Ruinous Return

Misty sat down next to the pillar. She had been wrestling with a question for weeks now, since Lyn reached out last. Scrying on her with the pillar\'s inscription, observing her lifestyle and how she carried herself. And she had come to a single conclusion. It\'s not really Lyn.

Sure, the real Lyn was in there, but there was…something else. The way she acted was out of character. Yes, the mana core was changing her old friend – as all the mana cores of the heroes changed their hosts personality little by little – but there was some odd force at work. Hero cores didn\'t change people that fast.

She reactivated the pillar and used it to send her vision to the Ruins of Elent. Due to the magical vision, she could see the vibrant barrier erected around the largest spire that shot upward from an enormous structure. Thomas\' barrier. She had scouted the whole of the isle of Elent, save for the underground that was sealed off by a powerful inscription, and that tower. Every scrap of paper, every book was missing from where it should have been. And, knowing Thomas, he had collated all of it into that single tower as a base of operation.

She felt hatred flow through her, thinking of the man who she had once owed so much to. She thought back to when their small party of heroes – her, Lyn, Thomas, Ben, and Trisha – were off on the island of Firol, pursuing a dungeon. They were staying at a local tavern, and Misty had chosen to stay up late to finish an inscription project. She recalled, vividly, going upstairs and hearing a noise coming from Lyn\'s room. Peeking in, she saw Thomas and her going at it.

It crushed Misty. Her best friend, someone she cared so, so much for – was just sleeping with one of their mutual friends like it was nothing. It took her a decade after Lyn\'s death to come to terms with her hidden feelings…she loved Lyn. Old Lyn. I want my Lyn back. But she also couldn\'t blame anyone but herself for never sharing her feelings. How do you even approach that conversation with your best friend? And what if she didn\'t feel the same?

She turned and descended into the tower, going to her room, and picked up the adamantine stylus that she used to carve into a stone disc. If or when she comes here…I\'ll get her back.

The walls of the room dropped away from Lyn and her allies, revealing a large forest environment. Shit, she thought. It\'s different from last time. She had never repeated a dungeon as the Scout hero – whether due to dumb luck or there was some hidden machination in how they worked. Maybe that\'s how repeat dungeons work? Slight changes to have new challenges to expect.

Her enhanced hearing picked up noises off to her left, and she took up an offensive stance facing that direction. "Gael, keep Thomas safe. Vael, you stay with me on the offensive." The twins took up positions, with Vael standing on Lyn\'s left side, and Gael taking up a defensive stance in front of Thomas; shield held in front and spear sitting in the notch on top.

The trees in front of Lyn began to vibrate, and she had to squint as her ears were pierced with a loud, high-pitched whining noise. Fucking skalts. This one is probably monstrous. After a few moments of the whining noise, the physical forms of the creatures came dashing through the trees. The last time she had fought them, out in the wilds of Ghomar, she barely kept up with their speed.

Skalts were somewhere between a mix of hyena, eagle, and cheetah. They were extremely fast, furred, six-legged, with the talons of an eagle on the two front footpads, and a wickedly sharp beak rather than a set of jaws. And these ones were big. Lyn counted five of the fast-moving creatures that circled around their \'prey\' – her party.

She heard muttering in Elenthir behind her and heard one of the yowls of the creatures. Thomas had performed some sort of spell – and Lyn didn\'t spare a glance back as this triggered the rest of the skalts, and they charged in. She jabbed forward with her spear, but the creature ducked under the rapid pierce and raised a talon to her. Lyn blocked with her forearm, feeling the talons crunch onto the armor. Monsters\' natural weaponry was mana-charged due to their potent mana cores naturally augmenting their bodies.

The weight of the creature was immense and threatened to bowl her over. But she dug her feet-claws into the ground, and willed Cataclysm to switch shape, turning into a shield on her forearm – forcing the talons away – and a short sword in her other hand. The creature hissed and jumped at her again, but she caught the blow on the shield and then lowered her body under the raised appendage, carving deep across its chest with the mana blade. The creature fell over; dead as its organs spilled out of the long gash she had carved.

She turned to the left and took in the scene rapidly; Gael was engaged with two of the creatures – one he kept at bay by waving his spear back and forth to prevent an opening, and the other had clamped its mouth onto his shield, the beak piercing the metal and slowly shredding it.

Thomas was behind Gael and was muttering a lengthy verse that finished as Gael\'s shield gave way and crumpled. The spell concluded, and the two skalts were affixed firmly to the ground, as the dirt turned to cement and kept them rooted in place.

Vael was faring well, her shield being made of Titansteel was not crumpling inward like Gael\'s shield had. But she couldn\'t land a killing blow. Lyn dashed sideways to her and bashed her shield into the creature, sending it flying away from Vael and crunching into a tree. "Get after it!" she shouted, and Vael took the initiative, leaping after and stabbing into the creature, finishing it before it could recover.

Lyn turned just in time to spot another skalt – the fifth one – sneaking up on Thomas. Clever bitch, she thought as she ran over and intercepted a set of claws and talons with her shield. She pushed the creature back and then stabbed forward with her short sword. The skalt reared back and danced away, gaining distance once more.

Gael finished off one of the trapped ones, and then moved to the other trapped one. Thomas backed up towards Vael, as the Duskari woman dashed over to help her brother dispatch the remaining one encased in concrete.

Lyn focused her whole attention on the one in front of her, raising her shield and advancing as it hissed and jumped side to side – trying to find an opening in her defenses. She moved forward, and the creature began to retreat. Lyn heard her allies approaching behind her, and the skalt she was facing off against ran back into the trees.

"Is everyone okay?" she shouted out.

"We\'re good," Vael replied as she helped Gael remove his ruined shield. Thomas walked over and muttered an Elenthir verse as the metal unbent and resumed its prior shape.

Gael reequipped it and looked over at Lyn. "Do monsters in dungeons normally run off like that?"

"No," Lyn replied. "They don\'t." She scanned the canopy and felt her heart skip a beat for just a moment. On the branches above the four of them were dozens of skalts. Staring down at the four.

"That\'s a problem," Thomas said.

Commander Sigurd arrived in Komorra. Her forces were still shaken up after seeing the enormous weather anomaly that crashed down to the ground from the skies above. A flaming whirl of wind and death. She gave silent thanks to the benevolent Destroyer who let them leave with their lives. Not that she would ever vocalize what she felt – her exterior was that of stone; unreadable and impenetrable.

But on the inside, she was terrified. Princess Cecily was rumored to be a powerful spell user in her own right, but what she saw defied all sense of reality. The amount of mana required to turn the fort to sand on its own was incredible. How could she not be as worried as I am? She thought. She doubted even the Berserker could stop whatever unnatural force of nature the Destroyer was.

She brought herself out of her reverie as she saw smoke on the horizon. "Damn," she muttered. Raising her voice she shouted to her cavalry regiment, "Outriders! With me! The rest, you\'re under the command of your sergeants!" She spurred her mount forward and the rest of the cavalry regiment followed.

They rode hard for about ten minutes as the smoke-covered scene became more clear. The sight that came to her view caused her to balk. She saw what could only be described as carnage in its purest form. Bodies were crushed, smashed, butchered all across the fields in front of this town on the edge of Komorra\'s borders. She could hear the screaming and shouting of combat further in the town center. "Alright!" she shouted, finding her voice again. "Squads one and two, with me! The rest, secure the perimeter!"

She heard affirmatives and rode into the center of town, pulling her broadsword from its sheath as she put a shield on her offhand. She transferred the reins to her teeth just in case she needed to grab them rapidly but used her thighs to guide the steed onward. The town center was just as grisly – blood spattered the ground and crushed remains were all spread about. Valagonian soldiers interspersed with villagers and troops in the colors of the duchy\'s house guard.

She saw him, then. The Berserker hero. He was covered in gore and was guarding the entrance to a house as a group of Valagonian troops shouted at him. Sigurd rode up and shouted, "Halt! What\'s the meaning of this slaughter!"

The various soldiers looked to her, saw the color of her pauldron-ornament, and saluted. The Berserker hero was heaving, breathing deeply as he trembled slightly. "Who are you?" He asked between gasping inhales.

"Commander Sigurd," she replied, dismounting. "Given instructions to rendezvous with you and your men." She glared at the group of soldiers facing across from Lord Smith. "What are you doing?"

"Ma\'am! He\'s protecting rebels!"

"Like hell I am!" Kory shouted back. "There\'s fucking kids in here! I said no kids!"

Sigurd walked between the group and the Berserker hero, "Why did you attack in the first place, Lord Smith?"

Kory\'s posture remained at a ready stance, but his shoulders lowered slightly as he relaxed. "I was doing as Princess Cecily told me. Reminding Komorra who is in charge." He looked past her and shouted at the soldiers, "But I\'ll never kill kids! What kind of sick fucks are you?!"

The soldiers began to respond but Sigurd raised her blade, silencing the group. She looked to Kory, "Lord Smith. You have my word that the children are under my protection. The rest of my cavalry are securing the perimeter, and the main force is a few hours\' march away."

"Thanks," he said with a heavy exhale. "But I\'m not moving until there\'s more of your troop\'s here."

"Duly noted." She turned to the soldiers, "There are only thirty of you, and yet I believe a full detachment of one hundred was sent to Ishtok."

"Yeah, well we ran into some trouble," Kory replied behind her. "About twenty died as we instated the Duke of Ishtok\'s son. I killed thirty for insubordination, and we lost another twenty in this town."

A fucking animal, Sigurd thought. He\'s just a mindless beast. No wonder Princess Cecily sent me to rendezvous with him. He needs to be reined in. "Understood. We\'ll secure the town with the main force, make camp, and then move on the ducal seat to ensure loyalty."

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The skalts descended from on high. Reflexively, Lyn took up a defensive stance, and she heard Thomas incanting a verse of a spell. The twins took up positions on either side of Thomas.

The skalts landed on or around the group, and Lyn found herself embroiled in the tangle of flesh and sinew as she blocked blows with her shield and slashed across the creatures. But there were so many, she switched Cataclysm to the great sword configuration so she could take large, lopping sweeps. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, and she reveled in the sheer power at her disposal. Roaring a battle cry, she dove into another group of the skalts and unleashed a vicious, sweeping strike that carved six of them in half.

But she began to feel pain, despite not being injured herself. Glancing over, she saw that Thomas was encased in some type of clear sphere that the skalts bounced from. His mouth was moving inside, and she could spot flashes of energy poking out of the barrier in rapid-fire increments – magical darts of raw mana that finished off downed skalts who were lying on the ground.

Vael and Gael were completely missing from sight though. Lyn saw a few of the creatures being bucked upward, and she carved her way through the horde to get to them. Her broad, sweeping strokes with the mana blade incinerated and slashed into all that she impacted, but she continued to feel the pain ramping up in her extremities. Anor min / nartho hain i daeth nin, she thought as the internal regeneration spell went off, soothing her extremities and wounds with the bubbling, warm lava.

Lyn slashed several times at the surrounding creatures, clearing them back with wide, arcing slices that they began to move back from. Vael and Gael both got up from the ground. "Thomas, can you put them both in the bubble?"

He nodded and said something she couldn\'t hear through the barrier, but a few seconds later as she held the creatures at bay, the bubble encompassed the twins. Thomas gave her a thumbs up.

Lyn turned back to the creatures and raised her left hand above her head, channeling mana into the limb. "Britho ai!" The mana fountained out of her hand and erupted in all directions, flooding the entire forest in a massive lava storm that incinerated the skalts within an instant. She glanced at Thomas and saw the strain on his face as he tried to keep the barrier active. Shit.

The barrier popped, and the lava moved in towards the trio. No!

Thomas tapped something on his chest; she saw the slight glow of an inscription, and he turned translucent and ghostlike. But the lava crashed in on the twins, and both screamed out in pain. They were not seriously injured, because the injuries passed to Lyn, and she was immune to heat, flame, and lava. "Echado nîr en-aear!" Lyn shouted, as a huge spout of water cascaded from her hand and covered the twins. Anor min / nartho hain i daeth nin, she thought as well. Her mana was nearly empty from the enormous, forest-consuming spell, followed by the regeneration, and the water spell.

But, to her relief, Vael and Gael were unharmed. Both had wild looks of shock on their faces, and Thomas re-phased from his ghostly form. "That was fucking close," he said.

Lyn ran over to Vael and Gael, throwing her arms around them both and holding them close. "I\'m sorry," she whispered. "I didn\'t mean to-"

"It\'s fine," Gael replied quickly, gently extricating himself from her grip. "Dungeons are dangerous."

Lyn looked in his eyes and saw the honesty behind his words, but she had to hear it. "Do you forgive me?"

Gael looked back and smiled gently, "Yes. I forgive you for almost killing us." He chuckled, "Besides, you kept us alive twice now."

Vael nodded and patted Lyn on the shoulder, "Apology accepted," she added.

"Thomas, what was that spell?" Lyn asked.

"Ah, a matter external spell. It lets me phase through the physical world for a short period of time. This," he tapped the necklace he was wearing, which had a square amulet hanging from the end, "Is just an inscribed version of the same spell. It only works for ten seconds because of how mana intensive it is."

Lyn nodded, knowing that matter was way up there with gravity and space as spell types and their mana requirements. It must have taken him a long time to make, she thought, knowing that even if she did have access to that spell type, she would maybe be able to maintain such a phasing spell for a minute before she ran out of mana. "Well…first room clear," she said as the walls returned and the hallway appeared. "There\'s another chamber, and then the reward room. But I don\'t think dungeons are always the same."

"Why do you say that?" Thomas asked.

"The forest environment was the same, but last time I fought a gryphon, not a fuckton of skalts."

"Interesting," Thomas pulled a small notepad from his waist pouch and scribbled some notes. "I assume we\'ll wait for mana to recover?"

Lyn nodded and sat down on the stone floor, "Yup." Vael sat next to her and the two leaned on each other. "Just waiting on mana. The boring part of dungeons filled with monsters."

Gael let out a brief chuckle and shook his head, "How are non-heroes expected to clear these things out?"

"Well," Thomas began, "Dungeons were made by the Elenthians. There were about a thousand of their mana-potent race on Ghomar almost two thousand years before the precursor deity split itself into Aelor and Raevan. After that split, and as more races began to emerge, the Elenthians effectively \'left\' Ghomar. They performed a spell that sent their bodies and minds…somewhere. But their mana cores were left behind and contained fragments and whispers of their consciousness – along with their power."

"Then how\'d they get into dungeons?" Vael followed up.

"The dungeons are in actuality just buildings from the ruins of Elent. The whole space is compressed inside of the doorway. As for who inscribed them with the name of the dungeon core within, the rewards, and the traveling after being conquered? I\'d guess Aelor after the Elenthians left. Possibly some spell put into place that has persisted throughout Gomar\'s entire history. There are many possible explanations, but no one-hundred percent \'correct\' one." He held up a finger, "I know for sure, though, that the Elenthians are gone."

Lyn nodded and stood up, pulling Vael up next to her. "Interesting history lesson. But I\'ve got enough mana. Let\'s clear this dungeon."

"And maybe save another hero from purgatory in the process," Thomas added.

"Look out!" James shouted from behind Lawrence. The shifter hero dodged his armored-wolf form to the side as an enormous pillar came crashing down next to him.

He glanced back as he shifted and turned, willing another shifting spell as his form morphed into that of an enormous ogre – the same size as the troll they were fighting in the dungeon. He reached out and gripped the pillar, the enormous makeshift club that had just tried to crush him, and took it from the troll, tossing it aside.

The troll roared and punched wildly, but Lawrence just ducked the blow before stepping in and delivering an uppercut, followed by a shin-kick to the troll\'s thigh. The creature roared in pain as it reeled backward, and Lawrence used that opportunity to tackle him to the ground.

James ran over and delivered a fatal blow to the troll, carving across its neck as the blood spurt up. "Got it!" he shouted.

Lawrence focused on his mana core, feeling the constant movement – like a shuffling deck of cards – and cycled through the various creatures he had eaten. His mouth distorted and he unleashed a gout of draconic flames from his maw, preventing the troll from regenerating the fatal neck wound. He unshifted and got off the creature as it gurgled the last of its vital essence. It vanished, and the walls of the room reemerged.

"Good job," James said as he wiped his sword and sheathed it.

Lawrence sighed, "Dungeons. Fucking dungeons."

The hallway opened to the reward chamber, and James led the way. "I have to get stronger if I\'m to face the Destroyer," James replied.

Yeah, but you don\'t even know if this Destroyer is evil. Lawrence thought.

The altar held a wooden box and a large, spiked mace. James opened the box and held the mana core in front of his face. "Death…" He shook his head, "I can\'t consume that."

Lawrence looked at him with a sidelong glance. "Why not use the mana core?"

James reached over and grabbed the spiked mace. He held it for a moment, then it vanished. He pulled out his sword, and it shifted into the spiked mace form before it reverted to the blade that he sheathed. "Certain spell types are not useful to the Paragon hero," he replied. "Yes, I could increase my own versatility and mana capacity…but death on its own is…wrong."

"Death is natural," Lawrence replied as he leaned against the altar. "It\'s part of the way the world works. You\'ve killed plenty of people on the battlefield."

James sighed, "But that\'s different," he muttered.

"How? Spell or weapon, you\'ve killed. Why reject power that you need?"

"It just feels icky, okay?" James shook his head, "I\'ll consume the mana core, but never use death spells. At least that can be a workaround."

Lawrence sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "Why not use it? It\'s a potent spell type. Hell, you saw what it could do in war."

James wheeled on the Shifter hero and stared into his eyes, "That\'s exactly why I won\'t use it." He slammed the wooden box shut. "Come on, let\'s go." James placed his hand on the altar, and the two reappeared outside of the dungeon entrance, hidden in a small grove of trees atop a hill. The doorway vanished, and James began to walk out of the copse.

"If you really want to fight a Destroyer, you\'re going to need to use every tool at your disposal."

"There\'s some lines I won\'t cross," James muttered in response. "I won\'t fucking use death magic. It just feels wrong."

Lawrence put his hands behind his head and let out a deep sigh, "You\'re being an idealist. Be more pragmatic."

"A Paragon shouldn\'t use evil spells."

"Again, death is a natural process. It\'s not evil by nature." This fucking guy. Lawrence had always hated how easily James and a few of the other heroes would categorize something just by its nature. But James, in particular, was a real stickler for a sense of moral righteousness. It\'s one reason he couldn\'t stand the man.

James just stared ahead as he walked through the trees and made it to the edge of them. They both looked out over the vast farmlands. "It\'s gorgeous, isn\'t it?" James commented.

"Definitely pretty," Lawrence agreed. "Evil, good, who even defines these things?" James glanced at him, and Lawrence continued, "People with power decide that. If a deity said that murdering your parents was a holy act, then people would do it, and it wouldn\'t be seen as \'evil\'."

James looked at him with a horrified expression, "But that\'s just wrong."

"Get over it," Lawrence replied. "You want to know just one extra reason why I didn\'t come back after I got shat out of that dragon? Because of people like you."

"What?"

"You heard me. You\'re just holding onto values that were ingrained into you because of where you were raised and who you were raised around. Rural countryside and in the deep South? Hell, every single classroom had a bible verse or some shit on the walls." Lawrence shook his head, "There is no God on Ghomar. There\'s no set of moral guidelines or principles. You want to beat the Destroyer? Get over your fucking ideals." It felt good to finally just unload on James.

James stared at Lawrence, slack-jawed and speechless. Lawrence let the silence linger for several moments. James eventually recovered his composure and shook his head, "No, there is a right and wrong. There are morals." He put a hand on his chest, "I have Aelor within me, and even though there are only whispers…I know right from wrong."

Lawrence shook his head. I\'ve done what I set out to do from this partnership, he thought. I\'ve learned about the current situation politically between the kingdoms and the Free City. That\'s all I really needed. "What the fuck am I even doing here?" he muttered. "I\'m going to go and meet this version of Lyn. Maybe she will value my advice." I don\'t need James. And it\'s not as if I like him much. I\'ve learned all I need. And if this person is really Lyn…well, she was always a pragmatist like me. I\'d feel better helping her out than helping James.

He heard the soft sound of sword being drawn from leather, "I can\'t let you go and join the enemy," James stated as he leveled the sword at Lawrence.

"Right there. Right fucking there." Lawrence replied. He had been waiting for a chance to rip someone apart with his words and years of practicing arguments in the mirror to use against his fundamentalist parents. "You\'re willing to stab an old ally in the back just because they want to do something that you perceive as a bad act." Lawrence faced James and held his arms out to his sides, "Go on, stab me. Prove you\'re a hypocrite."

"What?"

"A \'good\' person that you espouse to be would not kill someone for simply wanting to explore their options. A \'good\' person raised where we were raised and with those religious principles wouldn\'t do something so heinous. So do it. Do it. Fucking stab me. If you do, congratulations, you\'re a hypocrite, and you concede I\'m right."

"It\'s not like that!" James shouted. "You\'re threatening to join the enem-"

"You don\'t know that!" Lawrence shouted in return. "You\'re assuming something because you think you\'re this high and mighty Paragon who can do no wrong. You always assumed you were right, and always acted holier-than-thou because you had to be the hero. Hell, after just two years of arriving here I could tell. Why do you think you\'re all alone here? None of the heroes have come to you to seek a partnership against what you deem a threat."

Lawrence shook his head and lowered his arms. "You\'re making assumptions before even getting all the information. You\'ve conflated your own ego by imagining yourself as this righteous crusader; Jesus Christ reborn on Ghomar or some shit. Well, news flash, you\'re not. You just got the Paragon core. Eat some fucking humble pie. You got lucky, chosen by some statue. Hell, Paragon doesn\'t even mean you\'re \'good\' by nature. Just that you\'re the \'top\' hero. So get over yourself."

If there was one thing Lawrence hated more than people who followed some arbitrary rules blindly, it was fucking hypocrites. He had always hated the religion foisted on him as a child and had read the whole holy book. The number of people he saw after that, whose actions didn\'t match up with the values they espoused was a never-ending source of irritation. And finally, finally getting to use some of the arguments he had read up on to shut down that shit came into play.

James put his sword away and crossed his arms. "I don\'t think that," he said under his breath. "…Fine…just go. But when that Destroyer kills you and you\'re experiencing all that pain before death, you\'ll know I was right."

Thalion min / en ethiel an le / an adlethad nin rhaw / a anno nin i rhaw / en i nadhras / i iestol. Lawrence thought the spell – the only hero who could cast spells by will alone, as far as he knew, of the internal shifting variety. His body morphed and elongated as he transformed into his enormous draconic figure. His bright, orange scales were contrasted by black stripes like that of a Bengal tiger, and his claws were dark black. His voice rumbled out. "Good luck with your stupid morals," he growled as he lifted off and flew towards Shiverburn Summit.