The Eternal Sphere

by Xarmar13

Desert Ruins and Negotiations

Everyone woke up the next morning with Fayt, Roger and Twilight being among the last to wake up. Everyone else tended to wake up early for various reasons, or they never needed to sleep in the case of Thanatas.

Once everyone was prepared for the journey, they gathered at the throne room where they would meet with Queen Romeria to take her to the Ruins of Mosel.

As they entered the throne room, Romeria’s attention was turned to Lasselle. “Give your full cooperation to Lady Elena while we are gone. And do not worry, I am in good hands.”

“Your wish is my command,” Lasselle said. He then turned to the group who had entered the room. “And the rest of you, take good care of Her Majesty.”

With that, Romeria joined the group and left the throne room with them.

For some reason, Roger looked like he had learned that the world was ending soon and his usual energy had been sapped from him.

“What’s the matter, Roger?” Sophia asked.

Roger knew that he couldn’t put it off, given where they were going. Keeping the matter to himself was not going to change anything. He took a deep breath and let it out before he explained. “We’re going to Mosel, right? My hometown of Surferio’s on the way there. I’m not lookin’ forward to it because Lucien’s gonna be there.”

“Isn’t he your friend?” Peppita asked.

“Yeah, but he’s also my rival. I wasn’t supposed to have help from others during the Real Man Contest back in Duggus Forest. One of his cronies, Lezard, has a way of getting info somehow and I just know that word about what happened at the bandits’ hideout will have gotten to Lucien by now.” He clutched his face, “Aww…I just know he’s gonna rub it in my face.”

“Don’t worry about it, Roger,” Fayt assured. “If Lucien tries to make fun of you, we’ve got your back.”

“Really?” Roger hoped.

“Really, you have nothing to worry about with friends like us behind you,” Sophia said.

Roger felt relief at that. He was already certain that his rival was going to brag about the contest, but he felt more secure at the thought of his friends backing him up.

Continuing at a steady pace for Romeria, the group eventually crossed Irisa Fields and back to Peterny.

Twilight thought back to yesterday when she heard that Roger and Peppita were messing around in the workshop in Aquios. She teleported into the workshop last night to see what they did. She had a feeling that the items they made would be useful at some point so she stored the items in a pocket dimension.

As they approached a wandering old man who was ogling every woman he saw, she had to suppress a cringe as she walked up to him. She had an easier time suppressing the urge to give the old man, Gossam, a magical beatdown when he stared at her with a disinterested look.

As he complained about his old age and his desire to be young again, Twilight offered him the concoction that the kids made yesterday in exchange for a contract. The potion didn’t actually work but he thought it did and that was all Twilight needed to do to sign him on to the team of inventors.

After they left the old man to ogle women again, she breathed a sigh of relief that she never had to deal with him again unless necessary.

“He actually seems pretty tame compared to some of the scientists that I have on employment,” Thanatas commented.

“Please…don’t make me imagine that,” Twilight begged as she shuddered.

Everyone stocked up on supplies for their desert trek. They made sure they had plenty of water and food for the trip while Nel kept a compass on hand to make sure they didn’t get too lost. Strangely, nobody in town had a map of the Mosel Dunes. The vendors mentioned a thief who had stolen their maps last night.

With all the supplies that they could get, the group headed out the west gate into the Sanmite Steppes.

Instead of heading down the slope to Duggus Forest, the group headed to the bridge where they met Dribe and Melt.

As they approached the bridge, however, a trio of dragon riders from the Dragon Brigade moved to block the group from advancing any further.

“What do you want?” Nel demanded. “We’re on our way to speak with your king. Let us pass!”

“No!” The lead rider answered.

“What is the meaning of this?” Maria demanded.

“This war is not over,” the rider declared. “If Lord Vox were still around, he’d have stopped this sissy negotiation, by brute force. I am Schweimer. Now that Lord Vox and Lord Demetrio are gone, I lead the Dragon Brigade. I will not recognize any peace with the dogs who killed Lord Vox.”

“Does the king know of this?” Romeria asked.

“Why should he? He’s probably waiting for you fools at the rendezvous point.”

“Watch your tongue when you speak to Her Majesty!” Nel snarled.

“You shall let us pass,” Romeria ordered.

“And I say you shall not pass!” Schweimer countered. “There’s no need for peace! Airyglyph rule is the best thing that could happen to Aquaria!”

“You really are an idiot!” Cliff declared.

Thanatas put on a wicked grin. “I guess it’s time for me to have some fun again, just like that time I had fun with your superior, Demetrio you called him…?”

“Who are you?” Schweimer asked.

“Demetrio’s assassin,” Thanatas proudly declared. “I had so much fun tearing him limb from limb.”

“That was you?! This means that I will be able to avenge his death.”

Thanatas’ grin became a cheerfully innocent smile. “Not if Demetrio has anything to say about that…” she said in a singsong voice.

Schweimer looked at Thantatas in confusion. “What are you talking about, woman? Have you gone mad?”

“Oh, I went insane a very long time ago, but I’m not the one you should be worried about.”

Just then, a powerful stream of frost engulfed Schweimer’s escorts, freezing the dragons out of the sky. A bone dragon, about the size of the other dragons, landed atop one of the now brittle riders and shattered him. The armored skeleton riding the dragon thrust his lance at the other rider and shattered him.

As the undead dragon rider rose to Schweimer’s level, the living rider suddenly recognized the armor the rider was wearing. “That armor! That’s Lord Demetrio’s armor!”

“Would you believe he had a change of heart?” Thanatas asked with feigned innocence.

Demetrio charged at Schweimer and the two clashed while their dragons attempted to bite the other in the neck. However, Schweimer had no experience fighting undead which meant that Schweimer’s dragon was gnawing at bone while bleeding from the neck. Demetrio’s superior experience in combat which made him the lieutenant of the Dragon Brigade, combined with his undead state, gave him all the advantage he needed to overwhelm Schweimer and pierce his armor with his lance.

The next few moments were pure agony for the living rider as he was impaled several more times by Demetrio’s lance while the dragon was bleeding profusely until Schweimer found his dragon falling to the ground. His beast had suffered numerous bite wounds which appeared to fester from infection.

Mere seconds was all it took to sap his dragon of its strength. It fell to the ground where it would close its eyes for the last time. Schweimer would have no time to mourn before the bone dragon reached down with its neck and bit the rider’s head off. Schweimer and his dragon’s corpses soon vanished.

Demetrio flew away.

“Shall we move on?” Thanatas asked the group. She then crossed the bridge to Surferio.

While the rest of the group was staring at the place where a battle took place with their jaws hanging open, Sophia actually shrugged. “That’s about what I figured that she was capable of with the way she looked and behaved.”

“You figured that she could command the dead and turn them against their former allies?!” Fayt nearly shouted.

“She terrorized Dion and possibly traumatized him,” Sophia stated flatly. “She showed no remorse for doing that and she looks like a cross between a warrior and a necromancer. I already knew she was evil, so what happened here was par for the course.”

“And yet you don’t seem disturbed by it,” Fayt wondered.

“I should be, and yet I’m not. After my latest vision from the crystal, this is much more tolerable by comparison.”

Everyone else decided to pretend to forget what happened and proceeded toward Surferio, fighting some harpies and axebeaks along the way.

---

The town of Surferio could be described as rustic. The buildings appeared to be mostly constructed of wood and straw. The town itself was built over a lake with wooden bridges serving as the only means of getting around without swimming in the lake which seemed to be inhabited by a race of mermaids who looked to be made of glass or ice, given their clear composition.

The residents of the town were very friendly, greeting the travelers and the Queen of Aquaria. There were the fairy-like flau people fluttering around, and frog people were waddling around. There was a green-skinned creature wearing the attire of a chef with a mad gleam in his eyes who caught Thanatas’ interest. There were also menodix like Roger and his friends wandering around.

In fact, two of them, along with what looked like a different humanoid, were approaching the group as they noticed them. One wore a dark brown and tan outfit with a tan bandana. He had dark brown hair. Another wore a green hooded robe with his animal ears poking out of holes on top of the hood. He had light brown hair and wore circular glasses that most of the group thought made him look like a geek. The third, who wasn’t a menodix, looked a little bulkier than the other two and wore a green and brown outfit. He had a tuft of black hair on his otherwise bald head and a look on his face that made others figure that he didn’t think much usually.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the little goofball,” greeted the menodix in brown and tan. “I kinda figured you were hiding somewhere, since you can’t beat me.”

“Hey there, stupid-head,” Roger shot back. “Who’d you say can’t beat ya?”

“I was talking about you, goofball.” The brown-wearing menodix turned to the robed menodix. “Hey Lezard, what’s the score sheet say?”

“Forty-eight wins for you, forty-seven wins for the goofball, and one thousand, five hundred and four ties!” Lezard offered.

“Hey wait a sec Lucien, that last one shouldn’t even count!” Roger defended. “There were circumstances.”

“Now you’re trying to weasel your way out of a loss? How pathetic,” Lucien mocked. “I heard from a reliable source that you had help from these guys behind ya. You know the rules, and you broke them.”

“Would you please cut him some slack?” Fayt asked. “I know he broke the rules, but it was for a good reason. A girl collapsed in the forest and he was a big help in finding her. We did run into the bandits’ leader so we were able to help him out too.”

“I wonder if he’s still locked in that cage I shoved him in,” Sophia muttered maliciously.

“Wouldn’t a real man drop everything to help someone in need?” Fayt added.

Lucien turned toward his friends and sighed. “Well, yes, something like that…” He thought for a moment. “Fine, I’m willing to drop the contest from the record.”

“What?! Lucien! Are you seriously going to accept that?!” Lezard half-shouted.

“Yep. You can’t call it a loss when a guy bows out of a real man contest to go help someone in need.” Lucien turned to Roger. “But next time I won’t be so lenient. Remember that rules are rules!”

Peppita suddenly walked up to the humanoid group. “He also made me this adorable kitty doll.”

“What? Is this true Roger?” Lucien demanded.

“Y-yeah I did, so what?” Roger failed to hide his blush.

Lucien grabbed Roger by the shoulders. “Did she kiss you?”

“Well, she did kiss me on the forehead.”

Lucien let go of Roger and balled his left hand into a fist, growling, “I can’t believe you actually went out and got yourself a girlfriend!”

“Hey! She’s not my girlfriend! She only kissed me on the forehead, and I guess I kinda liked it…” Roger defended, nearly whispering the last part.

“Close enough, you goofball!” Lucien growled again. “Fine, you win this round, but I ain’t losing to you again. Let’s go guys.”

“Typical…my plans get ruined on a technicality,” Lezard grumbled as the trio walked away.

“Thanks for having my back guys,” Roger thanked.

“It’s no problem, I just wanted to return the favor after you helped us in Duggus Forest,” Fayt said.

Roger took another look at Peppita who was smiling innocently. Roger’s face glowed scarlet. He then looked ahead and continued forward toward the west side of town.

The last house at the west end of town was introduced by Roger as his house. He warned that lingering around too long would end up with his parents finding them and telling countless stories that they didn’t have time to listen to.

They also noticed a deactivated bipedal automaton outside of Roger’s house. Fayt and Twilight were impressed with the mechanics of the Greeton machine, but their friends pulled them along before they could analyze the machine.

As they walked past Roger’s house, the door opened and a woman with purple hair and large, white feathery wings exited and rushed toward the group. Particularly, she stared at Peppita’s kitty doll with starry eyes.

“That doll you have, it’s so cute. Tell me, who made that for you?” the woman asked.

“Roger made it for me. And no, you can’t have it.”

“Aww…” the woman pouted.

Twilight soon recognized the woman from one of the profiles as Stanice. The woman had an obsession for cute things. In an attempt to tempt Stanice into a contract, she pulled out the doll she found back in Duggus Forest. Stanice quickly rushed over to Twilight to look at the doll. “That’s a limited edition Gohx model full of rare parts! It’s…it’s so cute!”

“You can have it if you sign a contract with me for the artisan’s guild.”

“Deal!” With that, another inventor joined Twilight’s growing list of inventors working for her for Grape Vine’s project.

The path ahead took them into a cave that Nel informed would take them straight to the Mosel Dunes.

The cave proved to be more of a tunnel with branching passages that led nowhere. Exploring the side passages only led to encountering new types of monsters.

The first they encountered were more of those ice mermaids they saw in Surferio that Nel called aquaregia. Their appearance told the group of what they were capable of as one tried to fire a volley of Ice Needles at the group which were countered when Nel and Adray launched their own volleys of Fire Bolts which melted the needles. Most of the time the aquaregias would get close to the group and entomb people into blocks of ice, often incapacitating the more melee inclined members such as Fayt, Cliff or Mirage. Sometimes the flash freezing effect made them brittle, but Sophia, Twilight and Adray were too quick on the Cure Condition symbols for the mermaids to follow up effectively.

In one side passage, they encountered a red version of the cockatrice they saw in the Bequerel Mine. The creature looked as tough as the last one, but Twilight found that its mental endurance was weak. Cliff and Mirage dove at the beast with their Aerial Assault attacks while Maria fired rounds at its head. Peppita performed a Panic Dance which left the beast in confusion and overwhelmed its mind until it collapsed and disappeared.

The rest of the encounters included mages, harpies and witches who were even more powerful than what were previously encountered. Thanatas froze the wings of one harpy and impaled her on a spike of bone that erupted from the ground. On one encounter with the spellcasters, the group had to avoid giant weights summoned by the witches while silencing the mages to prevent them from casting a Thunder Flare to hold them in place.

Sophia decided to act a little brutal by stealing one mage’s staff, diagonally slashing him with an energy blade, rushing behind some of the witches, bashing them off their brooms with the staff, gathering them in one place before casting the same Crush spell that the witches tried to cast on her, flattening them.

For some reason, bunnies ran away from the dropped weight.

Lyra looked at Twilight and raised an eyebrow, “You come up with the weirdest spells sometimes.”

Twilight could only smile sheepishly and laugh awkwardly. Most of the others wondered what the mare thought was funny but shrugged and moved on.

It wasn’t long before the group reached the end of the tunnel and spotted a man standing near the exit. He looked at the group and gave them a warning, “In the dunes ahead, water is life and thirst is death. There are springs here and there, so if you wish to survive, you must replenish your water supply at each one as you travel through the dunes.”

Sophia sighed, “Thank you sir, but we already know how a desert works.” While she could have rolled her eyes at his stating the obvious, she chose not to for the sake of politeness.

“Uhh…right…” the man awkwardly said. “Anyway, would you like to buy a map? I made a map of the Mosel dunes during my many years of surveying the area. You’ll find it very useful. I’ll even throw in a ninety percent discount and charge a meager ten thousand fol for it.”

Sophia, Twilight and Lyra knew that the man was lying about the map by reading his mind. He had apparently stolen all of the Mosel Desert maps from Peterny’s stores and intended to make a killing by selling them to travelers.

That was when Sophia got an evil idea. She made sure to keep a straight face as the plan formed in her mind. “How about this instead, you can escort us to the Mosel Ruins instead of selling us your precious map.”

“What? Me? Going into that deathtrap? No way!” the con artist cried.

“Not even for two hundred thousand fol?”

“How do I know you have it?”

Sophia messed around with the con artist’s mind and made him think that she produced a bag filled with fol. Nobody else saw the bag and Thanatas made sure nobody called Sophia out on it.

“Wait here,” Sophia told the others. “We need to be sure the coast is clear before we proceed.”

Sophia and the poor con artist exited the tunnel into the desert. Only fifteen minutes had passed before the con artist reentered the tunnel screaming and racing past the group and back through the tunnel.

“What did you do?” Fayt asked.

Sophia put on an innocent smile. “We ran into one of the desert monsters out there and asked him to fight it for me. When he was obviously outmatched, I offered to save him in exchange for the map. He eagerly agreed so I saved him and I got the map for free.”

Thanatas bursted out laughing while the others looked behind them at the direction the con artist ran, feeling sorry for the poor guy.

“You certainly have a way to deal with thieves, Sophia.” Romeria commented.

As the group proceeded into the harsh sunlight of the unforgiving desert, they could feel the heat sap away at the moisture within their bodies. They knew they wouldn’t last long in the desert without the oases that the con artist was talking about.

Twilight, however, had a way of counteracting the sun’s fury. She and Lyra placed cooling spells on everyone to greatly reduce the effect that the sun was having on them to the point where they could travel the desert in an acceptable level of comfort. With the spells in place, there was no need to replenish their water supply at every oasis.

As they entered the desert proper, the group was relieved to find that the spells placed on them were holding. While they could still feel the harsh sunlight, it wasn’t nearly harsh enough to cause concern for their water supply.

The group spotted a withered looking dragon who appeared to be a head and claws coming out of a dark void in the ground. The body was impaled by old rusted weapons.

“The necromantic energy in the area is high,” Thanatas commented. “It takes a particularly strong level of the stuff to allow dragon zombies to manifest in the area.”

“So more trouble, huh?” Cliff figured.

“Not necessarily, I can dominate their will and have them escort us through the desert.”

“That would save us the energy to make it through the desert,” Maria commented.

Thanatas took that as permission to take control of the dragon zombies in the area and did so. The undead beasts attacked the other denizens of the desert who got too close to the group while everyone else were free to proceed to the ruins without further harassment.

Fayt opened a stone door that appeared to be in strangely good condition, given the area. Entering the ruins, they entered a triangular-shaped room. The ruins were completely carved from stone and the edges of the room held a number of pillars.

In the center of the room was a circle that was surrounded by three pairs of statues. Each statue resembled the statues found in that one room in Kaddan: the warriors, spellcasters and archers. Three of the statues were carved of lighter stone while the other half were carved from darker stone.

The white warrior looked like a king that stood next to a black skeletal mage that looked like a typical necromancer. The white hooded archer stood next to a black lizardman warrior. The white mage statue stood next to a shady looking archer.

Cliff tried the door to the next room but found it locked so the others looked around for a way to unlock it. Twilight stepped in the center of the room and that triggered something. The statues came to life and turned to each other. The white statues attacked the black statues but their attacks were completely negated by barriers. The black pieces counterattacked and shattered the white statues. A few seconds later, three more white statues replaced the destroyed ones, but in different positions than before. This time the white archer stood next to the black necromancer, the white warrior stood next to the black thief and the white mage stood next to the black warrior. The black pieces attacked their adjacent counterparts as well but a barrier protected the white pieces and the white pieces counterattacked, shattering the black statues. The statues then returned to their original positions as if nothing had happened.

The sound of an unlocking door was heard nearby. Cliff tried the door again and it opened.

“I’m guessing getting around the ruins is going to take learning the basics of that new Runic Chess game that’s been gaining popularity lately?” Lyra mentally asked.

“I figured a few puzzle dungeons here and there might entertain the players a little,” Twilight explained. “I know this one is a little violent, but that seems to be what keeps their attention nowadays.”

“Players? Puzzle dungeons?” Sophia wondered to herself. She was beginning to suspect that Twilight and Lyra were hiding something big.

The exploration of the ruins began with a battle against a group of humanoids wearing yellow tattered clothes carrying crescent hand blades in each hand and wearing skull caps. The enemies attacked the group with reckless abandon. They swung their hand blades from every angle they could imagine and forced the melee fighters on the defensive. The berserkers swung wide to keep the others at bay while attacking with pure aggression.

Spotting a weakness in their attack pattern, Sophia leapt above the berserkers and dove at one of them, holding an energy blade in front of her. The berserker didn’t see the attack coming and failed to notice when the energy blade burrowed through his skull, brain and into his neck. Sophia pushed off his head and gracefully landed on her feet as the dead berserker collapsed.

Lyra finished the others off with her quick speed that the berserkers couldn’t keep up with.

Further exploration revealed that demons inhabited the ruins. The demons they encountered were of the lesser variety in the form of imps and hellhounds.

The imps moved fast around the ruins and were particularly fond of attacking with Fire Bolts and stabbing with their pitchforks. Lyra and Sophia were faster and deadlier.

The hellhounds were agile and fierce, but so were Cliff and Mirage as their fists pummeled the demon beasts’ faces. When a pack of the hounds gathered to attack them at once, Adray was ready for that when he reared back his fist from a distance. He then slammed his fist into the ground which created a magic circle. At the same time a black rift opened and a colossal fisted arm with a spiked armband emerged from the rift to punch the hellhounds into a wall.

As they explored the rooms in the ruins, the group came across a pair of pedestals. One was empty and the other had a black lizardman warrior. The empty pedestal had three buttons to push: warrior, symbologist, and thief. Using the hint from the first room, Sophia pressed the symbologist button and a white mage appeared on the empty pedestal and shattered the black warrior.

On the west side of the ruins, the group discovered another pair of pedestals. This one featured a black thief. It was easy to figure that the white warrior was needed here so Sophia pressed the ‘warrior’ button. The black statue was shattered a few seconds later.

The sound of a door unlocking was heard.

The group found another room with, as expected, another set of pedestals, one with a black necromancer. The white archer soon disposed of it.

The nearby door separated, opening the way for the group to enter a room with a round table. Entering the room, they quickly spotted a man with long dark gray hair and wearing a luxurious red robe with a white fur lining, briefly reminding Twilight of the robe worn by King Sombra a long time ago. He wore what appeared to be a laurel crown.

Standing next to the man was an elderly man who appeared quite advanced in age. He wore a navy blue cloak with gold lining along with a wine-colored mantle. Lyra recognized him as the man who didn’t trust Vox and felt sad for Albel back when she infiltrated Airyglyph castle.

“Thank you for coming, Romeria. It’s been a long time,” the king greeted.

“Yes. Yes it has been, Arzei. I am so pleased to see that you are well,” Romeria greeted.

“Likewise, Romeria. You are as beautiful as ever.”

“And you have not changed one bit, I see.”

Romeria then took her seat at the table while the others stood next to her out of courtesy. Though Roger still had to stand on a chair because of his height.

Arzei chuckled. “So what took you so long?” he asked. “I was starting to fear that one of our hard-liners had done something foolish.”

“They did,” Thanatas stated. “That new leader of the Dragon Brigade wanted to throw his life away, so I obliged.”

Arzei sighed. “I warned them not to mobilize, especially with some mysterious figure going around killing our troops in strange ways. Am I to assume that you are that figure?” Thanatas cheerfully nodded. Another sigh, “I can only ask you to not kill any more of our countrymen. I will issue a decree that you are not to be engaged. Those who choose not to follow that decree may do so at their own risk.

“Anyway, please accept my deepest apologies. Those troublemakers had the impudence to suggest that we need not ally with Aquaria if we could stand up to the new enemy alone. They urged me to conquer Aquaria and take your new weapon for ourselves.”

“A simple plan for simple minds,” Romeria stated.

Arzei shook his head. “They do not understand the dire consequences of misjudging this new enemy. We are facing a much stronger threat this time, and cannot afford to exhaust our strength.”

“Then you agree to our proposal?”

“Yes, we have no other choice. Our military forces sustained heavy losses in that last attack. Out of the three brigades, only the Storm Brigade has a captain. Woltar here is the only one left.”

“What happened to Albel?” Sophia asked. “I don’t think I wounded him enough to make him bleed out when we last fought.”

“Do not worry about him. He’s still alive, but he is locked in our dungeon. After what happened at the Kirlsa Training Facility and the Bequerel Mountain Path, Duke Vox charged him with treason, believing that he intentionally went easy on you. I know the real reason though was to get him out of the way so that Vox would be able to plan his coup without worry.”

“If you knew about Vox’s treachery, why did you allow him to go as far as he did?” Sophia asked.

“By the time I found out, it was too late. I knew that Vox had gathered a lot of influence among the court and the military. Going against him would only result in him staging his coup a lot sooner. I needed to buy some time while I figured out a way to avoid that scenario. I guess in that sense, I should thank our new enemy for disposing of him when they did. He may have been my uncle, and I will grieve his loss, but his lust for power would have doomed Airyglyph.

“Back to the main topic, who is this new enemy? I heard your agent’s explanation earlier, but it made no sense to me.”

“I felt the same way, but perhaps they can explain it to us again,” Romeria offered.

The group explained what they knew about the Vendeeni as well as their intentions for Fayt and the fact that they covet the Sacred Orb.

“I see,” Arzei said. “While I find this story hard to believe, we also can’t have them stealing the Sacred Orb. If they have indeed attacked the Shrine of Kaddan, then they have certainly declared war on us. It seems that we only have one option, we must engage this enemy on our own terms.”

“Correct,” Romeria said. “We must unite the power of Aquaria’s runological weapons and Airyglyph’s air dragons.”

“Alright, let us join forces,” Arzei offered. “However, at present, while our available air dragons should be able to carry your smaller weapons, your main runological weapon will be too big to be carried by any of our air dragons.”

“Going by how you worded that, you must know of a dragon that can carry the Thunder Arrow,” Sophia figured.

“Very insightful, young lady,” Woltar complimented. “We do know of one dragon who is large enough to carry the weapon, but capturing him would be a monumental task.”

“If only I could have figured out a way to get Spike into the Eternal Sphere, then we wouldn’t have this problem,” Twilight bitterly thought to herself. After a thousand years, the baby dragon that she had raised had grown to about former Dragon Lord Torch’s size. Unfortunately, by the time the Eternal Sphere was developed, Spike was too big to transport into the artificial universe.

“The Marquis, as the beast is known, is a creature of immense size and strength,” Arzei explained, “You will find him in the Urssa Lava Caves deep in the Barr Mountains near the Bequerel Mines.”

Twilight tensed at the mention of the place that Arzei mentioned. “Oh no, why there? Are they seriously talking about that dragon? I installed that dragon there to guard one of my biggest projects in the Eternal Sphere. If we go through with this, it may potentially leave Freya vulnerable to exposure, especially to the hacker!” Twilight did her best to calm down. “Alright, calm down Twilight, you can still put in more safeguards to make sure Project Valkyrie doesn’t get found out.”

“Do not worry Arzei, I am sure they are up to the task,” Romeria assured.

“I do not doubt that you feel that way. However, our trust is not so easily given,” Arzei said.

“What do you propose?”

“I request that a representative of Airyglyph be in the party, then I shall withdraw my objections.”

“Let me guess, you wish to have Albel join us?” Sophia said.

Arzei nodded. “I am quite fond of him, he would make for an excellent addition to your party.”

“I’m fine with it. As long as he doesn’t misbehave, we should get along just fine.”

“Then it is settled, Albel shall join your party. He will be waiting for you in Airyglyph. We will be expecting you.”

With the meeting concluded, Romeria requested to be escorted back to Peterny.

As they were leaving, however, Sophia felt a familiar call coming from deep underground. As important as the matter of escorting Romeria back was, Sophia felt an overwhelming urge to travel deeper into the ruins. She began to move closer to one of the stone doors in the room that appeared to lead to a set of stairs heading downward.

“What’s the matter?” Lyra asked.

Sophia shook her head to clear her mind of haze. “I sense a shard deeper underground. I must find it.”

“The depths of Mosel are dangerous, young lady,” Arzei warned. “What you would encounter down there are much more dangerous than even what lies in the Urssa Lava Caves.”

“I’ll go with her,” Lyra offered. “I am her master, after all.”

“I’ll be going too,” Thanatas offered. “I’d be in trouble with the family if I let you die down there.” She knew that Sophia could handle herself, but she was also bored and wanted more action while there weren't a bunch of other fighters to compete for kills.

“Alright, you two can come with me while the rest of you can take the queen back to Peterny, we’ll wait for you there,” Sophia ordered.

Fayt knew better than to question Sophia at this point, so he simply nodded. “Be careful down there.”

The group and the royals left the table and filed out of the large stone door they entered from. The door closed behind them.

Only the hybrid, the templar pony and the undead knight remained.

“Well…” Sophia hesitated, “Guess we better get started.”

The three then proceeded toward one of the stone doors over the floor in the back of the room.

Author's Note:

I always seem to enjoy thinking up fun ways to kill someone or just mess with them. I think this shows in my previous stories, especially in my "Cupcakes" Pinkamena meets Saint's Row story.

Anyway, up next is an optional dungeon that made many gamers wonder if the developers of the game were intentionally being sadistic when they stuck a limited time side quest item in behind monsters that were MANY levels higher than the party could attain within a reasonable amount of grinding time. The item in question isn't even worth it. This dungeon feels like the developers' way of trolling the obsessive completionists.

Comments

[Black--Soul]

Great chapter. So i guess their is no way to male the Telepathic conversations safe? Or are Twilight and Lyra do it on purpose to lessen the mental blow?

[Xarmar13]

11142923
They have no idea that Sophia has been tapping into their mental conversations. She knows how to school her expressions to keep them from getting suspicious.

If you ever develop an interest in the game of Town of Salem, look up the role "Blackmailer" and that describes Sophia at those times.

[Black--Soul]

11142935
But they suspected it many chapter's before...

[Xarmar13]

11142941
They did, but she isn't showing any signs that her powers have developed to that point so they think they still have time. It's going to be hilarious when they find out.

[Black--Soul]

11142953
Neat poker face

[Black--Soul]

One more meatshield for the team