Chapter 17: Dungeon delving once again

Reaching the bottom did not break my legs, because I landed on my face, which was also ok. The space had been enchanted with a kind of magic allowing for safe passage, Aurum had jumped down after me, landing momentarily after I had. Aurum stood ahead examining the wall with some kind of text engraved into it, soon after Cass drops in. “ Its a warning, which means I was right and what were looking for is here, and like any dungeon it should be at the end,” Aurum says standing back as the wall shifts open to reveal the path forward, the large square shaped hall went on for a while, until it finally gave way to a room closed off by a door which I assume can only be opened via trial of some kind. Queen Jade explained that this dungeon was discovered back during the reign of the first rulers, but nobody has cleared it, so she advised we proceed with caution, but we should be fine. The first trial was simple enough, extinguishing the torches revealed a pattern that lead to the lever opening the door. We were once again traversing the light gray halls into a similar room, only this time the room was busted, as if someone attempted it, gave up, and ended up breaking their way forward, which made things easier for us. We traversed the dungeon like normal, aside from the fact that we, or at least me and Cass, didn’t know what were looking for. “ Wanna fill us in on this mystery item that will solve our curse predicament?” Cass steps in asking the question for me, up ahead was another door, only this one looked damaged as well, “ you’ll know when you see it,” Aurum replies. The doors opened to the final room, it felt newer than the rest, like it was built more recently. The entire room had a checkered pattern of only gray, kinda like a training room. At the center of the room was what we were looking for I guess, a humanoid creature stood square in the center, it had no noticeable features similar to how grandmother was, in fact, it had nothing aside from the deep black color coating its entire body, “ An emissary of the Voidless Ascender, best be on your guard with one of those,” Aurum explains as if she had encountered one before, the ground splintering as the same metallic blade from the time cave emerges and the hilt rests in her hand, I’ve seen her do it before but its still cool. The emissary took this as a threat and almost as if it was trying to mimick Aurum, it too conjures a blade only this time it sprouted out of the palm of its hand, the sword had splotches of white, almost as if it had condensed the space and stars into a blade, and it sure felt like it cause much like the demon on Blight-1, the emissary moved fast and hit hard. Instantly cutting into the wall like it was butter, but if it was capable of such things why was it here the entire time? “ Emissaries are made of the voidless power and are controlled directly from it, so they stop functioning when they lose connection to the ascender, this thing must’ve walked in here, the door closed, and since were on Star the pure light energy overloaded the connection!“ Aurum yells from the other side. Conventional weapons would get me killed instantly which meant using the spear and no darkness energy cause that would be stupid using, darkness against darkness, while the emissary had fixated its focus on me Cass had managed to close distance, “ A minion of the end, guess I can show off a bit,” Cass says as a strange armament envelops his right arm, through this he was able to inflict void damage, keeping his distance Cass makes a gesture with his hand, causing small blasts of void energy to pierce the Emissaries sword arm in order to create an opening, while it was healing Cass was able to get in close and deliver what should’ve been a fatal blow, cause normally when something is hacked in half by void energy it falls dead but noooo, this thing mends itself back almost immediately and throwing an attack forcing distance between us again. At the moment I can last a few minutes using the spear at its strongest but theres no point in holding back else I risk dying, I was able to deflect the blade into the wall boreing a large hole into it, however the parry allowed me to get one good hit in before backing away to a safe distance. But this slight distraction allowed for the others to find the chance to get close and attack, the wounds inflicted by Cass’ greatsword and Aurums blade alone took longer to heal than normal which meant light, and items with light affinity cause the most damage. I was able to regroup with Aurum while Cass contested the emissary, “ I have a plan but I need you two to hold it in place for awhile,” Aurum says concluding the strategy meeting there, immediately splitting off before I can ask further what this plan is or protest against having to hold something like in place, I join Cass in holding this thing down as Aurum asked, “ when Aurum gives the signal we back up,” I inform Cass which wasn’t needed as the emissary was able to land a direct hit on Cass’ sword, knocking him back into the wall and immediately striking the spear handle. Although im able to keep myself from being slammed into the wall, it took all my strength to keep myself from being pushed, my feet digging into the floor as the emissaries strength began pushing me away. The only way to keep this thing on me was to lob the spear with all my might and energy, obviously keeping enough so that I don’t pass out. Im able to knock away the emissaries hold over me allowing me to thrust the spear at at the emissary piercing its shoulder, staggering it with the knockback gave Aurum enough time to land one clean hit while it regenerated…or not? The emissary had fully healed from the spear toss, it had seemed Aurum had missed her window of opportunity, or so I thought. Its pierced in the side by a large sword made from a pure white metal, the same sword we had found in the Queen Aurum I’s stash, it begins to wither in agony as the wound inflicted by the giant sword burns with no sign of healing, this was enough to send it into a berserk state, instead of launching itself into a frenzy it conjures a pool of darkness at its feet which quickly enveloped the entire floor, its regenerative power accelerating, hands emerged from the ground and held Aurum and Cass down. It turns its attention to me switching to hand to hand combat as I try my best to block the oncoming hits. I begin to feel ticked off, how this thing has consistently been overpowering me, I can feel the power from when I was in the cults hideout return, I push the emissary back allowing me a few seconds to gather myself. This time I force my self aware, I wasn’t planning on letting the power overtake my mind and lose myself to a single order, the one thing I hadn’t accounted for was that when I had let the power consume me it seemed the amount flowing in me was too much that my body was in a constant state of ripping itself apart and repairing, only then I didn’t feel the pain cause I wasn’t conscious. The emissary watches out of curiosity, its frenzy tamed temporarly to watch its enemy cripple to the floor in pain, the only thing I can do is move my eyes, anything else and I die, not literally. At a very slow pace I begin to fix myself, “ Hurry up and concentrate!” yells Aurum as she uses her control to throw another one of those pure light blades towards us, only this one was a dagger and it hit me instead, piercing my heart, the only thing I can do is stare in bewilderment as my ally has just attempted to take my life, “ It should help you with redirecting the energy thorough your body without self-destructing constantly,” explains Aurum, the spike of energy began to circulate properly now without ripping me apart and it seems the emissary had seen enough, continuing the fight we put on hold. This time I was able to fight back, instead of dragging this out any longer I planned to end it as soon as I could, its attacks sped up and were sharper, I was able to make an opening by breaking its guard. Redirecting all the energy into my right arm as I prepare to release it all in this one hit, cracks of gray emerge along at the base of the emperors gauntlet, running down my forearm causing me to kneel, the amount of pressure being place on my arm feels like its about to break all at once but I have to endure, by the time I had thrown the charged punch the emissary chose to do the same, its fist slamming against mine and then I let the energy flow outward, releasing it in the form of a blast that punches through the emissary and the wall behind it. The emissary had is entire left side torn, but it wasn’t dead, my entire right arm was broken, everything except the gauntlet had broken, leaving my arm in a strange shade of gray, but before the emissary can reach me the same giant sword pierces it from the side, causing it to squirm in pain as it eventually its remains turns into a pool of black liquid leaving behind a strange small sphere, Aurum who had been freed from its grasp picks it up, shaking her hand to remove the strange ooze before helping me up and over to where Cass was. “ Sooo, what exactly was that giant blade made of? I understand I was able to hurt it because of the first queens blessing and Caelus was able to hurt it using his whatever that was, but I’ve never head the first queen blessing a weapon of that caliber,” Cass asks curiously having sat up properly from when he was smacked into the wall, we joined him as the battle hurt more than any of us expected, “ Its a metal forged from condensed pure light, gifted to the first ruler of the treasure kingdom by your first queen, this, the dagger, and the blade I wielded were originally Aurums, “ Aurum says suddenly speaking in third person? Or she was referring to the first queen who was also named Aurum, “ I would also like this back,” she says ripping the dagger out of my chest,

“ how’d you know that would’ve worked?” I ask, feeling around where the dagger was embedded to see that surprisingly the wound healed, “ I didn’t know, I did however know that when in that surge state your wounds seem to heal at an incredible rate, so I knew you wouldn’t die,” how nice. “ I was named after my ancestor, the first queen, its similar to the spear of eternal radiance only the material is different, and yes I have thought of breaking it down to make normal sized swords to fight the voidless ascender with but it seems this metal can’t be broken down by normal means, or at least by anything I’ve tried, which is why those two are kept underground where they follow me wherever I go, I can freely draw on them thanks to my power,” Aurum concludes, we rest a bit before heading back to the shadow palace to report out victory. Cass utilizes his void energy to act as a cast of sorts to numb the pain for now, the trek back wasn’t as bad, it turned out the entrance was also an elevator, Aurum was able to activate it thanks to the mechanism being primarily metal. When we had made it out it was late noon, the sun had set as the night sky shone brightly, it turns out the amount of power I had shot out pierced not just the emissary, but also the dungeon itself, as there was now a large hole that reached all the way down into the final room. “ If I had to rank you two on performance during this dungeon, I’d have to give it a B-,” Cass says teasingly, Aurum took it personally, so he and Aurum would argue about it the whole way back. “ Here,” Aurum says tossing the sphere the emissary dropped to grandma who also knew what it was, I had forgotten about that thing, whatever it was, without asking further Queen Jade takes a bit into the sphere eating half in one bite, upon consuming the rest of it, her face grimacing as if the taste were bad, I imagine it is. Just then a strange symbol forms above her head and it dissolves, it was the mark of the first queen, “ The Umboura fragment is the only thing that can rid a person of the first queens law, “ grandma states, “ due to the situation we are currently in I will return to the kingdom as ruler, regarding the rulership of this kingdom I’ve already selected my successor who has already been informed of my leave,” Jade says walking toward the door where someone stood, her successor was tall and slender, dressed in similar clothes as the former queen, her green eyes carefully analyzing each of us, or just me and Aurum, probably cause we were both rulers of different kingdoms, “ This is Luna, she is the last living heir to the shadow kingdom, and I believe she is ready to rule now,” Jade says placing the crown onto her head. Luna gives a little bow to the former queen before turning back to face us, “ I thank you all for ridding the kingdom of that creature, if you are ever in need of help, I will do everything I can to help, but you three should rest awhile, seeing how you just fought an emissary, you must be tired,” Luna says with a gentle smile, her voice quite yet loud enough to be heard. We thank her and make our wy to our rooms, we were all dead tired. Queen Luna had also sent healers to tend to our wounds. I was able to fall asleep rather easily this time around. Another dream, this time it was the court with the strange rune, this time I was able to make out more of my surroundings, wherever this was was not on Star, it overlooked an abandoned kingdom, the land barren and dead. The rune in the center draws my attention when it beings to shake, the chains holding it break and in a blinding light I awaken from my dream. I decide to ignore it and freshen up before meeting up with the others, When I had returned to the throne room Jade was the only other person here, I approach her, “ I uh, would like to apologize for what I had said earlier, I don’t really blame your for anything thats happened regarding the First King, I just…I don’t know,” I truly did not know why, she sits me down on the steps near the throne, “ As I said before, Its not your fault for thinking so. Your mother did something similar during a trip to one of the kingdoms,” She says smiling as she recalls the memory,

“ She was around your age when I had allowed her to accompany me during a visit to one of our neighboring kingdoms, she spoke out of turn and quite harshly about their rulers. Fortunately we were able to de escalate things before they went too far,” Jade says chuckling to herself, she continues to tell me stories about the past until the others arrive. Luna had prepared breakfast for us so we had stayed for that, it was nice. We thank her again and make our way back out, “ You three can head back to the kingdom, Im heading straight to Onyx, I’ve delayed this long enough,” I inform the others, “ the plan was to get Queen Jade back as queen of Luminos, Im heading back to to look after my…” Aurum trails off as we reach the kingdoms entrance only to be greeted by the sight of a large castle touching down in between the Luminos and the Treasure kingdom. We made our way to the northern entrance to the kingdom, which was the backside of the kingdom, the first thing to fall would be the castle. Clover, Winter, and a council member Im not familiar with was waiting alongside what seemed to be most of the royal adventurers, they must’ve been recalled when the castle came into view by Winter. It seemed this war was reaching is climax.