The Lich of Nightshade left the office of the Holy Father. The old diamond ranker was exhausted from the entire encounter. He sighed at his position of power, wishing he could just go back to his experiments.
The lich hated the politics of ruling over Nightshade, but knew he had to deal with it. The Nightshade zone had a vast amount of materials, especially close to the labyrinth. But in order to use the resources for his experiments, the lich had to take on the position of the zone's guardian. Even if he was especially qualified, that didn't mean he enjoyed it.
The two glowing fungi in his empty eye sockets suddenly turned to the ceiling. He'd sensed something. Even within the constant damaging force of Purity's damnable light, he'd sensed it. Among the white leaves draped along the ceiling was a spot of verdant green in the shape of an eye.
He looked at the arcane eye curiously. It was simple, probably a second-tier spell. It seemed to be made from the concepts of nature and sight, which in his eyes was kind of brilliant. But it didn't make it great.
The eye was likely the work of a novice spellcaster, without many conceptions to empower and lower the cost of their magic. So he stared at the eye for a long moment.
"I can see you, you know." He said, his voice like that of a man deprived of water for two hundred years. The next second, he pointed at the false eye. One of his guards, a wight from the northern reaches of the Nightshade Tundra, pierced the basic spell with a shard of ice.
As it dissolved, he watched the mana and essence disperse. It was weak, very weak. But it was rather interesting, seeing other spellcasters' work. Maybe he could take some inspiration…
He swept his cloak and continued his way down the windowed hall and out through the cathedral doors. Even if the sycophants of Purity hated him, there wasn't much they could do to a diamond ranker, especially a peak diamond ranker like him.
He chuckled as he set up his teleport spell to bring them back to his tower. The wards against teleportation were frail against his might. So he simply teleported out without a care in the world.
Azotreh opened their eyes in a cage. It was small, really small. Their knees pressed against one bar while their back pressed against another. There was a collar around their neck, made from thick blue metal and covered in subtle inscriptions.
When Azotreh tried to flair Eye of the Black Dragon to see in the dark, they felt only the mana get used, but the power failed to activate.
They desperately tried to figure out where they were, but they couldn't even see a foot past their eyes. While the facility was certainly gloomy, it didn't match the pitch darkness that now surrounded Azotreh.
The darkness was broken by some system windows, and a small feeling from within their soul. It was clear these had been produced while they were between the dreaming and the wakeful worlds, but reappeared at the whim of one of the three. Azotreh couldn't actually tell who it was, but knew it was one of the others.
[You have been shackled by a Supression Collar. All powers other than innate ones are currently suppressed.]
Then it gave a list of their currently suppressed abilities, which were truly all of them except Records of Existence, Devour, and Gelatinous Body.
They didn't know how to activate any of the abilities, so they ignored the information for now. What mattered were the other windows.
[You have been exposed to The S-]
[You have been exposed to the Skill System for 24 hours after advancing to tin rank! Innate system features have been unlocked!]
[Gained Abilities: Inventory, Quantify, Analyze, Absorb, Basic Looting.]
[Reach higher ranks to increase number of innate Skill System features.]
While the first message was a little disturbing, considering it was another error message, that wasn't what was important. Because they had the system for a day, they got five basic powers. Azotreh tried to activate them, only to find that none were innate and therefore suppressed by the collar.
Next, they tried to fiddle with the collar to pop it open. But nothing worked. It rejected the little vibrancy they tried to feed into it and was practically unbreakable to someone like Azotreh.
As such, Azotreh instead delved inward, trying their best to return to their soul realm. Maybe there was something there to help them.
Mason and his party watched the barrier for a long moment. It was always beautiful to look at, like the night sky reflected back at them, even during the day. His pet, a small Vine Cat he found in the forest near his home, snuggled around his neck. Its tail's thorns were retracted so as not to pierce Mason's skin. He scratched it on the head as the rest of his party watched the barrier.
Mason didn't really like his party, but had to join it. His parents wouldn't let him go out without a party, talking about safety in numbers. So he'd been grouped with a collection of family friends who were planning on adventuring into Nightshade anyway. They planned to use the route through the forest and then simply walk off it and hunt some goblins or something. But instead, they had to babysit a teenager. Just their luck.
Mason could feel their slight animosity towards him, but they were paid well to make sure he came back alive, so they couldn't kill him or anything like that. Well, they could, considering the contingent of purity priests accompanying their party, but they wouldn't.
Even the least devout adventurer didn't want to waste a bishop or higher's time in reviving them, and it would only be worse if the bishop had to revive a person after infighting. So they held their weapons at bay. But it was clear they didn't like him either.
Accompanying Mason into the dense forest was Leo, a standard wall archetype, wielding a tower shield in each hand. Beside him was Maria, his wife and counterpart in the brawler role. She held two curved long swords of a make Mason didn't recognize.
Filling the role of the strategist and resident mage was Alabast, who specialized in mental magics and, as such, could engage in both spellcasting and the role of the strategist with excellence.
Then there were the twins, Zinni and Izia. One was the savior, and one was the sage. The pair were more of a duo that was added onto the team to shore up their roles, but they worked very well together.
Finally, Mason was the jack. He could cast lesser healing, buffs, conjure animals, carry items, and scavenge food and water. While the jack wasn't a role many wanted to be, it was definitely a necessary one, so Mason wasn't ashamed to follow it.
The team watched the barrier for only another minute before it fell, or rather, holes opened up in it. The purple flora within and illuminating fungi shone brilliantly in the dark forest as Mason and the others entered.
Zinni and Izia stepped into the Nightshade Forest alongside the other four they didn't care to remember. Disposable party members were disposable party members. Though keeping the teen alive was apparently their number one priority if they wanted to get paid.
While the big one used his sharpened tower shields to bash his way through the underbrush, Zinni and Izia mostly kept to themselves. They didn't need to include the others in whatever was happening; they just needed to investigate.
A day ago, while exploring the outskirts of Lily's Labyrinth for any wayward monsters, they both felt a resonance relatively close. Then it simply vanished, but they knew where it came from. Both of their souls could sense its location.
They knew the resonance well, considering they'd been feeling it all their life. Ever since the deaths of their mother and father, they'd felt a similar resonance between each other. Shared pain, shared trauma. The source was their bond as siblings, and the fire. They'd managed to find their father's sword and their mother's axe in the rubble. While blunted, they solved that easily by having a local blacksmith sharpen them. But as they returned to their little brother, who was still in the remnant home, they found him missing.
So, they began to search, and to grow stronger. But every time they thought they'd had a lead, it would end a couple steps past the initial point. Until yesterday, when, apparently, a gold ranker attacked a facility and knocked a room off. A room disconnected from the suppressing array. And when it was separated, they felt a resonance.
So they followed it, only to find a group of four missing two for a complete party. They promised handsome pay if the pair joined the others, and if they protected a kid.
It wasn't entirely fair to call their charge a kid, considering they were told he was nearly 15, while they were only 19. While they had three years into adulthood over the kid, four years total wasn't too long. Especially when even aluminum rankers can spend months in meditation.
So, they joined the party as the missing roles of sage and savior, though either could really fill either role. Even though their spells were channeled through their parents' weapons, they were still druids. They'd even made a small grotto of their own in the southern parts of the Nightshade Zone, only a kilometer north of the desert or so.
But they joined, to find their missing brother, if nothing else.
Commander was upset. He'd just sent the parties in, but apparently, the holy scion decided to join the expedition out of nowhere. What was that stupid boy thinking? And why the hell was he bringing KO-32? Experiments hunting other experiments would have been good if any of them were loyal, but they were experiments.
Doctor told Commander about the psychomancy he planned to use on the experiments once they entered the warfront. They weren't going to be loyal considering their suffering, but that didn't matter to the mind manipulator. Loyalty could be fixed.
Commander was only assured about taking the scion into the quest because he was accompanied by a hundred nickel rank guards. Jumping too many ranks could kill the still sensitive boy, so they had to send a collection of low-rankers.
Even so, Commander ground his teeth hard enough to turn them to dust, though they regrew in seconds. Even so, regrowing his missing teeth didn't help too much, since he just turned them to dust again a second after they were new.
He hated sending the scion into the forest, considering the various lords of the forest, let alone that damn lich. He knew the lich had come to a deal with the Holy Father, but that didn't mean the scheming undead wouldn't kill the scion for no reason other than its own sick pleasure.
He cursed before going back to Doctor and telling him the bad news. Commander also mentioned that they should be on high alert, since a teleportation of that scale could draw the attention of another gold rank monster, though it would likely draw the attention of dozens of lesser-ranked monsters.
Doctor grimaced in his projected body before returning to work. He had to repair the facility fast; if the escaped experiments were brought back, they needed to be placed back under the array. Just so that there wouldn't be another group of infiltrators for a while again.
Doctor chuckled as Commander walked away, thinking about maybe continuing to add new parts to AZ-087. He would turn the child into the ultimate weapon of war yet.
Commander simply ignored the dark chuckling of Doctor as he returned to watching over the forest. He felt and watched as a massive silver circle appeared on the ground, and over a hundred white robed honor guard emerged, alongside a boy in a wheelchair, and a much more muscular boy driving it.
The honor guard saluted before the group set off. Commander sighed even deeper as he watched KO-32 push the holy scion into the new gap in the barrier for them. Who thought that bringing a child who had just been crushed under two tons of solid steel-rank black iron was a good idea? Well, the child apparently.
Commander just watched them go, hoping in his heart of hearts that the child wasn't killed in the forest. He didn't want the diplomatic nightmare of being the reason that the child destined to ascend to the place of the Holy Father himself was slain.
"What a mess…" he muttered as he slowly worked some magic to make a proper platform for him to sit on. He had to watch the mercenaries- adventurers, they called themselves, as they came out of the forest. He was the one who gave the quest with permission granted through his Blessing of Purity, so he had to be the one to mark off which experiments were retrieved and which were still in the wild.
It was going to be a long few months.