Episode 86: Sagacity and Tenacity

Arson sat underneath the underbelly of Adroit Academy, studying the rune he now believed would help him bring Almarine’s wishes to fruition. The sewer pipes had finally been restored by the crew Arson hired. Yet the largest issue of fixing the school still remained. “Maybe I should start out on a smaller scale…” Sunlight flooded in from 3 massive holes. Platforms formed from mana crystals and connected by runic formations and a system of tree roots swam in constant motion above him. Arson knew something was off the more he researched the school and its odd structure. The amount of detail and multifaceted fusions of rune craft and science was unbelievable. Arson had at first believed the work was entirely Runecraft, until he realized that the honeycomb pattern being mimicked to form the moving mountain was far from natural. He’d seen more and less advanced civilizations blessed by treasured landscapes. This wasn’t a naturally purified river whose circumstantial placement led to a mountain with moving parts. This had been created. Luckily for Arson, one of the trees that lined the platforms above managed to survive both a crash landing through the cavernous depths, sewer piping layout, and even the lack of sunlight in the area. The solitary tree wasn’t the key to his plan, but he hoped it was the start. He sat a meter from the strong tree. Its body growing through the center of the tower it once sat outside. Draped in the sunlight that came from the largest hole above them, the beautiful tree was being tended to by a team of individuals that had worked beside Autumn at the dump. It was not long after he’d requested the team to come help him take a sample of the tree that his sister requested to be brought to look at the specimen in its natural environment. If only you knew, sister. Arson had spent much of the previous night below the same section of platform he now sat on. The structure of mana cores cracked, yet still fed the large tree he now stared at, making the once small tree rather large. Maybe the platform devoted everything to the only living organism left? Arson now knew that each section above was in fact an individual garden. Two colanders sat nested, the larger of the two on top. The bottom of the two was made of pure mana stone, while the larger of the two that held the mana infused dirt and the tower’s foundation was made of pure marble. At one point in time, the trees must have lined the platform's exterior, their roots grown to weave through the perforated bases of each platform. Only something must have occurred to either unbalance the trees growth or crack the mana stone base. The trees were being used as natural wiring to transfer sun energies from the skies above, into the bases below, and Arson could only think of one thing that may have happened to cause both the other trees to die, and the platform to crash. If the trees were poisoned, no extra energy for the cores below, and the platform crashes, but that wouldn’t explain how this tree is alive, and still being fed…? Arson looked at the tree's root system that could be seen tunneling into the broken platform beneath him and shook his head at the runecraft, not etched, burned, or magically infused into the wood, but literally formed out of woven roots. To create a single one of these platforms was a groundbreaking feat of science and magic, but the considerable depths of knowledge that went into the entire mountain left Arson stunned. “This could be insane, but I don’t think I feel comfortable cutting down a forest for entertainment,” said Arson more to himself than to anyone else. “I’m glad to hear that, buddy, but this idea of yours is crazy,” said Xani. She climbed out of a hole in the tower's exterior wall. Her serious gaze enough to make Arson roll his eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, kid, I’m serious. We haven’t even fixed the three broken platforms here, and you want to do what, build something 100 times bigger, or more, come on…” “Between you, me and Autumn this should be easy, well not easy but possible. And that is enough for me to try,” said Arson. Xani rolled her eyes then and Arson laughed, his gaze drifting up toward the massive incomplete rune above them. “What is it? Have you figured it out yet?” Arson looked back toward Xani and shook his head at her question. “No, there are a few people I want to talk to about it, alongside professor Vellum. But if I’m being honest I don’t know if we are breaking any laws by even witnessing this magic in action. This could be patented, or abandoned and ancient tech, and asking too many questions isn’t going to help anyone right now,” rambled Arson slightly. “Isn’t going to help you right now, you mean,” said Xani, with a glare. “Okay, you don’t want to work on the project, I get it. I’ll ask Auto for help and—“ “How dare you use my, umm, how dare you? You know I want to work on this lunacy, I just don’t think the time we have to do it is reasonable, is all…” It was in that moment that a giant hand made of wood and roots deposited Autumn beside Xani and Arson. The young woman already wearing a smile, most likely having had heard bits of their conversation. “What? Don’t you look at me like that. I’m in. Anything to distract from my mom’s disappearance, but I do think we are going to need help from one of our cousins,” said Autumn both confirming Arson’s mental assumptions, and birthing more questions Arson didn’t have the answers to. “I’m sorry to hear your mother hasn’t returned yet,” said Arson in full belief that the woman had left his father because he'd heard rumors online. Not to mention the fact that he seen the change in his own mother recently, and noticed that her rare smiles had become more frequent even if she did prefer to be alone. “Don’t be like that, Arson. You especially, king of all momma’s boys, should be a little more receptive to how she feels right now,” scolded Xani. “Wow, no matter how right you may be, I’m still tempted to pay Rob to not make you desserts for the rest of your life for that one. Actually sounds pretty doable…” Arson drifted off, only playing at first, but couldn’t help but know just how much of a threat he’d just made by the shocked look on the young woman’s face. “You would never dare, you would ne—“ “Which cousin would we need? Anyone I am familiar with?” Arson moved the conversation forward immediately, still interested in anything that could help bring his plan to action. “From what I saw on the way up, I am assuming that you want to repair this platform right. We are going to need a field's worth of marble,” started Autumn, but continued with a shift in direction when Arson and Xani shared a look at the hypothesized quantity she’d suggested. “or more… I guess and not to mention a ridiculous amount of mana infused soil… why are you two looking at me like that?” “Oh, well, your brother probably just realized how much more he was actually going to need to be able to pull all this off, and I’m just wondering how you got Titan down here?” Arson then looked over at Xani and bursted into laughter. “Sparks, maybe you're right. Maybe I am in over my head,” said Arson with a look toward the massive hole above them all. Then Arson remembered the last time he and Xani were forced to build something architectural in nature together, and got an idea that may be the missing link in the repair process, and may even be the key to helping him build a stadium unlike any he’d ever seen before. “Or maybe not…” … Lilith Crown was having an absolute terrible set of days. She and her brothers had chased a young man named Carter Gestalt through a portal, and ended up falling through the skies above a dump in an entirely different realm. Even their fall through the air had been eventful, as two airborne Cultivators had fought aerially to be the first to catch the diving Carter. One a flame Cultivator, and the other an Air Cultivator. The pair's attacks had combined to an explosive degree, which blew the Crown siblings into sections of the dump far from where Carter had landed, and even further from each other. Lilith honestly didn’t even know if her brothers survived the fall, and if they did, had they survived the nights filled with monsters that had passed since? Keep it together Lilly… The young woman hid atop a trash heap in a blue zone of the dump. The robots within the area particularly strong. She’d gained much experience while there, but she was exhausted, and lost. The dump was itself larger than some cities she’d visited and looking for her brothers had been mentally taxing during daylight. The overwhelming heat enough to make her wish she wasn’t responsible for the safe return of both of her brothers, or she would have already used the portal talisman she’d been given. Luckily for her she hadn’t given in to temptations, as she had found a portal. Near to the heap of trash she lay upon was a spiraling blue portal. The entrance to the dungeon visible from the side she was on. A completely different landscape filled with pyramids made of various colored mana stone, had kept Lilith from moving for quite some time. She had no way of mapping her current area, as her Overlay was incapable of hacking any of the satellites within the realm she’d entered, and she didn’t believe entering a portal to an even more foreign location, especially without her brothers was the wisest of choices. She took the time to rest. Her mind set on leaving in the morning to continue her search for her brothers. Until she heard familiar voices that made her smile to hear. “Sister, sister,” yelled Orbit and Tartaria. The two young men came into view, six robots destroyed on a path that led in her direction. She took in her brother’s features as they got closer. Tartaria looked as if he’d been hurt, and Orbit looked… taller somehow. Tartaria’s great hammer was held in one hand, while his other held his exposed ribs. While Orbit raised his spear, a spear she’d never seen him use before, fast enough that she knew if he’d teleported and followed through, she’d have been unable to dodge. “Sister!” The two young men made their way toward her. A few robots between her and them dismantled entirely by Orbit, who appeared to teleport in multiple directions at once. A feat that Lilith knew her brother was not able to accomplish a mere few days prior. “Don’t look so surprised, you said yourself Orbit would outshine all of us one day,” said Tartaria, obviously noting the surprise that crossed her face in the moment Orbit moved. “Yes, brother, but I felt that day would be far in a distant future that I secretly hoped would never occur.” Tartaria hung his hammer from a loop on his back before he lifted his sister into a one armed hug. “Well, as much as I would love to say it is all your fault for chasing down that Carter kid and leading us here, it is most likely my fault,” said Tartaria with a laugh before he clutched his ribs and coughed. A small splattering of blood tingeing his lips as he slowly knelt down in pain. “How could you have caused this?” asked Lilith, averting attention from herself in regards to her brother’s claim, while handing him a potion from her spacial inventory. “I found a dungeon portal, and waited to find you two before entering, so when I found Orbit, I forced him to double back and join me, once inside we faced an unrealistic amount of enemies for the style of dungeon we entered, my Overlay stated that the dungeon space was small for the area…” Lilith looked at Orbit who still hadn’t spoken when Tartaria trailed off. Orbit stared back at her momentarily, but a sound caught his attention, and in a fraction of a blink he was gone. Seen down the path, enclosed by exploding robots. “Don’t mind him, I think he feels guilty. I got harmed while he gained a sparking legacy spear,” said Tartaria. He chugged the potion, and Lilith tried not to grit her teeth at the sound of his rib cage snapping back together, the shattered pieces coming together like a completed puzzle. “That weapon is alive?” Lilith’s gaze shot toward Tartaria, who nodded back at her. “The weapon is so strong he can barely control it, but he’s more conflicted that he wasn’t able to get a stronger weapon from inside. We were in some sort of vault, each room harder than the last. We only made it 3 rooms deep out of 21, and that was lucky. I almost died in there, sister,” said Tartaria. He sat down on the ground after a moment allowing the potion Lilith had given him to complete the healing process. Lilith was off-kilter by everything she was being told, and if it weren’t for Tartaria’s wound, and Orbit's nearby destruction of the robotic populous within the immediate area, she’d call him a liar. “You couldn’t have been transformed. Not very many things in a lower realm could or should be able to affect you while shifted,” questioned Lilith. Yet Tartaria shook his head again. “I don’t believe we are in a lower realm, sister, and if we are, this place isn’t natural. We fought ghosts that seemed to be the previous wielders of the spears left in the vault. There were thousands upon thousands of spears, Lilly. If Orbit hadn’t connected with that weapon, we wouldn’t have been able to make it out.” Lilith watched Orbit, but couldn’t help but glance behind herself at the dungeon entrance she’d found herself. Only slightly rethinking her choice to enter. “I don’t like the look in your eyes, Lilly. We need to leave. Immediately. This place isn’t something I think we are ready to handle, and the way that Carter guy moves, I no longer wonder how he got to be as strong as he is if he trains in a place like this,” said Tartaria. Lilith sighed and tore her gaze from the portal mouth. Unlike her brother, she felt wherever they had ended up was the perfect place for them to be. So much in fact, she wondered if she should share how much she’d leveled since they’d entered the portal after Carter. “Tell me that you still are below level 3.0 and I will help you both find an exit,” Tartaria shook his head, and Lilith confirmed mentally that both of her brothers were at higher levels than they had been just a few days ago. A new kind of pressure coming from both of them. The changes to Orbit already being displayed right before her eyes. Then it happened, and Lilith was forced to wonder if she would be keeping her title of Chozen. For the next few moments of her life were far more dangerous than anything she’d ever lived through . Orbit appeared standing between Lilith and Tartaria, lifting his brother with a single hand by the neck. His movements were so fast, that Lilith didn’t even notice he’d already wrapped his opposing arm around her, his spear held in a white knuckled grip was all Lilith saw in the moment before she was pulled backward into a trash heap. As if Orbit knew she was going to scream his spear disappeared and a hand was promptly clasped across her mouth. When she looked at him, he shook his head only slightly. His indication to not move or speak confirmed by Lilith when she returned his nod. “Armor swarm,” whispered Orbit, moving his arm just enough to push away enough trash for Lilith to see out at what was closing in on their position. An armor suit more regal than any Lilith had ever seen flew down the path beside their heap at a speed that Lilith knew she would struggle to slow with her momentum ability. . The armor suit seemed constructed of blue and white dragon bones, which made Lilith wonder who owned the suit, the killing of dragons illegal in any realm. As balancers of karma, dragons and phoenixes had long been identified as endangered species. To the point that their habitats had been completely removed from the now dead realms. And this made the armor, either priceless, illegal, or both… Following behind the armor suit was a literal storm of weapons, all seemingly sharing one attribute. They too were made from dragon bone. A unending variety of different styles of dragons, all fashioned into weapons of war. “What in the elemental embers is going on here…” Lilith dared not speak until the swarm had long passed. Her brother’s grip had loosened enough to allow her to speak, but when she tried to move, he once more stopped her. “They're looking for something, but we have to wait out the robots that will come to retrieve the one I took out earlier,” whispered Orbit. Lilith looked at her brother, his eyes different somehow. His entire being different somehow. “What are they looking for?” asked Lilith, maintaining a whisper, especially now that she could hear and see the robots her brother noted would come. A few teams could be seen either repairing machines on spot. Or bodies and parts were piled into a large circular container that seemed to be magnetized, held in a centralized location between the separate groups of robots. “I think they are looking for these,” said Orbit. Three things appearing in his hand from the spacial inventory held around his neck. The first was a flickering shard of what may have been refined mana stone, or the shard of a dungeon core. The piece like a shard of peerless diamond. The second thing, a mana core, the small marble sized orb, worth quite a bit of money, and finally raw mana stone, the piece a perfect eight sided pyramid was no larger than a fingertip and held enough mana to power a portal between realms with a near permanence if it was given access to sunlight. “Tartaria is convinced that they are using it to build something, or power something, we were honestly more focused on finding you than figuring this all out. I’m sorry it took us so long,” whispered Orbit. Lilith shook her head and smiled. “It was only three days. Nothing to worry over,” responded Lilith softly. Orbit frowned and shook his head slightly. “Tartaria was supposed to tell you this, but I guess it's on my shoulders, just—“ A bright light turned on behind the siblings, and Lilith turned her head just in time to see where it emanated from. “Core sufficiently charged. Ignition process initiated.” The robot behind them wasn’t small. It was in fact very large, the light coming from a unarmored section of its ankle. The entire heap they hid within shaking as the kneeling robot stood. “Not again,” yelled Tartaria. Lilith only able to stare up at the monster as one thought consumed her entire mind. “Again…?”