[Congratulations! You have completed the sidequest: The Lost Ring - Part 2. Intrinsic rewards dispensed.]
[Congratulations! You have unlocked the sidequest: The Lost Ring - Part 3.]
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║ THE LOST RING - PART 3 ║
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║ QUEST OBJECTIVES ║
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║ ? Return the ring to Guntila the Wise before it’s too late [0/1] ║
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║ Quest Difficulty: Hard ║
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║ QUEST REWARDS ║
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║ ? 4,000 EXP ║
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The moment Jack read the new quest’s objective, he was moving.
“Where are you going?” Pip asked, genuine hurt and concern in his eyes.
“I have to go save an old woman! Stay safe, Pip! I’ll come check on you when I can!” Jack shouted over his shoulder.
He could only think of a few reasons why the System itself would urge him to hurry, and none of them were good. Jack rushed across the quiet streets of the slums, maneuvering over and around countless dreamers in the middle of whatever high their preferred drug offered. Some tried to cling to his trousers or boot laces, but he jumped past them.
I can do this. I can still fix this.
Jack’s boots pounded against the cooling cobblestones, the sun’s rays turning the sky into deep motes of red and orange. His lungs burned as he climbed over the roofs. He didn’t wait for the opportune time to descend into Thistlebrush. He made it to the edge of the final clay-tile roof and jumped.
His hair whipped around his face wildly as he arced through the air. It was a twenty-foot drop, but he hit the ground running, his Resilience more than up to the task of mitigating the damage the fall inflicted.
I can do this!
Pedestrians shouted and pointed as he sprinted through the city. His mind kept playing that odd description of Guntila.
[A woman old enough to have witnessed a turning of the ages.]
Jack raced around a street corner, but collided with a fruit cart. He spilled all of its contents, and the vendor started cursing at him vehemently. Jack quickly tossed a silver coin over to the furious man, but resumed his mad sprint, wiping an exploded melon from his face.
[She was once a powerful mage who assisted in countless battles against the encroaching shroud.]
He knew if he pushed himself, he could make it. He could get there before she either died or was harmed in some way. A part of him knew he was being reckless, but he ignored that cynical aspect of his mind. He resonated with her story. It was why he wanted to help her. She was also someone this world owed a debt to, yet they’d forgotten her.
But he wouldn’t forget her. Outcasts like them had to take care of one another. Besides, if he didn’t do anything, who would? That spiteful woman who’d berated him on the street? Doubtful.
[But her mind, like her beloved Sven, abandoned her to the cold realities of time.]
Sweat stung his eyes as he made it onto Guntila’s quiet street. There were some people about, but none tried to stop him. His race against time slowed as he neared the spot where he thought he’d seen Guntila. Every home on this street was a copy of the ones next to it, and so Jack whirled around, desperate to spot something familiar.
“What is it, lad?” an old man in a hole-riddled vest inquired, stepping up to Jack.
“Guntila. Where does she live?” Jack asked breathlessly.
“Oh,” the man said, hesitating.
Jack turned to the man and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Please. Tell me. Before it’s too late.”
He wasn’t sure what the old man saw in his gaze, but whatever it was, it convinced him.
“Over there. Old Guntila always takes the best care of her flowers,” the man offered with a sad smile.
“Thank you!” Jack answered, giving the man’s shoulders a slight squeeze before racing off.
Sure enough, he spotted the home where he’d led Guntila. Now that he was in front of it, he remembered spotting the twinned rows of flowers growing in rectangular boxes beside the front door. They were immaculately arranged, each flower blossoming in a perfect gradient from pale pink to blood red, with the darkest petals nearest the door. It was as if the flowers themselves were draining the life from the threshold, passing it onto the flower next to them.
The door wasn’t closed all the way. Jack swept into the house.
“Guntila! I have it! I have your Sven’s ring!” Jack said, his voice cracking.
No one answered. Jack stopped inside the entrance, peering down the hallway. Deep scratches were carved into either side of the narrow hall, and a vase was smashed against the floor. The thin table it had once stood upon was fissured down the center.
Jack heard sobbing from deeper inside. He moved toward the noise, his senses on high alert.
Come on. Let me fix this one thing. Please.
He reached the kitchen. There was a rickety table with only two chairs tucked beneath its rim. Pots and pans hung from hooks against one wall, and a small window above the washing basin overlooked a small garden.
But there, on the floor, was Guntila.
[She is a shade of who she once was.]
All around her, black scorch marks covered every surface, save for a perfect circle around where she lay. The table, floorboards, pots, and even the glass window were absolutely ruined. Thin cracks spread from that unblemished circle around the woman, and Jack thought he could barely see the soft glow of coals or cinders inside the crack.
And Guntila was not alone.
Three women huddled around the old mage, sobbing softly. The woman Jack had spoken to earlier was cradling Guntila’s head on her lap, crying as she stroked the gray hairs from the mage’s face. Jack could see that Guntila was still breathing, but it came in irregular gasps.
“What are you doing here?!” the woman demanded, looking up from Guntila’s face.
Jack Inspected her.
[Wren Tomlin - Level 4]
[Description: A young woman that the world has abused and neglected in equal measure. Forced to sell herself to make ends meet, she considers old Guntila the only ray of light in a world of darkness. And now, that ray is about to be snuffed out, and there’s nothing she can do.]
Beside Wren, the other two women were similarly dressed in revealing attire. Jack’s heart broke inside as he considered what Guntila must have meant to these women. Carefully, he knelt in front of them, and pulled out the ring.
Guntila instantly responded to its presence. She coughed, but rolled her head up to see it.
“S..s..Sven?” the old mage rasped.
“No, I’m Jack. You asked me to get your husband’s ring back for you. I did. Here, take it,” Jack said, and he placed the ring in the woman’s limp hand.
“You… You actually did it,” Wren whispered, disbelief warring with gratitude in her eyes.
Guntila’s grip tightened around the dainty ring, and she coughed again. A thin trickle of blood started to trail down from her nose, and wren used an edge of her dress to wipe it off. There were tiny gasps from the other two women, but Wren ignored them.
“Jack here brought your Sven’s ring back, Guntila,” Wren said with incredible softness. “You don’t have to worry about it anymore. You don’t have to worry about anything. We’ve got you. We’re here. We won’t leave you.”
Guntila lifted her cataracted-eyes to the young woman. “You’re a good girl, Wren. I… I’m so proud of… how strong you are. How strong… you all are… My home… It’s yours now. Please… Water my damn flowers…”
She coughed again, and it was nearly a full minute before she spoke again. Her eyes turned to Jack, and something shifted. They cleared noticeably, and a tinge of power laced her next words.
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“You…You’re him, aren’t you? The one Ardent sent to help us. Please… Take the ring. May it help you where I couldn’t.” Whatever strange power gave her such clarity faded, leaving a husk of a person behind.
Her breathing slowed, and Wren held back a sob.
“I’m coming… my love,” Guntila whispered just before she exhaled for the last time.
Guntila the Wise, surrounded by three surrogate daughters and the Banisher of Aethros, died.
Jack had no idea how to feel. He had done it. He had completed the quest in time. The System had pinged him with a confirmation that he had received the final boost of EXP, and could feel his attributes increase in response to reaching level 11.
“No, no, no,” Wren was muttering over and over again, rocking back and forth. “NO! Please, Guntila. Please come back. I don’t want you to go.”
One of the women stood up and approached Jack, who stood in numb shock. “I think you should go, sir. We need to grieve freely.”
Jack heard the unspoken, ‘And you’re getting in the way of that.’
She handed him Sven’s ring.
He nodded and took the ring, but addressed Wren. “I’m really sorry for your loss. If I’d known this was going to happen, I would’ve tried to get it back sooner. I just… I didn’t…”
Wren sniffed but looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “You couldn’t have known. The fact that she gave it to you is no small thing. If I see it in a pawner’s window, or on the hand of some pretty thing, you and I will have a reckoning. Do you understand?”
Again, Jack nodded.
He started to make his way out of the kitchen, but Wren stopped him with another question.
“What did she mean when she said Ardent sent you? Why did she say it could help you where she couldn’t?” Wren asked, something close to accusation in her tone.
Jack grabbed the edge of the doorframe leading into the hallway.
“I don’t know why she thought she needed to help me,” Jack admitted, though he had an idea. “But I do know that I plan on helping this messed up world.”
“How?” the third woman asked, holding Guntila’s cold hand in her own.
Jack started down the hallway, but said, “I think destroying all the darkness is a good place to start.”
They didn’t stop him after that, and he exited the old mage’s house to a street consumed by shadows. He breathed in the evening air, letting its thickening moisture settle his nerves. To either side of him, the exotic flowers started to wilt, bending their stalks toward the direction of where Guntila lay.
Standing there on the front step to Guntila’s old home, he pulled up his character sheet. After gazing at it for a long moment, he allocated the necessary points into Strength to make Soul Fusion available, then put his remaining 2 free AP into Dexterity so that he was closer to being able to cast Cinder Step, which needed 15 Dexterity.
He confirmed his decision and studied the results.
Jack breathed out, feeling the changes inside of him. He felt stronger, faster, and more real. It was as if his body was slowly but surely becoming more solid. He guessed it was in part due to his resilience nearly reaching 30.
That would mean that I would have the base durability of three people. It’s not invincibility, but it’s certainly better than nothing. And I don’t think it’s a true 1:1 between having ten stats in a given category equating to one person in peak condition of that same category. I think there’s something synergistic going on. I think I’m becoming more than the sum of my parts.
Put another way, Jack was starting to suspect he was becoming a bit less human. The thought was both terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.
I’m not the same guy they stole from Earth, that’s for sure.
Jack started to walk down the street, his mind awash with ideas and emotions. The most prominent was which item he wished to use for Soul Fusion first. He would be effectively zeroing out several of his attribute pools simultaneously, so he would need to find a safe spot to do this first, but that was second to what he wished to bond first.
He pulled up Soul Fusion’s description again, just to double-check his assumptions were still accurate.
// ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════
// Soul Fusion: Level 0
// ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════
? Rank: Novice
? Description:
Consume an item’s essence, unraveling its very existence to
forge a new skill from its remnants. Rarity, function, and
enchantments shape the power born from destruction. Once
initiated, there is no turning back—the item is lost forever,
and only soulless objects may be sacrificed.
? Effect:
→ Absorb a single item to gain a skill based on its collective properties.
→ Skill power scales with item rarity and enchantments.
→ Item must not contain a soul.
→ Skill effect is irreversible.
? Attribute Cost: 25 Strength + 25 Resilience + 20 Constitution
? Cooldown: 24 hours
“The skill’s power scales with the item rarity and any enchantments it may possess,” Jack quietly read aloud. “Hmm.”
Curious, he held up the ring and Inspected it.
[Sven’s Wardbreaker Ring]
[Item Rarity: Epic]
[Item Quality: Superb (weathered)]
[Item Description: A wedding present from the once-legendary mage, Guntila the Wise. It was made by the powerful caster to help protect her beloved from harm on the battlefield. She knew how much he loved to storm the frontlines, and so infused this item with a piece of her unyielding affection and fierce protection.]
[Item Effects:]
- + 5 Strength
- + 5 Charisma
- +10 Resilience
- + 10 Constitution
- Active Skill:
- Wardbreaker: Once per hour, blast out a 30 ft. dome that negates all active wards and enchantments for 1 minute. Some wards and enchantments may be protected against this blast.
Jack stumbled on an uneven stone and had to grab an empty stall’s tent pole to steady himself.
“What the…” he gasped.
This ring was absurdly powerful.
Fingers shaking, he put it on his right index finger. There was a slight glow along some inner line of metal, and he glimpsed hundreds of tiny runes inside that inner band. The ring resized itself to fit his finger perfectly. He instantly felt the flood of power as the enhanced attributes entered his body.
This ring is the equivalent of several levels! He realized. Shoot, I really need to start investing in my other stats that are getting left behind.
The boost to charisma was welcome, but a part of him was disappointed the ring hadn’t given a bit in Perception or Dexterity. But he discarded the selfish thought. He’d just been given a powerful artifact. He wasn’t about to look a gift horse in its mouth.
“Thank you, Guntila,” he said to the wind.
Jack considered his next move.
If I use this ring with Soul Fusion, I’ll miss out on all these amazing stats, plus that powerful skill that doesn’t seem to have a cost on my end. Jack slowly started to shake his head. No, I can’t do the ring. Not yet. There’s no skill I’ve gotten yet that boosts attributes, and right now, I need those as much as I need fresh skills to power myself up.
That left his enchanted boots. Again, Jack shook his head.
No, I don’t care what skill they might give. I refuse to become a barefooted hero.
He’d spent all of one day without boots, and it had been hell.
No, thank you.
Jack went over his remaining options.
I have some silver. That might be interesting. Maybe the skill it’ll give is some kind of money generation hack! He considered this for several minutes, but realized he was overthinking things. Again.
It’s not like this is the only time I get to cast this skill. It does have a 24-hour cooldown, but I don’t want to waste my first one on getting some kind of silversmith skill.
He briefly considered asking Olric if he had any enchanted gear lying about, but quickly dismissed that idea. There was no way he was going to let Olric help him—not until he got to the bottom of whatever the hell was going on in that barn. But before he got those answers, he needed to be strong enough to at least escape Olric should he prove hostile.
But it’s not like I have some magic weapon I can soul-bind or something else obviously helpful.
He squeezed the wooden pole that he leaned against, and it groaned under his newly boosted strength.
Right. I have 30 Strength now, he thought with a wide smile.
He sighed. Well, we can try the money hack idea, and then try to get something better in the next few days.
Jack reached into his money pouch for a silver coin, and felt something odd inside. His heart stopped as he felt the smooth, spherical surface inside his coinpurse. Gingerly, he lifted the bone marble up, studying anew the black rune etched into its pale surface.
“The quality is unknown, though,” he told himself, weighing the risk. “I might get something stupid, or super unhelpful.”
On a whim, he Inspected this particular marble, rather than the entire pouch.
[Emberbone’s Bone Marble. 1/10]
[Quality: Unknown]
[Description: Ten bones taken from eldritch horrors, dead gods, and a single dragon, these marbles were once a gift to the infamous King Emberbone. Their purpose remains a mystery, but it is rumored that those who hold a specific bone might be able to tap into an echo of the powerful creature from whence it came.]
“Well, that’s just bloody unhelpful,” Jack groaned.
He rolled the marble around between his thumb and index finger, considering.
It was a risk. He knew that. But if he got something super useful from it, it would all be worth it.
Right?
“Dammit. Let’s do it.”
Jack decided not to cast the skill then and there on the street, but instead retreated to Guntila’s house. Quietly, he ducked to the side of the house, made sure no one was watching, then quickly climbed up the side of the house until he was on the roof. Nervously, he glanced around just in case the old mage had booby-trapped this area, but he didn’t see anything that might explode or ensnare him.
The roof was flat on the top, and so he moved to the center, brushed away a few errant leaves, then laid down. He gazed up at the sky, still clutching the marble. The stars overhead were just beginning to brighten the night. He could see countless constellations, and even spotted an intersecting line of galaxies akin to the Milky Way. One line was distinctly green, while the other was tinged with blue.
It was beautiful.
“Here goes nothing,” Jack muttered and held the marble aloft. “Skill Activate: Soul Fusion.”
His vision turned blurry, and he saw a thin golden-white outline surround the marble.
[Item identified.]
[Item qualifies for skill: Soul Fusion.]
[Would you like to fuse your soul with this item?]
[YES? or NO?]
He confirmed his choice.
There was a bright flash as the marble, along with his vision, was consumed with golden light, and Jack Thatcher was no more.