The Conciege
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August Intruder- Chapter 78- Gratitude
🕑 Added 2024-09-04 22:34:27 +0000 UTCThere is a small pain to holding onto something you have always craved yet finding yourself unable to still have it.
Melmarc felt it in this moment.
A way home stared at him and he stared back. He had it in his hands but was denied it. His interface stared at him and he stared back. It told him things he did not want to read. Things that wanted to break him.
In this moment, he almost hated Veebee.
[Incomplete Quest Detected!]
…
[Personal Quest Detected!]
…
[Personal Quest: Ruins of Caldath.]
You have walked upon the ruins of Caldath, ancient city of debauchery and hate. Its inhabitants have sold their soul to Caldath and have lost it eternally. Only their servants, too unimportant to be granted such misfortune, remain. Conclude the ruination of Caldath and free all from their eternal damnation.
[Quest objective: Defeat Demi-god Caldath.]
[Reward: +5% Mastery.]
…
[Dear August Intruder, you currently cannot use this feature.]
[Kindly complete all quests to gain access to Return Portal]
…
[Pending Objective: Defeat Demi-god Caldath]
[Reward: +5% Mastery]
You wanted to be strong, didn’t you? He told himself. This is how you get there. You face challenging odds and survive.
But this wasn’t him facing challenging odds. This was him being forced to face challenging odds.
“What is wrong?”
Melmarc heard his father’s voice, cool and collected behind him. Taking a very deep breath, he dismissed his interface with a thought and turned.
“I can’t go,” he said.
Axe and Saxi shared a look. Melmarc’s father’s expression didn’t change.
“Can’t or won’t,” Lisa asked.
To emphasize his point, Melmarc placed his palm flat against the portal. The notification popped up once more but he dismissed it.
He put his weight on the portal. “Can’t.”
Lisa looked up at his father. “This is a problem.”
On one side of the team, Jude ran a hand through his hair. Naymond walked cautiously up to Melmarc. Stood beside him. Melmarc looked down at him. For some reason the [Sage] seemed smaller. Terrified.
Naymond looked at him with an apologetic face. “You got another quest in the chamber, huh.”
Melmarc nodded.
“An impossible one?” Naymond asked.
Melmarc looked back at his father then at Naymond. “Caldath.”
“Oof,” Naymond winced. “Sounds like an impossible task. Those portal beings aren’t known to generally care. I guess that’s a good thing if it’s giving you an impossible task. It is giving you an impossible task, right?”
“It said that I needed one because of who I am,” Melmarc answered. “It said it was necessary. So it picked one out.” He looked back at the portal in front of him, blue and swirling. “It said it was an easy one. This doesn’t sound easy.”
Naymond let out a sigh. “I did not understand a word of what you just said but I’ll assume you were talking about our friend from the portal. That said, what do you need?”
“Not sure entirely.” Melmarc turned and looked at his father. “I can’t leave.”
“I understand.” His father folded his arms. “You have to kill Caldath.”
“Caldath?” Clinton blurted out, looking like a man unable to stop himself. “As in Ruins of Caldath Caldath?”
Axe spared him a glance like an adult does a child who has acted beneath their age. Melmarc knew that if Deoti was present, the look would be scathing, far more scathing than Clinton deserved.
Clinton shrunk from the large man’s attention.
Jed moved to stand at attention. “Permission to speak.”
His eyes were on Melmarc’s father. Melmarc’s father kept his eyes on Melmarc, thoughtful. Jed remained at attention, regardless, waiting.
“What would you like to say?” Melmarc asked, knowing his father would not answer the man. Experience had since taught him that there were only five people who his father could break his focus on his thoughts to answer.
And only one of them was in this portal.
Jed looked from Melmarc to his dad, a touch of confused worry on his face.
“It’s fine,” Axe said. “If Marc says you can speak, then you can speak.”
“I don’t mean to sound rude or less,” Jed said slowly. “But is it that you can’t leave or we can’t leave?”
Melmarc understood how that could have made him sound less.
Melmarc didn’t have to think about the answer to the question. Deoti and Fendor had just gone through the portal. And seeing as the others knew nothing about his personal quest, they clearly didn’t have one. They didn’t seem like they did, at least. So the answer seemed simple enough.
“I don’t think it applies to you,” he answered. “You can probably go through. It shouldn’t stop you.”
Claire was giving him an odd look. It seemed calculating. It was the same one she had given him just before asking if he was bipolar. Melmarc wondered how he looked to her right now. Could she see how much being unable to go back bothered him right now?
Did she see that small touch of anticipation slowly bubbling within him at the thought of fighting a Demi-god? His parents had most possibly fought angels once.
And they’d come back home like it was just another day at the office.
Jed met Melmarc’s gaze. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
Melmarc didn’t look away. It took him a moment, but the words registered in his head and he knew what exactly Jed was asking. He knew why the man had started his words by pointing out that he didn’t mean to sound rude or lesser.
For a moment he didn’t understand why Jed was asking such a question. They had signed no agreements, made no promises. They were a team with a defined hierarchy, even if the hierarchy was just the one leader. But they were not Melmarc’s team. They were not held by his commands or charged with following him by a person of a deserving authority.
Just as had been the case from the moment he’d come upon them, it remained the same. They were free to do whatever they wanted. There was no part of him that did not agree with that.
The conversation was irrelevant.
But do they know this?
The words echoed in Melmarc’s head and his mind seemed to focus somehow. It was like staring at a show only to suddenly focus and realize that you hadn’t been watching it at all, only hearing the sounds and seeing pictures move. As if he was only now paying attention.
When he had been speaking with his father, it had felt like a king and his son speaking in the presence of their subjects, loyal and obedient. Now he was realizing that the latter part of the feeling had come from Deoti and the others.
To Clinton and his team, they must’ve felt like the servants and prisoners. It was why they had been quiet since standing in front of Deoti. They weren’t being respectful. They were being terrified.
It left a bitter taste in Melmarc’s mouth. So he walked away from the portal. His steps were precise and decisive, almost counted. Everyone remained silent as he crossed the distance between him and Jed. Jed kept his eyes on him, lips pressed in a thin line, head tilting upwards to meet his gaze with every step that brought them closer.
Defiance or respect? Melmarc wondered. He hoped it was respect. Defiance implied the existence of fear, an oppressive fear that one would not allow break them.
That was not who he wanted to be. That was not who he was. At least not to those who had done nothing wrong.
Standing in front of Jed, he said, “You are not prisoners. Just like when you came here to save me, nothing has changed. You are still free to do what you want.”
Jed’s lips remained pressed into a thin line. “I know.”
Melmarc watched them when he spoke and a realization dawned on him.
You don’t have to know, he told himself, begged himself. You don’t need to know.
As he’d grown, Melmarc had learned to be aware of his size. He knew just how intimidating he could look to his peers. He’d seen it enough times in how people looked at Ark when he got angry, when he held people up by the collars of their shirts and pinned them against the lockers, violence brimming bright in his eyes.
He’d seen how they’d reacted and talked to Ark when in his grasp.
You don’t want to know.
And yet…
Dissonant.
Melmarc ignored the thought. It was right, him claiming that he didn't want to know was dissonant. He softened his expression in case it was hardened from his dismay at being unable to leave, and asked, “Are you afraid of me, Jed?”
Jed had been the only Delver in the group that had been generally uncaring. He had been professional, devoid of emotional reactions except for the times when Naymond spoke.
Jed’s expression softened. Melmarc saw sorrow there, sorrow for him.
Jed’s hand moved, he made a fist and placed it against Melmarc’s chest in a show of respect and smiled.
“Not one bit, kid.”
Dissonant.
The word had never sounded sadder in Melmarc's mind.
In respect for everything Jed had put into making the lie convincing—or perhaps it was not truly a lie—Melmarc took a step away from him and smiled. He looked at the rest of the team individually. Nelson was the only person he didn’t have to tilt his attention downwards to look at.
“I was serious,” he said, affecting normalcy. “You guys can go.”
Dissonant.
Melmarc had a feeling the thought was in response to the normalcy he was trying to go for. After all, he didn’t think there was anything more dissonant than an expression designed to hide the exact opposite of what a person felt.
“My dad’s here,” he continued. “And his team is quite strong. Naymond always has a few tricks up his sleeves so there’s that, too.”
He added a soft smile to be more convincing.
Jed was the first to move. Jude followed quietly behind him, eyes avoiding everyone as it had avoided Melmarc’s eyes when he’d addressed them. Clinton and Nelson were next. Claire remained standing.
When all four got to the portal, Naymond stepped aside. Jed raised his hand. He dipped the entire hand into the portal and paused. He took a deep breath. Jude had raised his hand with him, but he’d merely kept it up against the portal. He looked at Jed and his hesitation.
Jed frowned.
“You’re just a kid,” he said, voice heavy. “A kid who shouldn’t even be here.” He paused, the air heavy with the silence. “A friend called me in for a favor and I answered.” He pulled his hand from the portal and dropped it. “I can’t call myself a human being if I don’t give it my all.”
He turned and looked at Melmarc, eyes set. “Let’s go kill the owner of this ruin.”
Clinton and Nelson turned away from the portal, eyes also set in determination. They hadn’t even raised their hands to the portal.
Jude dropped his hand and stared emptily at Melmarc. Empty wasn’t the correct word to describe the expression. In truth, he looked terrified.
“I got paid to do a job,” he muttered as if he was convincing himself. Compelling himself.
He was terrified but seemed to be forcing himself to push past it.
Is it peer pressure? Melmarc wondered. Jude didn’t strike him as the kind of man to do this out of the goodness of his heart.
It didn’t really matter. The truth was he actually wanted them to go. He was about to step into a fight with a Demi-god. His father had said he needed a team, and he had one. Axe, Saxi, and his dad.
And they were strong.
“You really don—”
Axe placed a hand on his shoulder, silencing him. He gave Melmarc a look and Melmarc was surprised that he understood it. The men in front of him had raised themselves, given themselves the motivation to do what they thought was necessary.
And you don’t take that from a person.
There was something else he wanted to know, though. For that he looked at Claire.
“Why didn’t you go?” he asked.
She shrugged, then gestured at the portal. “Your Healer’s already gone. I figured you’d need one if you’re going to fight the owner of this place. Besides, you’re a good kid. No harm sticking around a little longer.”
In the absence of the one word he was waiting for, a genuine smile touched his lips. He wanted to thank her but didn’t know how to. How did he say thank you and let her know he was thanking her for meaning her words and not for staying behind to fight with him?
In the end, it didn’t matter.
“Thank you,” he said. She would interpret it as gratitude for agreeing to stay but gratitude for something was all that mattered.
Gratitude for whatever reason was always welcome.
Claire’s eyes narrowed, she seemed to peer at him. “Are you sure you aren’t bipolar in someway. Because I’ve really got to know. It’s so… there. But not necessarily in a terrible way. Wait. Do you have like a mind skill that let’s you switch between which one is necessary?”
Her curiosity was overshadowing whatever had made her silent for so long and Melmarc was glad for it. At least it allowed her see past whatever had kept her silent.
“Now, how do we find this Caldath guy?” Saxi asked. “Because nothing obvious turns up.”
That was a good question. With the portal right in front of them, Melmarc suddenly felt like they were not moving fast enough. Personally, he wouldn’t have minded spending some more time moving around and fighting some more [Damned]. But now, all he wanted to do was be done with this portal.
Melmarc looked at his dad since Saxi was also looking at him. His father looked at him with a simple expression, at least as simple an expression as he could have. Still, Melmarc read something in it.
He’s waiting.
It was an expression he’d seen a few times. He and Ark had mostly seen it as children. As they’d grown older and learned the lesson it was supposed to teach, they saw it lesser until Melmarc couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it.
It was patient expectation. It was the look he gave them when they brought a problem their father felt they could either solve or should learn to solve to him. It was the expression that told them that they were the ones that were supposed to take charge not him.
“Boss?” Saxi said.
Melmarc’s dad kept his attention on Melmarc.
It made Melmarc think. If he was the owner of a ruins such as this one, where would he be? The answer was simple, a no brainer. The throne room. Unfortunately, his mind wasn’t in complete agreement with it.
When they’d made their way into the palace through the underground entrance earlier, that was when his interface had informed him that Caldath was aware of his presence. Not when I entered the portal or when we blew a hole in the wall.
Didn’t that mean Caldath was supposed to be the one looking for him?
Then again, being a Demi-god had to come with some level of pride. If a person was defending themselves in their own home and their clash with the enemy was inevitable would they simply sit on their throne?
“Don’t be a dick,” Jed muttered suddenly, his tone tired.
Melmarc turned and found Naymond standing with his hand inside the portal. The [Sage] studied his hand in the portal for a moment longer before pulling it out.
“What?” he said, confused. “I’m kind of with the boy. I just wanted to check if I was locked here with him.”
He gave them a friendly smile right after.
Melmarc wasn’t surprised when his mind found no dissonance. Naymond was a lot of things, maybe even a coward—arguably. But Melmarc had never thought of him as a back-stabber. Or a generally terrible person.
A proud man would wait for the enemy to go through everyone until they got to him, Melmarc thought, his mind actively working in the background even with the Naymond distraction.
There was also the fact that Delvers spoke a lot about portals with powerful monsters that had an entire section dedicated to them. They also talk about summoned help whenever the monster was too strong.
Melmarc found himself thinking they would also have a summoned help. He hoped they would. In spite of everything that had happened, the child in him that had held grand dreams of glory as a Delver and wanted to experience what Delvers experienced really wanted to experience a summoned help in a portal.
Caldath was most definitely waiting for them in a room. The question was if it was the throne room.
Melmarc’s father was still looking at him. Melmarc doubted he’d been distracted by Naymond’s shenanigans.
Axe, Saxi and Lisa were looking at Melmarc, too.
“Did anyone come across anything like a throne room?” he asked them.
All three shook their heads.
Then Saxi sighed as if fatigued. “I guess I’ll go scouting.”
“Can you reach Deoti and Fendor, Lisa?” Melmarc’s father asked.
Lisa shook her head. “Their gone.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Saxi muttered. “So what happens? Is the group waiting here or somewhere else while I scout ahead?”
Melmarc’s dad said nothing so Melmarc took over.
“I think that would be best,” he said. “It’s a good idea to just stay were we are for now.”
He couldn’t help but notice Jude remained significantly terrified. The Delver was probably regretting his decision, his burst of motivation dwindled out by now.
“Wait,” Melmarc said when Saxi turned to go. “Let’s go together.”
Saxi gave him an odd look. “You sure?”
Melmarc nodded, an idea in his head. “I want to try something. But I need one of the [Damned]. I’m not sure it will work, but if it does, it will save us a lot of time.”
He really hoped it would work.
No one opposed and they found themselves leaving the general area of the portal after Saxi had confirmed without anyone asking that he had marked the location of the return portal so they could always come back to it.
As for finding a [Damned], that also happened easily. Too easily. It was a solitary [Damned] stuck in a room. A weird occurrence since the creatures always worked in a group. Melmarc had seen a case of only one of them walking around, but it was almost as rare as catching the sunrise. In his days here, he’d seen a solitary [Damned] maybe once or twice.
Melmarc walked inside the room and activated [Knowledge is power]. The moment it was concluded, the creature went straight at him. Ignoring the notification that came with the activation of [Bless Your Kindness] Melmarc killed it with two placed blasts of [Secrecy] to the head.
The fight had lasted for as long as eight seconds. Melmarc looked down at his feet as the notification informing him of his victory and his increase in [EP] by a hundred popped up.
I didn’t even move a step, he thought.
“So what?” Naymond said from behind him with the group. “You’ve got all the locations of the [Damned] just mapped out?”
“You could say that,” Saxi answered, smug.
If scouts had that, then the scouting classes were definitely useful in portals. Mapping out the locations of enemies was a boon Melmarc could not deny.
Now he only had one thing he needed to do. He pulled up what he’d sought out the [Damned] for.
[Would you like to use Soul Damnation You will not be able to renege on this decision?]
[Yes/No.]
Yes.
[You have selected Soul Damnation.]
[Soul Damnation (Mastery 0.00%)
The damned damns their own soul into further damnation through the damnation of their soul by offering their soul to Caldath.
I really hope I don’t have to use it for this to work.
The last thing he needed was to accidentally damn his soul. In the end, he didn’t have to activate the skill.
Most skills came with knowledge of how to use them. [Soul Damnation], however, came with a powerful pull. It made him want to head in a direction and pledge his soul to the thing waiting there.
It was not so strong a pull as to be called compelling, but it was there, at the back of his mind. It was as strong as that very brief moment when you ask yourself if you remembered to lock your doors when you left the house.
Right now, it was guiding him out of the room.
He turned to the others. “I’ve got it.”
…
Jude walked behind the others, led to the slaughter like a sheep without a choice. They had summoned the courage to go and do what they did not have to. They had summoned the courage.
Not for the first time since touching the portal, he looked at his interface.
[You are not allowed to leave]
[Your Quest status has been updated by Void-beast designation 12849 to Incomplete]
[I’ve been watching. You’ve done too much. You are not friend. I don't like you]
[Updated Quest objective: Defeat Demi-god Caldath]
What the hell was Void-beast designation 12849? Why were they up against a Demi-god? And more importantly, why was this happening to him?
…
Melmarc stood in front of a great double-door. It was a deep black with grey highlights. At least beneath the orange hue that covered it. For now, his attention wasn’t on the hue that covered it but the depiction that had been carved into the door.
On one side was a sea of people, bowing in subservience to nothing. Some had hands raised in supplication. Some looked up as if a great glory had descended upon them. It was great craftsmanship. As great as he was capable of telling.
It was almost as if he was quite literally looking at people molded into the door. The attention to detail was masterful.
On the other side of the door soldiers died. It was the only way Melmarc could describe it. Armored and armed, they laid on top of each other, depictions of blood in the equal black color of the door accentuated in grey highlights.
It was grotesque. It was terrifying.
“It’s beautiful,” Claire said, standing next to him.
They’d found the door roughly four minutes ago. The tugging Melmarc had felt from the skill [Soul Damnation] had brought them here. Whatever he wanted to pledge his soul to laid behind these doors.
When he’d confirmed that, he’d used [Knowledge is Power]. It had shown him nothing beyond the door. But that had not been the purpose. The purpose had been in the selection of skills.
Before he’d used it, they had gone through the different skills everyone had. They hadn’t revealed their skills to each other, but they had given hints. Melmarc had taken the time to ask the questions. Who had skills that could aid him in combat? Who had this specific kind of skill or that specific kind of skill?
In the end, with advise his father on what the kind of beast he was about to fight could be capable of, he’d gone with a defensive skill. Personally, a part of him had wanted to go for Saxi’s skill [Sense of the Survivor], but it wouldn’t have helped. If there was only one beast beyond the doors, then there would be no point of a skill that told you that you were about to be attacked.
If there was a group behind the doors, then there was a chance that there would be a lot and there would be no point to knowing who was attacking. Knowledge of attacks in a fight were only as good as your speed in responding to them.
So he’d gone with a skill from Axe called [World Bound]. From what he got from it, at its early mastery, it allowed him dispel a level of damage for as long as his feet were planted firmly beneath him.
“I’ll kill it when I see it,” Saxi growled, his voice colored in anger.
“Hold your tongue,” Axe told him, holding his anger back. “You know you can’t do anything to it.”
Saxi rounded on him. “You know it did this.” He raised his hand so that Axe could see the markings on the back it. “It bound us knowing very well that this would be necessary. It wanted us to stand and watch, unable to enter. It wanted us helpless.”
“Not in front of them, Saxi,” Lisa said.
Melmarc’s father stared at the doors with a very significantly empty expression. Apart from when he was giving Melmarc the pieces of advice that had led to him selecting Axe’s skill.
When everyone had calmed down, Melmarc turned his attention to the next important thing in the room. Naymond had been the one to draw his attention to it when they’d arrived at the door while the others had been in a hurry to start looking for it.
Naymond had simply gotten to the door, turned his head, and pointed it out. But he hadn’t needed to. Melmarc had felt it from a mile a way. There was a carving in the wall, just beside the door. It looked like an artistic scribble. Nonsense scratches if it was artistic.
“How did you spot it so quickly?” Clinton asked, stepping up beside Naymond.
Naymond shrugged, nonchalant. “I’m a [Sage]. I see and know things that you can’t even begin to fathom.”
Melmarc had a feeling Naymond was talking about forms. Maybe Gifted weren’t the only ones with it.
Everyone, except Jude, looked ready enough. If the fact that the S-ranks weren’t going to be able to help them bothered them, they hid it well. Again, apart from Jude who was now visibly trembling in front of the door.
The Delver had devolved into something else so suddenly and so quickly. He was acting as if by agreeing to stay the others had forced him to stay. As if it was a mistake and the world was now actively after his life.
Melmarc almost wanted to tell him that he could stay behind. Almost.
“I see no more reason for us to wait,” Naymond said, nodding towards the artistic scratches. “Why don’t we get our help and have Nelson let us in. I think the double-doors might weigh too much for us.”
Melmarc agreed. He walked up to the scratch and looked at it. Artistic scratches. It was the best he could make of it.
“So I just place my hand on it?” he asked, not happy about how much of a novice it made him sound.
But you’re a novice.
“Everyone remembers the formation, right?” Clinton said. “Nelson in front. Jed and I next. Melmarc and Jude next. Then Naymond and Claire. Their the weakest and most important. Jude and Melmarc will be in charge of supporting us and protecting them. The rest of us will be in charge of killing whatever’s behind this door.”
Everyone nodded. Then Melmarc placed a hand on the summoning symbol. It glowed a soft white with a blue hue, reminding him of the color of his rings of mana. He felt nothing, though.
There was a burst of light on the other side of the door and everyone turned to look at it. it gathered slowly from all over the place like a million fireflies, coalescing into a shape.
They watched in awe.
“Never got to experience this before,” Nelson said.
Claire nodded. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
As it took shape, Melmarc recalled all the things he’d heard about summoned assistants in a portal. They were often of different forms, never limited to anything humanoid, going from humanoid to amphibian to reptilian to anything in between. Someone had once gotten a giant bug—their description. They were blue-white, translucent. They did not communicate and acted of their own volition, existing outside of the team’s command. You summoned them and they did whatever they had to in order to achieve the quest objective of defeating whatever enemy you faced.
When the summoned helper was done. It stood in front of them, staring down at the group. It was large, as tall as eight feet, maybe ten. It was wolf like, though humanoid. Like some depictions of a lycanthrope.
So far, Melmarc didn’t see anything wrong with the descriptions Delvers had given of the summoned assistants except one thing.
The creature in front of him had fur covering its entire body. It wore no obvious armor. And it was the color of a greyhound wolf. It was not blue-white. Above its head was a green indicator with a name and a class and a rank.
[Failikdajafut Nilk’taifrigth Hkdott (Slasher)(A)]
Deep blue eyes took in those in front of it with a detached intelligence. It glanced to the side, took in Melmarc’s father and his team, as if measuring them, sizing them up for some reason. Then it moved.
It walked straight, uncaring of those in front of it. Clinton and his team stepped aside so that it didn’t walk into them.
It showed no appreciation for their action. Its steps were precise, controlled. There was a grace to it that Melmarc couldn’t place.
When it got to him, it stopped and peered down at him. Again, deep blue eyes watched him, studied him.
Its already wide mouth somehow split more. The action showed teeth in a manner that made it look like a grin or a feral smile.
Then it proved Delvers to be liars once more.
<<This,>> it said in a deep growl, <<will be fun.>>
Comments
Mr. Iron
Shows what Naymond knows. VB is a homie, non friends don't get to leave. :v
Allan Miller
Second!
Sarah Witt
First!
