PSTH: Chapter Thirty-Nine

I was nothing before the arrival of dungeon hearts. When magic came back, I thought… well… I thought I’d be a hero. I thought that my military background would make me special. That instead of being stuck in a dead end job working for a boss who makes in an hour what I make in ten years, I'd be the one who went out conquering dungeons, slaying monsters, and living out my dreams. Well, I guess I’m fighting a dungeon tomorrow. Only the rewards are going to my boss, because he’s able to purchase more essence stones in an hour than I could in ten years…

-

Personal Journal, Circa 9 Post-Arrival

-

Thankfully, that night passed by without incident. We told our story around the campfire, ate some more soup made from our packed food cubes and water, and headed into our tents to sleep. Scales and Hex remained awake, prowling around the outside of the camp, which I thought was their attempt to reassure me. 

It began to rain overnight, which absolutely delighted Scales, who splashed around in the muddy clay, but meant that we were much slower getting up the next morning. The perpetual mist that rolled off the mountains each morning was even thicker with the rain, and with low visibility and slick mud, we debated just staying at the camp site. In the end, that was what we went with, and we spent the rest of the day mostly in our tents, or sitting around the campfire during the breaks in the rain. I barely saw Gawain at all, as he was almost entirely isolated, but spent time talking to everyone else in the group. 

When the rain picked up heavily, and I retreated back to my tent, I spent the time cultivating with Scales and Hex. We were a few miles away from the triple hearts, but the area was still filled with more ambient essence than most places I’d been before. The overlapping effect of the three also meant it was a higher level than most spots, close to level forty, which was great for our advancement. I knew it wasn’t conclusive if the differential between the strength of the ambient essence and cultivator actually mattered, so long as the cultivator was weaker, but it still felt easier when the essence was this strong. 

None of us had a breakthrough in that one day, of course. First of all, I couldn’t have them, since I was using raw essence. Second, both Hex and Scales had broken through to level fourteen just a few days ago, while training with Laurel. A few hours of gathering essence wasn’t going to cause them to leap ahead again. But still, they made as good progress as could be expected in such a short time. 

The rain began to clear up by the evening, and the next day, we were able to set out. The fog was still a bit thicker, and the ground was a bit unstable, so we took it carefully and slowly, especially with Isabella and Alberton both being older non-cultivators and having the commensurate risk from falls or slipping.

“We’ve got three neat spots today,” Gabby said as we moved, “and though I don’t want to give too many spoilers… the third is the reason all of you actually joined the tour. A large freehiking area situated between multiple essence hearts that have slightly higher odds to produce unusual primals. There’s a medical station at the border of that area.”

She turned and shot me a meaningful look at that, and I nodded to indicate that I would be going there for a check up before I dove headfirst into Primal searching. She gave me a nod back that seemed to convey ‘good, you better’ before moving on to talk about the history of this one specific mountain, and how it had been involved in several pre-arrival wars. 

A few miles of hiking later, we arrived at the first of the three interesting spots for the day. A large hole had been shorn in the rock in front of us, the dripping stalactites from above giving it an almost ominous, mouth-like look. This was not helped by the fact that when Gabby sent a flow of anima into the cave to turn on some lights, about one in four of them was flickering, the enchantments likely needing some maintenance, but not getting as much as they needed so far from civilization. They illuminated a raised wooden walkway that had been sanded and gritted in order to allow for better grip while walking, and they slowly switchbacked down into the depths. It wouldn’t have been that surprising, if not for the fact that it didn’t have the smooth cut and polished look of an essence heart’s domain. It was smooth, but a more natural smoothness caused by erosion. 

“Right!” Gabby said, leading us in. “We may not have as large of a cave system as some parts of the world, but Arkose still has a very large cave system. To this day, there are large portions of the caves that are entirely unmapped.” 

“Is that where the pallid folk live?” River joked. “I mean, they did find Troublemaker under the ground.” 

The joke garnered a small round of chuckles before Gabby continued. 

“If you’re wondering just why we’re headed into the caves… wait and see!” 

We began heading into the cave, and River stopped once in a while to make minor repairs to the spells on the wall. He couldn’t fix all of them – many of them required null or radiant anima to patch up, since the basic glow spell was a combination of the null used in standardized industrial enchanting, and light was solidly in the purview of radiance. Still, when there were issues with structure, rather than power, he was able to use his magic to make quick repairs. 

We moved through an intentionally unlit area where bats tended to roost. The whole place stunk, but that was kind of the way of nature – everything smelled. After a little time, the path began to switchback upwards, and we entered another better lit area. 

“Do you hear that?” River asked, perking up as we walked. 

“No,” I said, shaking my head. 

“Water,” Laurel and Gawain said at the same time. Gabby turned around and winked at us, before turning back around. Isabella patted my shoulder consolingly. 

“It’s fine, dear. I couldn’t hear it either.” 

“Nor I,” agreed Alberton.

After some more walking, I began to hear the sound of water as well. It was the rushing of a river, or perhaps of a waterfall. Minutes later, we finally found out why, as the cave opened up to another mouth that led outside once again. Just a few feet beyond the mouth of the cave, a waterfall rushed down, creating a curtain in front of the entrance with a small path that one person could walk. The path eventually widened and became a normal trail. Gabby shut off the lights and began to explain. 

“Though the trail was excavated, the cave system is natural. It’s actually a fairly interesting bit of geology, but I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, when there’s a lot of rain and water, like there is in Oceanseed, you get some neat rock formations, including this naturally occurring tunnel through the mountain!”

We took a couple of pictures of the cave mouth, as well as the waterfall flowing overhead. I couldn't help but think of the trope of hidden treasure in caves behind waterfalls in games. Only in this case, instead of a chest of gold and mid-tier magic weapons, the prize was bat guano. Yay? 

We set off a short while later, taking a path that led down into a valley, somewhat parallel to the river that stemmed from the waterfall above, until we eventually came to another stone shelter near a hole in the ground, which seemed to be the standardized set up for the park’s essence hearts. 

“Now, this is another docile essence heart, but if it starts to get annoyed with us, we’re just going to back out again,” Gabby warned as we began heading down. “Now, this heart is rather unusual. Can anyone tell me why?” 

“It’s only level five?” I asked, gauging the power the best I could based on the waves of essence in the air. “That seems low for an essence heart?”

“Oh, good guess! A level five heart is pretty unusual, but not the reason it’s on this tour. Though on the topic, we had some people from Slate University through recently to do a study on this heart, and cross referencing its low level with other weaker hearts, to see if it’s just a quirk of this one, or if there’s a relationship between the level and this factor…” 

At that, River perked up. 

“Oh, is this the Anderson heart? I had to read about that in one of my modules recently.”

“Bingo!” Gabby said, pointing at him and snapping. The sound caused a Kirow in the tunnel with us to let out a cawing sound, and a second noise that sounded somewhat like the word ‘mango’. 

“What’s the Anderson haert?” Laurel asked. I glanced at Gawain, but he seemed to be sulking in the back of the group. Gabby was the one to answer. 

“You may know it better by the nickname that most tamers use for it: the rare-spawner! An essence heart that, for whatever reason, only spawns rare or higher Primals. Between the complexity of creating higher rarity Primals, and the low level of the heart, it doesn’t spawn many. But based on everything we’ve seen, it never spawns anything below rare.”

I perked up at that – I had read about that essence heart, and seen mention of it on Arkose’s site. I just hadn’t put it together with Anderson or the fact it was low level. My interest shot up even further when we stepped into the central chamber and got a look at the heart and its guardian. This heart was roughly the size of a human one, and its guardian was a level thirty Lupurubrum. The large wolf-like primal was shedding snowflakes from half its body, and sparks form the other half, the effect made even more impressive by the glowing light of the guardian status. I immediately snapped a picture, and then stepped forward first. Others slowly trickled in after me, and though the Lupurubrum seemed a bit uncertain, it wasn’t as aggressive as the others had been. 

The other primals in the room were also unusually rare – I spotted a Psionar, the raptor-like arcane primal that was best known for its use in therapy, an Ignitle, a breed with incredible abilities to enrich soil with mineral rich ash, and an elderly Serest who clearly was too old too battle, but who looked over Laurel and Zaza with some interest. I supposed it was a bit too much to ask for that I’d find a Primal just sitting around who liked to battle, but a man could hope. 

Given that the guardian seemed a tad nervous, we didn’t stay long, and after a short hike of about a mile, we arrived at a small, semi-open field, probably a natural clearing that had been slightly expanded. On one end of the clearing was a stone structure marked with the symbol of the International Healer Coalition, and a handful of smaller structures that were probably tents. There was a paved trail on the far end, near the IHC’s building, and people milled about, moving up and down the trail. 

“Alright! We’ve entered near the free hiking area. It extends about four miles in every direction from here, which does include the area around the Anderson heart. The cabins are mostly rented out, but if there are any free, you can rent them out. Just remember what the Councillor said about trash – she will find out if you litter, or if you damage stuff.” 

She swept the beret off her head, bowed deeply, then rose and smiled at us all. 

“Thank you all! The tour was rather more… dramatic… than most of them that I’ve run, but I hope you all enjoyed anyways. Aiden–” 

“I know, I know,” I said. “I’ll go to the IHC building.” 

“Good. I’ll be hanging around this area for the rest of the day if you have any questions or want any suggestions. Thank you all again!”