timewalk
Mato
Mato rested, rexing into the weight of his brahe soft rustle of his leaves, and the stretg of his roots deep into the earth. His awareness flowed beyond the reach of his tree, extending outward in all dires, carried by the mana of his Sanctuary Aura. Just by his mere presehe little pnts germinated and grew, aided and fed by his mana.
He liked growing pnts. It was a surprising realization. He had always loved nature and the forests, but he had never sidered that he would one day enjoy actually growing things – but his magic had given him the tools to bee a tree, and his excess mana ah regeion spilled out into the world around him, a well of nature magic that attracted wisps to his branches, germinated seeds and opened flowers all around his roots.
“Well met, young druid,” Lira said, her voice eg clearly in his mind irange nguage of pnts. For the most part, pnt thoughts were alien, strange echoes of emotions, barely intelligent enough to be remembered or felt. But from some pnts, he experienced more, and the dryad was by far the wisest pnt he had ever met.
“Well met, Lirasia,” he answered, his thought-speech automatically shaped by his mind in this Tree Form.
“I have some thoughts on your questions,” she tinued. “The question of growth.”
As his mentor, he had asked her about his css, and the dire his development was taking – if he was following a banced path. It was uhe influence of her mana that he had learhe magic of his Tree Form, and he had e to uand the intrinsic stability of its form in his life. His bear was a form of violend defense, but in his tree form, he could proted grow.
“I have reached the clusion that yrowth is unbanced,” she said. “Only now in the opposite dire. The fault is perhaps my own. When you accepted my mana, you were a creature of only fangs and cws, i on the ferocity of battle. But I am not, my path of bance is the growth of nature and the decay of the ages. Uhe influeny mana, yrowth has expanded, and you have learned of nurture, germination, and the stability of the oak. But you have strayed from your own bahe bance of fangs and cws. I believe that my mana is pulling you too powerfully to my path.”
“Must I release your mentorship?” Even within the serenity of the tree’s mind, he felt his disfort at the idea of abandoning Lira’s mentorship and guidahe dryad, tree spirit, was the essence of nature in a way, and someone who had drastically influenced his potential. Despite the risk of being ed, he was loath to abandoential frowth.
“That is oh,” she answered, her voice warm and soft in his mind. She fell silent for a while and he simply waited, an act of patience he had never achieved in his other forms.
“There is another path avaible to you,” she said eventually. “You could take another patron. One who matches your instind calling to battle. It is not a path I could ever choose or a terbance I could ever provide, but it could fit well with your personality, setting you bato overall bance.”
“Who should I choose?” There were not a lot of choientors that favored bat. His father might have been a good choice, but his power could never e close to terbang someone of Lira’s level and influenor was he beyond Mato’s own level anymore.
“It is an intriguing idea,” she said. “I met with your little Goblin friend’s patron and, in that moment, I thought of you. Azryet. Dragon God, Harbinger of Chaos, Herald of Havod The Camity. He shares your passion for battle, and I saw within him a fual desire to champion the oppressed, defend the weak, and pit his might against evil with a glorious rending of teeth and fme. He would be the perfect match for your battle nature.”
“Azryet?” He had not expected that at all, and surprise rippled through the serenity and calm of his mind. Her words made sense, but the part of him that enjoyed battle seemed distant in this form, like an acquaintance remembered, or a picture of himself.
“How would I even tact the dragon god and ask for his favor?” he asked after sidering her proposal for quite some time. Havok adin, and he had a specific skill for requesting Azryet’s blessing. He had no such thing and, presumably, he would actually o meet Azryet to ask him. That was if he would even be accepted.
“A padin or a priest act as a duit, interg with their god on behalf of someone else. You could simply ask your friend.”
With Malika called away to chat with the Guildmaster, found himself left to explore the new guild by himself in the few minutes he had before his strategy discussion group. The guild hall itself was more than three times rger than the old one, a still did not dispy any ostentatiousness. It seemed more a refle of the Guildmaster’s pragmatidset, something he found rather refreshing.
Still, it had been thoughtfully furnished – there were several open-ping areas with couches and chairs, a small bar aing area, surrounded by potted pnts, lending it a more fortable atmosphere. In the ter, Ryn was overseeing several crafters putting the finishing touches on what looked like a sophisticated new quest board rept, while Bookwyrm, her familiar, sat atop the stru looking on curiously and generally just getting in the way.
The open-pn space transitioned into the much more spacious guild store at the far end, and all around the hall were meeting rooms of various sizes and funs. He had time to look at that ter, so he headed downstairs to explore the training rooms.
As soon as he set foot on the nding at the bottom of the stairwell, his senses prickled, auro find a room with several steps down to a recessed floor of pitch-bck stoh a beautifully ornate inid work of runic magic, almost identical to the teleportation circles Ali had crafted in the library.
This must have been the one she mentioned, he thought, taking the stairs downward, his boots clig on the hard, polished obsidian. As his foot reached from the final stair toward the floor, his notification chime sounded.
[Explorer] You have entered a dungeon.A Grove – level 68Affinity: Nature, Are.Age: New.Knowures: Kobold, Goblin, Ooze, Wolf, Elemental, Spider, DemonKnown Bosses: Toxic Slime (5), Tunnel Weaver (8)Raid Bosses: Kobold Warrior (10), Storm Shaman / Brine Ooze (19), Timber Wolf (26), Forest Guardian (40), Forest Guardian (53), Toxic Spitter (55).Dungeon
Oh, that’s clever. Judging by wheification sounded, Ali had deliberately lowered the floor until it was about one foot submerged into her domain mana, allowio struct the runic circle supported by the dungeon and still locate it ihe guild building.
He resumed his dest, walking across the floor aering the circle. As soon as he did, he received a notification.
Accept teleportation to the Dal’mrand Library Ara?
He deed the circle, but he marveled at just how ve it would be from now on to have a direct teleport from the guild to the library. He headed back upstairs to find the meeting room for his discussion group.
***
The new meeting rooms had sophisticated updated privatments worked into the stru, so activated it with a little mana and sat down to wait for the group leaders to arrive, pulling out his o review today’s subject matter. He was hoping to discuss the corrupted fire drake with them, but while he alrepared something, he left the choice of discussion topic up to the group, and he expected that today might be different.
The drake was going to be a rather difficult challenge for them, and frankly, he didn’t see how it ossible at their current levels, so perhaps a different topic would be more productive anyway. They either o level up a lot, bring more people, et Ali some much stronger minions.
At least progress was being made taining more levels – the Phoenix of Living Fme and the trash monsters leading to the drake had ed him three levels. With a quiet sense of satisfa, reviewed his gains.
Archer of Light has reached level 63 (+3).+30 attribute points.
Radiant Archery has reached level 34.Arrows of Brilliance has reached level 39.Motes of Light has reached level 23.Blessing of the Dawn has reached level 26.Righteous Fury has reached level 22.Azrael's Wings has reached level 19.Mirage Armor has reached level 17.
Cartography has reached level 13.Skinning has reached level 10 (+2).
Howling Hellfire Bow has reached level 61.
His skills were growing nicely, but it was the st line of his notifications that really grabbed his attention. It had happened during the st Corrupted Fire Drake attempt – a fight where he was so flush with mana and stamina that he had been finally able to go all out and hadn’t held ba the slightest. Carefully he studied the ges to the bow, paring it to his notes. Some of the entments seemed to have improved a little, but the biggest ge came from a fairly modest increase to the bow’s base damage range. On paper it seemed minor but, with the massive multiplier from Radiant Archery, his dexterity sg, and the way that some of his Arrows of Brilliantments scaled with his bow damage, the result was quite a substantial overall improvement.
He could not wait to try it out against a suitable foe – but now, a the doorway distracted him and dismissed those thoughts. Time to focus on his students.
***
He left the meeting room in a pehoughtful mood. The strategy discussion group had been anything but normal – everyone wao talk about the Kobold raid boss that had resulted in Theon’s death, and Belmar and Brena in particur had bee emotional about their personal experiences with the fight. ly his stro suit, but Aiden and Tegan had helped to provide a banced perspective, and, as difficult as it was, he felt it had eventually turned into one of the most productive and useful meetings they had had so far. Especially oopic of leadership, with everyone having great ideas for how to avoid something like this from ever happening again. He had personally learned a lot and was finally beginning to see Lyeneru’s perspective on how good leadership could often save more lives than skills and strategy.
“, do you have a minute?” Mieriel asked as he passed by her new desk.
“Sure?” He followed curiously as she got up ahe way into a private meeting room. Normally she just ducted business in the guild hall, so this must be something rather more sensitive or important.
“I received some intelligen the kidnapping operation that you scouted some time ago,” she said, sitting down at the table, pulling out some papers, and adjusting her gsses.
had begun to smile at the pretty Elf, but his lips pressed into a thin line instead. Them! It had been the group that had kidnapped Seth, and while the trail had run cold for him at their abandoned hideout, he had dug up quite a haul of paperwork and tur over to Mieriel.
Clearihroat, Mieriel said, “Havok and Devan followed the lead and entered the kidnappers. During the altercation, twuards and the ringleader were killed, along with their Kel’darran mert tact. Several prisoners were recovered auro their homes. I thought you’d like to hear how it turned out.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” he answered politely. It was rather good news, and every small step that made Myrin’s Keep a little safer was a great thing. But it was hardly worth a private meeting room, so he sat patiently waiting for her to eborate.
“The Guildmaster registered you fether as a gold-rank group and, as we discussed, only Aliandra’s abilities were obfuscated. This m, we received a royal courier bearing a gold-ranked quest.” She pushed her gsses up on the bridge of her nose a his curiosity with a smile. “It’s a scouting mission. We were hoping you’d be ied – it pays quite well, although your team doesn’t seem to be struggling for money. But it would substantially enhahe guild’s reputation if we could successfully deal with a gold quest on behalf of the kingdom.”
“What is the job?” It certainly seemed to be a great opportunity and, depending oails, his skills might be quite suited to a scouting mission. But for the mission to receive a gold-rank rank it must be quite a challenge. Not just good for the guild, he thought to himself, knowing the dangers Aliandra in particur would face if the kingdom ever discovered the true extent of her skillset.
“The kingdom has lost tact with all the small towns to the south along the border with the troll kingdoms. The teleportation loci are unresponsive, and a Silver ert caravan has gone missing in the area too.” She pushed a beautifully scribed page over to him with a wealth of details, but on closer scrutiny, the details all amouo ohing: there was no information for anything that had ehat area i week. Even a few silver-ranked scouting groups had gone missing, which was why the job had been upgraded to gold. “The quest is to scout the cause and bring baformation that the generals use to deploy their forces – and if it’s an incursion from the troll kingdoms, there is a bonus for information on the size and disposition of their forces.”
“I’ll take it, I’m familiar with that area,” he said, thoughtfully. It was a little south of Lyton, but on the New Darian side of the Myrin River – ahey had explored extensively while searg for Lira’s oak trees. Presumably these towns had been further south than the blight, past the forest – a guess he quickly verified with the detailed map provided. The challenge, of course, would be taking the job by himself – nobody else could fly and use stealth – and he would hose skills to survive if it really was a troll incursion.
“Thank you,” she said. “And be careful, we don’t know what might be out there.”
“I will,” he answered, st the dots. “Could you let the others know where I went?” It was quite a distand would likely take the better part of a day or more to fly all the way there and back, even with his speed.
***
flew steadily southward, studying the endless miles of dead, blighted forest. Lira had been asking if he knew anything about the blight and if it was fading at all, but sadly, apart from the first couple of miles where the bronze adventurers had been clearing the undead and explicitly purifying the blight with expensive elixirs, the miasma seemed strohan ever.
About ten miles from the ruiown of Lyton, he saw a dark cloud rising from where the small town had oood. A cloud that to his eyes looked nothing like a natural rain cloud or pilr of smoke. On a hunch, he used Eclipse to cloak his presence from any eyes that might be watg and pressed on. Eclipse was harder to use with his glowing wings, but it still made him much more difficult to see. He drew closer and his eyes began to make out shadowy figures wheeling in the cloud.
Skeletal Wyvern – Undead Dragon – level 43 x5
The skin on the nape of his neck prickled as he recalled fag one of these in the grand library, but that had been a dungeon boss, and these seemed to be just undead.
Random high-level undead dragons flying in a binous cloud. Not at all suspicious.
He added his stealth skill from Explorer, cloaking the sound of his passage, and tinued.
[Explorer] You have entered a dungeon.Ruins of Lyton – level 84Affinity: Death.Age: New.Knowures: UndeadKnown Bosses: --Dungeon
A new dungeon? His caution ratcheted up several notches and he tio s the ground carefully as he flew onward. A duhat was at the extreme range of his ability to identify – in fact, without his blessing of the wanderer, he wouldn’t have been able to see the level. How a new dungeon had gotten to such a high level so quickly was only one of the unexpined questions running through his mind.
Carefully, he skirted Lyton itself, not wanting to tah the skeletal wyverns and whatever the bck cloud was, but now that he knew a death affinity dungeon was involved, he had a few guesses as to what the ight be. An undead blight erhaps the least terrifying.
He flew further and further south, disc two raid bosses – a skeletal wyvern, higher level than they had fought in the library, and a death affinity wight which was flying around above the trees with a horde of skeletons and zombie minions lurking below it. When he finally reached the ruins of the first towill had not left the domain of the dungeon, and he had ted several more bosses and looming clouds of whatever death magic it was creating.
The first town he was searg for was simply missing. In its pce, he found only a broad patch of treeless dirt inhabited by some kind of oversized ghoul he wasn’t ined to tah. The sed two towns were ruins, scoured bare of anything that seemed to indicate life. Of the mert caravan, he found no signs, which, given he was in a dungeon, was hardly a surprise. Dungeons could e almost anything to make themselves stronger, for a dungeon of this size aent, a caravan or a town hardly presented a challenge. He found himself a retively safe spot and began to take detailed notes – likely it would take lohan he had expected to scout the full extent of this new rogue dungeon.
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https:///DungeonOfKnowledge
https:///series/1135403/dungeon-of-knowledge
https:///fi/80744/dungeon-of-knowledge-raid-bat-litrpg
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