Chapter 25: Poppy Vascara, The Black Fist of the Frontier

I waited atop the pillar as the memory bird hopped around in a circle. The sand shifted, but the Sandshear itself didn’t emerge again.

Minutes passed. I lowered the sword after the strain of holding it in the ready position.

“Does it come back up?” I turned and asked the little bird that was guiding me through the dungeon.

The bird just chirped more. Obviously, I didn’t speak bird. I couldn’t speak to spirit-beasts either. Higher realm ones may be intelligent, but if they didn’t speak the common tongue of the Bloodstone continent they couldn’t communicate either.

I belatedly used [Identify.]

[Memory of a Storm Titan, Level 16]

The bird was far below the level of the monsters it was fighting. I wondered if, like the spirit-beasts of Bloodstone, the monsters progressed slower.

The Sandshear shot out of the ground.

I leapt immediately, activating [Death’s Descent.] My sword traced a glowing white line in the air, carving through the side of the Sandshear.

[You have reached level 22!]

I went from a troop of goblins providing 4 levels to a pack of monstrous sandworms providing only two. I puffed a breath of annoyance.

The memory bird turned and started to walk away. Its image fuzzed and blurred like this part of the memory was hazy. I started to follow it, but the little-bird jumped between us.

[Dungeon Spirit, Level ???]

The bird chirped and jumped back and forth.

“What? You don’t want me to follow it?” I asked, scratching the birds head. It slapped my hand away with a wing before flying up and landing on the other side of me, as if waiting for me to follow.

I looked at the bird and then to where the memory walked off.

“What’s at the center?” I asked.

The bird chirped angrily.

I smiled at it.

“I’m sure it will be fine. At most there will be more Sandshears, yes?”

The little bird chirped angrily. I smiled at it and followed after the memory.

The ruins all around it grew muddy, thin and poorly remembered except for this one road through. When I touched the ruins, they came awake, sticking to my hands like wet clay.

The bird memory walked into a building full of darkness, hard to see from the outside. I followed behind, my eyes adjusting slowly after all that time in the harsh light.

A white flame danced and sparked, remembered so exactly that the world around it felt more real. It stood on a dais surrounded by a formation of characters I didn’t recognize, contained within a sphere that radiated power. The bird memory walked up to it.

The entire room looked exactly like the legacy room that I had inherited my own legacy from.

Little-bird chirped with increasing intensity as I watched on. I crouched down, watching as the bird memory hopped on the raised dais containing the spark.

[Identify Failed]

I squinted at the flame. Identify had never outright failed before — it had stopped short of revealing anything useful, but never totally failed.

I focused up, using my massively enhanced Willpower. I felt something bend — something that wasn’t qi — and looked closer.

[Identify reached level 4!]

The text shone green, reflective and iridescent like light reflecting on oil.

[Spark of Anti-Light(Memory)]

[Powerwell identified.]

[Estimated power contained equivalent to fifty levels. Consume to absorb levels. Memory projections do not contain the actual power of the powerwell. Estimated power contained: 2%]

The bird memory reached to peck at the spark, but the moment I finished reading the text, I was already cycling the movement technique of the Anti-Light Herald, arriving in a flash to grab the spark. Pain erupted in my hand, exactly as it had when I absorbed the system.

[You have reached level 23!]

The little bird squawked in alarm, landing on me and attempting to pull me away. I put a hand between us, stopping it from grabbing me as I watched the bird memory pick at the flame.

Like my hand had, the bird passed through the sphere containing it harmlessly. Most of the flame was intact after.

The little-bird dug its talons into my skin, biting into flesh.

“Stop that!” I said, pushing the bird away.

Then the earth began to shake.

The bird-memory seemed to be grappling with its new power, jumping up and down in circles around the dais.

“What is that?” I asked, looking at the little bird. It spun around me in agitation, showing me the way out.

I turned back to the bird memory in time to see a red light erupt from the dark like a fire. It possessed a depth to it, like it was a hole in reality.

I hadn’t been using [Identify] after landing it on a dozen walls that provided no information. Now, I regretted it as I cast it forward into the dark.

[TITAN, LEVEL ???]

The text burned green.

POPPY VASCARA, The Black Fist of the Frontier

“[Void Fist.]”

[Gale Titan Memory, Level 34]

The illusory copy of the Gale Titan stopped moving, stuck to her fist as if impaled. It froze in place, it’s wing span wide enough to cover her entire party. Black power crept around its feathers in cracking, splitting lines, before diving inwards.

Nothing but dust remained at the end of her black, metal gauntlet.

Rain poured from the sky, whipped by the wind and soaking her short cropped hair before falling down her face. Arrows poured over her head, Eros grunting with exertion as copy after copy of the bird fell from the sky.

Those copies were much smaller and less complete than the one Poppy had been fighting.

“How many damn times do we have to kill this thing?!” Anna asked, dancing alongside three silhouette copies of herself to strike down the birds that dove toward Eros.

“There has to be an entrance we’re missing.” Poppy had to shout to be heard over the whistling of the wind. There were no trees atop the barren mountain peaks from this memory. Lightning flashed distantly, arcing across the clouds with the noise of booming thunder.

“[Strike Twice!]” Eros shouted. Lightning erupted and arced between the dozen birds remaining in the sky, cooking them in an instant.

The last of the birds fell. Poppy turned back to her party.

She had upgraded her armor, and, though the set had been forged in Spearpoint and not by the noble house Vascara, it amplified her new skills all the same.

It was shining and wet in the dark, a spiky set of armor that shined in the dark.

Poppy wiped the water from her face before pulling her hood back up. She cast [Identify] on him.

[Eros, Level 53 Stormwraith Archer]

He gained a level for each pass through the dungeon, but not more. He panted now, sweat and rain mixing on his face under his hood. He met her gaze with his one good eye, smiling. The boiled leather eyepatch over his missing eye was slick with rain.

“How much do you have left in you after that?” Poppy asked.

“I’ll hold up. Let’s get to the next chamber and the hell out of this rain.”

Poppy could hear the strain in Eros’s voice. It was clearly taking a lot out of him.

The exit to the next chamber ripped open with a tear in reality, a glowing portal of prismatic light waiting a few dozen feet away from them.

“We have to be missing the answer to one of the rooms.” Poppy said, still yelling. She rested her hands on her hips, turning about in the rain as if she was going to find a hidden doorway off the side of the mountain.

[Annabelle, Level 53 Voidwalker]

Anna hung low, covered in a slick veil of darrkness that deflected the rain from her. Her three copies joined above her to shield her from the rain. She frowned and pouted, working rain out from the long ponytail that flowed behind her.

“You really think we’re going to find it here?” She shouted as thunder boomed in the sky.

“We must have missed it. It should have been in the first few chambers.”

“Did you hear that?” Eros shouted.

“Hear what?” Poppy shouted back.

“Something cracked!” He shouted. His eyes scanned the barren peaks of distant mountains. They blended together like half drawn paintings, memories the Titan forgot over the course of its centuries long life. “There!”

“I don’t see anything.” Poppy squinted, following his finger. “My perception isn’t as high as yours.”

[Warning: Dungeon Chamber Stability disrupted. Evacuate Chamber immediately.]

Then Poppy saw it. A glowing green crack spread across the sky.

“What in the name of House Vascara is that?” She asked, mouth practically agape.

“I think we should run!” Eros said, not waiting. He shot forward, kicking up mud as he ran to the hovering exit to the room.

As Poppy watched, the green crack in reality began to spread. Her eyes lingered on it.

“Let’s go.” She said to Anna. Then she turned and ran.