’ll take us all a few minutes to recharge after everything outside, you included,” Seena said. “Don’t worry. We won’t let Nivian get his apron out.”
The tank paused, one hand above his Interspatial Ring like he was waiting for something to come out. A quick ahem, and he sat down to get the small fire going, hand jerking away from the ring.
Within a minute, a small fire burned under the pot, the stew already bubbling on top.
“I swear, this pot is magic,” Nivian muttered. “Never seen food heat so fast…”
“Seena, you feel anything from the fire?” Hiral asked.
“It’s warm,” she said, sitting beside it and holding the palms of her hands closer like she was warming them up.
“Besides that?” Hiral asked flatly.
“I dunno, Hiral. I…” She stopped, her lips gently smacking together. “Okay, that’s weird.”
“See!” Yanily said. “It tastes different.”
“Seriously?” Wule asked.
“Kind of?” Seena said, holding up a hand before more questions came and closing her eyes as if to focus on her other senses. “It’s like… a spice… when I breathe in. It’s not the solar energy itself—I mean, it hasn’t changed the substance of it. I can still feel my body absorbing that naturally. But, this other thing… it comes in when I breathe.” She inhaled deeply for emphasis.
“And it has a taste?” Nivian asked. “What kind? Hot? Spicy?”
“Kind of,” Seena said, the corner of her lips curving up. “By itself, it doesn’t feel like anything, but as I pull it deeper into my body, I can almost feel it mixing with my solar energy, spreading to join it in my PIM.” She took another deep breath and opened her eyes, nodding. “It’s speeding up my absorption, but, more than that, I think it will make using my fire abilities… easier? More powerful? I don’t know. There’s something there, though.
“I can’t wait to test it out.”
“Now you sound like Hiral,” Nivian said, shaking his head. “Here.” He handed a bowl of steaming stew to Seena.
“Didn’t we just eat those sandwiches for the buffs?” Yanily asked.
“This isn’t for the buff,” Nivian said. “Just to have something warm in your stomach.”
“I’m… actually kind of full still,” Seena said.
Nivian looked at the others, holding the bowl out. When nobody moved for it, he just shrugged. “Suit yourselves,” he said, then lifted a spoonful to his mouth.