"I've told you a million times to absorb the damn book. Something is going to happen to it one of these days, and then what will you do?"
The words came from a man clad in heavy armour, every inch of it etched with intricate runes. A soft blue glow pulsed through them periodically, a clear sign that the enchantments were not only active but immensely potent.
"And my answer is the same as always; it's not complete. To absorb it now would be a waste. Being able to perfectly replicate a rune is godlike and I intend to maximise that benefit."
Answered a man dressed head to toe in blue robes. Like the heavily armoured man, he too had runes inscribed across his entire outfit, though his shade of choice made the runes less noticeable. Not that they would need the enchantments to be intimidating. There was a presence about them both that would have terrified most mortals.
His companion let out a sigh at the blasphemy. "I'm going to ignore that you said that." He answered with a glare, only getting a shrug in response. "Seriously though. Is even now not good enough, Ondra? We're about to break into a hidden temple of The Lost God. The Great Traitor. The risk is obscene! We'll need every benefit we can get."
Ondra possessively clutched his bag to his side. "Yes, even now Marcus. I won't be rushed. It's a Mnemonic Grimoire. How many of these do you think I'll ever see? Never mind get hold of. Besides, we've handled these situations before and escaped alive. This will be no different." He told Marcus dismissively.
"And when we're done, I'm sure I'll find some new runes for my collection."
Marcus rolled his eyes so dramatically, Ondra half-wondered if he might injure himself.
"Yes, yes. The Great Betrayer was a master of his craft and we've lost so much, yadda yadda."
Ondra's brows furrowed deeply at his companion's dismissive tone.
"You simply do not grasp how brilliant he was! It's been thousands of years, Marcus. Thousands! Yet we're barely closer to deciphering some of the wards he used, let alone how he discovered those runes in the first place!"
Ondra fumed, frustrated that even after all their arguments on the subject, his longtime colleague still could not appreciate all that was lost.
Marcus gave an indifferent shrug. "We're getting the Network back under control aren't we?"
Ondra scoffed. "'Getting the Network back under control'. Again, after thousands of years, we're reclaiming portals one by one. Do you really call that a success?"
Marcus' expression remained unphased. "Seems good to me. The Great Betrayer set us back significantly but we're getting back to where we were. Some might even argue we're growing stronger. Besides, aren't you supposed to be a master runesmith? I thought you and the other scholars were achieving huge breakthroughs."
Ondra shook his head. "That's exactly the point I'm making! Yes, we've discovered important things but they're nothing compared to the complexity and brilliance of his work. If I discover something significant here, it could launch my research far beyond anyone else's."
A small smile arose on his face as he thought of the possibilities. Ondra was practically giddy at the thought of what he would be able to achieve if— no, when— he uncovered runes The Lost God himself used. He'd just need to copy them into his Mnemonic Grimoire and absorb it all. Then the knowledge would be with him forever.
"Enough you two. It's time," calls Liyan, the leader of this nine man team. A grizzled woman with scars covering every inch of her body. It was a strange sight for someone at her level of power but when asked, she always gave the same answer; keeping the scars told the story of her life. Each one was a new tale. To erase them, would be to deny their existence.
They gathered with the rest of the group in front of a temple dedicated to Fariba, The Betrayer. The Lost God.
It had been discovered through a portal buried deep in the Khzgut Volcanoes, on Ashdan. A desolate planet lacking in both life and resources. The search had been long and arduous but after millennia, their efforts had finally borne fruits.
They had ransacked every holy place they could find, chasing whispers and forgotten scriptures, all in search of one thing – the Lost God's hiding place.
Even after all this time, no one dared entertain the thought that he might be dead. They knew he lived. Somewhere. Hiding. Biding his time until he could come back to restart The War of the Gods – a seismic conflict that sundered the pantheon. Now they had finally found a promising lead. A long sought after clue to where he might have gone.
Each god had provided resources for the team, whether it be weapons or manpower. There was no question of the danger. Every target before this had been treacherous, and this one would be no different. The Lost God and his followers had left behind traps aplenty in their quest to remain hidden. More than one Blue ranker had died on this Crusade and everyone here today was selected because they could handle the risks.
"You've all experienced enough of The Great Betrayer's tricks that I won't bore you with safety warnings." Liyan tells the group. "Besides, if any of you were the type to heed them, you wouldn't be here."
That got a few laughs and nudges from the assembled Crusaders.
"Keep your head screwed on, and have faith in your heart. For the gods!"
"For the gods!" They echo back before they charge into the fray.
Marcus led the way, projecting a barrier powered by ten gates. Projectiles and explosions ricocheted around the entrance as carnage ensured. Golems and monsters fell to the combined attacks of the Crusaders.
Tactical commands rang out from the group as they progressed deeper into the building, each step paid for with mana and blood.
The backline hurled spells faster than a mortal could think, unleashing everything in their arsenal to tear through the defending creatures. The frontline wasn't slacking either. Their blades flashed, weapons a blur as they cut down anything that managed to slip past the shields.
At last, they reached an alcove. One that, from experience, they knew could be used to deactivate hidden traps.
"Ondra, you're up!" Marcus shouted.
The lanky mage doesn't hesitate for a moment, cutting off his casting and moving swiftly to the front. In the years since The War of the Gods, he had become the foremost expert on runes and wards. His knowledge fed by his many experiences plundering the Lost God's holy places.
He curses as he unveils the hidden formation. "This is a tricky one. I'm going to need time."
"Eyes!" Liyan shouts as she casts Supernova, her trademark spell. The Crusaders know to turn away from the explosion, lest they damage their own eyes. Intense white light shines through the room, matched only by the howls and screams of the surviving monsters.
The team are well practised and immediately capitalise on the opportunity, going on the offensive to kill as many of the disabled enemies as they can. A good third of the wave has been wiped out in the seconds since Liyan's shout.
"How did they flood this place with so many Blues and Greens?" Josep asks. The burly tank is already using his thrice blessed shield to hold off an entire section of creatures but even he won't be able to hold the angle long.
"There's no end to The Great Betrayer's tricks, nor HIS TREACHERY!" Screams Alithont, a warrior nun zealously dedicated to her goddess, Miye. Her devout belief has pushed her to great heights and her holy vow upon leaving the convent was the utter annihilation of The Lost God and his followers.
Her fellow Crusaders know all about this. Their previous missions have shown just how powerful she can become when fighting in step with her vow, against her greatest enemy.
"Alithont! Not yet!" Raul calls, his curved sword casting mirages with the speed it moves. "Let us thin them out a bit more first."
"NO! THE ENEMY WILL PAY!" She screams in response, her body growing grotesque in its transformation.
The group curse as they realise it's too late to stop her.
"You shall be punished for your sins." A sinister voice calls from Alithont's deformed mouth. The giant creature pushes its way to the front and begins wailing on the grouped up monsters.
"There are too many for her to handle," Raul's panicked voice shouts.
"Delamare, help her out," Liyan commands.
Delamare nods and begins calling ice to the battlefield, freezing anything that looks like they might overwhelm Alithont.
"How long Ondra?" Lyan asks.
"Longer!" Ondra shouted back, frustration clear in his voice. "They've done something different this time and I need to make sure I don't trigger it."
"We don't have much time," Marcus says through gritted teeth. His pressure from the barriers are clearly getting too much for him to handle. Alithont's rampage has drawn the interest of a large number of the creatures but some of the golems are still beating down on his side with abandon.
A gurgle sounds from within their midst and a quick glance is enough to see that Shailene has been killed.
"Jumper!" Fredrico cries too late, as a monster surrounded by spatial essence finishes ripping through his dead team member.
Liyan launches a crowd clearing spell into Raul's section instantaneously, freeing him up for a moment to combat the Jumper.
It's not the first time this has happened to them so they know the Jumper will be stuck here for another few seconds before it can form a portal and get away. Liyan buys time with more big spells and after four swings, Raul beheads his target.
"Got it," Ondra exclaims. "Left door should be open."
"Okay, let's carve through and pick Alithont up on our way."
There's no time to grieve. They're professionals and each of them have been through a situation like this thousands of times. Instead they move on, doing the best to thin the monsters as they make their way through the room to their target destination. Alithont's transformation reverts as they reach her and they're able to get through the door to the next room without losing anyone else.
Ondra manages to lock the door as they go through but this room is also filled with monsters.
"They must have opened a portal. There's no way these creatures were living together! I've just seen a panther and a minotaur! They don't live in the same climates!" Ondra laments as the grind starts again.
They move forward like this for four more rooms until they finally find their destination. The apostle of Fariba's workspace.
A veritable treasure trove of information on The Lost God's machinations. At least compared to anything they had found before.
"You know the drill. Don't trust anything in here to be as it seems. I'll Shine the Light. Ondra, can you go over the wards?" Liyan knew she didn't need to ask but felt the reinforcement of the order could only be a good thing.
After hours of meticulous work they concluded it was free of any overly obvious traps and the team went about dissecting the place for clues.
Ondra, fuelled by his insatiable desire to collect more runes for his warding, heads straight for the pedestal in the far corner of the room. He can see formations he doesn't recognise and excitement floods his body.
As fast as he can move, he rushes to take the Mnemonic Grimoire out of his satchel so he can begin transcribing, all other thoughts evaporating from his mind when he sees the beauty in front of him. A ward so complex it boggles the mind that anyone, even a god, could have come up with it.
The shining star of the formation is a five hundred point rune. A gorgeously mind bending piece of magic that has Ondra literally salivating as he thinks about what this might unlock for his research.
He opens up his Grimoire to one of the last remaining pages, preparing himself and his pen for the challenge ahead. As he puts pen to paper he thinks of the people who believe transcribing runes to be an easy pursuit. They believe having high dexterity is enough. After all, they can all copy writing easily enough. Ignorant fools! He thinks to himself. Transcribing runes require precision the likes of which most will never grasp. For the higher tier ones like this, he would need to do it all in one motion. Every line would need to be exact in length and thickness. If it wasn't, then it would fail to work.
Feeling the pressure, Ondra resorted to a long held habit of sticking his tongue slightly out of his mouth, pressed between his teeth.
Slowly but surely the rune began to take form on his page. Each of the five hundred points were gradually added with care and patience as he blocked out all else. It was just him, his pen, the rune, and his Grimoire. Like he was back in his office. 'Nothing to worry about,' he told himself as he licked his lips before bracing his tongue between his teeth again.
'Just need to do the last hundred. Nearly there Ondra. You've got this.'
The closer he got to the end, the more his excitement built. His mouth watered again as he thought about what this might bring him. As far as he was aware, nobody had ever discovered a rune of this level. It was a huge breakthrough!
"Ondra! We need you over here." Marcus shouted from across the room.
Ondra jolted, head whipping around instinctively. A startled breath escaped his lips, and before he could stop himself, a single droplet of saliva fell onto the rune below.
He froze in horror, watching as the droplet of mana-infused saliva hit the rune, which instantly ignited into a vibrant, ominous indigo glow as it began fueling the ward.
"No. No. NO!" Ondra begins panicking, backing away from the pedestal. 'How have I let that happen?' He thinks to himself as he quickly shoves his book back into his satchel. Knowing time is off the essence he begins going over the ward, looking for a way he can stop whatever it's about to do.
Suddenly a person appears. The group panic for a moment before Liyan raises a hand.
"Stay your hands, he's only a Red. We're moving too fast for him to be aware we're here." Liyan tells them. Turning to Ondra, she calmly asks. "What did you do?"
More people begin appearing. Some solo some in groups but the numbers increase dramatically.
"Ondra!" Liyan shouts, her temper beginning to rise now that the situation is getting out of control.
"Shit," Ondra whispers, looking at the ward on the pedestal. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"
"Quickly Ondra! Fix it"
"I'm trying!" He replies as he tries to work out what the Indigo graded ward is doing and how he can disrupt it.
Suddenly a presence appears behind him. It's slightly distracting but he's not worried. At his level he can feel them. He knows their positions and he knows they're not even out of Red yet so they're not a danger.
His mind is mostly devoted to the wards. He knows there is some sort of sequence involved but he's not sure exactly what. It's all going too quickly for him and the power level – that's something he's never seen at this scale before. If he wasn't so terrified, he'd be ecstatic.
A small part of his mind stays focused on his surroundings. He has no doubt a kill order will be issued if he can't figure this out quickly. It would be a shame considering the low levels of everyone here even if it is necessary. Especially the two behind him, locked in some sort of embrace. No, grappling. Fighting maybe? The tiny sliver of his mind still processing them is wondering why they tumbled through a portal whilst fighting. It's extremely slow to his ramped up mind and he doesn't want to devote more power to figuring out trivialities.
He finally spots the pattern and curses The Great Betrayer and his Apostle for making it so complicated.
"Got it!" Ondra shouts, placing his hands on the first rune and running mana through it.
It'll be a slog but he's grateful they won't have to murder the kids. Though when he thinks about it, he wonders if the two closest to him will kill each other anyway. It's an extremely odd way to travel through a portal.
He's sure that's what's going on now. The Lost God had set something up to divert people from their chosen teleports to instead come here. Ondra marvels at the ingenuity of it. 'Truly, nobody will ever match Fariba' he thinks to himself as he knows it's not something he would be able to say out loud.
He devotes a bit more of his mind to the couple behind him now that he's found the rhythm to turn the teleporting off.
They're falling towards his back and Ondra winces on behalf of the boy. The girl has the upperhand in their conflict so she's going to get lucky and be able to use the boy's body as a shield when it smacks into Ondra. He feels bad for the kid. To a level two, his level sixteen back will feel like a wall.
'Better hurry up and send him back then' he thinks to himself, speeding through the wards as quickly as he can.
It was draining his mana fast but it wasn't as if he'd need it for anything else now that they were done.
'Huh' he thinks to himself as he reaches the final runes in the ward. He's noticed that the boy is running mana through his whole body. His aura is practically screaming that he is a body morpher. A rare power to see.
'Perhaps that's why they're fighting. Strange that he'd be losing the fight though.' He thinks before reaching the final rune.
His mana pumps into it and he begins thinking about the rewards again. His mind goes over the sheer number of runes in front of him. He would surely fill his book–
"No! My book!" Too late Ondra realises what was happening. He hadn't secured his book in the bag after he had activated the trap. It was sticking out behind him and the boy was about to touch it –whilst running mana throughout his body.
With all the speed of a level sixteen, Ondra turns to prevent the loss of his most precious possession. His Mnemonic Grimoire. One of the rarest treasures in existence. A literal gift from a god that he has spent a thousand years filling.
Unfortunately his speed is no match to that of teleportation and as he turns, he sees nothing there. No grappling couple. No book of runes.
"NO!" He screams, falling to his knees.
In a world so far away it was separated by universes, two bodies collapse on a teleportation platform before rolling apart.
The girl, a beauty, is the first to get up. Darting to her feet and launching another attack at her foe. Quicker than she can think, a man steps between them.
"Woah there friends," he announces, trying to placate them. His hands firmly rested on the girl's shoulders.
From his position on the ground, Brandon Horlock sees his enemy push against the guard without budging him a millimetre. Satisfied he isn't going to be attacked again, he lets out a breath and relaxes. Going through the portal has left him with a splitting headache. It felt as though his brain was expanding, like it was trying to escape his skull.
To make it worse, he could have sworn he had hallucinated a chamber filled with people.
Once the guards were sure there was no risk of further violence, they took Brandon and his attacker to a private room. To get a handle on the situation.
"If you could both sit down, that would be great," the man said, gesturing to the seats provided.
Exhausted, Brandon happily took him up on his offer, earning a glare from his attacker who made a point of walking to the opposite side of the room and crossing her arms.
The guard blew out a big breath as if he couldn't believe he was the one who had to deal with this situation.
"Why don't we start with an introduction? He asked hesitantly, knowing how even that could spark a teenager's fury. "My name is Geraint. I'm a member of the City Watch, and it's my–" he tilts his head down and whispers the next word "-unfortunate- duty to deal with issues surrounding portal travel."
Seeing Brandon was the friendlier of the two, he looked at him next.
"I'm Brandon. I'm-"
"A criminal!" The girl shouts from the corner
"-not currently employed but hopeful I can get myself a job with some HONEST and FAIR people. Not like the corrupt thugs I was previously surrounded by."
"That was because you were in PRISON!" The girl shouted back, throwing her arms wide like she couldn't believe his audacity.
"Yes, because of a corrupt judiciary system."
The girl scoffs. "Corrupt judiciary system?! You hijacked a train!"
Brandon frowns, thinking for a few seconds. Right as the girl starts to think she's got him to shut up, he replies.
"That was actually a political action on behalf of the resistance which was necessary due to the unfair persecution of my people," Brandon told her, flashing Geraint a smile to show how proud he was.
"There is no 'unfair persecution' of your people," the girl shouts back. "You're just making stuff up!"
"No I'm not!" Brandon says, turning towards her.
"Yes, you are! You're a liar and a thief," she tells him, brandishing her finger like it's a weapon.
Seeing the escalation, Geriant steps in between them once again.
"Thank you for the introduction, Brandon. What's your name?" He asks the girl.
"Alicia. Now, will you let me take him back through the portal? I know we may be enemies and I appear to have come through as part of a Challenge, but you seem like a reasonable person. Surely you can let me take this criminal back with me and out of your hands?"
Brandon could see that Geraint was visibly confused from Alicia's words and it confirmed what he'd been thinking all along. This wasn't a Challenge. These weren't demons. They'd travelled to another world. He'd escaped. Well, he'd been betrayed but what did that matter? He could start again. Forget about that shit world. This was a fresh start.
Geraint let out a sigh.
"Look, why don't you explain exactly what's going on? I've got a horrible feeling you're not ordinary travellers. Don't spare any details. Let's get to the bottom of this."
"Well," Brandon said, looking at a blank patch of the wall as he reminisced. "I suppose I better begin at the very start..."