[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 127: You Can Never Go Home

Frustration welled up in Sam, but he kept it tamped down. This wasn’t the Aker Academy’s fault, though some (not insignificant) part of himself wanted to blame them for their poor choice.

These people were professors and researchers, not fighters. An otherwise essential part of society, cut off from everybody else when the apocalypse hit.

He had to remind himself that not everybody could pick apart a battlefield like an Incarnate of War and select the best defensible position, with little to no time at all.

It was becoming more and more natural, more part of who he was. In the past, he never could have assessed the structural integrity of a building at a glance, or seen where an ambush would be best placed or… any of it.

He had picked up a few skills throughout his life that might be relevant, but nothing that would explain what had been happening ever since he gained his bloodline.

It had likely even started before, but that was when it truly kicked into high gear. He performed surprisingly well for somebody who had little time to train for HEMA tournaments, and yet he always placed highly despite his worse gear and newness to the sport.

“They would have wanted to preserve as much of the texts as possible,” Lenal explained. “The Tower of Art contains very old books, ones so old that they sort of… made the tower their home.”

The way she said it made Sam turn. “What do you mean?”

Raiko stared up at the tower, searching for something. None of the windows were broken, not visible from their vantage point.

He followed her gaze to the top, where there were a pair of statues resembling gargoyles.

At least they weren’t moving yet. They seemed quite a bit larger, and of a slightly different shape. It was hard to tell from his distance.

Lenal shuffled from one foot to the other. “The books are alive, in a manner of speaking. They’re very old and have had countless Artificers touching, imbuing, and working magic through or around them. Such things tend to become… sentient.”

“Books.”

“Yes, Sam. Books.” Lenal shook her head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap… it’s just… I always thought this would be like a homecoming. The professors would be overjoyed that at least one of the researchers survived, and….” Lenal got a grip by sheer will. Her back straightened; she squared her shoulders. “We will find them. But not here. There were no kitchen staff or the like that we could find. The professors had to make everything they wanted with the help of the staff.”

“Okay,” Sam said, pinching the bridge of his nose and grateful that the [Thanas Helm] didn’t stop nor hinder the motion. “What’s the Dungeon Progress say then?”

He hadn’t wanted to look. He knew what it would say.

“It says the same thing as Lenal,” Kai told him. “It would appear now that we’ve arrived at the Great Hall… we are to depart for the Tower of Art. I am curious if it is directing us there because of what Lenal said, or because there is nothing here at the Great Hall.”

“The latter, I’ll bet.” Sam shook his head and, just for the look of the thing, began to search the Great Hall. “Those of you who need to set stats or abilities, you have five minutes. Then we’re going.”

Out of the upper windows of the Great Hall, Sam could see more [Gargoyles] flying about like vultures looking for their next meal. If they went back out into the courtyard, they would be easily seen.

But he had been right about the Great Hall. There were few exits, and all but the front doors were small and barred. He could Break them easily enough. Provided they weren’t protected by some sort of special magic.

Knowing that this place was rife with magic didn’t present much hope on that front, but it would be interesting to try, nonetheless.

Sam looked over at Raiko. “So, when were you going to tell me?” he said nonchalantly.

“Tell you what?” she asked, distracted.

“That you Ascended.”

She glanced at him and smirked. “I knew you’d figure it out.”

“Kind of hard not to notice the large bump in strength, even though my Insight isn’t that high, I can still sense that much of a change.” Sam picked up a silver fork and inspected it idly. “So, what sort of Ascension did you get?”

“Just Imperfect. Nothing as grand as Komachi’s. It’s really too bad I don’t yet have a Profession, but I’d rather keep gaining levels than hold myself back.”

“Not bad,” Sam said. “Did you run off to hide while you Ascended? Afraid your clothes would blast off in rays of light or something?”

“It seems you have it half right.” Raiko stepped closer, leaning in. “Maybe you should’ve followed—”

“Would you stop flirting?” Matt groused. “It’s distracting.”

“It’s not like you have to listen to us from over there,” Raiko pointed out.

“Distracting you from your precious, huh?” Sam asked skeptically.

“Yes, must have the precious. My precious ability selection,” Matt said hoarsely.

Sam shook his head.

Raiko shrugged. “In rays of light, though? If only it’d be so flattering. I wanted to Ascend by the tree. Felt like the right thing to do. I wouldn’t be around without it.”

Komachi inspected one of the plates of spoiled food. It must have smelled awful, and yet she still looked curiously at it, as if she was thinking about whether or not it was worth it.

“No, Komachi,” Sam said automatically.

The cat flinched like she’d been caught, then slowly backed away from the food.

“Seems Komachi has us both beat then,” Sam said with a chuckle. “Not sure how that’s possible since she doesn’t have a Profession or a Path. As far as I know at least.”

“Soul aeder are supremely powerful beings,” Raiko explained, sounding as if she knew full well how surreal that was. “If they weren’t so curiously innocent, they’d be apex predators. In some myths, their nature is suggested to be one of the secrets of perfection.”

“Dang, Komachi is awesome,” his cat said smugly.

“All done!” Matt called out. “Let’s roll out!”

Sam gave him a flat look. Not because he was trying to take charge, but because he had tried with such a cheesy line.

“Right. My bad. I’m ready?” Matt tried again.

Sam motioned for everybody to form up near one of the small rear doors. “Where does this lead?” Sam asked Lenal.

“It should be a side exit for the professors to get in and out without having to go past the student body.” She motioned to the rows of long tables and benches, then directed his attention to the high table that sat perpendicular to all the others at the far side of the Great Hall. “They all sat up there.”

“Then this is likely to lead us to the Tower of Art,” Sam said. He hoped more than anything that they would come out to one of those covered arcades that ringed the courtyard.

It would be harder to spot them from above, and the fewer monsters that saw them, the better.

At least until they could find the professors and students.

The last thing Sam wanted to do was bring a horde of ravenous monsters onto the last of the survivors. If bad karma was a thing, that’d be one way to get a whole slew of it.

If their defenses were under level 20, it was a good chance that they weren’t able to defend themselves against whatever was flying around outside.

More demons? Sam wondered. Flying statues seemed to qualify as demonic in his book, but that was from Earth lore, not Islegard.

“All right,” Sam said, unbarring the small door. “With me, single file. We keep to the shadows and stay as quiet as possible, okay? We want to get across the courtyard and to the Tower of Art without any problems.”

Sam opened the door an inch to peek out. The coast was clear, so he opened it the rest of the way, trying to elicit the weakest ominous groan possible from the old hinges, which refused to stay silent.

“Let me open it next time, yis?” Komachi whispered. “I got [Stealth].”

At first, he was going to say she couldn’t possibly do that, being so small, but then he forcibly reminded himself that the little Bard was just a couple levels below him. She didn’t have a Path, sure, but her Job likely gave a lot of stats, maybe even more than his with her Perfect Ascension.

He nodded reluctantly.

Just as he had hoped, the side passage emptied out into the covered walkway that flanked the courtyard. Sam hurried along it, hand on his sword, slowly charging [Heavy Blade] so it was ready should the worst—or as Sam liked to think of it, the inevitable—came to pass.

They filed out one after the other, as quiet as they could. Sam had to step extra lightly because his heavy armored boots rang out like gongs on the stone tiles if he didn’t tiptoe.

After him, Raiko and Kai were tied for second place for the noisiest of the party.

Normally, not such a bad thing, but Raiko’s armor had chainmail and strips of metal plates for armor with interconnecting reddish metallic scales. It clinked ever so faintly with every shift and step, whereas Kai just wasn’t that good at moving quietly.

The Tower of Art would have been easy to get to if they were willing to walk across the open and vulnerable green expanse that, at one point, was very likely a nice little lawn.

Now it was overgrown with things that looked unsettlingly sentient. Things with choking vines, thorny stems, and blood-red flowers appeared to watch them as they crept through the covered path to another building that bordered the green.

Even if those plant monsters were just level 15 or so, he didn’t want to mess with them. That’d just draw the attention of something far worse, and that was if the plants didn’t have paralyzing spores or something similarly nightmarish.

Sam’s shoulder blades itched. It felt like something—other than the plants—was watching him, aware of his every movement.

He couldn’t see any angles or vantage points that could see him, and that was rather the point, wasn’t it? If he could see them, then they could see him and vice versa.

Sam pulled up against the stout wall of another building and beckoned to Lenal, who hurried quietly on silent feet to his side. “Is there another entrance to the Tower of Art?”

Lenal thought about this a moment, then nodded. “There is an undercroft that links much of the Academy together. Why? The tower is right there. We may have to venture into the open for a few feet, but that is not much, is it?”

If I were setting a trap for people who wanted to help the holed-up researchers and professors, I’d sit and wait for somebody stupid enough to waltz through the front door and help them.

Which is precisely why they should do the opposite. “Show me where the undercroft is.”

The group shuffled about as they took a detour around the building they were skirting and through one of its side doors. Thankfully, the door was open, which wasn’t a good sign.

Sam braced for something to jump out, but everything was still.

Too still.

It was darker than the Great Hall. Many of its windows seemed to be boarded up or otherwise covered with a tarp or heavy cloth. Not out of defense, but from disrepair.

Raiko had long since doused the glowing mana from her sheath, so no light from that magic revealed the Great Hall.

However, Sam, with his Dark Vision, could see all too clearly what was cluttering the room and, worst of all, making that noisome fetor.

Sam winced at what he saw and wished for once that he didn’t have Dark Vision.

The floors and chairs were littered with bodies.