MaeveMcCarthy
patreon
Chapter 68
🕑 Added 2025-01-29 21:30:48 +0000 UTCMonica couldn’t believe her ears.
“Wait, you’re the one who forged the Spear of Dhoznil?” she said, eyes wide.
“The one and only,” Dworsul replied.
Despite the older dwarf’s refined appearance—slightly hunched shoulders, a soot-stained tunic, a beard braided in careful loops—Monica caught a razor edge of arrogance in his gaze. Pride radiated from him like a palpable force, momentarily leaving her speechless.
“Dworsul,” she repeated, as though tasting the word. “The dwarf who refused to become a God. The same who… who forged the Spear of Dhoznil. Level 500, right?”
Dworsul’s lip quirked. “Level 500, yes. Not that such a number means anything now—petrification robs one of many gifts. But I do still remember all I learned.”
“Wait, why did you refuse Divinity?” Monica asked, curiosity flickering across her face.
Dworsul let out a short, haughty laugh. “Because I don’t like prisons, Avatar of the Twin Phoenix. So-called immortality often comes wrapped in a neat bow of enslavement—locked in the System’s patterns, forced to dole out Quests to lazy bastards who deserve nothing. I would sooner bury myself in the heart of Viscera than become a puppet.”
Monica’s eyebrows rose. Oh wow, this guy has some strong opinions, she thought.
Monica, however, reasoned that something like that had to be expected. If this Dwarf was really Dworsul, then she was talking with one of the greatest Blacksmiths to ever live. Finding out that the guy had an ego wasn't out of place, really.
"How do you resist the temperature, then, Dworsul?" She asked.
"The curse of the Queen of Stone is powerful, but it's not all-powerful. I have not access to my Skills and Levels. But magic still flows in my veins. Refusing Divinity didn't make me lesser than those who accepted it, Avatar." He narrowed his eyes at her. “The System awards so-called Godhood. It is not, in my view, a significant advantage—merely a chain that tethers you to an eternal existence of monotony.”
"Being immortal sounds like a big deal to me," Monica frowned.
“Hah. Even without that, I would have lived centuries. And I do not cling to life for life’s sake. A legacy through craft is worth more than an endless timeline of drudgery.” Dworsul’s gaze flicked toward a row of ash-laden shelves behind him, as though recalling a memory. His voice dipped in quiet bitterness. “My creations carry my spirit far better than some everlasting prison.”
Monica remembered what he’d said before about his knowledge being ransacked. She ventured, “The same knowledge you said got taken?”
That question made Dworsul’s jaw snap shut. She saw him tense from head to toe, as if her words had touched a raw wound. His breath hitched. A muscle ticked in his cheek.
“Yes, Avatar,” he replied at last, voice low and tight.
He inhaled through flared nostrils, clearly fighting the anger coiled inside him. When he continued, his words were measured, his tone betrayed grief and outrage. “Someone—something—looted the most sacred forging secrets of my people from these Archives—the Queen of Stone, I suspect. Whether they understood them or not, they stole them.”
Monica held his gaze, letting a silence stretch. He made it sound like the dwarves’ entire heritage might have been uprooted.
“All right,” she said gently, “so… what now?”
Dworsul heaved a sigh that ruffled the braids of his beard. From within his tunic, he retrieved an amulet shaped like a tiny anvil, etched with faintly glowing runes. He gestured for Monica to follow him—but paused when his eyes flicked to the corner, eyeing a few of the shelves that Monica had plundered.
"Put everything back. Whatever you will need to learn, you will learn from me. You shall not touch my people's knowledge without my permission."
Monica obeyed begrudgingly.
She gathered the scattered tablets from her Inventory.
One by one, she lifted them from the ground, carefully wiping each slab of stone with her hand, trying to brush off the worst of the soot before returning it to the shelf.
Even as she worked, she could feel Dworsul’s gaze drilling into her spine.
Some part of Monica bristled—she didn’t like being scolded as if she were a child caught stealing cookies. Still, she recognized that these Archives clearly meant everything to him.
Finally, she straightened, stepping away from the shelves. The dust smudged her hands, and her forearms ached from lifting so many bulky tablets. She did her best to keep from sighing aloud. Dworsul gave a short, sharp nod, seeming marginally appeased.
*
Once Monica had returned the tablets and books to his satisfaction, Dworsul turned on his heel. Without a further word, he led her out of the Ashen Archives, back the way she had originally come—Monica glanced at the large pool of magma she’d used to enter the Archives.
She expected they might have to dive into it again, but Dworsul stepped toward a different pool. There were many such pools scattered around the antechamber, each one glowing with molten rock that bubbled and shimmered in the gloom.
Dworsul’s amulet glowed faintly as he waved it over the surface of one such pool. The magma suddenly receded, showing several stone-carved steps.
"Come," the Dwarf ordered.
They descended carefully, the dwarf walking with surprising sure-footedness for someone robbed of his full power—Gromorlig had been much more unsteady than this Dwarf. At each landing, Dworsul lifted the amulet again, and the magma parted to form another corridor or a set of stairs.
Each time the molten flow threatened to block their path, Dworsul made a curt gesture with his hand, and the amulet answered by pushing the lava aside, letting them pass as though it were nothing more than hot water.
Monica, remembering how she’d nearly suffocated swimming blindly through lava, felt envious.
"Could you have dived into magma with your Skills and Attributes?"
"What a foolish question," Dworsul snapped. "Of course, I could have. But why would I soil my own clothes and get covered in gunk like a dog rolling in mud?"
Monica looked at the gunk covering her and the ragged Nightshade Battle Wear.
Monica looked down at herself, the sooty filth caked on her skin and the ragged remains of her Nightshade Battle Wear. She grimaced. “You have a point,” she said dryly.
Finally, they came to a crossroads of half-submerged corridors, each blocked by a curtain of molten rock. Dworsul raised a hand, motioning for silence.
Monica nodded, and they slowly advanced until a dull buzzing reached her ears.
Dworsul took a single step forward, pressing his ear to the stone. His brow furrowed with mounting anger. He crouched at a small horizontal slit in the tunnel’s wall—a vantage point about shoulder-height for him—and carefully peered through. Monica saw the old dwarf’s knuckles tighten on his amulet, the cords in his neck standing out.
After a few minutes of that, he gestured for Monica to look, stepping aside. She pressed her face to the slit and squinted into the gloom.
When Monica laid eyes on what Dworsul had been watching, her blood went cold.
There were hundreds of Molten Wasps of all sizes and types swarming around the same place that she had seen in the vision of the Spear of Dhoznil.
They were looking down upon a massive cavern—one she recognized from her earlier dwarven visions. Even in partial ruin, the architecture was unmistakably grand: soaring arches, intricate pillars, and a central dais ringed by huge stone anvils. The Great Forge.
But it was infested.
Hundreds of Corrupted Molten Wasps swarmed across the Forge’s platforms, pillars, and overhead walkways. Waxlike resin had been layered onto once-majestic dwarven statues, forming a grotesque hive that stretched from floor to ceiling. The red glow of molten rock poured into channels around the cavern, fueling the wasps’ molten honeycombs that pulsed with lines of fiery mana.
In the center of this hellish hive, an immense wasp the size of a carriage sprawled on a twisted dais. It had a bloated abdomen striped with glowing rivulets of liquefied metal. Its barbed mandibles clicked menacingly, and spines jutted from its thorax.
Around it, smaller—though still massive—wasps flitted with single-minded devotion, feeding the queen molten resin and kneading the newly secreted wax to enlarge her brood chambers. Those are not soldiers.
Monica squinted and saw their tags appear in her vision.
[Corrupted Molten Wasp, Royal Guard – Level ???]
[Corrupted Molten Wasp, Royal Guard – Level ???]
And when she saw the Queen's tag, her heart grew cold.
[??? - Level ???]
If she couldn't see a monster's level, it meant it was more than one hundred levels above her own. The exact numbers of levels that made it impossible to see their Level wasn't always the same. Monica suspected that those monsters were roughly Level 170.
As for the Queen, if she couldn't see her Level, it meant that it had to be around Level 200. But if that was the case, how would she fight such a monster when she was still Level 60.
Dworsul tapped Monica's shoulder, and both walked back to where they had come in silence.
Once they reached the Ashen Archives again, Dworsul played with one of the braids from his beard.
"That was a Level 205 Boss. You can safely assume it will evolve into a Level 235 or 240 monster in battle. These things breed fast and keep mutating under that Corruption.”
"That's insane. I can't face that."
Dworsul nodded gravely. “Machina probably possesses a vessel well above that threshold—likely in the 300 range, if not stronger. You’ll need to kill a lot of monsters to reach a comparable point.”
He raised his eyes up to the ceiling and then asked, "What classes do your friends have?"
"There's four of them. Knight, Bard, Phoenix Pyromancer, and Hunter of Magic."
"Bard? Well, there you go. The others shouldn't even try to fight the Queen. But, with the right gear, you could all easily take down the rest of those monsters. None of them are true Elite. Even the Boss is much weaker than I would have imagined. If I had my Levels, even I, a Blacksmith, could have squished those puny things with a few swings of my hammer."
"Since you don't have your Levels and we have to fight them, how about we go fetch them, and you teach them the Fire Breathing technique so we can start hunting these damn Wasps."
"It is always those graced by Divinity that believe that everything revolves around them," Dworsul said, wrinkling his nose.
"What's the problem, now? I'll help you with the Great Forge, and you help me out with the Fire Breathing Skill and forging, no?"
"First of all, if your friends are still on the first floor, there's no way you can assure my safe passage to them. You said you are suffering Maluses from your Blacksmith Class, whatever it's called. How do you expect to bring me to the elevators?"
Monica opened and closed her mouth.
"Second, I do not plan on giving away my people's knowledge without knowing whether you're worth it or not. You might have been enough to get the Divine Beast, but you'll soon discover that my standards are much higher than whatever entity rained down powers on you."
Dworsul was starting to get on Monica's nerves.
"Ok, we do whatever. So, where do we start?"
Dworsul shook his head.
"Sit down."
Monica looked at the ground before the Ashen Archives and frowned.
"Can't we get to a table?"
"And incur the risk that your powers might damage my work? How many times did you hit your head in-between deaths?"
Monica felt like slapping the man, but she said nothing and just raised her hands in defeat before sitting onto the ground.
"What now?" She said.
"Activate Meditation. Let me see how good you are."
She closed her eyes and did as told, letting her breath settle into the practiced rhythm Gromorlig had taught. Mana moved through her body as she had been doing so far.
Dworsul circled her like a suspicious vulture.
“So Gromorlig taught you, eh?”
Monica opened her eyes and nodded.
"I could tell you had the Skill. It appears you do have some natural talent, thankfully. This will make things slightly easier."
"I can't wait to get the Maluses out," Monica sighed, happy that Dworsul seemed less of a pain in the ass for a moment.
"Oh, that's not for a while. First, you need to learn the Skill, then we'll see about your forging."
Dworsul walked around Monica, squinting his eyes at her.
"Meditation is the pre-requisite to learn the Fire Breathing Skill. The Fire Breathing Skill is the pre-requisite to learn Dwarven forging. It used to be that outside of the Blacksmith District, people could still come down to the second layer of Viscera and stop to practice at the marketplace, trying to grasp the Fire Breathing Skill."
"So, thing are hotter than they're supposed to be."
"Wasps do that, whether in nature or when they are created by a twisted parasite made of metal."
Dworsul stopped in front of Monica and flexed on his short legs, taking a finger close to her mouth.
"The Fire Breathing Skill has killed before. In our case, it's not much of a problem. In fact, I'd be entertained if anything."
Monica was very close to punching the Dwarf's teeth out.
"We do have a problem, however," Dworsul said, straightening up.
"Let's hear it."
"Breathing fire is a metaphor for absorbing Fire Mana into your veins. Mana can be freely manipulated, especially once you get the right Affinity. Every single Dwarf who's attempted to become a Blacksmith has at least a Level 25 Fire Magic Skill. Not because they want to become Pyromancers or throw Fireballs around, though. There's simply a need to learn to deal with fire. You, however, don't have that Skill."
"I have a Golden Flame and an Obsidian Flame Skill," Monica frowned. "Do those not count as Affinities? I can also meld them together to make a normal flame."
"You're invulnerable to normal flames, aren't you?" Dworsul asked, disregarding her question.
"Yes?" Monica replied, confused.
"Yes or no?"
"Yes," she said resolutely.
"Therefore, you cannot, by definition, learn a Fire Magic Skill. Learning the Fire Magic Skill means getting accustomed to dealing with fire. You can't even interact with it."
"Well—" Monica didn't really know what to say.
"You do, however, have your own Flames. But even then, how can you get accustomed to fire if they're already part of you?"
Dworsul stroked his grey beard with a complacent expression.
"I don't like you, Avatar of the Twin Phoenix, Monica, but this does pose an interesting Blacksmithing challenge."
"Ok?" Monica frowned.
"Can you die to your own flames?" Dworsul asked.
"I can fully coat myself in Obsidian Flame and nothing happens," Monica frowned.
"What about the hot flame you talked about? The one you can generate by fusing your flames. Are you invulnerable to that one as well?"
Monica frowned.
By using Fire Transmutation to mix the Golden and the Obsidian Flame, she could generate a more traditional flame. And, she supposed, it didn't count as a mortal or inferior flame since it came from two Divine Skills.
"I mean, I can try."
"Let's see, then," Dworsul smiled deviously. "Summon the flame and try to circulate it through your body with Meditation. Slowly inhale the flame and let your body become accustomed to it."
