Chapter 106: The Promise

 

I scanned the massive room around me and honestly although it was quite a haul it just looked like a giant storage room. The room was similar in a way to the Black Box back in Elysia. The stones were this beige sandstone colour and like in Elysia many runes swirled on the walls. But just by looking at it I could tell it lacked the customization options that the Black Box held. It made sense since this was clearly designed just to be a storage area. My little home was designed for me which means chances are it was also designed to be a base of operations. Overall the design was rather plain with just that sandstone making up the floor, walls and ceiling. This entire place was just one large highly fortified room. But considering its contents and purpose I suppose this was an adequate design.

There was a lot of gold, and I mean a loooot of gold. Like literally piles of it in parts of the room. What’s interesting was that this gold was clearly not designed for use by the Zarimans. Usually gold is stored in the form of coins but the gold here was stored in bars, which were extremely efficient to store in terms of space. I’m not sure why the original creators bothered to store gold when this was supposed to be for the Firstborn. Perhaps this vault was for those that would support the new Firstborn?

It made sense to an extent, the generations that come later would need resources to support me. Especially considering this whole thing had to be done secretly. According to Mahaila the First Cult was shattered after the fall of the Firstborn and they scattered across the world with nothing but their mission still in hand. They were purged many times until their numbers dwindled almost to nothing. The only remaining hold out that held a reasonable amount of members was the Syndicate. But even then Mahaila said they had gone astray, focusing more on their vendetta against Heaven rather than restoring the three worlds to its proper state. 

To me although Heaven is currently the largest threat, in the end they were but a powerful faction. The Firstborn of old were defeated due to betrayals and the alliance of their enemies. If I can bring many beings to my side and deny my enemies any allies, then victory was in reach.

“Now this is interesting…” Cecilia said as she held this strange little rod in her hand. She was standing in front of this cabinet that was filled with magical artifacts. This cabinet was also next to four book shelves filled with ancient tomes. It appears our book collection was going to get another upgrade. 

“Hmm? Oh that is a Focii Blade.” Mahaila said as she walked over. I headed over as well and I looked down at the little thing. It was a highly enchanted item but yet I sense very little ether radiating from it. That was certainly interesting, usually highly enchanted artefacts were brimming with ether.

“A Focii Blade? I have never heard of such a thing. Is this supposed to be a weapon?” Cecilia asked as she turned the strange rod in her hand. Now that I look at it, it kind of looks like a sword handle without the blade or guard.

“Yes a Focii Blade.” Mahaila said as she extended her hand and Cecilia, catching her meaning, handed it to her.

“Focii Blades are made from a rare type of ether crystal. It’s like this actually…” Mahaila said as she opened up the cabinet and took out this strange looking ether crystal. The shape of it was like a typical cut of diamond but the pointy bottom was much longer and extended down quite far giving it an almost teardrop shape. Although it appears the cut of the crystal was extremely poor, it didn’t look very good with odd angles and it was also slightly asymmetrical.

“These crystals are extremely rare because you can’t cut ether crystals into the required shape. Rupturing a crystal’s structure causes it to explode if charged or become unusable when empty. This shape allows for ether to be concentrated and expelled in a controlled manner. Think of it as a focusing lens, hence the name Focii Crystals.” Mahaila explained as she handed the crystal to Cecilia who examined it intently.

“This type of blade essentially draws from the user’s ether to create a high powered ether blade, it is extremely draining to use but it’s raw cutting power more than makes up for it.” Mahaila said as she ignited the Focii Blade and a glowing, crackling blue blade appeared from the hilt. 

“Test it.” I said as I extended one of my blades and Mahaila calmly took a swing at it. To my surprise although it didn’t cut through it still melted and chipped the bone. 

“Haaa… but still it’s hard to maintain this for long periods of time.” Mahaila said as she turned it off. I could tell there was a slight bit of fatigue in her from that strike alone. It wasn’t much but if it was even slightly taxing after a single swing from someone like Mahaila then it must have quite a high power draw.

“Why is it so taxing for you?” I asked curiously.

“The design of this weapon demands the user themselves provide the ether required to power the weapon. There are a lot of enchantments needed to form the ether into a usable blade. Since the shapes of the crystals aren’t perfect there is an efficiency problem as well. Not much effort has been put into optimisation of the process either since Focii crystals are so rare. 

No one uses these blades for extended fights anyway. We mostly use it for a sudden devastating attack due to its complete lack of weight.” Mahaila said as she took a step back. She put the Focii blade back onto the cabinet and took a step back.

She drew her twin blades and did a quick slashing combo against an imaginary assailant and then suddenly saw a glowing blue blade flash for a moment before disappearing. Then Mahaila sheathed her swords and reached into a compartment in her armour revealing another Focii Blade.

“I have one as well, the idea is to have it activated for as little time as possible. The sheer cutting power and the fact that blade just suddenly appears is extremely useful for combo mix ups. A sudden strike to end the fight or damage equipment. Since the Focii Blade by its nature has a very low ether signature most cannot detect it if you have one on hand.” Mahaila explained.

“Interesting… you say the efficiency issues are because no one was researching it right?” I muttered and Mahaila nodded in response.

“Yes because Focii crystals are exceedingly rare, and the imperfect shape means additional enchantments need to be powered by the user in order to keep the blade stable. Focii blades are surprise attack weapons so the special enchantments are dormant until the user pours ether into it.” Mahaila explained and I nodded as I turned my gaze to the small stack of Grahanam Crowns in the corner. Well we planned to visit the Primordial Font to charge the crowns anyway… the Grahanam Crowns also couldn’t be assimilated by the First Born due to the form of the essence being too chaotic. It was mostly useful as a powersource to power other things.

I floated a pair of Grahanam Crowns over to me and I drew out the mass of crackling power. I saw Cecilia and Mahaila give me funny looks as they wondered what the hell I was doing.

“You know how my Praetorians have large control crystals to send out commands to the rest of the hive…” I said with a smile and I watched as their eyes widened in understanding.

I looked down at the mass of power and I began to shape it to my design. It didn’t take long, just about five minutes. I wasn’t sure how much energy it would need to create a Focii crystal so I took two crowns just in case. But it turns out they were surprisingly cheap and soon I had about eight perfect Focii crystals in front of me. 

“Of course… you said those crystals in your hive were not like normal Ether Crystals because they lacked the ability to store power but…” Cecilia began.

“But Focii crystals don’t need to store power, they only need to focus it…” Mahaila muttered as she took one of the perfectly shaped synthetic Focii crystals.

“I wonder, can we get the efficiency down enough for it to be usable for the average spell blade?” Cecilia asked as she held another of the Focii crystals in her hand.

“At least we don’t have to worry about breaking it during experiments now, my uncle tore out half the feathers on his head when he accidentally broke one.” Mahaila mused.

“Actually I wasn’t really planning for it to be used primarily by humanoids.” I said and the pair looked up at me.

“You see if the enchantments are draining a lot of power to keep the blade stable… What if you don’t need to keep it as stable? Why not… make the ether just blast out the other end like a projectile?” I said and Mahaila’s eyes widened like saucers.

“Yes… if they aren’t rare and relatively cheap to make… since it’s just a shape after all. You can just put them in your hive…” Cecilia said as she cupped her chin as a wide smile appeared on her face.

“The size is also not a problem, I can make a really big one and turn it into a cannon. Then I mount it on some kind of organic frame and then we suddenly have a very powerful siege weapon.” I said and Cecilia nodded fervently.

“You could also make smaller ones and turn it into a kind of staff. That way anyone with a scrap of magic potential is suddenly able to be a ranged combatant. Just give them the staff, have them point it at the enemy and fire… you don’t even need to train them much.” Cecilia said as she cupped her chin, the possibilities racing through her head.

“Thank whatever creator there was, the old gods never paid much attention to humanoid technology…” Mahaila added as she pinched the bridge of her nose. Lucky indeed, the humanoids created a lot of interesting solutions to problems. If the Firstborn took note of these solutions they would be able to vastly improve them.

“With this new technology and resource we can change the way war is waged… the Averlonian Empire’s military will get a significant edge over the other nations. You should be able to create more of these with some kind of creation right?” Cecilia asked and I nodded in response.

“But I doubt you can just make those staffs you were talking about. Wood, can’t hold the ether load, you are going to need mithril. A lot of mithril in fact if you want to arm the common populace with weapons based on these.” Mahaila said and Cecilia shifted her gaze as she ruminated over the problem.

“Our forges don’t have the capacity for it… getting the Mithril ore isn’t a problem… refining it is…” Cecilia muttered.

“Yeah, my hive has already struck several Mithril veins by accident. There's a lot of it deep under the Ironhammer mountain range and I also found a vein under Cathay when my hive was scouting the underground logistics network pathways.” I said and Cecilia shifted her gaze to me and we came to the exact same conclusion.

“We need the dwarves.” we both said in unison.

“My hive can’t refine Mithril ore, so the dwarves are our only bet here.” I said and Cecilia nodded in response. 

“This opens many doors, the Focii crystals are also another carrot to dangle in front of the dwarves. That plus the promised riches of the logistics network that I plan to offer them and the threat of annihilation should be more than enough to bring them to our side.” Cecilia said as she cupped her chin.

“The human army might actually be useful now beyond basic peacekeeping operations.” Mahaila said as she turned the Focii crystal in her hand.

“They were always going to be useful, I just needed to arm them correctly. I was originally going to grow them better weapons that would require minimal training to use. Mostly due to the fact that we don’t have decades of time to train an army so any military technology revolution would need something that is easy to implement.

The original plan was to get my hands on some of the Primordial Crystals at the font and see if they can be used to power some kinds of weapons.” I said and Mahaila nodded in understanding.

“The Primordial Crystals store essence instead of ether but the essence is formless and inherently chaotic. If the Firstborn could use that essence they would have just started drinking from the Primordial Font to gain power.” Mahaila replied as she shifted her gaze to me.

“I know such a pity…” I said in mock disappointment.

“Yes, what a disappointment. The only limitation you have is that you cannot drink from the source of all power in the world.” Cecilia replied dryly with a smirk.

“Hey just give me this, I don’t get to complain about that many things.” I said with a fanged smile of my own.

“Imagine that being a problem.” Cecilia replied with a chuckle.

“Since we are going to have a lot of these Focii crystals lying around may I keep this one?” Mahaila asked as she picked up the Focii Blade that was in the vault.

“Hmm? Sure, but what’s so special about this one? I can make a better one, with a better crystal.” I asked as I stared at Mahaila who was looking wistfully at the blade in her hand.

“My Focii Blade was made by the same person that made this one. If it’s here it means my uncle gave it to the First Cult here.” Mahaila said as she took her own blade and held both up for us to see. 

First off I noticed there were some design similarities between the two, for instance both were clearly designed for hands larger than those your average human would possess. The handle was too thick and it was a tad too long for a one handed sword’s handle.

The second and perhaps most obvious sign that they were both made by the same person was this signature engraved on the mithril handle.

 

Phizaros

 

“The Crowfather?” I asked and Mahaila nodded in response.

“You have a crazy history Mahaila.” I said with a shake of my head.

“You have no idea.” Mahaila muttered in response as her face twisted slightly in unhappiness. I guess her past was a touchy subject.

“All of this was a long time coming…” Mahaila said as she pocketed the two blades and walked over to the wall at the far end of the room. I could see there was some kind of simple mural there but it wasn’t enchanted or giving off any ether so I didn’t pay it too much attention. The loot in here seemed far more important.

Me and Cecilia followed her to the mural and I saw it was rather well drawn. But what caught my attention was this set of words inscribed on the mural. It was a poem with rather prophetic undertones. Makes me wonder if it was actually another prophecy…

Prophecies were a curious thing. Good prophecies always come true but their words are often vague and lack a lot of information. They basically tell you the end, but it doesn’t tell you what that end will be like exactly and how that end will come to pass. Still it was useful regardless…

So on this wall these words appear…

 

We serve the righteous hand of the old gods

We serve the true gods that the world has forgot

Thought broken and exiled we are loyal the same

We guard these seeds through the worst of our pain

The old world is dead and it is writ on its grave

The usurpers felled the old gods unnamed

Though the usurpers use this world as a slave

The slaves will one day carry them to their grave

 

“Is this a prophecy?” I asked curiously and I saw Mahaila shake her head with her back still to me. She turned around in an indomitable will in her sterling eyes.

 

This is no prophecy

This is a promise…