The Grand Weave

I really wanted to ask Bera what was wrong, but something in her face told me that it would be a bad idea. Some people began rushing out of the inn while others gathered in crowds to discuss heavily between each other. I nudged Sam to follow me when I noticed the elf walking out of the inn. Surprisingly enough, he was heading towards the guild building. I could only assume he was going to inform the guild.

We weren’t the only people to follow the elf. There were a few adventuring parties walking behind him. Strangely enough, the leonid from before stayed behind. Poor Talis had his eyes widened so much that I thought they’d pop out of his head. With a simple sentence, Talis abandoned his post and rushed down the stairs. In the next minute, Brelten walked up with Talis following behind him, looking pensive.

Sam and I stayed at the edge of the room and tried to catch what was being furiously discussed. Brelten showed excitement at first, but it quickly morphed into a serious frown. With every passing minute, his body grew tenser. Eventually, the elf left, followed by most of the adventurers. Brelten tapped his foot and surveyed the room. When he spotted us, he waved us over.

Before I could even say greetings, he spoke first.

“Whatever you two do, do not head to that rift unless I tell you to. I need to go and check the scene myself, but if what Vetro said was true, then you two going in now would only end in your death,” he said seriously.

I frowned, but I wasn’t going to doubt Brelten now. “Is it really that dangerous? There wasn’t much discussion about rifts in the primer. All I know is it's sort of like a dungeon but different."

He stopped tapping his foot but took a step closer. His tall, broad shoulders loomed over me.

“I’ll explain tomorrow. Just know that the portal’s colour determines how dangerous it is. The portal being tier one means at baseline, the rift would be made with tier one people in mind. Being pink signifies that it is a max rank, so the rift is a tier one, rank nine,” he explained. He paused and then told Talis to prepare supplies before turning back towards me. “Just know that rifts are instanced. If you guys went alone without a proper group, I wouldn't even see your corpses.”

He bid us goodbye and walked back downstairs.

Sam turned to me. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do right now. I say we head back to Oleander's and chill. Brelten will tell us what he finds out tomorrow."

Brelten's words worried me, but Sam was right. I agreed, and we headed back. The inn only had a few people left in it, and I assumed most of the adventurers headed to the rift. We took our usual seats at the bar and decided to relax. Bera eventually came walking out of the kitchen. Her earlier demeanor was gone, and she was back to sporting a friendly smile. I couldn’t bring myself to ask her the obvious question. There was no reason for me to darken her mood.

I had to say something though, so I figured I’d try to be nice.

“Hey, Bera, got a question for you,” I said as she came closer.

Her eyes briefly flashed to smoky green orbs, but they disappeared faster than I could blink.

“And what would that be?” she asked with some hesitation.

“Figured I’d head out early tomorrow, just wondering if you would like some of that silverfish that likes to swim in the river,” I said as cheerfully as I could.

She paused for a few seconds but eventually smiled. “Sure, they taste pretty good. I can buy them off you if you can bring enough back."

I shook my head. “Nah, you’ve been kind enough. I won’t try charging you. Not even sure how much fish we can get,” I said.

“Well, alright then, I won’t turn down kindness. If you search for some Galu berries, it’d be good bait. They're blue, but they have green swirls on them. The bush tends to grow near the river. When they're ripe, the berries drop and the juices attract them like an angry swarm,” she said.

That was some nice information to have. Someday, I’d need to to find a bestiary about all the different types of beasts in Inoria along with the different plants and herbs. I thanked her for the advice and relaxed.

The rest of the night saw adventurers come and go, the news of the rift acting like a kid poking the hornet's nest of adventurers here in Edolus. I idly wondered if I’d even be allowed to enter. I know that the adventurers' guild rarely police their own outside of major crimes against the guild. It didn’t mean that Brelten couldn’t effectively ban people from the rift. Governments back on earth would quarantine areas that were dangerous to people. No reason it couldn’t happen here.

Before we left the village in the morning, we went to Volan’s. The oni actually had other customers leaving his shop when we walked up. He saw us and waved us over with a big smile on his face.

“Business doing good, Volan?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.

“Doing good?! Hah! It’s going great. Last night and this morning, there was a near-endless amount of sales. So many adventurers wanted their weapons sharpened and their straps repaired. A few plates dented back into shape. You get the idea. A discovery of a wild rift here is just about the best thing that could’ve happened,” he babbled excitedly.

Sam laughed and smiled at the exuberant man. “Do you mind helping us out, then? We got some coin saved up and figured it never hurts to be prepared."

“Oh, you bet. Come on in. Just tell me what you’re looking for,” he answered.

Sam managed to complete her gear by adding a single iron plate shoulder pauldron. It covered part of her chest and her back as it went on top of her chainmail shirt. I got myself hard leather spaulders made of the same material as the rest of my leather armour. Now, the only unarmoured part of my arms was my elbow. I couldn’t help myself and bought a black cowl. The hood took some finagling, but eventually, Volan just helped cut some holes in for my horns. Sam commented that I looked more like a rogue now, then turned around and asked if I was finally entering my edgy phase. At least I wasn’t wearing a face mask that only showed my eyes. I wanted to get a face mask, but after her comment, I decided not to. Although, outside of completing my look, I figured a face mask could be practically useful in some situations.

Sam’s pauldron cost the most at around twenty silvers, the amount of metal raising the price. My leather spaulders and cowl only cost around fifteen. Wasn’t the worst price to pay for real armour. They weren't enchanted and made from basic materials. We both changed into our armour before we left the village. We now had a complete set of gear for both of us, and it felt great.

The trip was mostly uneventful. For the first time in days, there were no monsters aggressively charging at us. I assumed that with the increased number of adventurers heading toward the rift, the forest was cleared inadvertently. The galu berries worked wonders. I couldn't understand why. They were extremely bitter, and the aftertaste was like eating a warhead. It didn’t stop the silverfish from swarming en masse. By the time we returned to Oleander's, I carried fourteen fat fish in my inventory.

After dropping them off to a thankful Bera, we decided it was time to head to the adventurers guild. Hopefully, Brelten could finally answer some questions.

----

When we entered the building, we found Brelten and Talis sitting down with a few adventurers. As we walked closer, I noticed one of the people was the lion beastkin from last night.

Brelten turned towards us. "Cyrus, Sam, come sit. I’d like to introduce you to Talon. These people will be spearheading the rift expedition."

I sat down and looked over the table. There was one surprising fact. All the adventurers at the table were beastkin. Sitting to the right of the lion man was a female beastkin who looked like a snow leopard with golden spots. To the right of the woman were twin beastkins who looked like tigers. The first twin had gray metallic stripes, while the second had silver metallic stripes. And leaning against the wall was a bird-looking beastkin, with the head of a crow. His feathers were sable black, but the tips ended in a bright orange-red.

The lion man turned towards me, his eyes solid orbs of charcoal. Unlike his companions, his vertical cat eyes seemed hidden in the light. There was silence as he stared.

“And why exactly are we looking at a couple of fledgling pearls, Brelten?” the man asked, disdain obvious in his voice.

More than I wanted to be angry, I was more curious as to how he could tell Sam and I were pearls. I didn’t see any activation of skill or feel any sort of magic. Whatever he did, I couldn’t detect at all.

Brelten frowned.

“Caldur, you will not be disrespectful to the people I choose. Especially not if I personally select them to be part of the expedition,” Brelten said sternly.

After Brelten spoke his name, I realized that Talon was not the lion man’s name. The name must be what this adventuring team was called. Caldur frowned even deeper. The woman to his right spoke first.

“What do you mean you select them for the expedition?! They are basically children. You want to send two untiered pearls into a max rank rift?! That's insane. They wouldn’t contribute anything. They’ll die!” the woman shouted.

The twins seemed like they were barely paying attention, and I couldn’t read the expression on the other beastkin’s face. I wasn’t even sure that a crow could frown.

Brelten didn’t say anything, but his magic blanketed the room. I could feel an overwhelming pressure weighing on me. Looking over, team Talon squirmed in their seats. Their arms shook, and the birdman stood hunched over, no longer leaning on the wall casually. Sam didn’t seem to be affected by the crushing pressure, either.

Brelten’s eyes were two blazing emeralds, radiating a feeling of extreme vitality. The pressure must have been Brelten’s doing, and it looked like he excluded Sam and me from its pressure.

As Brelten’s eyes dimmed, and I saw the beastkin stopped shaking and regain themselves. Clearing his throat, he gestured a hand at us.

“Enough, I’ll remind you again, who is the guildmaster here. If I choose these two, then you have no ability or right to gainsay anything from me. I wouldn’t just pick two pearls lightly. I, more than anyone here, know exactly how dangerous this rift is going to be. I need not explain why I, as a tier three retired adventurer, would know more than you children,” Brelten thundered.

He put a special emphasis on the word children, which made me wonder just how old Brelten really was. He said tier three was something most people accomplished after several decades of hard work possibly a century of effort. It could be a very real possibility that Brelten was over one hundred years old. The fact that he still looked like a man in his mid-twenties really hammered in the fact that immortality existed in Inoria.

“Just tell me why you would choose them,” Caldur grunted out.

His disdainful look was gone, but there was still obvious disapproval.

Brelten looked at all of team Talon before looking back at me.

“Cyrus here is the only person currently in the village who can enter into the rift as a healer. Even untiered, his healing is powerful enough that it can still effectively heal tier-one individuals. Rely on potions all you want, but he has a full restoration as far as I know,” Brelten calmly explained.

His words finally made the entirety of Talon pay attention to me. The lionman studied me like a predator watching prey while the woman continued to glare.

The woman spoke up again. “Even if that's the case, why are we bringing her, then?” she asked as she pointed at Sam.

Sam just waved back at her and smiled, ignoring the tension in the room.

I decided to speak before Brelten could reply. “Sorry, we're currently a package deal. I’m afraid the frail little me needs a bodyguard. And frankly, I don’t know you."

“Meleena, calm down. If he can really heal us without having to waste medical supplies, then we can’t say no.”

Surprisingly it was the bird man who spoke. His voice was hard to describe. It came out with a slight chirp reminiscent of Zharia's speech, but deeper. Melena, the snow-leopard beastkin, sat back in her chair, keeping her arms crossed with a half snarl on her face.

This woman seemed volatile. Obviously the powderkeg in the group. Caldur clenched his fist but kept himself contained. The twins stared but it looked like they were fighting a smile from appearing on their faces. Brelten watched all this and sighed.

“Cyrus, Sam, I’m not going to force you. If you don’t want to be part of the expedition, then I’ll find replacements. I want you to know this is extremely dangerous. We have no information on the wild rift. We can’t tell what you’ll face inside,” he said while staring at the both of us.

I looked over and tried to see Sam’s take on all this. Her eyes were narrowed, and her arms crossed.

Annoyed but not fully dismissive. Not the worst assessment.

“And what exactly is team Talon’s role in all this?” she asked neutrally.

Caldur smacked his hand onto the tabletop. “We're the strongest team eligible to go inside! I’ll be the leader of the rift team. Some of us actually have to contribute. We can’t all be special and get a free ride."

Sam turned towards Brelten, ignoring the angry beastkin. “Is this how we're going to be treated if we go with them? I’m not inclined to deal with a kitty-cat with anger issues."

I half expected Caldur and Meleena to jump across the table. Instead, they both had their claws out, digging deep furrows into the wood. It was only after seeing a glowing emerald light in the corner of my eye that I understood why they hadn’t. No matter how angry they were, Brelten scared them into inaction.

Brelten stood up, his large form looming over the adventurers.

“Firstly, Caldur will not be the leader of the expedition. That job will be handled by a selected adventurer of the guild. I sent out an emergency missive yesterday, and they should be arriving within a week's time. Secondly, all of you stop provoking each other. I will not have my adventurers squabbling like children during this rift!” Brelten said, his last statement booming inside the guild hall. He wasn’t done. “Thirdly, I will not hesitate to remove people who refuse to cooperate during the mission. And if I ever find out that you recklessly endangered the team while inside, I’ll demote you to pearls with a ban from promotion for the next two years.”

Nobody said anything for a long while. His baleful eyes squashed any argument. Poor Talis, his presence entirely forgotten during the conversation, held onto what looked like a clipboard and papers as if his life depended on it. With one last sweep across the room, Brelten snorted then sat back down.

“Cyrus, Sam, meet me here before noon tomorrow. I have other meetings to attend for the rest of the day,” he said. Suddenly, a purple light started showing from underneath his robe. He pulled out an intricate-looking necklace. There were three rings of silver connected together by thin metal rods. In the middle of the rings was a large purple gemstone cut into the shape of a diamond. “Talis, go grab the two red leather books on my desk. Hand them to Cyrus and Sam. I have a call to take.”

Brelten promptly left the room and walked downstairs with Talis in tow. Team Talon all stood up and began exiting the building. We still received pointed looks from Caldur and Meleena. The twins gave us two thumbs up before following them. But as we watched, crow beastkin stopped in front of us.

“I would say not to worry about them, but they are as prideful as they come,” he said solemnly.

I crossed my arms. “Are you saying they would do something to us? And why are you telling us this? They’re your teammates."

He didn’t respond immediately and stared at me with two orange eyes. Looking closer, it wasn't that his eyes were merely orange in color but looked as if tiny flames danced inside his skull. Without any words, he began fiddling with the robe he was wearing. He turned around so that his back was towards us and lowered his robe till it rested at his waist.

Sam audibly gasped. I couldn’t fault her for the noise, either. On his back, where a pair of wings would normally be on a bird, were two raised bumps. The skin looked healed over, so the injury must have happened a while ago. He raised his robe and retied the knots.

When he turned towards us, his eyes were positively luminous. “I was once a proud son of the skies. Where once I thought to soar above the clouds, I am now sentenced to forever walk behind their prideful backs. They will not openly pursue you, but two fledgling pearls dying in a rift… Just stay near the representative Brelten chooses. Even they wouldn't dare shame themselves to the guild."

He walked out the next moment, leaving us silent and partially stunned. Sam found her voice first.

“That's... cruel. Do you think he’s their slave?” she asked, disgust dripping in her voice.

I shook my head. “Does the guild allow that? The primer went hardcore on the freedom to choose. And did you see how he talked to the woman? If he was there slave, I don't think the she-beast would so easily listen. Not like that."

"Maybe," she admitted.

There were sounds of someone walking up the steps behind us. Talis came jogging up carrying two small journal-sized books.

“Here you guys go,” Talis said as he handed us a book each.

Inspecting it, it was really just a cherry red coloured book. Not even an inch thick. Turning it over a few times, I eventually summoned Chomperz. Talis just stared in wide-eyed befuddlement as Chomperz chomped down on the journal, swallowing it whole. His teeth clacking together made a clacking sound that echoed throughout the room. The little guy waved his stubby arm at me before flying back into my chest.

“What a strange storage skill,” Talis muttered.

I could only smirk. “So, what are those books? I’m going to assume it's something about rifts,” I asked.

“Hmm, oh yes. Those are primers about basic rift knowledge. Some of the pages have illustrations to help you familiarize yourself more with the nuances of rifts,” he said after regaining his composure.

“Thank you for bringing us this. Here, give me a second,” I said before summoning my Trickster’s Treats pouch. I pulled open the strings and chuckled as I saw a look of glee on Talis’s face. I motioned for him to go ahead, and he reached his hand in carefully. The elf got lucky. He pulled out a clear bag of jellybeans, a bag of gummy worms, and what was obviously a popcorn ball. At that moment, he looked like a child, staring at his candy in wonder.

“Damn, our first haul was bullshit,” Sam grumbled.

I had to agree with her. So far, everyone else has received way better loot than us.

Talis turned and grasped my hands. “Oh, thank you, thank you. You beautiful felkin. I have no idea what these things are, but if they are anything like last time, I can’t wait to find out,” he gushed.

Not that I thought giving candy to people who never had candy before wasn't amazing. It only took one look at the poor elf to see how stressed he was. I smiled and patted his shoulder. If it helped him deal with the stress then I did my good deed for the day.

After stealing a couple of jellybeans, we went back to Oleander's and dived into our new books. After about two hours, we both finished reading and relaxed. I understood now why Brelten said we would most likely die if we went in alone. I also inadvertently learned about dungeons from a tangent comparison between the two.

Dungeons were literally just mini pocket dimensions that hosted a specific theme of monsters. They could come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, a dungeon would just be an open plain that had different monsters and monster tribes scattered around. Other times, it’d be a long descent into the earth filled with nests of underground dwelling creepy crawlies. They were, for all intents and purposes, miniature realms of existence that spawned loot and monsters alike. Our own local dungeon was a massive cavern with an underground lake. Inside the dungeon, one could find all the fauna usually found in the Yidelwoods, along with fish-like monsters living in the lake. The main central island housed three different tribes of fishlike humanoids. The tribes would have their own elite pair, a priest and a chieftain. There has been a confirmation of a massive eel-like creature that resides deeper in the southern river but was rarely seen.

The rifts, though, were dungeons but worse. A rift was a pocket dimension like dungeons. Unlike dungeons, rifts had what they lacked: scenario-driven objectives. It was where the game-like aspect of the system finally came into play. All the illustrations in the book showed different scenarios inside documented rifts. We could literally be dropped into a crazy maze filled with mirrors and fog and monsters. Or we might even spawn in on something called a defensive rift. A popular known example where you had to defend a structure like a castle or even a village from increasingly larger and meaner waves of monsters. And the biggest thing about rifts was the ability to be granted a perk. Dungeons can drop stones via chests or drops. Rifts could award you skills, perks, and enchanted gear along with the fabled Legacy mark. It was why the adventurers got super excited about the news of a wild rift spawning. Wild rifts could only be cleared once before disappearing and appearing somewhere else in the world.

Whoever Brelten chose to send could be the sole people who will ever manage to clear the rift in this part of the world or even this lifetime. And for that reason alone, he had to balance the ego's and upcoming anger from those who weren't picked to clear the rift.

The second half of the primer discussed the difficulty and showed illustrations depicting how to tell the difference.

Rifts came in five levels of challenge. These difficulties were represented by the colour of the portals. White meant the rift was weaker than the average. Green was an average rift with a danger level appropriate for that tier. Blue represented a hard or challenging difficulty, while purple represented a very challenging difficulty. And finally, pink, the colour of the wild rift, warned adventurers of an extreme challenge. One meant to test the limits of the tiers and push them beyond it.

It was daunting. The information slid into my brain but it reminded me of studying for midterms all over again.

and things did not bode well for the expedition team. While thinking about it, the name seemed very fitting. We would essentially be going in blind. We would have no idea what sort of rift and what sort of challenge would be expected of us. And to deal with a hostile team of adventurers throughout it all? Flat-out depressing.

I was punched hard on my shoulder. I stared at the pale skin and then at Sam’s meaty blue fist.

“Hey! That’s going to leave one hell of a bruise, Sammy,” I complained.

Sam raised her fist at me threateningly.

“None of that. Don’t even start with the Sammy nonsense,” she warned. I stuck out my tongue and grumbled. “I know that face you were making. Just stop it. I don’t plan on dying, and neither do you.”

“I know. It’s just a lot to take in. I keep forgetting how little we know. We're children Sam, children in a world of monsters and now we have to learn all this... Crap and survive. I don't like it. It makes me feel weak,” I admitted.

She shrugged her shoulders. Her hand was idly tracing the cover of her book. "So what if it takes some hours of study? We're going to be immortal, Cy. We’re going to be badass immortals. Sure, we’re weak now. Doesn’t mean I don’t expect us to be doing some anime-level type bullshit in the future,” she said.

“Uhuh, sure, totally,” I said sarcastically.

She turned and looked at me with annoyance. Then, her face broke out into a cheeky grin.

“What now?” I groaned.

“Well… You know…”

“Get on with it.”

“I know your evolution is more involved than most races,” she said slowly.

I narrowed my eyes and started tapping my fingers on the table. “And where are you going with this?” I asked her testily.

At this point, her large canines were on full display. Her stupid grin split her face.

“We both know you're going to take every chance you can get. You were always too stubborn to accept being the short king that you really are,” she finished in a teasing voice.

I stared at her from across the table, completely silent. Her smile never waned. After ten seconds of utter silence, I burst into laughter. It wasn’t a chuckle or a few hahas; it was the chest-deep belly-aching kind of laughter. People in the room stared but I ignored them. After wiping a few tears from my eyes, I slumped back into my chair. Sam’s silly comment loosened an unknown tension in my shoulders.

“I hate you.”

“Phssh, bish, please. You love me. Wouldn’t have stuck by me all those years if that was true. Especially not after counting all the times I ended up puking on you.”

“Through hell and highwaters, yeah?”

“Mhhhm.”

“Love you, Sam. Thanks for that. Didn’t even know I needed it.”

“Anytime. I’ll always be ready if you need me to knock you down a peg or two.”

We didn’t continue talking. There was no need to. It was one of the few perks granted from being best friends. With all the craziness our lives have been, despite the short time we’ve actually spent in this world, it was easy to forget our lives from before. Days on end, never knowing when Sam’s health would take that final irreversible dive, each round of chemo being another trip to hell for the both of us. Things were amazing now, scary for sure but amazing. A new lease on life

And I didn’t plan on dying to some stupid rift in the middle of nowhere. The system thought I was to become some powerful Lord of Spirits, and I might as well live up to those expectations.

Through hell and highwaters.