ALL NOVEL AF Chapter 301 – From Keep to Hall
The trip overland from the Keep took place the next day, giving everyone time to rest and recuperate from the landbridge drive and clearing the trail to Candeth Keep. There were no complaints from those involved, and those who needed to stay busy just pitched in with the rebuilding to some extant, or made deals and left news of the trade goods they were looking for. Old mines were waiting to be reopened, creatures and their hides to be harvested and trapped, and generally a hum of positive attitude pervaded the Keep.
About a hundred people came with Kris and Briggs early the next morning, dominated by the Royal Guards of Freehold. Swords of Lost Light had been popular weapons among them once, and many wanted to bear them once again, especially now that they were something more than they had been… and not necessarily restricted to Swords.
The Essences that would grow them and make them powerful were a different problem that had to be faced, and we couldn’t do much about it for the moment. However, the key thing was to get the Swords themselves and the Lost Light they put forth, then grow them over time with a Name.
There were a great many Summons in the way of our trip to the Halls, and we killed them all. Didn’t Seal them, however, as this was just as much a rite of passage as anything else at this point. Still, open spaces, clear targets, and ranged attacks able to soften things up while also letting us know exactly what we were facing was fairly easy to overcome… and anyone who got stupid and dared the sheer amount of magic some of the creatures could put out was mocked incessantly and chided for using up the mana of the Healers.
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As the pace wasn’t too punishing, it was late afternoon by the time we reached the Halls of Lost Light.
From the outside, it didn’t look like anything special. It was just another Empyrean cross-building, with a single entryway leading to the Portal that had waited inside of it.
That was different now, with all the Dungeons manifesting.
Now there was a set of stairs going down into the ground, as most of the Halls had been located well underground. The Lost Light had been hidden away below, instead of standing proud as a keep or fortress of its own here. It had made the Halls very easy to defend, naturally enough, but that hadn’t been enough to save them when all their enemies came for them at the same time.
The exterior of the building showed none of the expected damage we’d seen, based on the final conflict of the visions. Likely it had simply rebuilt itself over the millennia since the fall of the order, and nothing in the area really bothered to mess with it. There were no immediate Summons at the top.
Inside was another story.
The Halls didn’t have stairs. It was another of those pit-Dungeons, where you opened up locked doors and jumped down to the next lower level, with no way back up. At the bottom would be a Portal that would take you back to the top and drop you outside.
Naturally, I wasn’t going to let that pass.
I Shaped out the ladders down, complete with handholds, so nobody had to jump down if they didn’t want to, although almost everyone did, testing out their lightfoot or Featherweights or something similar.
There were numerous undead here, liches and lich lords dressed in the rotting armor of Dericost infantry, Summons trapped here and respawning indefinitely to harass whoever came by. I noted privately that the colors and style of their armor did not match their power. These undead should have been revenants and revenant lords, the standard elite soldiers of Dericost, if they were meant to reflect the forces that had taken the Halls so long ago.
I assumed they were eroded by the Lost Light of the Halls itself over time, reducing their power greatly.
Given nobody wanted to go on a key-collecting hunt, I Shaped the locks right out of the doors once they were opened, ensuring we’d never have to unlock them again. The liches and lich lords were put down and their Summons Sealed as we made it to the bottom level.
In the final room awaited several of these undead, the so-called Guardian of the Lost Light, and a Granite Golum.
The Guardian wielded a very basic Sword of Lost Light, and a magical kite Shield bearing the sword symbol of the Order.
It also died with frankly breath-taking speed, no threat at all to the likes of the people who were in here. As the warriors slowly dispersed into the room from the hallways outside, I Sealed all the Summons positions, and looked to Kris.
She slowly toured the rooms to each side, then made sure the hallways outside led nowhere. She went up to the stone chair now stained white where the Guardian had been sitting, and looked at it in amusement, her eyes going past it to the wall behind it.
“Magos, take that down,” she pointed at the wall with its two torches burning merrily.
I promptly Shaped the stone out of the way, and it melted and flowed out of our path, revealing a fairly sizable passageway beyond. A murmur went through all those assembled here, as they’d naturally never known the passage was there.
“Wipe that throne. It’s just a distraction.” I obligingly reduced it to a block of stone which Briggs idly kicked off to the side. “Now, I think, we finally enter the Halls of Lost Light.”
The soft light that pervaded the hallways outside this room seemed to emanate gently from the stone as we moved ahead. The air was oddly fresh, yet at the same time had a stillness that indicated that nothing living had been here for a very, very long time.
The passageway opened up into a great round auditorium, while suddenly lights began to come on, triggered by our presence, illuminating the whole of the walkways, benches, and chairs… and the great dais with the altar-fountain in the middle of it.
A fountain spewing up a ghostly, spiraling light of familiar hue and style. It was bright enough to illuminate the whole chamber and the doorways leading out of here, doubtless to the true barracks and administration and storage areas of the Order of Lost Light.
Kris solemnly drew Quaver, and mounted the stairs to the fountain. The starry spirals around her Sword grew brighter and brighter as she closed in on it, until she simply let go and Quaver floated up and into the bubbling fountain of Lost Light playing before us.
There were crackles and swirls of reaction when the Blackfire Stones and Prismatic Stone set in Quaver met the Lost Light, little silvery and prismatic explosions of color popping off of them as the pure Lost Light touched them. The spiral around Quaver itself grew stronger and deeper, weaving itself into the adamantine of the blue-black metal, seemingly making the Lost Light itself purer and more refined as it swirled over a Sword likely better than anything it had ever made in the past.
Most importantly, the ghostly Light changed its own hue to the shining Gold of her Soulbound Weapon, clearly celebrating a worthy supplicant to the Lost Light.
Regally, her Sword was returned to her, and Kris accepted it with a quiet bow before stepping away.
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The Mick was the next one to step up, proffering Bunita to the Fountain and seeing it lifted away as the Light turned the Orange and Rainbow of his Soulbound Weapon. He waited patiently as the Light swirled into and through it, not knowing quite what it was doing, but it was clearly enhancing the lesser Light in his Claymore regardless, the edge dancing with fractals of Light as it returned to his grasp.
With him done, it was time for the others to present their Weapons to the Fountain, and not just artful Swords.
Briggs gave it Endure, who was imbued with the Lost Light in a flurry of great Golden spirals about, the Fountain giving the impression it was impressed with the great Hammer and the man who wielded it. When he was done, everyone else lined up patiently to take their turns.
There were nigh a hundred of them, with an array of Swords, Axes, Spears, Bows, and even Casting Implements like mine. One by one they stepped up to the Fountain and offered up their Weapons, while the Lost Light judged them and determined them worthy or not.
Three of the men caused the Light to run sharp Blue in hue, fairly startling almost everyone. Kris hadn’t commented on them because she wanted to see if they were accepted… and they were not. The Lost Light refused to take up their Weapons, and the crestfallen Royal Guards could only step away, wondering why their faithfulness and loyalty was not enough to qualify for the touch of the Lost Light.
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The mirror-like projection was clearly based atop the central tower of the Empyrean Cross building up above. It displayed the area about the Halls with great detail… and that was good, because what was outside had changed significantly in the last couple of hours.
There were at least a thousand elite undead assembled around the Hall, clearly waiting for us to come outside and be annihilated.
Oddly enough, none of them seemed to be inclined to enter the building and head down the stairs, bringing the fight to us.
“Those are elite troops of the Wind. I have the impression Ambassador Garena may have sent word ahead of what we were planning here, and the Dericost decided to move to eliminate us out here in the wilds,” Queen Mother Elysa said, studying the disposition of the troops. “Why are they not flooding into the building? With their numbers, it would be the ideal way to confront us, wrapping us up in melee combat while the rear ranks pummel us with magic. We would have little chance here,” she admitted.
“For the same reason the undead in the Halls were so pitifully weak. The Lost Light here acts adversely upon them, sapping their strength quickly. They don’t want to be trapped and de-powered like those who invaded the place before us… and they don’t know if we’ve actually found the Lost Light," Kris sniffed derisively.
“Can we escape?” Borelean asked quickly, also studying the disposition of forces. “They will be tireless on the pursuit, and it is a long way back to Candeth Keep.”
“You think we’re going to run?” Briggs’ voice held a ton of schadenfreude. “To answer your question… yes, we can get out of here easily. The Lady Magos can easily make a tunnel exiting from these Halls at some distance from the surface building, and we could slip away. However, you do remember the tales of what she did to the undead up north, right?”
“Oh? OH…” the king trailed off, a smile rising on his face. He blinked several times at the gathered and ready undead. “They are so dead, aren’t they.”
“They are!” Kris said cheerfully. “Let’s finish exploring the place and see what is here that can be liberated for our use, and then go up top and get ready to charge and finish off that company up above.” She picked up an old, brittle piece of parchment there, glancing at it once. “Is that the Dericostan 2947th, the Judgment of Aerefalle?” she asked simply.
Queen Elysa looked closer at the ornamentation of the undead up there. “I… think it might be?” It was hard to differentiate among the companies of the undead at the best of times.
“They were among the companies who were dispatched to end the Order back then.” Kris’ pale violet eyes were shining almost amethyst at the words.
“They are deploying divinations to try and track us, but the Lost Light is disrupting all such things in this section of the Halls. I’m not sure about the external Halls. If not, then they know we’ve found something,” I told them. “Also, this does not mean they are the only forces out there. The Sand Kings and skeletons of Chalicmere were also involved in the original attack.”