Pandora Unchained - a Cultivation Progression Fantasy

It took Sorin a few minutes to control the Violence in his body. Gareth eyed him with concern, but thanks to the fox head medallion on his chest, the archer couldn't detect anything amiss.

When they returned to town, they received a less-than-warm reception, as predicted. "I'm sorry, but I simply can't house people who are here to cause trouble for this village," said Wendy, the innkeeper. "I gathered all your things and kept an eye on them, so I'm sure no one touched them."

"Are you not worried that your actions could be construed as interference with a Nighthawk Investigation?" Gareth asked the woman.

"Hah!" said Wendy. "How could I worry about that when there are demons out there causing havoc because of your activities right now? That scholar of yours has spent so much time in our libraries I'm sure she knows I'm related to the Chesters. They were all dearly loved by everyone in the village, and their death is a great loss to us all."

"You sure have a funny way of showing it," muttered Sorin.

Wendy's snarled. "Sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you over the sounds of their screams in the wind. Get out! You're not welcome here!"

They received similar treatment at the two pubs in town, as well as the potion shop and Physician Morgan's office. It was the same for Adventurers Guild, but not for the same reasons.

"Itsh not that I don't want to help you out," said the drunken Guild Master apologetically. "Itsh just that the lasht time the guild protected people who broke the peashe, they burned this place down while I was shleeping. Wouldn't want anything like that happening again, now, would we?"

"Isn't this a little too abnormal?" Sorin asked Gareth. "There's something off about their behavior. Something that's on the tip of my tongue."

Gareth didn't seem to think so. "My father warned me about cases like these. Some people would rather dig into whatever hole they've dug themselves into and stay there rather than face any potential problems. That applies both to corruption cases and normal ones, so this gives us nothing to further our investigation."

"It's also not uncommon for insular villages like these to suddenly clam up or get suspicious," said Astley. "My order is often at the wrong place at the wrong time. Whenever something goes wrong, it's always outsiders who are to blame."

"Isn't it pretty clear that demons tore those farmers apart?" said Lawrence. "Seems stupid to think otherwise."

"To them, demons are a familiar threat," said Stephan, shaking his head. "Since their behavior changed, there must be a cause. We are the greatest change source of change in recent weeks, so it follows that we must be responsible for the attack.

"It's faulty logic, but it explains everything," said Gareth. "We can only continue with our investigation during the day and stay outside the village at night."

"Doesn't that put us at risk against the demons?" asked Daphne. "It's one thing if we're in a fortified position, but I don't think we'd stand a chance against tens of thousands of demons with two-star demons among their ranks."

Gareth was also acutely aware of this problem. He pulled out a map of the local region and tried to find a defensible place where they could make camp.

"Since the village won't take us, why don't we stay in the mines?" suggested Astley. "As long as we keep watch, we shouldn't have any issues."

Gareth nodded. "The mines are probably our best bet. There are hills here, but they won't prevent us from getting surrounded. Is anyone not in agreement? Great. Then, let's make the best use of daylight. Astley, you're not officially part of the investigation team, but we could use your help. With you temporarily joining our team, we'll also have an easier time prying into the secrets of this Dark Lady and the Winter Vigil."

Astley readily agreed, allowing them to split into three teams instead of two. It was important to have a magic user on each team in case of magical tampering. Sorin, who dabbled, barely made the cut and remained teamed up with Lorimer to free up Lawrence to perform his own type of investigation.

With nothing to tie them down, they managed to work through the remaining individuals on their list. The villagers and the farmers were unfriendly, but they succinctly answered any questions that were asked. They were willing to offend their team but very unwilling to break the corruption laws that were enforced by all twelve human-inhabited provinces.

It was dark by the time they were finished, and the winds were starting to pick up. They journeyed as a group through fresh snowfall toward the mountainside.

"Be careful, everyone," said Astley as she led them through a large cave entrance. "Those mutated demons I fought earlier came from here. I wanted to investigate this place further but never got a chance."

"Aren't you supposed to be taking us somewhere save and defensible?" inquired Daphne.

"Relax," said Astley. "Demons are territorial, so other demons probably haven't moved in yet. We should be relatively safe for the time being."

"Lawrence, you lead the way," commanded Gareth.

"Why do I have to lead the way?" asked Lawrence. "Doesn't she have her summoned ink creatures?"

"That's a fair point," said Gareth. "Astley?"

"That same pack of wolves should do the trick," said Astley, taking out her grimoire. She opened it with the golden key she wore at her neck, releasing a large amount of corruption that spilled into the cave and pooled at her feet.

She turned to the sixth page of her book and infused the page with her mana until the image of the four wolves came to life and jumped out of the picture. They drank in the corruption and used it to empower themselves.

"Inspect the hallway just ahead of us," commanded Astley. "Remain exactly twenty feet ahead of me unless I instruct otherwise." Without any hesitation, the wolves trotted twenty feet out and stayed there, as though frozen, until Astley took a few steps forward.

"I like the décor in this place," said Lawrence, inspecting the cavern walls lit up by three light spells and a lightly glowing Lorimer. The walls were roughly hewn but supported by thick wooden arches. "It's very homely. Just needs a touch of paint and a bit of wall art, that's all."

"This place reeks," said Daphne, wrinkling her nose. "Did something die here, or something? "

As it turns out, something had. A few hundred feet into the cave, they stumbled upon rotting deer carcasses. Each one had large chunks of flesh bitten off them, and due to the elevated temperature deeper into the cave, the remains were crawling with so many insects and maggots that Daphne made a command decision and incinerated them.

"Next thing, it'll be rats," said Daphne, shivering. "I hate rats. Lorimer excluded, of course."

"I wouldn't worry about rats too much with Lorimer on our side," said Sorin. "Instead, I'd worry about the poisonous smoke that's belching out from these tunnels."

"Poisonous smoke?" said Gareth, sniffing. "I thought I smelled something strange."

"It's barely noticeable," said Sorin. "Also, it kills your sense of smell. Either way, it's not a problem if the concentration remains at this level. We should be careful, though—this sort of gas tends to be heavier than air. There's a good chance the toxicity will increase the deeper we go."

They proceeded cautiously down the mine shaft. On the way, they encountered rats and bats and all sorts of insectile demons that had made the place their home. Roughly 500 feet from the corpses, they stumbled upon a carved-out chamber that included stone beds and rotted rags. The place was relatively bare, making it clear that it wasn't abandoned in a hurry.

"There's a secret room here!" said Lawrence, walking a little further down the tunnel. "Do you want me to open it?"

"Be careful," hissed Astley. "This requires delicacy and precision, as any damage could invalidate—" Her words cut off as the wall caved in.

"Urgh! What is that smell?" said Lawrence.

The rest of their group abandoned what they were doing and joined him at the entrance of the secret chamber.

"Congratulations, Lawrence," said Sorin. "You found a secret liquor stash. By the looks of it, the barrels have rotted, and the liquor evaporated. Most of it was absorbed by the stone formation, but the introduction of outside air is slowly releasing it."

"Weird," said Lawrence, holding up a bottle. "I don't recognize a few of these letters."

"Don't you dare smash it!" said Astley, swiftly grabbing the bottle and cradling it like an infant. "This is a surprisingly good specimen. There's linguistic variation here, as one might expect from a secluded village. Some of these letters match what I found in the library, but others I've never seen before."

Sorin frowned. "You mean some of these are in the old tongue from before the Cataclysmic Emergence?"

"Not at all," said Astley with a bright smile. "They're new. They were made to describe certain sounds and words that developed in Chelsea."

"But we didn't hear any new sounds or words," said Lawrence. "And I haven't seen any of these letters anywhere else. Not in the mayor's house, his office, or in any of the mining company offices."

Astley shook her head. "These things come and go, and they seldom stick around. That's especially the case in places with high traffic. What we've got here is just a slice of culture from a time when things weren't completely harmonized with the twelve cities."

"Speaking of culture, there's an important decision to be made," said Stephan. "Fire and roast meat or dry rations?"

Sorin shut down the notion of a fire immediately. "This poison I mentioned is flammable. Lighting a fire would be a very bad idea."

"What doesn't this poison do?" asked Stephan. "Out of curiosity."

"I'd say it doesn't support life, but I believe some of the life mages hypothesized that some demonic life forms might technically be able to live on the stuff much like we would air," answered Sorin. "Anyway, it's a common sulfur-based poison. We're resistant to it as Bone-Forging cultivators. Those who should be most concerned about it are Daphne and Astley, who have the weakest constitutions. I'll need to check on them every hour or so to make sure."

"If you're hungry, eat," said Astley. "I'll be studying the remains of this secret room and the chamber from before."

In the end, Astley discovered a few more fragments of divergent writing, some remnants of clothes that stood out compared to standard fashion at the time, as well as some unique architectural features that Sorin saw as not a big deal but was apparently the find of the century.

Of special note were pillars they found erected in the mine shaft. They were ribbed in a fashion that Astley said was reminiscent of the architectural style of the ancient gods.

"I think we should focus less on mundane research and instead discuss our findings for today," said Daphne, finally fed up with her speculation.

"Don't you mean our lack of findings?" asked Sorin. "Because Lorimer and I didn't find squat."

"I'm afraid none of the teams did," said Garreth, putting down his notebook. "That just leaves Lawrence, the terrible notetaker. Spill it—what did you find out?"

"I didn't really find out much of anything," said Lawrence. "Largely because the people I was going to monitor were absent. Except for guild master. He was drunk out of his mind and at the guild the entire time."

"Absent?" asked Gareth with a frown. "You mean busy doing something else?"

"They weren't physically present in the village," clarified Lawrence. "I mean, I could be wrong—this stupid snow interferes with my abilities. But I walked fairly close to every building in town and didn't catch a whiff of them."

"Did they leave town, then?" suggested Stephan.

"Did they activate any strange devices?" pitched Daphne.

"I didn't really see them to begin with," said Lawrence. "Which is very strange given how hot on our tails they were yesterday. So, I did some looking. I inspected the mayor's house and swiped one of his ties. I went to the mining companies and stole a few signed documents and some of the pens they used. I also went to the Mages Guild, but I couldn't find anything that belonged to the guild master without tripping some spell alarms."

"These are pretty much useless to me, Lawrence," said Gareth, looking through the documents. "These are shipping manifests. For ores that were sent out to their mother companies in Jigolath Ridge."

"Look, I didn't know if they'd come in handy," Lawrence admitted. "My thoughts were that maybe someone knew handwriting analysis. Or maybe that Astley could use one of her wolves to track them down. Heck, maybe Lorimer could track the mayor by scent?"

"Reee!" hissed Lorimer.

"I'm not trying to discriminate," said Lawrence defensively. "But it remains that you do have a very powerful sense of smell."

"This should work perfectly," said Astley, picking the manifests out of Gareth's hands. She also inspected the pens and the tie. "Did you say they weren't anywhere in town?"

"Nowhere I could see," said Lawrence. "But I have my suspicions. There are a lot of cellars that lead deeper below ground. The inn's wine cellar, for example. I figure they dug up those tunnels in case they needed to evacuate the town."

"You think they went underground," said Sorin. "Which makes sense—this is a mining town. Though by the looks of it, finding them in these tunnels is going to be worse than navigating Daedalus' Labyrinth. Unless you've got trained tracking dogs in that book of yours?"

"I had something better in mind, actually," said Astley. "These items can all be considered karmically connected to their owners. As such, they're the perfect materials to use in a seeking ritual."