Chapter 657: Drilling (1/2)

Chapter 657 Drilling

Hey, I could use that for my cannon, Ilea thought, looking at the telescope.

“This isn’t part of another continent, is it?” she asked, looking at Verena.

The woman looked around. “Don’t think so. Cavern entrance over there,” she said and pointed.

“Good eyes. What we’re looking for is down,” Ilea said.

Pierce clicked her telescope together and made it vanish, her clothes entirely soaked in the stormy rain. “Wonderful. I am drenched,” she said and walked towards the indicated location.

The others followed.

“Is she always like that?” Ilea asked, watching the dark blue armor appear once more on the Elder’s body.

Verena nodded ever so slightly.

Ilea glanced over. “Known her long?”

“We joined the Shadows in the same month,” she said.

“How old are you two?”

Verena looked up. “I think a little over seventy. Not sure about her. Probably similar.”

“Wow, you really are Elders,” Ilea commented.

Pierce glanced back and hissed. “I heard that young lass! You’ll pay once I’m strong enough. Just you wait six hundred years!”

“We are. Lucas and Adam are older,” Verena said. “Lots of changes before. Shadows die often.”

“Too confident when you’re at this age. Gets easier and easier to make a mistake, I tell you,” Pierce said. “Complacent. Most give up the adventuring lifestyle either way. Pansies. I hope you will die a glorious death in battle, Ilea.”

“I’m immortal,” Ilea said.

“You better be,” Pierce answered. “You’re a healer. If I don’t see you come back from disintegration and loss of heads, I’ll be disappointed.”

“Dungeon. Quiet now,” Verena said as they closed in on the entrance.

Ilea was surprised to find Pierce quiet down immediately, all three of them reaching the large fissure in the dark jagged stone. She could see the bottom from the edge and jumped down, followed near instantly by the others.

No dungeon notification showed up within her mind. Did they just bury this one somewhere out in the ocean? I suppose you certainly wouldn’t find it here without a device to locate it.

“No signs of monsters. Continue or leave? You said you need to scout, not recover,” Verena said.

“I did say that, yes,” Ilea answered quietly. “But, I think we can push on a little bit further. If you think it’s too dangerous, you can stay up there and wait.”

“We know how much more powerful you are, Ilea. Know that we have escaped plenty of four marks. You don’t get to this age as an adventurer otherwise. Not at our level,” Pierce said and touched the stone nearby. “This is natural.”

“No way down either,” Verena said.

“Then we dig,” Ilea said, ash spreading in front of her, the vague image of a drill forming within the dark mist.

A few seconds later, they were pushing down into the stone, Ilea’s ash progressing rather slowly against the hard stone.

“You could just let Verena deal with it,” Pierce said. “This will take a while.”

“It’s quieter,” Verena said.

Ilea glanced over. “You have something like this too?”

The woman summoned two black axes lined with slightly glowing embers.

“Ah, I see,” Ilea said with a smirk.

Pierce looked at her and smiled. “That’s all she does.”

“It’s effective,” Verena said.

“I punch,” Ilea said. “Well I do a little more than that but at the end of the day, I punch.”

Verena gave her a long look and nodded slightly.

“What do you do?” Ilea asked Pierce. “Dragonkiller.”

An arc of lightning flowed over her armor. “Lightning. I always enjoyed it. Since that assassin came for me when I was eleven, ah… memories.”

“Sounds like a rough childhood,” Ilea said, their voices entirely drowned out by the drilling sounds but none of them had a problem hearing each other talk. She displaced the larger stone chunks up and away, making sure none would tumble into the ocean. Lest she wake something.

“Ah it was fine after that. I left my home on that day. My twelfth birthday was much happier. Me, Kevin, the wolves,” Pierce said.

“Do I want to hear that story?” Ilea asked.

“Nothing too peculiar. Kevin was a lightning mage too, and a goblin. We met in the wilderness and immediately understood each other. I don’t think he was much older than me to be honest, but it’s hard to tell with goblins. They’re incredibly stupid. Assassins never found me in the tunnels we dug together. Never even found out who sent them. Probably been killed themselves a year or two after all that happened,” the woman explained.

“You lived with a goblin mage in the wilderness? That sounds pretty exciting,” Ilea said offhandedly. She really wasn’t sure if any of that was true but with this world, she wouldn’t disregard the possibility.

“Unlikely, but yes. He was an outcast, like me. They’re not fond of humans otherwise. Not at all. Ah glorious was the day when we burned down his tribe together. He taught me much,” Pierce said.

“Is he still around?” Ilea asked.

“I don’t know. He wanted to go to the highest peak, to see the source of lightning. A bunch of superstitious shit, but that’s goblin education for you. I showed him the way north a few decades later and that was that,” Pierce said. “I’m sure he loved the arcane storms.”

“What was his level at the time?” Ilea asked, starting to see something within her dominion. They were coming up on familiar territory. “Taleen facility ahead.”

“Your perception goes far,” Verena said.

“Fifty? Something like that,” Pierce answered.

Ilea blinked her eyes. “Level fifty? And you sent him north?”

The woman laughed. “That Goblin had a dream, I tell you. He really wanted to go, and who am I to stop a friend.”

Sounds like you sent him to his death, Ilea thought but she didn’t know Kevin nor did she know about Pierce’s situation back then.

“Maybe someone in Hallowfort knows if he came through,” Ilea said.

“Doubt it. Finding that place is damn near impossible up there. I only got there because of the scavengers I stumbled upon more than a week’s travel eastward. Good thing too, I was about to enter Feynor territory,” Pierce said. “Unpleasant, those.”

“I’ve met them,” Ilea said.

“Managed to talk? Didn’t seem to me they like anything not resembling a dragon,” she said.

Your name doesn’t help.

“No. Well there was some talk, but they just came to kill and kidnap. Catelyn that was, and plenty of dark ones. I met Lucas there actually. An old Rhyvor city where Dark Ones took over,” Ilea said.

“They moved against Hallowfort? Seems like things are getting a little more tense up there. Maybe I should visit sometime,” Pierce said. “Nice to see that someone else knows about the ancient kingdoms in the north. Nobody wanted to believe me.”

I wonder why, Ilea thought.

“Is Lucas alive?” Verena asked.

“Yes,” Ilea said, not elaborating.

The woman nodded. “Good.” She seemed lost in thought for a moment before she talked again. “Maro. He said something about Rhyvor.”

Ilea perked up, looking at her.

“Who’s that?” Pierce asked.

“I met him in Asila. He learned that I was a Shadow and offered gold to kill monsters,” Verena explained.

“What happened?” Ilea asked, trying not to betray her connection to the man.

“A cult he stumbled upon summoned dangerous creatures. Like bats. But large. I killed them,” Verena explained.

Why would he care about a cult. Wait. Of course. And he didn’t even clean up himself.Just don’t start that shit in Ravenhall.