Chapter 23: Hiking

  The deeper they pushed into the range, the more strange the world became. Mist clung to the slopes like skin, winding between large, blackened pines and craggy stone outcroppings. The pulsing aether rhythm in the air only grew stronger, Alex could feel it even without [Aether Sight] now, like a steady thrum at the edge of his hearing, like a heartbeat that wasn’t his.

  The fauna had changed too. Birds no longer sang. Small creatures that should have scurried at their approach didn’t run at all. They froze, bodies rigid, as though waiting for a signal only they could hear. Alex caught sight of a deer locked in place between the trees, eyes wide, breath shallow, unmoving even as the company passed within a dozen feet. A fox crouched low in the brush, but it didn’t flee, didn’t blink. It only stared, shivering faintly, until the mist swallowed it from view as they moved on.

  It was similar to the way the animals acted before they ran into the Basilisk Mother, but back then the animals simply fled the area, too scared to stick around. Here, they moved about normally until Alex or the others came too close before freezing up entirely. It was a behavior Alex couldn’t come up with an explanation for.

  No one spoke much. Even Ghrukk’s squad, loud as they were, kept their voices low and clipped. Weapons stayed loose in hands, eyes flicked constantly to the trees.

  After an hour of steady ascent, the path widened into a shallow fork where old stones and beaten dirt suggested a meeting place. And there, standing casually, as though nothing in the forest was amiss, were three village guards.

  Two leaned against their spears, chatting idly. The third crouched by a stump, sharpening a blade with careful, slow strokes of a stone. They looked… ordinary, relaxed even. But Alex didn’t miss the faint glassiness in their eyes. The fearful twitch, one would have right after the other.

  The mercenaries halted as one, retreating quickly and silently so not get spotted, or heard. They gathered up after moving a few dozen yards back down the mountain.

  “Scouts,” Selka muttered under her breath. Her hand rested casually on her dagger hilt. “Best to deal with them cleanly before they raise alarm.”

  Alex’s jaw tightened. “We don’t need to kill them. They’re not the enemy.”

  “Not yet,” Selka countered. “But they will be. All it takes is one shout. The manticore fight is one things, beasts roar and cause havoc all the time, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. But their guards screaming bloody murder up and down the mountainside, that will cause alarm. And you think these villagers haven’t shown us enough to know we don’t belong up here?”

  Ghrukk’s tusks gleamed in the fog as he rumbled, “She’s right, little human. Kill them quick. Fewer problems later.”

  “No,” Alex cut in, firmer this time. “That’s not necessary.” His aura itched at the edges of his skin, a reflexive protest. “We don’t even know what’s happening in this village yet. For all we know, they’re victims too.”

  The Ork’s laugh was like rocks grinding in Alex’s ears. “Victims or not, dead men don’t sound alarms.”

  The tension knotted between them, Selka’s hand on her dagger, Ghrukk’s fingers flexing around his halberd, Alex’s glare stubborn and defiant. The others shifted uneasily, their weight balanced, waiting to see which way the fight would turn, not with the guards, but among themselves.

  Then, quiet as a whisper, Zach stepped forward from the back of the group. His pale face was unreadable, shadowed as always, but eyes colder than usual as they flicked to the direction of the guards, then back to Alex.

  “I have an answer,” he said simply. The way he said it made the clearing colder still.

  ***

  The brush prickled against Alex’s arms as he crouched low, breath held. The worldstriders and Ghrukk’s squad huddled in silence, spread wide along the treeline overlooking the guards’ post. Every snapped twig or rustle of wind felt like thunder in his ears.

  Far to the left, down in the shadows of the pathway Alex could just barely make out the silhouette he knew to be Zach, hidden close to the guards. Zach hadn’t moved. Not a whisper, not a flicker of aura. Just sitting there, hidden among the shadows and the foliage, unmoving.

  Minutes stretched like hours. The guards chuckled softly about something in their own tongue, too far for Alex to pick up the words, one drew idle circles in the dirt with his spear butt, another hummed under his breath. For a long time, nothing changed. No flicker of attack, no motion from Zach.

  A bead of sweat traced down Alex’s temple. His [Aether Sight] stayed open, watching, waiting, but there was nothing. No sudden urge of spellwork of any sort. Zach simply stayed immobile, the ambient aether around him subtly shifting and roiling, sure, but nothing like any skill or spell Alex had seen before. It looked like he was simple meditating and cultivating his core without any sound. Just… silence.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Maybe he messed it up, Alex thought, nerves biting. Maybe whatever he’s planning didn’t—

  One of the guards swayed. His spear tipped against the tree stump with a muted clack. His head rolled forward, chin to chest, and he slumped onto his side in the dirt like a child put to bed.

  The other two didn’t even notice.

  Alex blinked, holding still. He watched, wide-eyed, as the second guard yawned hard enough his jaw looked like it would break open, eyes watering as he seemingly struggled to keep them open. His arms slackened, spear sliding free from his grip, and then he simply folded into the grass, snoring.

  The third lasted another thirty seconds, lips mumbling something inaudible under his breath before his knees buckled. He went down like a sack of grain, face-first into the dirt. All three slept.

  The clearing was silent again—eerily so. Alex felt his heart hammering louder than the forest around them.

  And then, Zach was just there.

  He stepped out of the shadow cast by the sleeping men, pale face blank as ever, dark hair tied neat behind him. No aura trail, no warning. His eyes were empty, cold, as he gave a single nod in their direction.

  The others began creeping forward from the treeline, steps measured, breaths shallow. Even Ghrukk’s heavy boots found silence as they passed the slumbering guards. Selka shot Zach a long, appraising look. Holly muttered a low curse. Kate smirked faintly, as if she’d expected nothing less from the man.

  Alex lingered just a moment as he passed, eyes flicking from the guards’ slow, steady breathing, to Zach’s emotionless mask.

  Obby hummed low in his skull, sharp and curious. “Now that… was fascinating. Not domination and not illusion. He bent their perception, tweaked the rhythm of their senses, dimmed the lights until the body’s natural response was to fall into dream. Neat. Graceful even.”

  Alex ground his teeth, upset by Obby’s apparent insistence to always be making asinine commentary on everything except the mission at hand. He took a quick breath, shoving the thought aside. If you actually focus on the task, Obby, I’ll have him imprint it into an aether-slate for you later.

  The stone spirit chuckled. “A deal struck, then. Forward, meatboy. The pulse is closer. Higher. The mountain sings.”

  Alex exhaled, tightening his fists as he moved with the others past the slumbering guards. The aether patterns ahead beat louder now, like the whole mountain was waiting.

  The forest had gone quiet long before they reached the base of the mountain, and the silence only deepened the further they pressed upward. The absence gnawed at Alex, like the whole range was holding its breath. Luckily though, they didn’t run into any further issues with arcane beasts in the area as they traveled, yet that didn’t mean they ran into no issues whatsoever.

  The first challenge came in the form of a river. It wasn’t horribly wide—maybe sixty feet across—but the current tore through the gorge like a blade, fast and violent. Alex peered into the water with his [Aether Sight] and grimaced at the turbulence beneath the surface, the torrent of rapid moving aether, showing the sheer power of the river. One wrong step and someone would be swept halfway down the mountain before they could scream.

  Garret went first, leveraging his strength with Tom-Tom clinging to his back like an oversized child. The kobold’s claws dug into Garret’s armor hard enough to leave scrapes, but the tank’s enchanted boots carried them safely across as the bulky tank leapt the entirety of the river’s width in a single bound. Kate simply strode over a shallow area with her fire-wreathed aura pushing the water aside like it was little more than mist. Lance and Peter made the jump without issue, Lance with his earth manipulation creating stone pillars as steps, and Peter using light barriers as jumping platforms. Most of the others also found no issue in crossing.

  The trouble came with Devon, Doran, and Myrae. Devon’s legs shook just standing near the bank. Doran cursed loudly in Dwarvish as he tried to find footing on the slick stones. Myrae nearly slipped outright when she tested the current with her staff. In the end, ropes and teamwork got them across, Henry anchoring one end while Ghrukk practically threw Doran into Garret’s waiting arms. Devon clung to the rope so hard his hands bled, and Alex had to haul him the last few feet.

  Despite the issues with the river, though, the cliff that came next was worse.

  No path, no natural trail, just a black wall of stone that loomed like it had been cut by some titan’s axe. Alex scouted left and right with Holly and Selka, and found nothing but more rock. So they in the end, they did what they had dreaded doing, they climbed. Handholds gouged out with aether energy, ropes looped and anchored, boots scrabbling against stone, the process was slow and exhausting.

  Devon slipped once, nearly falling before Holly caught his wrist. Doran grumbled the entire way, but still pulled himself up rung by rung with raw stubbornness and Dwarven grit, perhaps having a better time of the cliff simply due to his dwarven familiarity to stone. Myrae rode most of the way in a harness that Eric fashioned out of spare leather straps, muttering something about the indignity of dangling like luggage the whole way up.

  By the time they reached the upper ridge, the air was thinner, colder, and still as death. The forest below had vanished into gray mist. The only sound was their ragged breathing and the crunch of boots on stone, then they saw it.

  Half-buried in a large jut of rock, flanked by stone spires from an outcropping, was a set of doors. They were enormous, easily twenty feet tall, carved of solid stone set within a marble frame that gleamed faintly even through centuries of dirt, moss and grime. A long arc of offerings lay scattered before it, clay bowls filled with dried grain, broken figurines and talismans, jars of fruit and honey long since rotted or dried up. Some had toppled over, or been blown by the wind, but none had ever crossed the invisible line closer to the threshold of the stone gateway.

  Simply looking at it caused Alex’s breath to catch. He let his [Aether Sight] pulse, and the world bled into many colors. The doors burned in his vision brightest of all, latticed veins of ordered energy thrumming in perfect rhythm, pulsing like the heartbeat of something alive. There was no mistaking it.

  His grin split wide across his face as he turned to the others, heart hammering in his chest.

  “Alright then,” Alex said, roughly, with equal parts thrill and exhaustion. “Looks like we found their secret.”

  He gestured at the looming doors, at the arc of offerings left like a warning to everyone who saw it; do not cross.

  “Now the real question needs to be answered…” His eyes glittered with feral anticipation. “Who wants to go dive into a System Dungeon?”