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He just didn’t know the language, for its words certainly weren’t anything resembling sounds a human could make, let alone the common tongue.

After that, whenever Leon laid out an offering for Tusk, it would speak again, its aura filling with killing intent more and more—though, it would always take Leon’s offering anyway. It would fill the cavern with its magic senses every time, but Leon’s invisibility held.

It was through this process that Leon learned it was a singular creature and not a whole family of them. The patterns on its body and the little nicks and scars he could see were proof enough without its voice and similar behavior.

Fortunately, Leon’s risk-taking wasn’t in vain. Tusk never attacked directly without an obvious target, and Leon was able to learn much from watching it pass through the carved walls now that he knew what he was looking for. It was a complex thing to manipulate ancient runes, though, and it had taken four attempts for Leon to memorize the strings he needed to pluck, where to pluck them, and how hard.

Once that was done, he left for the surface again. The ice wraiths hadn’t moved back to secure the entrance, so it was easy enough for him to return and link back up with Anzu.

“Brother!” Anzu called out as Leon emerged from the underground for the first time in three weeks.

“Anzu,” Leon warmly replied, pulling his griffin into a tight, if brief embrace. “How have things been topside?”

“Boring,” Anzu complained. “A few ice wraiths have attacked every now and then whenever the sun sets, but I’ve handled them!”

“How many have you killed?” Leon asked encouragingly.

“Twenty!” Anzu exclaimed, retrieving three ice wraith cores from his soul realm as proof.

Leon’s eyes about bugged out of his skull at the sight. His father had killed quite a few ice wraiths himself, but in the years Leon had lived in the Forest of Black and White, Artorias had never managed to get three cores. Since one was enough to power the enchantment that awoke both his Bloodlines, he could feel himself almost start to salivate at the sight of three of the things.

“Well done,” Leon praised, and Anzu stood up straighter and seemed to preen with Leon’s compliment. “Be careful, though. There have been some stronger ice wraiths than I’ve ever seen before down below. If they make their way to the surface, don’t think too hard if you have to run.”

“I can take them!” Anzu declared.

Leon sighed. “Just use your best judgment, Anzu. Please.”

Anzu deflated slightly but nodded along.

“So, other than a few ice wraiths, any other excitement?”

“Nothing to speak of,” Anzu reported. “Went hunting a few times. Filled up on bear. Is it time to leave yet?”

“Not yet,” Leon said as he clapped Anzu on the shoulder. “Still need this damn Needle. I think I’ve finally started to make some progress on that front, but it’s going to require something that… well, I would like to hear from back home before going further. Have they been in contact at all?”

“A few times,” Anzu stated, and Leon fought the urge to visibly cringe.

“Right…” he whispered.

‘Seems I got a bit too fixated on the Needle,’ he critiqued himself. ’They’re going to be so happy with me for not calling sooner…’

“Duck and cover, then,” Leon said to Anzu, his playful tone not at all accurately reflecting the regret and self-recriminations going through his head at that moment.

Anzu, however, didn’t even give him a dirty look, and simply smiled and ducked behind a tree, peering around it like a small child playing hide-and-seek.

Leon forced himself not to laugh at the sight, then conjured Tikos’ comm lotus from his soul realm, held in a silver and glass container covered in an intricate web of glyphs. He then carefully schooled his expression to remove any traces of amusement, and then activated the enchantments on the container.

The glass chamber holding the small lotus immediately went opaque with white light, and a circular screen of light appeared above it, two feet in diameter. This screen was also nothing but opaque white light for a short while until it pulsed and the white light dissolved away, leaving what almost seemed to be a window to another screen projected by a second lotus.

Once the image resolved on the projected screen, Leon found himself staring at three rather upset ladies, their expressions equal parts angry, worried, and elated. The sight struck more fear into his heart than Tusk had ever managed in Leon’s three weeks beneath the Forest of Black and White.

“Leon,” Elise said, her tone warm, but her eyes narrow and cold.

“Elise,” Leon replied. “How’re things back home?”

“Things are fine,” Valeria stated with more warmth than Elise. “Is the hunt for the Needle going well? Have you gotten it?”

“No,” Leon said, and a look of disappointment momentarily flickered across his silver-haired lover’s face. “It’s at the bottom—or near enough, at any rate—of a massive cave system. I’ve been exploring that system for the past few weeks, and I’m at a point where I don’t think I’ll be coming back to the surface until I have the Needle. Figured best to see how everyone’s doing before since this thing doesn’t work down there…”

The comm lotuses that Tikos could grow could only speak with the tree sprite without assistance. As a result, Leon tasked some of his people with Magical Research and Development to come up with a solution. The silver and glass containers were their eventual solution, though the design was still being iterated upon. It allowed for easier communication than comm stones since the stones required far more power and were harder to make. Leon had had to field quite a few requests for getting more lotuses, but as of yet, neither Tikos, Helen, nor Elise had been able to figure out how to mass-produce them. They yet remained only flowers that Tikos itself could grow, and given its other duties, Leon was reluctant to have the tree sprite do nothing but grow comm lotuses all day.

He’d settled for just a few hundred, which Tikos had been more than happy to provide.

“Why has it been almost a month since you got in touch, husband?” Elise interjected before Leon could continue. “You’re about to go even deeper, but why haven’t you come up before now?”

“I… was concentrating on the expedition,” Leon replied. “Had to get this Needle in order to get home, so that’s what I was doing. I apologize for not staying in constant contact, but I had little time for coming back to the surface so frequently. You know it’s not that I didn’t want to speak with you…”

Elise frowned, but after a moment, her expression relaxed. “I know, my love, it’s just frustrating not being there with you.”

“Probably best that I’m here alone, honestly…” Leon said, and he gave them all a brief rundown of all that he’d done in the past few weeks. “… so I’m finally about ready to try my luck with those doors.”

“Is this ‘Tusk’ going to be a problem?” Maia asked aloud, breaking her silence for the first time that call.

“I’m hoping not, but… I can’t say for sure. I’m going to plan on it, and hopefully, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

“If only it were that easy…” Valeria whispered.

“I was actually contemplating revealing myself to it. It hasn’t made any overtly hostile moves against me so far, but…”

“Don’t try it,” Maia immediately replied. “You’re new. You’re strong. You’re in its territory. Get the Needle and leave. No more.”

Leon thinly grinned but nodded.

“Leon,” Elise said, drawing his attention. She stared at him with great intent, any anger that had been present in her at the start of their call now gone, replaced with both love and worry. “Make sure to come back home. With or without the Needle. Just be sure to come home.”

“I intend to, love,” Leon whispered. “But now, I should get going.”

“Make us proud,” Valeria said with a teasing smile.

Maia nodded to him, a ghost of a smile gracing her face. Elise did likewise, and the four exchanged words of love once more before Leon ended the call.

With a sigh, he gave Anzu a quick hug, and then it was back underground. His brief time on the surface had been delightful, but he wouldn’t find the Needle up there.

—

Leon stood before the first wall, the one near the entrance of the rift. He reached out with his magic power and sank into the stone. His magic power penetrated surprisingly easily when it hadn’t been changed into its elemental form—his lightning and fire had barely managed to so much as smooth a bit of the carved stone, let alone scratch or damage the walls in any way. Even his meager earth magic hadn’t managed to sink into the stone. And yet, his element-less magic managed it without trouble.

Leon only contemplated that fact for a moment before he started plucking at the strings of magic within the wall that controlled the ancient runes that would grant him passage. It was a complex ‘song’, but Leon had memorized it after watching Tusk get through. But memorizing it and playing it perfectly were two different things, so while Tusk didn’t have to slow down in its approach of the walls, Leon had to stand in front of this one for more than an hour plucking away until he felt the magic within and around the wall shift.

With a grin behind his helmet, Leon quickly surged forward and, with only a moment’s hesitation, jumped at the wall…

… and passed right through as easily as if it weren’t even there.

He landed upon the stone ground on the other side, none the worse for wear, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He found himself in a stone tunnel just like the one he’d left, leading further down, closer to where he could feel the omnipresent charge of lightning magic in the air coming from.

‘Seems those lessons in ancient runecraft aren’t going to waste…’ Leon thought to himself, feeling both grateful to Nestor for the lessons, yet also glad that the dead man wasn’t around to see him struggle so with the wall.

Leon stood there feeling proud of his accomplishment for all of a second and a half before a wave of magic power washed over him, emanating from the wall behind him. His armor was already on, so he immediately ducked down and went invisible again, uncertain as he was as to what that was.

The wave of power moved quickly, racing down the tunnel with incredible speed. Given what he could sense of the power, it was no great leap for Leon to conclude that this was some kind of sensor and that he’d likely made some kind of mistake either in his passing through the wall or in his immediate arrival on this side.

’Probably alarms, too,’ he thought as he used his power to lift himself into the air and begin flying down into the tunnel as subtly as he could. He was more comfortable flying out in the caverns where Tusk wouldn’t be actively searching for him, but now that he was on this side of the wall, he didn’t want to take too many chances with a creature so strong in wind magic, and so took extra precautions.

He hadn’t moved out of sight of the wall behind him before an earth-shaking roar resounded from far beneath him, one laced with potent killing intent and a tremendous aura. So great was the aura that several small holes were torn in Leon’s invisibility shroud, though they were fixed but a moment later.

A great wind then blew through the cave, and along with it came barreling in Tusk, riding the wave at a mind-bending speed. Despite this speed, Tusk stopped just short of the wall, all of its momentum arrested in less than a second, and stared at it with curious anger evident even in its alien face.

Leon, through all this, froze in the air. Tusk’s arrival had sent him flying into the cave wall, though with his armor on, Leon hardly felt a thing as he crashed into the stone. Instead, he kept his eyes trained on Tusk and maintained as complete stillness as he could, for fear that the tenth-tier beast would sense even the smallest disturbances in the air with him so close and it so attentive.

Tusk continued staring at the wall for a quarter of a minute before its long, sinuous body circled about to stare down the tunnel carved by the Iron Needle’s impact, and then surveyed the area immediately around the wall. It growled challengingly, but Leon remained still. It then seized control of the air around them and began spinning it into a powerful cyclone, and only then was Leon’s shroud of invisibility finally torn from him.

Leon was hurled through the air, now fully visible, until Tusk’s eyes fell upon him, and Leon knew that he’d been seen. So, without any further reason to be subtle, Leon called upon his own mastery of wind magic, which he’d rarely called upon in battle, to steady himself within Tusk’s cyclone. The cyclone wasn’t overly powerful, perhaps dangerous to mages sixth-tier and below, but it was little more than a probing strike for either Leon or the massive tusked beast.

So, Leon hovered in the air, buffeted yet steady within the cyclone, while Tusk stared at him, its eyes narrowing in caution and suspicion, each sizing the other up.

And then Tusk began to speak, not in the growling cadence it had used before at the monolithic shrines, but in a tongue understandable to Leon, if rather archaic.

“Here thou art, small rat,” Tusk stated, its deep voice shaking Leon to his core, and causing the tunnel to quiver like a scared kitten. “Weeks thou hast graced mine home, yet nary even a whisper of permission given… Why hast though come, small rat? I care little for thy kind, and less for creatures as rude as thee…” Tusk ‘swam’ through the air a little closer, letting its aura press down upon Leon with what felt like the weight of the whole mountain range above.

Leon hovered strong, ignoring the pressure as much as he could, thankful that his armor was taking at least some of the pressure off even if he felt Tusk had reached into his chest and taken hold of his heart.

“Apologies for intrusion,” Leon stated, straining his voice to not sound too concerned by Tusk’s aura. “I’m but a humble explorer, mapping out these fascinating tunnels.”

Tusk glared at him and hissed. “None such explorers exist as well-armored as thou art, small rat. Thy lies go unappreciated.”

“I speak no lie!” Leon protested. “I’m here exploring a portion of my home I’ve never seen before!”

“Thy power betrays thee, small rat,” Tusk growled, and Leon, even with his face hidden behind his helmet, stifled a grimace. “Rats such as thee art not motivated by mere curiosity, thou art after some prize, some reason to brave these dark depths… Tell me why thou hast come, small rat.”

Leon bitterly grinned behind his helmet. He was trapped by Tusk’s power, though he thought he might be able to break out if need be.

‘But do I need to?’ Leon wondered. ‘I’ve given this thing offerings without asking for anything in return. It’s not trying to kill me, yet… Maybe it would be amenable to my goal? I can’t imagine it will be, but… I shouldn’t resort to violence without trying peace first.’

Leon took a deep breath and made eye contact with Tusk, who was rapidly losing patience with his prolonged silence.

“I’m here for something important to me!” Leon shouted just as it seemed the creature reached the limits of its patience.

Tusk paused, regarding him coldly. “Small rat, thou thinks to raid my home for treasures, thinking them open for the taking? That they hold no value to mine own self? I shalt make thee a singular offer: leave now and never return; thou art not wanted here, and thy wants shalt not see satisfaction.”

Leon felt the tremendous weight of the tusked monster’s killing intent increase, but not unbearably so.

“What I seek has no owner!” Leon shouted back.

“All in these depths belong to mine own self,” Tusk countered. “Thou hast no claim to anything down here.”

Adding emphasis, Tusk’s power intensified and Leon found himself slammed down into the tunnel floor. Realizing that Tusk would not allow him past, Leon grimaced and summoned his anti-air magic gem and, after taking a deep breath and whispering a plea for help to his tau pearl, activated it.

For just a moment, Tusk’s grasp of him was shattered, and Leon sprang up, his body coursing with lightning, increasing his speed so far beyond mortal limits that he slipped beyond a mortal’s ability to visibly track. At the same time, Leon re-engaged his invisibility enchantment and charged under Tusk.

As far as he was concerned, Tusk was more than within its rights to deny him access to its home and were he not here for something as important as the Iron Needle, Leon would’ve heeded its surprisingly polite request to leave.

But he was here for the Iron Needle, so he couldn’t just turn around and leave.

Tusk roared in rage and the cyclone around this side of the carved wall spiked in power. Leon’s shroud of invisibility was rent apart again, and though Leon activated his anti-air magic gem again, Tusk still moved quickly enough to grab ahold of him again.

Leon gritted his teeth in frustration, but Tusk lifted him off his feet and telekinetically hurled Leon back against the carved wall. Leon felt the ancient runes within the door activate again, and he was thrown clear through the wall, though damaging it not at all. Tusk followed, and Leon caught himself on the other side of the wall and kept flying back as Tusk slithered through the air in front of its image upon the wall.

“There shalt not be a second warning, small rat!” Tusk roared as it halted in front of the wall. “Return to my home at thine own peril!”

With that, Tusk turned back around and vanished behind the wall again, while Leon could only sigh in disappointment, and begin planning how he was going to deal with this setback.