Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

With everyone and everything nicely stowed away, Seth set off on his lone journey. He switched to the Helm of Hades and started running the way back that they came from. Nobody needed to know that they had already deserted their camp.

Carried by his swift shoes and agile armor, the blacksmith zipped through the landscape. He was aiming at the Adventurer Guild's stronghold. Invisible as he was, he was thinking of playing fly on the wall and see if the guild was really in on what was going on.

There was also another reason, something he had promised to do.

--2 hours ago--

"Did you make this?" Seth asked the witch surprised.

Shortly before their departure, Evee had suddenly approached him with a request and a suggestion.

"Could you place this somewhere in the valley where we first entered this place?" she had asked, placing a silver medallion the size of a dish in his hands.

It was covered in precise markings, wards, and magic formulas. Seth immediately recognized what it was, a spatial beacon. Evee had already been dabbling with this technology for a long time. They had once used a makeshift version to create a portal and return to Minas Mar after Seth and many others were abducted by the Theocracy.

This version looked several times more advanced than the one they used back then. The suggestion that came along with it was quite reasonable. The final goal of the Adventurer Guild was to build a teleport hub in this place. Would it not come in handy to have a back door?

All this improved beacon needed to function was a fitting soul to power it and a small support formation prepared in advance. The soul could only come from Seth, the formation could be laid down by the blacksmith, or he could let her out when they arrive, then she could do it herself.

Once it was set up, they would be able to create a one-use passage from Minas Mar to this place and be able to return. Without the adventurers of Delta, the Adventurer Guild seemed unable to completely clean up the place, so it would stay a great source of experience for future members of Minas Mar.

Who knew? Maybe it would be them to set up a permanent teleport hub in the end? Although Evee was a force to be reckoned with as a necromancer now, her interest lay more in her powers as an immortal Witch.

Evee had also spent a long time studying the scriptures left behind by the Ancestor of Willis, the original builder of the Tower. She even started dabbling in <Enchantment>, although not in the kind that would help make weapons or armor. On that note, Seth had not ignored the vast library of the magic tower. He looked at many things like the blueprints of the tower drones and schematics of enchantments, but only a few of them were recognized as something useful to his class and recorded in his <Blueprint> and the catalogs of his skills.

The original Willis was a powerful master of magic, an alchemist, and a magic engineer, but not a blacksmith. The topics where his and Seth's specializations overlapped were few and far between.

"Alright, I will see what I can do."

--- Present---

he had promised to find a good place for the spatial beacon in the valley where they arrived, which was the main reason why he chose to return the way they came. And who knew? Maybe, just maybe, he was also thinking about robbing the Adventurer Guild if he found anything incriminating.

The idea of a personal teleport hub in this place was a tempting but expensive thought. He knew that this kind of stuff needed special stones and building materials in addition to spatial Wouldn't it be a great coincidence if the Adventurer Guild happened to sponsor all the precious materials needed to build such a thing?

Seth doubted that if they had the materials, they would be in someone's inventory. It was a matter of trust and safety. If a single person had them in their inventory and they died somehow they could be possibly lost. Or the person could flee with them. If several had them, those dangers still existed. The chance of the materials being in some well-secured storage room was the highest.

~Wow, what happened here?~ Tatzel exclaimed from his pet space.

Seth's hopes of playing fly on the wall were dashed, when he arrived in the valley and found most walls crumbled and burned down. The castle that the adventurer guild had built was now a ruin filled with the stench of rotting corpses. So much for getting information, or the materials.

~From the state of their bodies, they might already be dead for a week, or two.~ Puffles assessed like a forensic.

~And how would you know about that?~

~Don't underestimate the great me! I have watched documentaries and have some experience.~

~Sure...~ Seth didn't even want to ask what kind of experience the Ivicer collected in that regard while he was on his own.

It seemed like the basic defenses were still in place, as no monsters had come to feed on the dead bodies. Or at least not the usual suspects. Something definitely had nibbled at them. It was a very picky eater and only ate their hearts, though.

As the blacksmith walked through the courtyard, the found a few corpses of guild adventurers, probably the guards. They had no signs of a fight, it seemed like something attacked them from behind and killed them by ripping out their hearts.

What kind of beast could sneak into this kind of stronghold and kill high-level adventurers without leaving any signs? Looking further and walking through the partially burned rabble, he found that most of the people stationed here died in their sleep. Their bodies were rotting on their beds, or what was left of them after the fire.

Seth kept looking around, but there were no souls. People who died without even realizing it, had no grudges that would make them stay behind. Any soul remnants that would have dropped had already vanished because of the time.

If he found a soul and a fitting body, he could have used the <Seed of Hades> to revive them and ask stuff. Even if Seth acted like he didn't want to solve the mystery of what really happened to their expedition, in the end, he was curious.

There was stuff they could only find out from the guild staff directly If Puffles was right with the time, the castle was attacked not long after their departure. Were they behind the lock on Home Call or did the real culprit get rid of them? Were the things even connected? Was the guild innocent in the end? Was there a secret vault that would have survived the fire?

Seth followed his RPG instinct and carefully combed through what was left of the castle, looking for anything to loot. Storage Rooms, the armory, it seemed like Seth was the first that came by with the intent to loot, as the rooms were still filled.

What he found was not really worth mentioning, some rare and uncommon weapons, armor, and materials that were probably stored, because they were not worth much, to begin with. The thrifty blacksmith still went through the place like a vacuum.

"Well, would you look what we have here?"

He exclaimed in surprise as he finally stepped into the great meeting hall.