B6 Chapter 691: Cliffs and Treasures, pt. 2 (Patreon)

Kaius was no longer certain a creature existed to haunt the dotted cliffside caves. He stared up at the tantalising glow of energy emanating from their distant goal, drumming his fingertips on the wyrm-headed pommel of his sword. Hours, and not a single living thing. Not a monstrosity of scale, chitin, or fur, not even a damned sparrow!

If they waited much longer, the gods’ damned sun would start to set.

He huffed, turning their options over in his mind. Trying for the treasures without getting eyes on their supposed defender was risky. On the other hand, they were on a time limit to get as much done as they could before the Proving. They couldn’t afford to burn days sitting on the sand, just waiting for a creature that might not even exist. It was entirely possible that the creature that had taken out the delver team had been a roaming one. Hells, it might have been killed in the time it took them to reach this place! They’d seen more than one Celestine threat on their journey, a creature wasn’t the top of the food chain just because it could take out a few delvers.

No, better they got this done now and moved on.

“Shattered bloody axles, finally!” Kenva said, jumping off the root she’d been sitting on. “I thought I was going to go mad with all the waiting — being forced to look at the glow of those Treasures was cruel.”

“At least you two get to go do something. I’m stuck down here,” Porkchop huffed, scanning the jungle behind them as his nose twitched for scents.

“At least we don’t have to climb,” Ianmus pointed out. He already had his keyseals out and summoned — both Rising Dawn and the Night’s Watch. 

Silver light flitted through the outer lunar keyseal, and shimmering barriers coated Kaius and Kenva with magical protection. Ianmus dismissed the seal, starting to weave the distinctive pattern of his healing seal.

“Just in case.”

Kaius nodded gratefully. “We’ll be back soon. As soon as we’ve got the Treasure’s, we’ll jump for the sands — no point in climbing down with our Skills.”

The pair of them set off, breaking into a jog that ate away at the rolling dunes of sand that stretched between the trees and the base of the cliff. It took longer than Kaius expected to reach the monolith of pink crystal — the sheer scale of the plateau had made the stretch seem much smaller than it actually was.

Eventually they made it, drenched in shadow as they stared straight up. Kaius could see the glow of their cave — but by the gods was it a large distance. He trailed his way down, mapping the cracks, ledges, and caverns that dotted the cliffs. With his Stats, he could leap quite far, but the route would still be circuitous. 

“How do you want to do this?” Kenva asked.

“I don’t want to use any of my spells,” Kaius replied. “If we do run into something up there, I want every cast of Expedient Shunt and Fractured Warp I can get.”

He’d prepped plenty of the former, and a full five of the latter, but they were still moving into unknown territory. Each one could save his life, it would be a waste to use them to save a little bit of climbing.

“That’s probably wise. I should be sparing with Leaf on the Wind as well.”

Tracking back over the cliff, Kaius focused on the ledges and outcroppings that were large enough for him and Kenva to at least perch on. They were pretty frequent — the largest gap between them he could see looked to be about two hundred strides, but most were about half that. Some were a bit narrow for them to sit on — but both of them could hang pretty much indefinitely.

“What's the longest rope you’ve got?” Kaius asked, an idea coming to him.

“About one-twenty strides,” Kenva replied, summoning a coil of thin climbing rope. “Why?

Kaius nodded; that made things easy. “If you use your windform to fly up to a ledge, you could lower me a rope — then we could rest for a few minutes for your resources to recover, and repeat. We’ll reach the cave fully fresh, or close to it.”

“You want me to haul you up,” Kenva said flatly, pointing out the obvious.

Kaius raised his brow. “You get as much Strength per level as I do!”

“Fine,” Kenva sighed, vanishing into a gust of wind. 

She reappeared on the closest ledge a moment later, dropping her long coil of rope. It slapped against the sand with a soft thud. Kaius grinned and ran over, snatching it up as he hauled himself upwards. Kenva did the same from her end, balancing on the handspan ledge easily with her wealth of Dexterity.

Working together, Kaius all but flew upwards. He clambered up to stand next to his friend a few moments later, Kenva huffing as she stored the rope.

“Considered eating a bit less?”

“I’m big-boned,” Kaius deadpanned.

They settled into wait, letting Kenva recover for the next leg.

….

Kaius gripped the edge of the cave, the scale of his gauntlets grinding loudly against the fractured crystal. Hauling himself up, he fluidly drew his sword and landed in a stance, ready to fly into motion.

The Treasures were right there, a gleaming cluster of forearm-sized crystals that grew out of the wall of the cave halfway in. He ignored them completely, scanning the cave for any sign of a threat. Kenva had scouted it by air a few minutes ago, but she hadn’t gotten close enough to use her soulsight. 

Truesight gave him nothing. The cave just bored its way a hundred or so strides into the side of the cliff before ending. Something had been here at one point, though. Sergeant’s Insight drew his attention to scattered chips in the cavern floor, and a couple of long, smooth scratches in the walls — far too straight and even to be a natural flaw.

“Find anything?” Kenva asked, still waiting below.

“Nothing,” Kaius replied, though he didn’t lower his guard to check on their prize. Even on a second and third scan of the cave, he didn’t get so much as a hint from Truesight. They’d gotten lucky — whatever lived here wasn’t home. If they were quick, they’d have the crystals and be gone.

A moment later, he heard Kenva land on her feet. Her bow creaked softly as she knocked an arrow and readied to draw.

Kaius finally let himself look at the waiting Treasures. Unlike the surrounding quartz-like crystal, the sprouting spikes were a perfectly clear yellow — and glowed softly to the naked eye. With his more magical senses, Kaius could see a maelstrom of energy swirling within them. Hells, he could feel it. Latent power, pressing up on his Authority, almost begged him to crack them open to suck on the marrow within. 

Whatever this Treasure was, it was beyond any other he had seen before — even the rare Pneuma Cherries that had upgraded his Dynastic trait. And there were twelve of them. Gods’ bloody scorn.

For a moment, both he and Kenva were held transfixed — but his lingering worry of the creature that had claimed these crystals returning to find them in its lair broke the spell. 

Almost reflexively, he analysed the crystals.

Charged Rosenite:

Heroic - Tier III

Affinity: Transformation

A shard of crystalised potential, waiting to explode when the moment is right.

An Ascension Crystal that swells the soul with waiting energy, enabling a non-resonant General Skill to evolve during the consumer's next Class Evolution. Ineffective beyond the Third Tier. May be consumed twice in a single tier.

Natural Treasure (Ascension Crystal)

“Rotten roots…” Kaius whispered hoarsely, barely believing what he was reading. 

Two more skill evolutions was insane! If they reached Epic for their next classes, that would massively increase the number of Skills they could raise to that lauded rarity — the jump in power alone was worth far more than a few stats. Especially as it would allow them to further tailor abilities that might otherwise not be a perfect fit for their new classes.

And there were enough for their entire team to consume a pair each, after Olmos got his cut.

“Voidvault, now,” Kaius said — only to hear the click of Kenva already opening the thing. She rushed past him, right to the crystals.

Kaius followed, holding his sword in a white knuckle grip. They had to grab these things and leave. 

“No more messing around with this beast. These things are too valuable — we grab them and run, even if it turns up.”

Kenva nodded. Gripping the first rosenite crystal, she tugged it firmly, wiggling it back and forth until it came away from the cluster with a sharp crack. The thing vanished into storage immediately, and she started on the next.

“Get ready to move,” Kaius sent through his bond. “This treasure is way better than we thought. I want to be far away when whatever monstrosity that lives here figures out we stole its hoard.”

Porkchop sent back an affirmative, and Kaius went back to anxiously waiting for the crystals to be fully harvested. Each one took some time to snap free, and every crack that came made Kaius want to jump out of his skin. It sounded too much like the snap of jaws.

As each Treasure vanished, Kaius’s tension ramped up, and the swirling density of energy in the cave lessened. It was barely noticeable at first, but once five were gone, it had dropped precipitously — until the weight on his Authority had lessened by two thirds.

Kenva snapped a sixth free.

High Platinum might, swirling with maddened fury erupted at the back of the cave. It smashed into Kaius like dwarven cannon fire, fracturing his Authority and hammering at his mind. With the metaphysical presence, came a scream — a sound of shattering glass and raw, untempered rage.

Right before his eyes, a hulking creature phased out of the pink crystal wall at the rear of the cave. Built like a twisted mix of a mantid, scorpion, and saurian, crystalline chitin coated it like heavy plate, while two backwards bending legs supported its hunched and elongated body. Four ripping limbs spread wide, edged by blades of translucent pink crystal. They slashed at the air.

“Go!” Kaius roared, lunging in front of her as he cast two closely layered Warhavens to seal off the back of the cave.

They didn’t stand a fucking chance against a Platinum essence creature, let alone one that strong.

Kenva didn’t hesitate. Shoving the sixth Treasure into the Voidvault, she vanished into a gust of wind and surged out of the cave.

The creature exploded forward — and shattered his Warhavens like they were simple glass. It was on him almost before he could react. Four blades punched in. Kaius Slipped to the side as he summoned three Scornplanes to intercept — burning every inscription he had. They detonated simultaneously, hurling the creature back…

All of a dozen strides.

It planted its bladed limbs into the cave floor, slicing through the crystal like it was softened butter.

Kaius immediately chained five Shunts, a second cacophony cracking through the cave as he was flung backwards so fast he was unable to stop his chin slamming into his chest. 

The creature still nearly caught him. Kaius gasped, a line of hot fire opening on his thighs as the tip of a blade sliced clean through his armour and flesh with all the cold ease of a butcher at work. 

Then he was gone, soaring out of the cave as his blood fell to the distant sands below.

In a split second, Kaius made a decision. The beast was too fast. They knew too little about its capabilities. He needed to draw it away. 

Staring at the creature's snarling, segmented jaw, Kaius cast Compel Obsession. 

The creature lunged.

Kaius looked up the cliff and Warped. An instant later, he slammed into a wall of pink crystal just a few hundred strides from the peak, and scrambled with bloody hands for the ledge he’d aimed at. 

“What’s happening?!” Porkchop roared.

“Drawing it away! Take Kenva and go — I’ll find you three through the bond!”

Kaius banished his brother’s response from his mind, utterly focused as he launched himself up — a Shunt carrying him further. He couldn’t waste another Warp — he’d need to chain the rest to get away clean.

Right as he touched the next handhold, a surge of danger erupted. Kaius’s eyes went wide — before hurdled himself to the side with another Shunt. Two bladed limbs phased out of the cliff wall, one passing cleanly through his ribs before he could escape.

He coughed, splattering blood on the cliff. The second he touched the cliff again, another lightning fast attack came. Biocrystal flashed through his leg, only his enhanced bones providing the slightest resistance. It flopped, held on by a fingerwidth of skin and flesh as red poured against the cliff below.  Kaius grit his teeth against the pain. 

The bastard could sense him through the crystal — who knew how far that stretched.

“Get off the fucking sands!” Kaius hurled through the bond, rocketing himself out and away. His leg flopped at the sudden motion, swinging to the side as his health desperately thickened the strip of flesh holding it in place.

There was no way to know if the creature could see him — but he had to draw it higher. He could escape later, once his team and the treasures were well free. Rocketing up the cliff, Kaius angled himself in — only to immediately kick himself to the right as he touched the sheer wall. Blades whistled past him in a torrent.

“You better run like you have a demon on you,” Porkchop growled in his mind.

He was pretty sure he did. Kaius swallowed thickly, Shunting towards the top edge. There were trees up there — he could touch the sands once, then vanish into the canopy.