7.22

  “Friends, I have gathered you today for a great quest!” - the first words Imamu the Lone Swordsmen said to the party that he would go on to defeat the Revenant King with.

  Slip scale gecko hides acquired, we were starting to run out of excuses. Certainly elves faffed about with their time, but I was personally trying to break that habit. While Utoqa began working on our magic protections, I did some further research on the relics we were supposed to retrieve. Two days later, I presented my findings with the rest of the party at the inn we were staying.

  “Most of the relics taken from the Elven museum were cultural relics,” I passed around my notes detailing some harmless statues and trinkets from the various societies the elves raided, which was honestly better returned to their original owners. “But there are some things that may be better locked up.”

  Things like dangerous magical artifacts and powerful weapons. Within the list I found three that fit the bill. “The Chalice of Wrong Sun, the Revenant King’s Scepter, and the Aberrant Mind Crown.”

  Noam whistled, “Sounds dangerous.”

  On a blackboard I wrote, “The Chalice of Wrong Sun was used in mass sacrifice ritual to bring about the apocalypse. Since we’re still here, it failed. But the actual artefact is still empowered by thousands of souls and is dangerous in the wrong hands.”

  I made some space and began writing in the second, “The Revenant King’s Sceptre is a similar deal. It was used by the Revenant King and is infused with his power. Rumors are it has powerful undeath magics stored within it.”

  “Rumors?” Tai asked.

  “No one’s actually made it work, but I doubt something of that level is harmless,” I explained. “The Aberrant Mind Crown is something created by Thought Stealer Cults. It’s horribly cursed, in exchange for empowering all psychic abilities, it eventually eats your mind and adds it to its own power. It’s had time to stack so it’s fairly dangerous now.”

  “And all of these are with the dwarves?” Noam asked.

  Celine shook her head. “I actually asked around, and there is no Dwarven Museum of Natural History.”

  Tai rubbed her brow, “Yeah, they just wrote that sign to taunt us.”

  Celine continued, “They opened the sinkhole right when Mimicron was below the Elven Museum, so all the artifacts sunk into it.”

  “Mimicron the Living Dungeon is a giant mimic that lives underground. As the name suggests, he is the largest dungeon in the world,” I explained before Noam could ask. I added onto the blackboard, ‘Mimicron.’ “The creature is constantly moving underground and changing his form. Since he’s so large there is no problem with locating him, but…”

  “The relics are already dispersed aren’t they?” Noam hit it right on the mark.

  “Mimicron is so old that he doesn’t even really eat people anymore,” Celine explained. “Nowadays he just acts like a regular dungeon. He even gives people loot. Since the museum’s been sunk for a few decades, there’s more than a good enough chance that people have already taken those artefacts.”

  “Mimicron also has hundreds of entrances, most of which are constantly shifting. He also apparently has a few Wayshards inside him. Those that may have taken the relics could very literally be from anywhere in the world.” From the word Mimicron I drew tendrils that extended over a simplified globe.

  “Is it impossible then?” Tai asked.

  “That none of them have been found attests to its difficulty,” I agreed. “That is also one of the main reasons I picked these three as top priority. We can go through the motions of searching for them, and even if we don’t find them so long as we turn up related clues we will be technically fulfilling our promise to the Museum.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Tai held her head, “I still feel like it’s kinda scummy to do that.”

  “Hence his other reasons,” Noam said before I could. He smirked at me knowingly, “You picked some of the most dangerous ones because having them be out in the wild would be too dangerous. No one would be really upset if we gave them to the museum to lock up, and they are valuable enough that getting even one back would be fulfilling the promise.”

  “That is true, and I think we can locate them.” I explained before they could ask. “Weapons of this level are probably sought out by those who could make the best use of them. The Revenant King’s Scepter is probably in the hands of someone who could use undeath magic, same with the Aberrant Mind Crown.”

  My other reason which supported this was my understanding of the Scales. Great deeds will be rewarded, luck and chance will nudge prizes into the direction of those who deserve them. From this I suspected that similar powers must attract each other. An undead mage can make best use of an undead magic item, so the Scales would reward them with such. From that we could search based on which undead mages did great feats in recent years that would warrant a reward such as the Revenant King’s Scepter.

  I put down ‘undead mage’ and ‘aberration monster/thought stealers’ under the Sceptre and Crown respectively, though for the Chalice I put a question mark. “The Chalice of Wrong Sun is the wild card, I don’t know what it really does aside from being really dangerous. So other than power hungry I don’t have a clear picture of the type who would seek it.” Or attract it.

  “We could ask Mimicron,” Utoqa suggested.

  I paused. Oh wow, that was clever.

  “Ask the dungeon?” Tai asked.

  Celine blinked in thought, “Right… Mimicron would know. He is very intelligent and would remember who he gave such a notable artifact to. We could get the information from him but we may have to beat some challenge of his first.”

  I marked the idea down. “We have a lot of avenues to search from, so we could go after any of the three.”

  “Which one do you suggest,” Tai asked me.

  “The Revenant King’s Scepter,” I circled it on the blackboard. “We have a clearer path of locating it than the Chalice. The Crown is dangerous because if its in the hands of a powerful psychic or mental magic user, we don’t have any means of defending ourselves.”

  Tai grimly nodded, the experience with the Accumulation of White Lies had left its mark with all of us.

  I continued, “The Crown is also likely located in the Underdark where aberrations are plentiful, while we have aberration experience, we have no experience with the geologic area. So the risk is further amplified.”

  “You think the Scepter is in the Western Kingdoms then?” Celine guessed.

  I nodded, “Specifically in the Deadlands, the Revenant King’s old kingdom. Remnants of his army are also still there.” I imagined it as a self reinforcing loop, similar powers attract each other. The Revenant King left his relics in the Deadlands, then those who sought that power would be attracted to it. Now it must be a hub of undead power. “Undeath attacks are also more traditional, more likely to be magic based, and thus easier for us to protect against.” I glanced towards the amulets that Utoqa had made.

  He nodded and began distributing them around. Each was a simple patch of dried blue gecko skin tattooed with rough runes that was pulled taut to a wooden ring like a small trampoline. I threaded mine on the same necklace that held Utoqa’s tooth charm. “Magic slips off you.” Utoqa gestured to Celine, “Won’t affect yours.”

  “You have a lead of where to start?” Noam asked more for the other’s sake, since he had read my expression and knew my answer.

  “The strongest necromancer of recent time is Amon the Regicide,” I placed a bounty poster onto the table depicting a bald man with dead tired eyes. “He’s a former member of the Black Council, and has been going on a rampage in the Western Kingdoms. Slaughtering priests of Light and even killed seven kings and queens. He was last spotted heading for the Deadlands.”

  Tai examined the wanted poster. “A true black mage huh?”

  “I’m surprised,” Noam said to me. “Isn’t he above our level? You’re not that brave.”

  “I never said that any of these options would easy, just that they would be guilt free on our conscience,” I grinned.

  He slapped my back, “There’s the Dust I know!”

  Noam was right, I was still cowardly at heart. Everything I said before about changing our mind and only keeping our promise to the museum in spirit still applied. The enemy was well known and a lot stronger than us. So unlike the Accumulation of White Lies where no help was coming for that town, my friends would be entirely guilt free running away from this fight if it came down to that. That was the compromise I made between my nature and their good heartedness.

  And if it was truly within our ability, I needed to get stronger to fulfill my declaration to Eve.

  “Elves are also aligned with the Goddess of Light, so they can’t really complain if we are subjugating undead with the pretense of locating their lost artifacts,” Celine added after some thought. “You really thought through this Dustin.”

  That one I admittedly didn’t think about. I just thought that undead hunting missions would be a steady source of income while we were pretending to search for the artifact. Still, I nodded sagely as if it was all part of my plan. Noam snorted upon seeing my face, knowing me too well to see the lie for anything else, and threw a sideways jab at me which I dodged easily.

  “Then we’ve all agreed then?” Tai asked.

  We all nodded.