World Sphere - 195 - Shifter POV

Chapter 195 Shifter POV

After weeks of exploring these floating islands, the shifter rested deep inside the largest island. Floating islands were not rare in the Sphere, but this was his first time on one. The novelty had quickly worn off, and he was ready to end this assignment. He had morphed and slithered deep down here days ago into the ancient tunnels. It was curious how the humans were not using this vast underground network inside their floating islands—a major oversight on their part.

The only signs of passage were from vermin who tasted terrible. He couldn’t consume any more humans at the moment, as that would alert those trying to find him. He formed an appendage whip and snagged a giant mole, breaking its neck and dragging it toward him. Maybe the human fools couldn’t penetrate the simple concealment wards over the tunnels. Not that there was anything of any value in the massive maze. He had searched thoroughly for anything of interest and only found some dusty artwork; otherwise, the place would have been long looted.

This entire mission had been a waste of skills. From what he had observed, there was nothing of interest on the islands’ surface. How such a weak people had managed to ground Queen Callystra’s progeny was unfathomable. Embarrassingly, he had spent the last few days evading simple detection spells but wasn’t even concerned if they discovered him. The gold adventurers searching for him wouldn’t be hard to deal with as long as he was the one initiating the confrontation.

Hopefully, after this current report, he could return the Dark Moon and sire some progeny of his own as he had earned the right. He was yearning to cull a large brood down to a handful of worthy individuals to consume the tier-four dungeon essences he had acquired. He even had a partner in mind to harvest eggs from, a haughty female from his youth. He licked his teeth, remembering how she had treated him when their brood had

He prepared the report and tested the sending for any aetheric weaves that might intercept it before getting the message away. With that done, he pulled the heat from the chamber to form a frosty cocoon around himself. He remained this way for more than a day before being rudely awakened.

A powerful array on the surface of the island was pulling all aether in like a vortex. Even his own aether was being tugged at, but he would not relinquish it that easily. This level of power did not fit what he had seen so far among the humans. There were some powerful dark elves delving into the dungeon near the capital, but even they did not instill fear in him. However, he would prefer to avoid confrontations with them.

He briefly became concerned that this array was targeting him or a means to locate him. That thought vanished as he meditated and found the aether sink was not discriminatory. He needed to satiate his curiosity. He moved in the tunnels toward the source, frequently having to make his own access to go further. This network of tunnels was extensive, and he had not explored them all; he even found a few surprises. A chamber filled with the corpses of fodiens. An ancient race that looked like armadillos. He had only seen images and didn’t know where in the Sphere they lived.

A treasure chamber had him pause. It was strongly warded against scrying but only contained vast amounts of gold and silver coins. Nothing worth using his limited dimensional space on. He was getting closer to the source when the pull finally ended. He decided to risk a spell to figure out where he was in relation to the surface. He was surprised he was not under a major city but was a few miles outside the capital.

He clenched his currently needle-like teeth when a seeking spell washed over him. Had he just unwittingly wandered into a trap? Foolish, he scolded himself. He started to retreat but paused when no other spells came. It was clear the seeking spell was in response to his orientation spell, but it was a common tier two spell. Well, maybe it’s not common on these floating islands.

He waited a day before continuing toward the source of the vortex and was shocked to find a column of aether stone obstructing his path. With his powerful remorhaz claws, he couldn’t tunnel through aether stone that had any aether saturating it. He smirked to himself, so that is what the aether sink was doing. He was in roughly the correct part of the island where he felt the flow of aether going.

Someone was trying to get access to whatever was behind this aetherstone. This mission suddenly got more interesting. He cautiously touched the aether stone and frowned as he sent his powerful senses into the stone but they barely penetrated. Still, he gained useful information. The stone was saturated and thin veins of mithril ran through the stone. How?

He sat as he puzzled out the meaning. That aether vortex was powerful, so unless this aether stone had resistance to being drained, it shouldn’t be saturated with aether so soon—unless the mithril lines in the stone were connected to a powerful aether stone. How powerful would they need to be? It depended on how big this aetherstone was. He went into contemplation.

The first decision was whether to send the discovery to Callystra immediately. The existence of a powerful aetherstone might be enough for the ancient black dragon to stir and investigate herself. But if he could deliver such an aether stone to her, it might earn him a tremendous amount of favor. Greed warred with an instinct bred in him to serve faithfully.

He soon rationalized to himself that it was best to confirm, with his own eyes, the existence of the aetherstone before another report was sent. He started moving up along the column to the surface. It wasn’t far, only three hundred feet before he broke ground.

He spat some hardening agent from his mouth. It was a foul substance made from the salivary grounds of a burrowing spider but is highly effective. As soon as he was finished, the glands were absorbed back into his body. So many changes in such a short time brought about hunger.

He extended his sense up and around the black tower like a creeping doom. The tower was powerfully spelled and he recalled where he had seen it. He had only observed from a distance as the dark elf adventurers had set off alarms. This was the mage tower of the one who had killed Kirigan, Queen Callystra’s progeny. The tower did not seem special from the distance but now he was more than curious.

He morphed his body in a black squirrel, common vermin in the area. He just needed to be careful and not climb a tree as he weighed as much as a large man. The soil sunk as he slunk among the bushes to observe the tower. Another scrying spell washed over him, causing him to pause. They were getting more clever but his defenses remained intact.

A gnome exited the tower, arguing with a female human, followed closer by two wolfkin bastards. He was too far to hear and risked a spell to amplify the sound in the air. “I don’t want to wait for Sana. I can have the door open after a long rest.”

“It is not your tower Toblin and you are being well compensated. Storme will return in two weeks. Go enjoy some frost mead in Aegis City. Annallee and Lycia are teaching at the Delve Academy there,” the woman named Sana said.

The gnome stopped and faced the woman, “Annalleee is here?” He combed his thin black hair back. “How does she look?”

The woman laughed, “Good for one hundred and fifty. She was upset you never visited. She has been married twice,” the woman paused as the gnome’s expression fell, “and divorced twice.”

“Really? When was the last divorce? Is she looking to rebound? Is Lycia still being a bitch?” the gnome had eagerness in his voice.

“You did leave her fighting three ogres while you opened the chest in the last dungeon you delved,” Sana said with a smile.

The gnome waved away the reason, “She could more than handle it. She got her share after the fight was over.”

The human woman shook her head in disbelief, “She never told me it was three ogres. Maybe you shouldn’t visit Annallee.” The gnome looked shocked. “Forget I even mentioned they were in Aegis City at the Shiny Platinum. I think Errol and Radulf were due to arrive today too.”

“Errol, that old ox? He still owes me a drink,” the gnome tapped hands tapped anxiously in a poor attempt at acting. Even from a hundred feet away, the shifter could sense the gnome’s pheromones overproducing.

“If you call him an ox, he might put you through a wall,” the woman said with a laugh.

“Minotaur, ox, same difference. Both are better at punching than thinking. If he does get angry, I will just buy him a pitcher.” As the group moved to the skyship docks nearby the two bastard wolfkin remained to guard the entrance.

The shifter circled the tower and nabbed two snacks of other black squirrels that defended their domain. No open windows above, and the tower was highly spelled. He circled twice more to be certain before settling in to observe. The wofkin halfbreeds cycled every half a day. A young girl came to feed the squirrels the shifter had eaten and left disappointed. He followed her to a farm a distance away. The farmhouse was very active with a large family tending some poor aether fields. Easy dinner if he needed to recover some strength.

He returned to watching the tower and was able to slip inside when the stupid wolfkin walked a short distance away to watch a skyship above.

The shifter went down the stairs in a flash and searched the lower levels first. The floor was sealed with Aetherstone and nothing but storerooms were on the sublevel. He knew how far the tower descended and assumed the aetherstones were encapsulated down there. How was he going to access though?

Frustrated, he flashed up the stairs. Only a lone maid yelled at him, “Stupid squirrel, you belong outside!” If he didn’t have to remain hidden, he would have consumed the human on the spot. Instead, he spelled her to forget she had seen him. The tower was surprisingly empty. When he got to the fourth floor he found out why.

An intricate array had been laid out. He was not proficient in arrays but knew enough to know that this array was what caused the aether vortex. It was a poor duplication of the machines unused to condense large tier one aether stones. So the clever humans were sucking the aether stone dry to break the enchantments.

The black squirrel continued up the stairs and came to a charred atherstone door. He could see the burn marks where the mithril runes embedded in them had been destroyed. A single window made him hesitant to transform into his natural form, but if he wanted to proceed, he would need to. Reluctantly, the small black squirrel grew into a large humanoid.

Keeping an eye out the window, he inspected the door more closely. He was a master at getting into places he was not supposed to go. But even this flummoxed him. It was incredible work, even for someone from the Dark Moon. He lost himself in the inspection and dashed to hide when a skyship taking off passed by the window. Nothing came of it and he returned to inspecting the runic work.

They had already done most of the work at breaking the layered seal, even a large backlash ward that would fry even him. Was it the gnome’s work? He grudgingly had to give it to the gnome’s skills as he prepared his own attempt to enter.

The shifter was more brute than finesse but the gnome had left a clear sequence of actions to break the final seals. The door suddenly slide aside into a pocket in the wall and stale air rushed the shifter. He changed his lungs to a fish he once consumed. It turned his own air back into fresh air instead of risking inhaling a dangerous substance. Then he moved into the hallway.

He left footprints in the dust as he walked and paused to obfuscate his trail, dust moving to fill the feet prints he was leaving behind. The walls were well lit with aether lights, and he confirmed the lights were drawing aether from somewhere. The passage opened into a massive circular room. The outer wall was lined with shelves of books, while the interior appeared to be tables for doing alchemy work.

He moved to a table and blew the dust off a potion. It was a dungeon potion, and by the layers of dust, hundreds of years old. He shook it and tiny sparkles could be seen inside—still good. The floor to his right suddenly flowed upward into a tall statue of some species of avian humanoid. A defense golem or a golem assistant? The shifter waited for the construct to react.

It raised its hand and attacked with lightning speed. The shift rolled away and turned it hands back into remorhaz claws. The stone golem was much faster than any golem he had faced before. He flexed his claws, waiting for the attack. When it came, the shifter dodged and took a chunk of stone out of its leg as they passed each other.

Less stone than it would have liked, but the construct was beatable. He lamented thinking that, as the golem stone flowed to repair the injury. He needed to do a lot of damage quickly, and I hope the aether crystal powering this tower wasn’t powering the golem as well.

He got extremely frustrated when the golem stepped on a chunk of stone he had knocked off and absorbed it. He quickly made to dash around and send all the stone chunks to his small dimensional space. Slowly, the creature got smaller and smaller. When he finally revealed the creature’s core, he dashed in and ripped it away.

A fist-sized aether crystal covered in adamantine with an intricate runic script. He tossed it a few times in the air, savoring his victory before dumping the stone on the floor and storing the core. It was definitely a suitable prize from the difficult fight.

Dozens of dungeon potions covered in dust were on the tables, most lesser and of little use to him. Disgusted with the poor offerings, he moved to the shelves. The unfamiliar writing became even greater annoyance when his tier one spell, comprehend languages, did not work on them. The books must be spelled. In spite he started tossing books on the floor as he searched.

Eventually, he found a whole section of spellbooks; most were dungeon spellbooks, too. These he could at least read. He grabbed the seven-tier spells and one tier-five spell and stored them. His space was only large enough for a large body and was now almost full. He needed to find the aetherstone. There was a hole in the ceiling. He transformed his legs and jumped straight up.

Darkness enveloped him as he passed through the hole. He hadn’t been expecting a trap but sensed no movement as he landed. His eyes transformed into night drake, and he could see. What he was seeing confused him. He walked along the outer wall and looked at all the geometrical patterns and mathematical calculations.

The room unfortunately, had no aether crystal, just some mage’s research. There was also nothing to destroy in his frustration. He couldn’t believe this was it and walked the perimeter very slowly and found what he was looking for. A secret door was built into the wall. He opened it eagerly to find a runic controls and no aether crystal. He cursed in his language. At least these runes controlled the aether crystal.

It took him hours to figure out which one was the on/off switch for pulling aether from the buried aether crystal to saturate the stone. At least, he was mostly certain. He had to stop when a voice echoed to him from below. He moved to the opening to listen. He was trapped in here with no only one way out.

“Storme? Did you come back early? I was waiting for you. I just came to uh, check on things and found the door open. Hello?” The gnome stepped into the large library lab. Books were strewn everywhere, and the gnome coughed as he inhaled the dust.

The shifter watched him from the darkness as the gnome got bolder. He covered his mouth with a bandana and picked up a book, and paged through it. The gnome was clearly on high alert, expecting something, but the shifter was patient. He needed to know if more were coming.

The gnome placed the book on a table and picked up one of the stones in the pile next. He dropped it immediately as it was probably still hot from the fight a few hours ago. He shook his head, confused as he spun in circles. “What happened in here?” The gnome asked himself.

The gnome circled and pulled a few books from the shelves, sending them to his dimensional storage while he continued talking to himself. “I will just borrow this, and this. Oh, Storme probably couldn’t read this one anyway. Oh, this is new!” It was clear the gnome’s spell was much stronger than the shifter’s as he had no trouble reading the obscure language and spell-obfuscating protections.

The shifter watched the gnome take book after book until he felt his danger sense start to rise. His temporal warning forced him to act. The gnome was reading a book and mumbling to himself when the shifter landed on him. Aetheric protections flashed, and the two were blown apart in an explosion. They were flung into shelves in opposite directions.

The shifter was dazed but moved first. The gnome was in less than good shape as he pulled himself from the books, “There you are.” The gnome coughed. “That really hurt, you know. Broke a few things.” A potion appeared in the gnome’s hand as he fumbled with the stopper.

Before he could imbue it, the shifter was racing across the floor, transforming into triceratops. Panic welled in the gnome’s eyes as he tried to hurry. He didn’t have the time as his arm was broken, and it was hard to work his fingers. All his defensive magics had been used in the intital attack as well. “Fuck, this is gonna hurt.” Those were the gnome's last words as the horn pierced his sternum and pinned up into his heart and then into his brain.

The shifter shook his head, tossing the gnome of the horn. He hated this form as he didn’t have enough mass to make it effective. His danger sense was still going off, but he was famished. He morphed and consumed the gnome in seconds and then fled the tower. It was time to return to the Dark Moon and report to his Queen.