Path of Dragons

Book 6: Chapter 50: Rotten Fruit

Elijah landed just outside of camp, where he found the others gathered around the fire. The only one who was missing was Sadie, but he sensed her sitting just a dozen or so yards away. Far enough that she probably wasn’t burdened by the conversation between the rest of the group, but not so distant that she couldn’t respond to an emergency. Judging by her position, he assumed she was meditating. Perhaps she’d decided to push her core to the next stage, which was a change that would inevitably make future challenges much easier to conquer.

Either way, he chose not to disturb her. Instead, he approached the campsite, which had taken on a more permanent air. Elijah couldn’t quite pinpoint what had changed, but the area felt lived-in in a way that it hadn’t when he’d begun his quest to provide his companions with water-breathing rings.

But now that quest was finished, which he punctuated by tossing one of the silver rings to Kurik. The dwarf didn’t even look up as he caught it.

“Guess there ain’t no delayin’ it now,” he muttered, throwing his cards on the stump they were using as a table. “I don’t like this game.”

“You don’t like anything, bro.”

“That ain’t true. I like a good cave. Comin’ home to a cozy fire and a short-bearded woman is nice, too.”

“Wait – dwarven women have beards?” Elijah asked. The ones he’d met lacked facial hair.

“The good ones do. Not a great bushy beard like mine. Somethin’ dainty. Wispy. The sort you can curl your fingers around. Sign of nobility, it is,” Kurik explained.

“Weird, bro,” Dat responded with a shake of his head. He grinned as he added, “But I never turn down a new experience.”

At that, Kurik let out a guffaw. “You? Ain’t a dwarven woman would give you the time of day, bearded or not.”

“What? I’m attractive, bro.”

“Not to dwarves. Too tall. Too round. Too…you.”

“Ouch.”

Elijah sat in one of the empty camp chairs they’d brought along. “Dat’s attractiveness to dwarven women notwithstanding, is there anything we need to do before we get this plan moving? We’ve got a lot of levels in front of us,” he said.

“You want to go in at night?” asked Ron, glancing at the starry sky. “I thought we’d wait until morning.”

Elijah shrugged. “It really shouldn’t make a difference. Toh is well-lit, and I don’t think the alaken sleep much. So, night or day, I don’t think we should waste any time,” he said, feeling the urgency of the Trial pressing down on him. They’d begun with a year to conquer all of the challenges, which had seemed like quite a lot at the time. However, with more than half of that span having passed, Elijah felt like they didn’t have enough time to accomplish all of their goals.

“I’m ready to go when you are,” said Dat, who still wore an injured expression. “And for what it’s worth, I plan to prove you wrong, Kurik. Mark my words – I’m going to find a dwarven woman who likes me.”

“Good luck,” Kurik said with an uncharacteristic grin. It looked a little sadistic on the normally grumpy dwarf.

In an attempt to steer the conversation back on track, Elijah said, “Anyway…”

“I agree with him,” said Sadie, who’d ceased her meditation to approach the campsite. “We need to use our time wisely, and that doesn’t include lazing about and playing cards.”

In the couple of days it had taken Elijah to collect enough Drops of the Ocean to provide rings for everyone, the rest of the group had cleared the immediate area of any threats. And they’d reaped the rewards of so much fighting, with Sadie having reached level one-hundred, Dat attaining level ninety-two, and Kurik getting level eighty-nine. Bringing up the rear was Ron, whose progression lagged a few levels behind the dwarf’s. Elijah suspected that by the time the Trial was finished, their group would become the most powerful on Earth.

Part of that was due to the rewards for achieving primacy, which included a bunch of free levels. But the challenges themselves – as well as the planned grinding in the City of Toh – would net them significant progression as well.

But at the moment, Elijah was concerned with something else. He addressed Sadie, asking, “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” the woman said.

That certainly didn’t look to be the case. She had dark circles beneath her eyes, and her hair was more disheveled than normal. In addition, it was clear that she hadn’t showered in some time. Normally, Elijah wouldn’t have cared, but as far as he knew, the group had been idling for the past day. She should have had plenty of time to clean up. He didn’t particularly care about anyone’s hygiene, but what he did care about was a deviation from her established patterns of behavior. Something had changed, though he had no notion of what that might be.

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Perhaps she’d finally begun to crack under the pressure of her own class. Or maybe she’d grown moody from the tension inherent in fighting through so many dangerous situations. Or it could have been the result of past trauma, of which they all had plenty.

Regardless, Elijah knew he wasn’t the one to address the issue. He and Sadie had grown a little friendlier over the months since they’d arrived in the Trial of Primacy, but they certainly weren’t friends. If he pushed, she would only grow annoyed. So, Elijah resolved to ask Dat to look into his friend’s psychological well-being.

After that short exchange, everyone prepared for the coming challenge. Even though it wasn’t a first-clear, and they had the advantage of Elijah’s repeated runs through the city, the dangers were not to be underestimated. One wrong move, and they could be overwhelmed. So, everyone took their preparations seriously, checking and double-checking their weapons, armor, and other supplies.

Elijah did the same, and after about fifteen minutes, they all set off into the nearby surf. The group had spent some time acclimating to not needing to breathe underwater, so they didn’t hesitate to forge ahead and begin the long swim to the challenge of Niflara. Thankfully, with their attributes, they could move through the water at incredible speeds that would have put an Olympic swimmer to shame, so they reached their destination after only a few minutes.

They all knew the plan, which they’d reviewed a dozen times over the past couple of days, so no one hesitated before heading down into the city. The idea was to clear the thing out as efficiently as possible, so the first order of business was to establish a beachhead. To that end, Elijah had chosen what looked to be a small park populated by various sea vegetation. Waving stalks of seaweed would provide cover while Kurik went to work building traps.

Once that was finished, Dat set out into the city to start pulling the population to their deaths.

Everyone already knew their roles, so communication wasn’t really necessary. Still, they’d established a set of simple hand signals. Thus prepared, everyone fell into their places. Sadie took the front, while Kurik remained at the rear with Elijah and Ron. When Dat returned, Sadie attacked with a viciousness that was normally absent from her fighting style. Her technique was still flawless – even underwater – but beneath her helmet, she wore an expression of fury that seemed out-of-place.

For his part, Elijah started off only using his spells. That was the first phase of their plan. In his caster form, Elijah could respond to any deviation in strategy. More, he always had his heals at his fingertips, so he was ready to help Ron at a moment’s notice. If the situation called for it, he would shift into one of his bestial forms, but for now, they opted for a more cautious approach.

Everyone else played their part, with Kurik’s traps – weaker variants that he could deploy quickly and without much in the way of cost – hampering and harming the oncoming alaken. Dat used his own abilities sparingly, relying on his mundane crossbow bolts unless absolutely necessary. Still, he was forced to use Hex of Tongues on the rare occasion that they found themselves facing off against a mage. Otherwise, everyone held back their most powerful abilities, knowing that they needed to pace themselves for the long haul.

After all, there were thousands of alaken in the City of Toh, and it would be disastrous if they suddenly ran out of ethera or stamina when confronted with a strong foe.

The set-up was a meat grinder, and soon enough, they were all swimming in diluted blood. A cloud of alaken flesh covered the immediate area, and bodies drifted only a foot or so above the ground. But on and on the residents of the city came, and they were subjected to a slaughter of epic proportions.

Elijah was forced to shift into his lamellar ape form on a few occasions when it looked like Sadie was on the verge of being overwhelmed, and he even used Lightning Domain when the onslaught reached its peak. The spell worked extremely well, with the whips of electricity snaking around his companions so that only enemies were affected. It was a good thing, too, because Elijah had been worried about friendly fire.

Normally, his spells functioned off his perception of other people. For instance, Healing Rain only affected those he deemed allies. However, with every new spell, he worried that he would discover that it was different. So far, that hadn’t been the case, but he knew better than to bank on that always being true.

Aside from that bit of tension, the battle progressed according to their plans. After months spent fighting wraiths, the members of the group were well versed in fighting hordes of creatures, and they put that expertise to good use. The bodies continued to pile up – or float around, as it happened – until, eventually, the flow slowed to a trickle. Then, it stopped altogether.

Elijah held up his hand, then raised two fingers. It was the signal for the group to shift to the second location. They wasted no time before swimming off, and unlike Elijah’s previous experiences within the challenge, that area of the City of Toh was entirely deserted. They’d killed thousands of alaken in only a couple of hours, but it was just the beginning.

They still had six other battle sites, then the palace itself to conquer before they could retreat to the beach and let the challenge reset. That would take a couple of hours after they left, and then they’d be free to head right back in.

That was precisely how it went, and with each site, the battles quickened. Everyone knew better than to relax, so they pushed themselves to become more efficient. They’d agreed to spend a week grinding – anything else would put them in jeopardy of missing out on the other challenges – and they intended to get as much experience in that time as was possible.

So, that was what they did, eventually slaying the king and queen in an anticlimactic fight that lasted only half a minute. Once they’d grabbed the reward – another Drop of the Ocean – they retreated through the now-deserted palace and swam out of the city. Along the way, Elijah marveled at the sheer level of carnage they’d authored. He’d been there, right in the middle of it all, but it was still shocking to see the number of bodies in the city below.

As he beheld the fruits of their labor, he tried to remind himself that the population of the city wasn’t real. They were manufactured by the system to challenge them. However, even though he rationally knew that was the case, there was a distinct difference between latching onto that fact and experiencing a tidal wave of what constituted murder.

Still, as he’d done in the past, he pushed the seeds of guilt aside and focused on his gains. He hadn’t progressed to the next level, but he’d made significant progress. That alone was enough to justify their actions, because Elijah suspected that unless they improved significantly, future challenges would result in their deaths.

After reaching the shore, everyone mechanically went about the post-battle preparations. They ate. They tried to sleep. But all the while, they were focused on a week of unfettered carnage.

Hopefully, it would all prove to be worth it.