Broken Lands

Chapter 333 – Glowing Fish

Sophia relayed what she’d seen to Arak through Dav. Arak’s answer was good news, really, even if it was a problem for this fight. The ooze she’d seen wasn’t the crystal taint itself; instead, it was an attack that tainted monsters at the third upgrade often had. It could temporarily engulf someone and possibly control them, but it also burned out any taint they’d taken. It was a way to trade away possible long-term spread to a new host to help a current one survive. Arak seemed confident that it meant the mammoth knew it was outmatched and that it wasn’t going to get a new host anyway.

In fact, despite all the problems, Arak seemed very happy with how the fight was going. He continued to confidently direct the people in the back, at least the ones who would be able to make an impact on the battle. All too many weren’t going to be able to do anything at all unless things went very wrong, and Arak made that clear to them as well, along with the fact that he didn’t think it would happen.

Back at the front, all three of the boulder sisters cooperated to weigh the mammoth down. Unlike the earlier boulders that the tall sister used to knock the mammoth on its side, these seemed to stick around. A close look at the sisters showed that they were continually feeding the rocks mana, and the mana required to keep the rocks solid and heavy seemed to slowly increase.

The shortest of the three rock callers shouted, “Now! Throw now!”

Lightning flickered around a spear as it flew directly towards the mammoth’s head. The sound of thunder filled the air when the lightning spear hit the center of the eye and penetrated into the mammoth’s brain. Sophia stared at that in shock for a moment, wondering why it wasn’t stopped by the mammoth’s shield, before she realized that it was probably all gone, absorbed to prevent the continual blows from the boulder trio’s rocks from squishing the mammoth’s internal organs. 

Penetrating its brain wasn’t enough to kill the crystal-tainted mammoth. It continued struggling as if there wasn’t a giant metal object stuck in its eye until a series of lightning strikes from two people other than the spear’s owner used the spear as a convenient lightning rod to direct the energy into the mammoth. Ozone filled the air as the mammoth finally stopped moving.

Sophia let herself condense back at a feather near Arak. She wanted to ask him some questions, but all she could do was watch as he coordinated the people who were collecting things from the monster. It seemed that while the tusks were the most valuable single thing, there were other things that might be part of the creature that were also worth collecting, starting with its hide and the crystals that had formed outside the skin.

It wasn’t easy to skin the mammoth. There were people with the expedition who were skilled at it, but no one actually specialized in skinning, and the task was complicated by the crystals that had grown through its hide. Those areas were the most valuable, apparently, but they were also the hardest to separate because the crystal could well continue into the underlying flesh and you wanted to collect all of it. Sophia watched for a few minutes but her eventual conclusion was that she was glad it wasn’t her job. It looked fiddly and annoying.

The rest of the mammoth would be left where it was. There was nothing they could use during the expedition and nothing else that was worth carrying through the rest of the expedition and back to Mazehold. If they’d been near the end of the trip, there were other things they could have taken, but as it was nothing that would last long enough was worth the space it would take up. Even the hide might be tossed later if they found something more valuable.

By the time the mammoth was skinned and the skin was cleansed of any possible remaining crystal taint, Arak had given everyone a clean bill of health, good enough to move forward. He’d also announced that he’d cast a spell on everyone once they were all on the other side of the link-gate, in case there was something he missed. That was enough to ease most peoples’ minds as they made their way around the edge of the mammoth’s clearing to the only exit.

Less than ten feet down the path lay a link-gate.

Sophia was glad to leave the crystal-tainted forest behind. The landscape was fine, but the contrast of a peaceful if overgrown forest and infectious crystal-studded monsters was unnerving. It was also a little strange to see monsters where she’d never heard of anything similar back home. She could think of things that superficially looked similar, but she’d never heard of a half-alive infection that could take over bodies. That seemed more important than the physical signs it left behind. Maybe it really was a disease? Death magic worked particularly well on viruses, after all; if this was a magical virus, maybe that was all.

The link on the other side of the link-gate was nothing more than a cobblestone hexagonal plaza surrounded by stone walls with a link-gate in each of the walls. A small campsite sat near one of the walls, with a woman Sophia vaguely recognized watching the sky. Meadow called out to her and she seemed to relax.

They’d found the missing two teams.

Once everyone was through the link-gate and Arak covered them all in shadows to eradicate any possible remaining crystal taint, he went to greet the missing teams. He brought them over to Sophia’s team’s campsite while he listened to their stories.

Sophia wasn’t sure why he invited himself to their fire, but she wasn’t about to ask; he might change his mind. Having him there let her hear what was going on without having to push her way in.

Polla was the team lead for one of the two lost teams. She was also one of the scouts, which was why Sophia recognized her even though she couldn’t have come up with the woman’s name. She’d just been introduced to too many people that day.

“There’s not much to tell,” Polla admitted. “We didn’t have to fight anything. The floating cloud platform took us to another cloud road. There was only one direction available, so we took it and it led to a link-gate. That one, not the one you came through.”

Polla pointed at the link-gate to the right of the one they’d entered by. “You weren’t here, so we set up camp and waited, the way we’re supposed to if we’re separated. I didn’t expect it to take this long.”

Arak looked towards the link-gate, glanced up at the sky, then nodded. “A more direct passageway. That’s great news, if we can figure out how to take it back. Is it a token gateway? Did you get a token?”

“It is and we didn’t.” Polla frowned slightly. “We didn’t get anything from the zone other than farther into the Maze. I guess that’s something, but it’s not what we came for.”

It was something Sophia was definitely interested to hear, though. If there were safe passageways into the Maze, it could make the task of getting to the center where the Gateways hopefully were far easier. It might also make finding the “heart” of the Tower mentioned in the words on the Registry tavern’s wall easier, but Sophia wasn’t concerned about that. She didn’t need to conquer the “broken lands.”

The only reason she’d consider it was if that was the only way to activate the Gateways. She softly snorted to herself; she’d never quite believed her father’s stories about accidentally falling into power, but it suddenly didn’t seem so unbelievable after all. 

“You didn’t see anything else in the zone, anything at all?” Arak sounded bothered by the lack of details. “There were options, and that usually means a choice. It shouldn’t have just been which pad you got on; they were identical.”

Polla shook her head. “I don’t remember anything.”

“You didn’t see the fish?” Sophia had to ask. It was the only thing visible for what seemed like hours, after all, and they’d followed it to the Night Market. She seemed to remember that the people who went through the monster waves killed something they saw in the darkness, though they described it as more monstrous than the fish Sophia remembered.

“Fish?” Polla sounded confused. 

“On the flying platform, a glowing anglerfish swam up to us. I think it was our guide,” Sophia prompted. “But maybe it wasn’t a fish for everyone?”

Polla shook her head, then stopped in place with a frown. “Marcus mentioned a glowing monster when he woke me for my watch. I don’t think I ever saw it, and I completely forgot about it because the cloud path appeared shortly after my watch started. I can ask him what it was.”

“Please do,” Arak requested politely. Once Polla was out of sight, he rubbed the bridge of his nose like he was trying to calm a headache. “Of course she was asleep during the choice. I should have asked Marcus to come as well, but I thought the lead who was also a scout would give better information.”

A quick conversation between Marcus and Arak confirmed what they’d already guessed: the fish wasn’t just the guide to the Night Market. Marcus gave a good description that almost exactly matched what Sophia and her group had seen. Arak confirmed that he’d seen the same fish as well; the only difference was what they’d done once they saw it. 

The groups that followed the fish to the Night Market were the ones that investigated it without attacking it. Each of the three groups ended up at a different Night Market. Arak’s group of two teams plus Arak himself had one of their members fly out towards it to inspect it. It didn’t react at all until she got close enough to touch the fish, and once she did, it turned and swam away. They ended up at a Night Market that specialized in armor.

The second group, who finished at their Night Market before Arak’s group, Arak spoke to long before Sophia and her group left the Night Market. They’d also seen a fish, but their reaction was completely different; one of the teams had someone whose Sphere specialized in temporarily “taming” animals and even monsters. Monsters that were strong enough to travel on their own were useful to him, so he immediately tried to tame it. 

His attempt was rejected, but it was apparently enough to get them led to a Night Market that specialized in food. Some of it was enchanted in one way or another and some of it was intended for creatures that were nothing like people. Apparently, the beast tamer was the only one who was particularly interested in what was sold in the Night Market, so they didn’t spend all that long looking around. The monster tamer spent the aurichalc he was willing to part with and then they found a portal and left.

Arak wasn’t quite certain how any of those related to the Night Market each group ended up with, other than the fact that each time they ended up in a Night Market that matched at least some of the interests of the person who interacted with the fish. Sophia, who touched hers with her Domain, liked magic. The flying scout was wearing armor and happily spent several hours looking at options, even though she didn’t end up buying any. The monster tamer sometimes used food in his efforts to tame monsters and even came away from the Night Market with some options he’d never seen anywhere else.

Whatever their connection to the specific Night Market was, though, what happened to the other groups was obvious enough. Everyone who fought the fish killed it quickly, before it was able to fight back. They all reported the fish falling, then some time later they landed on a very strange ridge line. Arak’s guess was that they landed on the fish they killed, or at least on the spot where it landed originally. 

Similarly, the only group that didn’t do anything with the fish ended up following it, but that fish waited a long time, then moved from its attitude of flying towards them (and possibly pushing the platform) to leading it upwards. It disappeared from sight well before they reached the new path, but it still seemed likely that it was their guide.