Blood Shaper

Chapter Seventy-five

“So, what do we know?” Kay asked the cramped gathering in his office. Technically the one-room building was the office of multiple people, but he was going to milk his “in charge” status as best he could.

“There’s some kind of unknown enemy that has a group of Rittians of unknown size as minions. It either drove them mad or found them that way, but they’re crazy. Based on the information we have from your Quest and what the Rittians were shouting when you fought them, they need sacrifices to awaken the thing, and when it wakes up, we’re screwed.” Cindy summarized the information they had.

“We could always leave?” Stephen volunteered cautiously.

“We could,” Eleniah acknowledged, “But that counts as the Quest being failed, I think. The reward for failure was the settlement being destroyed, right?” She glanced at Kay, who nodded. “So we could leave in order to make sure everyone comes out alive. But we’d definitely lose the settlement, and I think it would be even harder to reclaim it after whatever’s down there wakes up.”

Kay sighed and shook his head. “We can’t leave. I mean, we can, but Meten is leading a whole group of people here. It would be shitty of us to not even try to stop the thing, lose all the hard work we made because of that and consequently abandon a whole group of people we said could come join us.”

Eleniah shrugged, “So we go in. What’s the plan?”

Everyone turned to look at Kay.

“The bare bones of it? We send a group in to try and stop whatever is happening. Sacrifices of some kind, probably. Then we destroy whatever the enemy is, if possible. Retreat and run if it’s too much, and find Meten’s group and lead them away so they aren’t caught in whatever happens. Start somewhere new.” Kay tapped at the table a few times. “Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m on the attacking team since I have the Quest. Eleniah’s on the defending team because she’s our strongest fighter. Leaf stays here with her since you wouldn’t be much help in cramped tunnels underground. Sorry.”

“No, you’re right,” Leaf acknowledges with a shrug, “There’s not a lot of plants down there, and I’m all about AOE attacks. I’d catch you up in them as much as the enemies in terrain like that.”

“Cindy, you stay up top.” Kay continued, “As much as I’d like to take you down with us to make finding it easier, you don’t have a combat class, so I’d worry about losing you.” He glanced around the rest of the room. “Chitel should come with me, along with Stephen, Claudia, and Leya.” He glanced up into Darten’s face. “Sorry, but as much as I’d like to bring you, those tunnels will probably get pretty small and well…”

Darten chuckled, “No point bringing me where I won’t fit. Even if I could restructure the tunnels around me?”

“That would add more time, and we don’t know if they have enough integrity to deal with that without collapsing. Plus, we need one of you two,” Kay pointed at Darten and Leya, “Up top to search for tunnels around the area. Since Leya’s already better sized for the attacking team…”

Darten made a face but nodded his agreement. “I get it.”

“Good.” Kay slowly looked around at everyone who’d gathered up to plan. “Any questions?”

A chorus of “No” and shaking heads answered him, so he nodded once. “Good, everyone, start getting ready then. We’re leaving as soon as possible.” People started shuffling around each other to leave. “Cindy, you stay.”

She glanced up at him with a frown, but she sat down.

Kay waited until everyone had left, except Eleniah, who had stuck around. “Cindy, I know I said that you can’t come on the attack with us, and I know there are probably some limitations to what you can do, but while everyone’s getting ready, anything you can do with your Classes to give us a direction or a location or anything useful would be a blessing.”

“Oh,” She brightened up, “Of course, yeah. You didn’t have to single me out like that to ask.”

Kay shrugged, “You talked about not wanting to be used as a tool, so I’m doing my best not to treat you like that. Just throwing out an order to start using your Classes or something feels like I’d be doing that.”

“Thanks! It should be fine; I’ll tell you if I’m feeling used or unappreciated, and we can talk.”

“Good. Now, is there anything from your vision that you remember that could be helpful?”

She tilted her head back and thought about it. “The thing that’s driving the Rittians is underground, obviously. There’s some kind of chamber with a bulky thing at the back of it. I didn’t get a good look at what it was, but it’s free-standing and around as tall as a table, I think? The monster or whatever was hard to look at, even in a vision. It made me feel really weird while I was perceiving it. I remember knowing that there was some kind of time limit, but it isn’t super close. I guess that was the time till the thing awakens, so we have some time for you guys to find it.” She looked back at him, “That’s all I’ve got right now.”

“Alright, that’s all helpful. Is there anything you can do with Fortune Seeker?”

Cindy sighed and slumped in her chair. “Maybe? The Class has a lot more limitations than people think there are. It doesn’t literally lead me to whatever I want. I have to know a certain amount of information about what I’m looking for in order to use it. If you tell me the name of something I’ve never heard of before, and I only know the name of it, Fortune Seeker won’t do a thing.” She waved her hand in the air, “And then there’s the step limitations.”

“What?”

“It won’t lead me to anything if there’s more than a certain number of steps to get to what I’m looking for. The definition of what is and isn’t a step is weird too.”

Eleniah looked at her quizzically, “What do you mean by steps?”

“So, if I want to find the treasure you gave me the name of, and I learn enough about it to start the Class going, but the place where the treasure is located is across the ocean, getting a boat and traveling to the right place is one step. Then the treasure is in a temple; getting to that temple once we land on the right continent or island is the next step. Then navigating the trap-filled temple is the next, and the last step would be taking down the magical barrier holding the treasure in place. If there were that many steps in the chain to get the treasure, Fortune Seeker wouldn’t do anything. Usually, more than three steps, and it doesn’t activate, from what I’ve been able to figure out so far.”

“But if you knew that the treasure was across the ocean and traveled there on your own, there would only be three steps left, so it’d work?” Kay asked.

Cindy nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“What if you just vary what you’re looking for in order to narrow things down? Like, you try and lock on to the treasure, you can’t, so you try and lock on to the treasure’s location instead of the treasure itself. That would eliminate at least one step of the hypothetical hunt.”

She waved her hand back and forth, “Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m not really certain why sometimes. I haven’t had a lot of time to experiment, and Fortune Hunters don’t really share how the Class works with others. So I have to figure it out on my own.”

“A lot of hard-to-get Classes are like that.” Eleniah commented, “No one wants to make themselves easily replaceable, so they keep everything secret, so there aren’t a bunch of other people running around with their Class.”

“Sure, I can see the logic.” Kay turned back to Cindy, “Anyway, can you try to find the structure you saw In your vision? You got something of a look at it, so hopefully, you have enough to find it, and finding just that spot will let us know where to go. I hope so, at least.”

“I’ll try.” She closed her eyes.

That sat there quietly as they waited. Eventually, eyes still closed, Cindy turned in her seat to point into the distance. “Only two steps, not bad. Go that way for a while. There’s an entrance to the tunnel system that got grown over by a tree. I can get you to the tree easily. It’s the quickest path to the chamber you need to get to. I think in order to get the exact path, I’d have to go with you, but you ruled that out. So all I can say is make sure that you go more south than north once you reach the twisty bits. If you hit water, then you’re close but a little too far north.” She opened her eyes and sat back in her chair. “That’s all I’ve got.”

Kay gaped at her. “Seriously? That’s awesome!” He grinned widely at her, “You just gave us freaking directions. That’s way better than having to wander through a tunnel system with no clue how to get where we want to go and an unknown time limit looming over us.”

Cindy blushed and glanced away, “Well, thanks. I can tell that the tunnels get really complicated near the middle of the plateau, so you might get a bit lost there, but just keep more south than north like I said.” She pointed again, “The entrance is off to the northwest,” She traced her finger towards the cliff face, “Just head east till you’re inside the plateau.”

“Alright, Miss Find Anything Protagonist, I’m off to get ready for a delve.” Kay smiled at her and stood up, “You’ve been incredibly helpful.”

“Don’t be weird!” She snapped at him, “And this isn’t a Dungeon, so you can’t call it a delve.”

Kay snapped his head around to stare at Eleniah, “There are Dungeons? Wait, no, you know what? That can wait.” He pushed his chair in and headed for the door. “There’s packing to do.”

Kay gathered with the rest of the attacking team and started coordinating their packing. They didn’t all need to bring food for the entire group, they only needed so many lights and bedrolls and such, so they needed to plan who was bringing what. After an hour or so of debate and packing, they were ready to go.

Everyone took some time to say goodbye and share best wishes.

Claudia hugged the twins, who were sad she was leaving but didn’t really understand what was happening. He saw an interesting look pass between David and Claudia when she said goodbye to him, which Kay filed away for later. Darten and Leya had a quick conversation off by themselves for a minute, which Kay also noted.

Eleniah stepped up to him, “Be careful.” She admonished.

“I will. I have backup this time, too, so don’t worry.”

She glared at him, “I am allowed to worry about my friends.”

Kay stepped forward and hugged her. “The Quest’s difficulty is only ‘Hard’, so we can get it done. If it was higher than that, I might start to get worried, but it isn’t.”

“You don’t know a single thing about Quest difficulties!”

Kay shrugged. “There are things that are hard but worth doing.”

“That has nothing to do with this!”

He grinned, “True, but it distracted you from worrying for a bit.”

She glared at him and smacked his shoulder.

Everyone gathered up around them. Kay glanced around and saw determined gazes look back at him. “Time to go. There’s an unknown threat to destroy.”

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