C. Sebastian Nutt
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Chapter 142- Cores
🕑 Added 2025-03-19 18:02:02 +0000 UTCBeginnings are a fine thing in moderation. Overindulge and you will find yourself going nowhere.
-Tales of the East
From my seat inside my ship, the dark landscape below appears almost peaceful. Verneaus rests in one of the chairs set to the side. The man claims he won’t be leaving the ship anymore and spends his time reading a book, though I haven’t seen him turn a page in the last twenty minutes. His glassy eyes slowly roam up and down the page as he tries to hold the book steady.
I can’t help but feel bad for him. If Illigar extended me a measure of trust, I wouldn’t need to keep the babysitter around.
Turning my attention back to the map in front of me, the hand-drawn lines of the land around Maidenlake stands out in contoured lines and dark charcoal. At the top of the map, a single intricate mark of runework stands out, glowing a subtle yellow-green. I have just enough time to copy the runes that link this map to one back in the city before a spot on the map lights with a bright red, the next location that I need to visit.
Galea can track our location in the ship somehow despite moving in the dead of night, and I leave it up to her to navigate us toward the new location. It takes an hour for us to reach our destination, even with the ship moving at its maximum speed. The space we have been set to pacify is massive with easily sixty small hamlets falling into the domain of the 4th army. The third ranks stand off to the northeast of here if the scout reports are to be believed, and for now, have shown no sign of moving.
For the last two weeks, I have spent every waking hour moving from battlefield to battlefield, looting what I can, seeking out what straggling groups of monsters I have been able to spot. Not a day has passed without my finding at least one fight, but the horde in the glade was the first group with more than twenty members.
The first few days, having to fight these monstrously sized bugs for the first time, had been the worst. I always thought of myself as a bit tougher than most, never flinching from a spider in my life, but there is something different about seeing one that is larger than you. An innate fear comes crawling up your throat. Despite having the power to burn the creepy things to death in just a few seconds, my hands had been left shaking those first few times. We have the worst battlefields.
We have left the trees long behind by the time the next battlefield comes into view. The land around Maidenlake is riveted with rivers and tributaries running through the watershed ahead of the eastern mountains. A vast field of tall grass waves in the full moonlight, the fields rolling with the wind that I can see from the air. Spots of disturbance peek up from the grass, the telltale green ichor of the enemy’s blood shining in the starlight.
“The bag, if you will,” I ask of Verneaus.
The man snaps up, looking like he is seeing me for the first time. He blinks staring around the interior of the ship, the book forgotten in his lap. “Pardon?”
“We are at the next location. The bag.”
“Right.” The bag of storage rings and bracelets is never far from his side, and he hands them over without a fuss. “Like I said, I will be staying inside.”
“If that is your wish.” As I walk away from him, busying my hands with putting on the magical accessories, Galea gently glides the ship down to land on a hill overlooking the field of carnage.
The mess I stare at after exiting the ship puts my display in the glade to shame. It is impossible to guess the number, the corpses are too mutilated, too torn to bits to start a proper count, but I estimate that at least three hundred monsters were involved in the battle. Movement to the north catches my attention, and I sail through the air in that direction. I find the victors of the battle if they can even be called that.
An elven man and a stonespeaker woman sit atop the hill. The elven man sobs over the corpse of a human woman lying out on a woolen blanket while the stonespeaker looks on. What is left of a fourth adventurer lays covered on another blanket, the bottom half missing from whoever it is under there. The stonespeaker turns her eyes up to me as I hover nearer. I have seen her a few times in the last weeks, Calberra, the healer for this team, squad 14. I scan the battlefield, looking for the fifth member of Squad 14 among the wreckage below when Calberra drags my attention back.
“There were a lot of them,” the woman says.
“I see.” I can’t think of anything else to say.
There is resentment in the woman’s red eyes that pricks at me. I can understand it; here I am to collect all of the loot that two members of her squad have died for before I race off to somewhere else. They will still be expected to hold this field, and I will be raking in the rewards of their effort. While I can understand it, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to pick a fight with her over the look she gives me. I drift away, moving out to the battlefield before either of us can say something foolish.
I find the woman I am looking for among a circle of cleared grass, looking as if a proper scythe has been taken to it. She bends over a monster, a huge knight covered in viscera as she works at cracking open the shell of the thing. The woman wears the heaviest armor I have ever seen, a set of steel that would appear like the living metal I have seen Arabella wear before if it weren’t for the fact that it looks to be made of iron links. Standing in her armor of chain, Althemia stands a good foot and a half taller than the first time I met her, and she was already pretty tall.
Her hands stop moving for an instant as my feet noiselessly touch the ground behind her. “One hundred and thirty-nine,” she says, setting back to her task.
“That is quite a few,” I say, walking over to stand next to her, looking down at the monster's corpse to figure out what she is doing. “What does that bring your count up to now?”
“Five hundred and eight six,” she answers without needing to consider. With a grunt, she manages to dig her fingers into the cut she has made. From there, it isn’t much of a feat for her to pry the entire carapace apart with her prodigious strength. “It would have been more if I was allowed to hold this field alone without others taking my kills from me.”
“Two of your squad died,” I say, though I don’t know why. It just seems like the thing that needs saying.
“They did,” she agrees with no trace of emotion in her voice.
“What are you doing with this?” I ask, watching as she continues to butcher the creature. While several of its limbs are missing, it is easy to identify the monster as some kind of green wasp. Its wings look too small to carry it, but that kind of thing is difficult to judge for monsters. Some can fly without any wings to speak of.
“I am seeing if I can get its core before you steal it,” Althemia answers.
“This was a rank three monster?” I ask.
“No,” she admits. “It was close though, level ninety-seven. Should still be some kind of core.”
Monster cores are something that I have never encountered personally, as they are only produced from rank three monsters, but they are one of the most important items for high-level enchanting. While monsters do not have souls, the powerful ones will develop powerful spheres of gemstone inside their bodies that allow them to store all kinds of energies: mana, healing power, and other exotic energies. The cores help give them their power, and the generation of a monster core is what truly separates the rank twos from the threes. Still, I have never heard of a monster before rank three possessing one.
Another few minutes of digging allows Althemia to find the prize she is after. With a grunt, she rips free a ruby the size of my fist. As she scapes away the gore still clinging to the gem, the magic inside begins to shine with a reddish light, tasting soft and sugary to my magical sense, some new kind of mana that I don’t know.
“It is more intact than I thought it would be,” Althemia says, holding it up to shine in the moonlight. “Useful.”
“I have disenchanted many monsters close to rank three in the last few weeks. None of them had cores,” I say.
“Perhaps your ability is insufficient,” Althemia tells me. She takes a small lens from a storage ring of her own, holding it to her face and inspecting the core. “Essence of lightness. Interesting.”
That must be the kind of mana. “I will buy that from you,” I say.
She looks up, grinning. “Are you sure that you can be so free with your money? You are going to owe me quite a bit when this operation is over.”
“You might not be so far ahead as you think,” I tell her. The woman looks me up and down, her eyes settling on my clothes which are still covered in dried monster blood. The thought of changing had crossed my mind, but if I found another horde my clothes would just get dirty again.
“Truly. Well, all the more reason for me to keep the core.” Her eyes focus on a spot near me and I realize she must be looking through her inventory.
“I am an enchanter. I could make use of that core if you intend to just sell it.”
“Of course you are,” she taps the side of her head, the side with the eye from Faeth. Her hand reaches out, pulling the largest hammer I have seen in my life out of thin air. The weapon looks like a single block of onyx crudely affixed to a white bone. The head thuds to the ground, digging a groove into the mowed earth.
Hungering Hammer of Savagery(Rare): <Weapon><Enhancement>
A hammer forged and enchanted by a young enchanter, this weapon hungers for the magic of beasts. Novel parts of monsters fed to this weapon help to strengthen the enchantments lain upon this weapon.
Enhancement: +50 Strength
“You’re also an enchanter?” I ask, no doubt in my mind who the description refers to.
“Of course. I plan to make it into the academy one day, whenever I get around to visiting Faeth. I will have one of my hungering weapons be my entry ticket.”
Any thought about asking what this academy she refers to leaves my mind as I see her bend over the weapon, pressing the monster core to a circular rune emblazoned on the handle of the hammer. The wind picks up for a moment, mixing with the torrent of energy that passes from the core, sliding into the weapon. A slight movement catches my attention, and I see the description of the weapon change in real-time.
Hungering Hammer of Savagery(Rare): <Weapon><Enhancement>
A hammer forged and enchanted by a young enchanter, this weapon hungers for the magic of beasts. Novel parts of monsters fed to this weapon help to strengthen the enchantments lain upon this weapon.
Enhancement: +54 Strength
It is one thing to hear about how powerful and sought-after monster cores are from a book, but it is another thing entirely to see them used. The magic inside is incredibly condensed, similar to that of an essentia, but far easier to be used in the crafting process. Somehow, Althemia has made this weapon capable of absorbing cores directly, growing in power through the process. From what she said, she might have an entire suite of these kinds of weapons.
“Well,” Althemia says, making the hammer disappear again. “Are the battlefields so lax now that you can afford to delay here?”
I catch a bit of annoyance in her words, but I don’t think it is directed at me. Maybe she is more shaken by the loss of her squadmates than she tries to let on. Either way, I shouldn’t linger here, only making things worse.
“I will be returning to Maidenlake after this,” I say, scanning the battlefield. “Anything you want from there?”
She smiles at me. “No, but thank you.”
“Right.” It was a dumb question. Before I can make more of a fool of myself, I take to the air once more, unleashing my soul presence. The pain as it spreads out over the battlefield is acute, like a drill to my temple, but fractionally not as bad as the last time. I don’t wait as my magic washes over the monster corpses, turning them into mist that trails after me as I return to the ship. The mess of storage items on my arm fill almost to capacity as I climb inside the ship, already commanding Galea to take us back to Maidenlake.
From the sounds of it, inside of this entire operation, there are only two people capable of disenchanting. The other is allocated to the group under the command of the imperial prince, and from the sounds of it, his gathering speed is nowhere near mine. It is nice to accel in at least one area. Perhaps they will count all of this material gathering toward my operation contribution, though I don’t imagine it will count very much. I hope it does, but a girl needs to be realistic.
Maidenlake begins to come into view a few hours later, a city of square buildings built from brownstone quarried just a few miles to the south. The city itself is built along the western edge of the lake bearing the same name, no building more than four stories tall. It would appear quaint and unworthy of comment if it weren’t for the fact that the lake itself rested on a plateau of grassy-covered stone easily four miles wide. Huge constructions of ropes and scaffolding climb the eastern side of the plateau, the effort put into lugging material up the side of the plateau reminiscent of Grim, just on a much smaller scale.
I set the ship down near the edge of the city, the grass pressed flat in multiple spots, a sign that many ships like mine have been here in the last few weeks. Verneaus stumbles from the ship as soon as we make it to the ground, the man looking like he has been released from a long prison sentence. I envy the look he gives the city when he sees it. It is as if this small bit of civilization out in the wilderness of the duchy is all that matters in the world.
He pats the bag at his side, looking toward the warehouses that the adventurer’s league has taken over in the last few weeks as our base to carry out our tasks in this region. He has already taken three steps down the slope before stopping and turning back to me.
“Right. I am going to find Mr. Illigar, and make certain that my duty is completed.”
“Good,” I say, walking with him in that direction. “I will join you.” The man gives me a look that seems to say that he wishes for anything else, but I can’t pay him too much mind just now.
Despite finding those monsters tonight, it feels like the man in the warehouse has been keeping me from the fight. My team is out there, together, but separate from me. They are likely fighting against incredible odds every single day, and I am here being an errand girl for this man. I don’t know how much longer I can let that go on.
Besides, I also need to take my cut from the materials we have gathered over the last few days. There is a lot to do actually. I intend to be fully prepared by the time that the 4th army has pacified the region because I expect to be with the group assaulting the rank three monsters.
I still have nightmares sometimes of the only rank three monster I have seen, that thing that attacked the tower. I won’t let that creature continue to linger in my head. Magicians should be capable of facing being of a rank above their own if they are in a group. I will not allow these simple creatures to haunt my nightmares anymore, but before I do away with them, I will need to equip myself. To do that, I need the funds.
