“Any sign of the Crater yet? We have to be getting close by now,” Porkchop grumbled. Mud caked his fur halfway to his elbows, and no amount of brushing and cleaning had stopped the hair from matting.
“We’re right on the edge, I'm sure of it,” Kenva replied. “Can’t be more than ten minutes away.”
“You’ve been saying that for the last hour!”
Kaius just chuckled — there wasn’t much they could do about it. Being a depression, the crater was almost impossible to spot through the thick foliage of Vainblood, and with the danger of the centre of the zone, it was far too risky for Kenva to run off ahead and scout.
They’d been making their way in for over a week, and every league they’d travelled the beasts had grown stronger and more numerous. Not to the point they were stumbling over Golds like they were fallen leaves, but still.
At the very least, the ground had dried out some in the last few days. It was still damp, but it wasn’t verging on swampland any more.
Kaius took a step, lurching as his foot plunged through a patch of stray leaves. He sunk to his knees into a hidden hole, stagnant water flooding into his boot. He groaned, yanking his foot out with a squelch.
“Careful!” Ianmus said as he leapt past.
Kaius scowled after the mage. It had dried out some.
Sighing, he kept walking. There was no point emptying his boot — no way was he going to pull off his sabatons just to get rid of a little muck. The enchantments woven into his footwear and socks would deal with it, anyway — expelling water, and keeping him clean and warm. If he really wanted, he wouldn’t ever have to change out of his under armour and travelling clothes. In reality, cleaning magic never felt as thorough as hot water and a bar of soap — but it was good enough for the field.
Shaking some of the worst of the water from his boot, Kaius rested his hand on his pommel and trudged on. Sticking close to the trees when he could, he leapt from snaking root to snaking root, soft red light filtering down from the canopy above. After so long, he’d grown used to the heavy tang of iron on his tongue. Vainblood had lost some of its gruesome allure. If anything, the shifting maroon shadows and garish splatters of purple and pink had started to remind him of a couple of the upmarket bordellos they’d seen in Baanswell.
For all their journey had been uncomfortable, it had at least been fruitful.
After the gorespike, they’d managed to take on a few more Gold beasts — a two-headed reptilian cablast; a powerful mammalian beast called a wounddrinker, and a vulture that they had spent hours fighting. The last had been annoying. It had barely been larger than a common eagle, but was fast — it had given them quite the chase as it had harassed them from afar with a constant barrage of cutting feathers.
After the cablast, even low Silvers had decided to stay well clear of them. It was almost like they could smell the battles on them. They probably could — of all places, it made sense for the creatures here to be sensitive to the smell of blood.
Still, the fights had managed to push him all the way to level two-fifty-nine — right on the verge of his next skill.
He couldn’t wait — Mystic Rend was next on his list. It was a major cornerstone for his swordfighting, and his best way of using mana that wasn’t bound into his glyphs. Even now, against high level second-tiers, the skill’s ability to wear away at his enemies defenses were invaluable. He hoped to preserve that, and amplify its destructive potential as much as possible.
Other than that, his Infused Glyph of Drakthar was also approaching a break point. He was only twelve skill levels away from his next second-tier offensive spell. It would take a while — Skill leveling was turning into a brutal grind — but it was almost certain it would cross the threshold of three-oh-one before they left Vainblood.
He had high hopes. Starfall was a fantastic addition to his kit, and he had no regrets with it — but he longed for something with some significant single-target capabilities. The searing brilliance of Ianmus’s Preeminent Halo shone in his mind's eye. The spell had its failings, it was slow to cast, and slow to move — but hells did it make up for it in raw, concentrated destruction.
Ideally, he could grab something with an affinity he didn’t already have. There were always occasions where certain types of magic were less effective. The gorespike was actually a good example. Physical wounds had barely scratched the beast, and his Nails had only given it more blood to use in its skills.
Alas, he would just have to wait and see what he was offered. Even with a clear idea of what he wanted, it would all come down to the System’s whims in the end.
Smiling slightly at the excitement of his upcoming choices, Kaius nonetheless kept most of his attention on their surroundings. Even with most beasts steering well clear of them, there were plenty of other hazards they had to watch out for. Most of the plant life here was just as hostile as any creature.
While he scanned the nearby trees for any sign of stinging strands or toxic growths, Kaius kept an eye out for any of the reagents they had on their list for the guild. They’d already found a couple. Yesterday there had been a patch of fungus, each bloom looking like a pale, bloodless tentacle sprouting from the root of a dying tree. Ruby droplets of some sort of nectar beaded on their surface, rich in half a dozen different mana affinities. A vial of the stuff now sat in his ring, safely nestled in one of the preservation boxes they’d gotten with their ascension fruit.
Slowly, over the course of the next quarter hour, the ground started to dip. Was it the start of the Crater? The incline was so gentle that it was hard to tell. Vainblood was mostly flat — but there had been a few hills and shallow depressions they’d passed through.
After a few minutes, the incline grew visibly steeper up ahead — a lip that must have signified the start of the crater. His hand tightened on his blade, and the rest of his team grew just as restless. The start of the Midnight Crater, it had to be.
“Scope it out a bit before we start to circle?” he asked.
“We’d be silly not to,” Kenva replied, slowly drawing an arrow.
He nodded, and they continued — though with far more caution than before. The warnings had been clear that the Crater was by far the most dangerous part of the zone.
They reached the lip. His team came to a dead stop. Kaius frowned, looking at them in surprise. There’d been no change in the mana, no notification for a new Zone Effect, and the surrounding forest looked just as colourful as it always had. Something had stopped them though.
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“Something happen?” Kaius asked.
“You can’t see it?” Kenva asked, her eyes whipping towards him.
“He can’t,” Porkchop answered as he shook his head.
Kenva pointed straight ahead, maybe a hundred longstrides further down the gentle incline.
“It just goes dark, like some sort of pool of night. My darksight isn’t working properly either, I can’t see more than two hundred strides into it.”
“Same here.”
Ianmus scowled. “I can barely see thirty.”
“There’s a what?” Kaius asked, perplexed. Normally his Truesight had some sort of feedback when it was counteracting a visual effect. But there was nothing — the crater looked just like every other bit of Vainblood. Sure, the growth looked like it got a little denser, but the sun was shining bright, and it was still the same garish splash of reds and purples that it had always been. Even if his Skill could resist the effect better than his friends, he would have at least expected the monochrome of his darksight to kick in. Something strange was happening. Normally everything went monochrome in the dark — even the mundane, nonmagical kind.
“I can’t even see any mana,” he said.
“Neither can I, now that you mention it,” Ianmus murmured. “That makes no sense.”
Sharing a long look, they approached slowly. A cold tension settled onto the back of Kaius’s neck. He couldn’t even tell where the field started — though it was definitely there. The rest of his team all had their eyes trained on the exact same point in the trees.
When they arrived, Ianmus cautiously approached. Crouching low, he lowered his head into what looked like nothing.
“It’s just…dark. Clearly, it’s suppressing our darksight, but I don’t know how.”
“Well, it’s not affecting me,” Kaius replied, frowning. “Give me a moment. I’ll climb a tree and see if I can see anything in the basin. If we’re lucky, I might be able to spot Brokenlight’s camp on the rim — hells, maybe I’ll even be able to see the Wellspring.”
“Just be careful,” Porkchop growled. “Something about this has my hackles up.”
Kaius nodded — that was more than fair. Whatever this was, it didn’t feel natural. There’d been no notification about a new Zone Effect, so they couldn’t just brush it off as that either.
Still, if the strange darkness didn’t affect him, he’d be a fool to let the opportunity slip to do some advanced scouting nearby.
Kaius lept upwards, detonating a Shunt at the apex of his jump to avoid splattering his friends with mud. The burst of force sent him sailing upwards towards the canopy. He snagged a thick branch, hauling himself up. Wide, multi-pointed red leaves swayed close, raking across his armour.
The metal shrieked. Kaius just pulled himself higher, trusting in his armour to keep him safe. Kenva had already warned him they were as sharp as a knife — but mundane steel meant little to his defenses.
Reaching the very crown of the tree, Kaius looked into the Midnight Crater.
It struck him with its sheer size. Despite the gentle incline, its base must have been a solid league below them. It levelled out towards the bottom, creating an absurdly large basin. It would take them days to reach the other side.