Blessed Time: The Complete Series: (A LitRPG Adventure Box Set), page 104
Micah looked back and forth at the forgotten forces, chewing his lower lip. Then his eyes darted to where Eris and Esther stood back to back, weapons at ready and determined expressions on their faces.
He might be able to win the fight on his own, but it would require high-level destructive magic that would ravage the entire area. Taken by surprise like this, there was no way that he could assure their safety. Worse, at least the bishops were capable of soul attacks, meaning that even Trevor and Drekt weren’t safe.
A victory that cost him his family wasn’t anything to brag about. On top of that, winning the fight would earn him nothing beyond a handful of experience. If Anne was telling the truth—and he had no reason to believe she wasn’t—fighting his way through to Jakint would only serve to leave him trapped inside the chaotic city once more. Somehow, even further away from Dakkora’s laboratory than he was right now.
“Any last words, Silver?” Anne sneered down at him. “Fighting the Pontiff is futile, but I suppose you should at least get some credit for your tepid successes. They were much more than any of his other opponents could manage.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t fix you,” Micah replied, reaching up with his free hand to touch the Maarikava fangs built into the shoulder-guard of his armor. “Unfortunately, I won’t have the luxury of trying a second time. I apologize.”
“A second time?” she shrieked, motioning toward the forces that were encircling Micah. “Take stock of your situation. You’re surrounded and outclassed, I doubt you’ll survive for more than—”
He lost track of what she was saying as the Astria activated, pulling him back in time. Green flames reappeared around Anne as she jumped off the tree, landing next to Micah and erasing the rest of the forgotten.
The world accelerated, reversing itself faster and faster, dragging Micah away from the ambush and up the trail. His surroundings blurred as hours passed in seconds. Only when Micah found himself in the dungeon did he push back against the Astria, forcefully breaking the force of the enchantment.
The fangs dimmed as Micah staggered, gasping for breath from the energy he’d expended to stop his backward trip prematurely. Quietly, the Astria began gathering mana for its week-long effort to recharge.
“Are you all right?” Drekt asked, reaching a large hand out to stabilize Micah.
He nodded, the brief spell of disorientation fading as he grounded himself. Micah was in the converted boss chamber of the dungeon. Trevor, Drekt, Leeka, and Anne were standing in a circle while Eris and Esther played games with Ravi. Ostensibly, Telivern was watching over the two of them, but Micah knew that the stag was more exasperated than observant.
“Anyway,” Anne said, “I was saying that we should head back to Jakint. I’ll never make it through the forest on my own, and if you are seeking to cross the Grass Sea, you’ll be able to hire a guide in the city. It won’t take that long if you use the teleportation runes that—”
Micah’s spear erupted through the back of her neck, ripping out Anne’s throat and severing her spine in one clean thrust. Her eyes glowed with hatred, glaring at him a half-second before her body was consumed by familiar green flames.
“What in the name of the Sixteen!?” Leeka shouted, jumping back. “Micah, what the fuck are you doing?’
He sighed, retracting his spear and wiping its tip on his thigh to cleanse it of Anne’s blood. Looking up at Leeka, he grimaced.
“It was all a trap,” Micah said woodenly. “She was going to delay us and lead us into an ambush. Even redirecting us to this dungeon was only so that she could buy the Pontiff time to get a head start.”
“But how could you know?” she asked, looking from Trevor to Drekt for support. “One minute you’re normal, the next you stumble and kill her out of hand. How do we know that you haven’t been possessed or something?”
Drekt put a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head silently.
“Because I used Time magic to escape her ambush,” Micah replied. “Jakint is closed off to us. All of the pathfinders are dead. Our only option is to set off into the Grass Sea on our own in search of Swiftwater and hope for the best.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
THE GRASS SEA
Unending grass swayed back and forth. Micah couldn’t see more than an arm’s length in front of him, his vision terminating in chutes of vegetation as thick as his thumb that rose high above his head into the night sky. He reached out with his left hand, pushing grass out of his way as he slid his shoulder into the gap and barged through the wall of plant matter.
A solitary gust of wind blew through the plains and set the grass flowing in uneven, rustling waves. He paused for a second, face screwing up into a frown as stalks slapped gently against his face. Although his group was sheltered beneath the surface of the Grass Sea, the Sea itself was an expansive and featureless prairie. Without any features to break up weather patterns, it was notorious for terrible windstorms and squalls that would swallow up entire caravans.
Another gust shook the grass. The stalks rubbed together, creating an almost static-like sound. Then the wind began to truly howl, causing the stalks around Micah to dance and brush together in a hissing cacophony. Plants swished against him and scratched the Maarikava armor like dozens of tiny claws.
The wind increased, and in a matter of seconds the sound was like a waterfall, a constant crash of noise. The thick blades of grass whipped Micah across the neck and face, stinging skin wherever it was exposed. Behind him, Drekt shouted something that Micah couldn’t quite make out. A moment later, he felt a tug around his waist as the knotted-up rope made from the Pontiff’s bedsheets pulled at him.
Micah dropped to one knee. The dirt was dry and powdery beneath him, but now that he was closer to the ground, the wind didn’t rattle him nearly as much. A hand touched his ankle, and he looked back to see Drekt pulling himself out of the grass and toward Micah using the sheets.
“Once the wind dies down, we should probably check our bearings again!” Drekt yelled, his voice barely comprehensible over the crash of the wind as it shook the sea of plants around them. “We’ve held off longer than we should have already.”
Micah grimaced, but he nodded back. Drekt was right. Any enthusiasm he’d had for traveling through the Grass Sea had faded within the first couple hours of travel. There was no way to check their bearings during the day, and even at night, unless they constantly verified their course, Micah would find them heading in the wrong direction more often than not.
Of course, getting lost didn’t even take into account the headache of constantly pushing through the thick grass, barely able to see where they were going, let alone being able to keep tabs on the rest of the group or watch out for threats. Leeka had thought to tie them all together with the bedsheets they’d scavenged from the dungeon. It was a good idea and kept them from getting separated in the unending grass, but at the same time, it didn’t address any of the other problems on their trek.
The only bright point in the entire journey was how effective plant weave was in the Grass Sea. It only took a couple seconds to bend the massive grass stalks to his will, creating a clearing and a handful of grass huts. The temptation to use the spell continuously was strong, but Micah didn’t want to carve a clearly visible path through the Grass Sea. He had no idea how long it would take for the fields of grass to grow back, but leaving a trail for all of his enemies and the Third Prince’s minions to follow didn’t seem like the best idea.
Drekt tapped Micah on the shoulder, and he looked up. The grass blotted out the sky, but it wasn’t blowing back and forth nearly as much. More importantly, the sound of the wind, which had been overwhelming, had calmed to the point that Micah could hear himself think.
Micah crawled to his feet, muttering the words to flight and waiting for the windstorm to subside. A minute later he was in the air, flying just above the top of the grass as Drekt fed sheets to him. Micah looked up at the night sky. There were some clouds, but not enough to obstruct his view of the stars. He concentrated, willing the Ageless Folio to record what he saw.
In the distance, Micah made out a disturbance in the grass. Something, or somethings, were pushing it aside as they traveled through the vegetation, trampling it underfoot. The ripple moved slowly through the grass, roughly toward Micah and his party in the now quiet moonlight. He squinted at it, making sure to add its location and general direction to the Folio as well.
They’d only been in the Grass Sea for two nights and a day, but he was already sick of wandering lost. No matter how high he flew, Micah couldn’t find the glitter of the Amghul River or the sorts of clearings that might betray the location of Swiftwater or a caravan. He couldn’t help but worry that they would be stuck, zigzagging through the prairie for weeks if not months before they happened to run into anything helpful.
He reached down, grasped the sheets tied around his waist, and tugged once. Micah closed his eyes, releasing the portion of flight that kept him motionless in the air as Drekt reeled him in. The second his feet touched the flaky soil, Micah crowded in close to Drekt, summoning the Ancient Folio and flipping it open to the pages showing the star map.
Micah willed the Folio into solidity, letting Drekt page through it as he held up one of the fist-sized glowing chunks of quartz. Drekt’s mouth moved wordlessly as he calculated their trajectory.
“I saw something out there,” Micah offered, shifting the magelight slightly so that Drekt would have a better angle as he inspected the Folio. “I couldn’t make out what it was, but it might have been a caravan.”
“There are dozens of other things it could be,” Drekt replied sourly. “Plus, Jakint is the closest of the coastal cities, and I doubt that they will be sending out a trading expedition anytime soon. It might be from one of Jakint’s smaller neighbors, but we both know the odds of that aren’t great. If I were a betting man, I’d put down attunement that it was the Pontiff himself.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s actually another reason to chase it,” Micah responded, reaching down to change the Ancient Folio’s page so that it showed the sketch of the Grass Sea that highlighted the disturbance’s location.
Drekt looked down at the book for four seconds in total silence before finally locking eyes with Micah, indecision warring with skepticism on his face.
“Come on, Drekt,” Micah pled quietly. “You and I might be able to take another month or so wandering through the grass, but both of us know that this is wearing on everyone. Between the windstorms, inability to see the sky, and general blindness, I’d be surprised if Eris and Esther could last two weeks.”
He pursed his lips, a half-smile pulling at the corner of his mouth before he finished the thought. “Which, of course, means that Trevor will only last a week. Think of Trevor, Drekt. We’re going to take a risk sometime or we’ll just be lost in the Grass Sea for months. It might as well be now.”
“Fine,” Drekt relented. “We need to change directions anyway. We’re supposed to be heading southwest, and at some point we ended up traveling southeast. Your disturbance is more or less on the way.”
Micah nodded, closing the Ancient Folio and letting it dematerialize. He clapped Drekt on the bicep before leaning past his friend.
“Course change, everyone!” he shouted. “I spotted something that might be a caravan in the general direction of the Amghul River. With any luck we’ll be able to link up with them and hitch a ride to Swiftwater.”
The rest of the party let loose a general weary cheer. Micah couldn’t see them. Hells, he could barely see Drekt, but after the disorienting noise and fury of the windstorm, he suspected they were just as desperate as he was for any sort of respite from the unending but dangerous monotony of the Grass Sea.
“That way,” Drekt said, pointing past Micah and into the unending field of swaying plants. “And try to walk as straight as possible, I guess. It probably won’t do any good without a spell or blessing to guide you, but I don’t really know what else we can do given our lack of options.”
Micah turned away, reaching with his left arm to push the grass out of his path. He walked a couple of steps, pausing for a second when he reached the end of the sheet so that Drekt could catch up. Then he set out once again.
Twenty minutes and another shorter wind squall later, they were stopped again. Micah bit his tongue, swallowing any complaints over the frequency of their delays. It made travel slow, but any time they walked more than thirty minutes, they were almost guaranteed to be off course. As frustrating as constant stoppages were, Micah would rather travel slowly in the right direction than sprint in the wrong one.
As soon as he finished casting flight, Micah soared above the top of the grass, once again focusing on the mostly clear night sky in order to memorize the position of the stars. He smiled wryly at the pale moon, idly wondering how he would have managed if the Ancient Folio had a limited number of pages. Honestly, the ability to perfectly record anything Micah focused on was a fairly powerful blessing on its own, even without the bonuses it provided to his learning skills.
He chuckled. Sometimes he liked to think back on the morning of the day when he turned sixteen for the first time. He’d been so upset that his Mythic blessing was a “bust.” It really only took a moment to think about the thought and care that Mursa must have put into crafting it so that he could organically gain enough power to fight off the Durgh invasion.
In the years since, he’d encountered a couple of other Mythic blessings. They’d been impressive, sure—the ability to duplicate oneself dozens of times, to animate and control shadows, or to animate stone carvings to use as minions—and every time Micah ran into a new ability of that caliber, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of envy. Still, if someone offered him a trade, there was no way he would take it. The Ancient Folio, combined with his control over the element of time, was simply too useful in too many different ways for him to give it up for almost anything.
Micah rotated in the air, transferring his gaze from the night sky to the rippling fields of plant life. He still couldn’t see the Amghul River or anything resembling Swiftwater on the horizon, but at the same time, he was trying to find unfamiliar objects via moonlight.
Sighing, he shifted in the air, looking for the channels of moving grass that he had suspected was a caravan in his last flight. Micah frowned, moving the sheets tied around his waist as he spun in the air until he was parallel to the surface of the grass.
A rustle to Micah’s left drew his attention. Two ripples in the grass, about fifteen paces apart, were racing toward the strung-out line of their convoy. Before his mind finished processing what was happening, another furrow appeared in the grass to his right, moving at a full sprint toward the party.
“We’re under attack!” Micah screamed, motioning with his right hand as he cast plant weave. The spell took so much more mana than he was used to, but it made sense. There was a world of difference between the Grass Sea and a handful of roots.
The plants bent to his will, spinning themselves into a waist-high barrier. More importantly, he cleared a circle with a radius of about thirty paces. There wouldn’t be any way to conceal the spell’s results from anyone else capable of flying after the fact, but that was a concern for another day.
Three lizards burst into the open. Each of them was between twelve and twenty paces long and covered in mottled greenish-yellow scales. They froze, thick tails flicking uncertainly as their beady eyes darted around.
Before the reptiles could acclimate themselves to being in the open away from the omnipresent grass, Micah heaved his spear at one of them. It didn’t even think to look up or dodge, and the enchanted blade punched through the scales of its meaty neck, pinning the dying lizard to the dry soil.
It twitched once, tail thrashing up into the air before slamming into the grass-matted dirt. The scaled limb’s thump served as a signal. The moment of indecision, which had both sides eyeing one another, ended in a flash when the remaining two lizards sprang toward the party.
Drekt and Trevor raced out to meet them. Trevor dropped to the ground just in front of the lizard, sliding the last pace or so while thrusting upward with his spear. Drekt simply leapt into the air, using his impressive Body attribute to jump over the lizard’s snapping jaws and land on its back. Then he brought his cleaver down, gashing through the monster’s armored scales and taking a huge chunk out of its back.
The lizard reared back, unseating Drekt and bellowing in pain. Micah’s head whipped to the right as movement in the grass drew his attention. Another three furrows appeared in the grass, all of them charging toward the clearing.
He began reciting the words to binding vines, eyes tracking the rapid approach even as he reached up and touched one of the Maarikava fangs embedded in his armor’s shoulder. The spell finished when the charging opponents were about fifteen paces outside the clearing, drawing a chorus of angry squeals and grunts.
Then Micah poured mana into the tooth, activating the binding that contained the river kraken’s soul. Below him, Eris and Esther had joined the fray, assisting Trevor while the trio of new monsters struggled futilely against the vines holding them in place. He didn’t have any idea how strong the lizards were, but the spell was powerful and had enough vegetation to fuel it. It might not be able to strangle them, but the newcomers would be held in place long enough.
Golden mist flowed from his shoulder, creating a massive cloud that hovered just above the surface of the Grass Sea. Micah grunted, pushing more mana into the enchantment and focusing on the mental image of the river kraken.
The energy coalesced, transforming itself from a formless bank of golden light and into the shape of the monster he’d defeated in the jungle. It floated for a second before following Micah’s mental instructions.
