Ichor Cell-Interlude 9 - Stumbling into something big

Ichor Cell-Interlude 9 - Stumbling into something big

The Disaster-class monster split into eight parts, its body tumbling a few feet down the rocky slope before coming to rest against a half-buried boulder. Bram planted his axe head-first into the dirt and leaned on the haft, rolling his shoulders.
“You know,” he said after a moment, “If this keeps up, I’m going to start suspecting they’re running out of decent stock.”
He gave the corpse an annoyed look, as if it had personally failed him.
Sera lowered her bow, the string still humming faintly as she scanned the ridgeline out of habit. “These things wouldn’t even have been considered pests up here a few years ago,” she frowned. “Although I want to believe that it simply means the mountains have become safer to traverse...”
“…We all know that that’s not the case.” Orlen finished for her, sheathing his sword. “Whatever’s going on up here, it’s sucked this entire region dry of anything powerful.” His gaze roamed the surrounding mountains, as if hoping to glean something from the austere peaks.
Vessa crouched beside the monster’s remains, fingers glowing faintly as she pressed mana into its hide. She didn’t linger long, barely a few breaths, before straightening again with a quiet huff.
“That’s the third batch today.” She said. “Same group composition, same approach. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen several different types of monsters working together to set up an ambush, much less having a clearly defined Disaster-tier captain with a bunch of Supernatural grunts.”
Bram snorted and rested his weight more comfortably on the haft of his axe. “I don’t know,” he said, glancing down at the scattered remains. “I’ve seen better teamwork out of roaming bands of goblins. Still doesn’t sit right, though.”
Vessa stood, eyes unfocused for a moment as she sensed the air for something only she could feel. “There’s structure to it,” she said. “Not spellwork exactly. More like… pressure. As if the monsters are being nudged into place rather than commanded outright.”
“But that doesn’t fit with our observations.” Orlen argued. “If they’re only being nudged, why are they in such well organised teams and coexisting peacefully? We certainly know that ‘nudging’ a goblin and a kobold together will result in the swift death of one or the other.”
“That…” Vessa hesitated.
“Regardless of what the truth is, we have things to do and places to be.” Bram interrupted the conversation and hefted his axe off the ground. “We can come back here if we get a commission from the guild. I’m not sticking my nose in this level of business for no reason.”
The others hesitated but soon agreed. One didn’t get to their level of power without becoming at least somewhat jaded. They’d their findings to the guild and go from there.
They set off southwards without much ceremony, choosing the most obvious route down and away from the ridge. The path sloped gently, cutting across the mountainside rather than climbing deeper into it. Loose stones gave way to packed dirt, and the wind eased enough that conversation no longer had to be raised over it.
More importantly, nothing attacked them.
Sera was the first to notice. After a solid twenty minutes of uninterrupted walking, she glanced over his shoulder, then ahead again, brow furrowing.
“Well,” she said slowly, “either whoever’s doing this finally got tired of us, or something’s changed.”
Orlen slowed his pace, thoughtful. “We’ve gone almost half an hour without an encounter,” he said. “And the only difference is the direction we’re heading.”
Bram snorted. “So you’re saying the mountains only try to kill us when we walk the wrong way?”
“I’m saying,” Orlen replied evenly, “that whatever’s arranging things up here doesn’t care about us unless we’re pointed somewhere specific.”
Orlen stopped.
The others took a few more steps before realising he wasn’t following, turning back to look at him. He stood there for a moment, gaze fixed back up the slope, expression unreadable.
“Well,” Bram said carefully, “we did just agree we weren’t sticking our noses into this.”
“Yes.” Orlen said. “We did.”
“And,” Bram continued, edging further along the path, “we are still very much in the middle of fleeing two countries that would love nothing more than to put us to work.”
“Also true.” The man nodded once again.
Vessa sighed quietly and folded her arms. “But we’re already here,” she said. “And at this point, we’re not exactly talking about poking a hornet’s nest. They’re already well aware of us, so we may as well go check it out.”
Sera tilted her head, considering. “If something went out of its way to keep us from heading that direction,” she said, “I’d at least like to know why.”
Another pause stretched between them, longer this time. The wind brushed past, carrying with it nothing but cold air and the faint scent of moss.
The narrative has been taken without permission. any sightings.
Bram rolled his shoulders. “I just want it on record,” he said, “that this is a terrible idea.”
No one replied.
“…I guess we may as well go take a look.” The dwarf let out a resigned sigh.
They turned back the way they’d come, boots crunching against the packed dirt as they retraced their steps toward the ridge. For a short while, nothing changed. The air remained calm, the surroundings quiet and untroubled, as if the mountains themselves were content to let them be.
That lasted exactly until they angled east again.
Vessa was the first to feel it. She slowed, brow furrowing as the faint, familiar pressure crept back into the air, subtle but unmistakable. “There it is,” she said quietly. “Same feeling as before.”
They didn’t get much farther. Stones shifted ahead of them, then to the sides, then behind. Shapes peeled themselves out of the terrain with practiced timing, blocking the path forward in a loose semicircle that cut off the narrow trail.
Bram sighed and hefted his axe. “Well,” he said, rolling his neck once, “I suppose that answers that.”
Orlen drew his sword, eyes flicking across the group in a single sweep. His gaze lifted toward the slope beyond the monsters. “We’re definitely being kept away from something.”
Vessa exhaled slowly, mana beginning to gather around her hands. “I guess we’re gonna find out what it is.”
One of the creatures let out a harsh, broken cry, and the others surged forward in unison.
Steel flashed, mana ignited, and the quiet of the mountains shattered once more.
The hall was vast enough that sound struggled to find its edges.
Grand arches stretched outward into darkness, its ceiling lost somewhere high above in shadow. The stone underfoot was smooth; not polished, but worn down by time, shaped by centuries of deliberate use. Veins of muted crystal ran through the walls and floor, glowing softly with a steady, colourless light that outlined the space without ever fully illuminating it. Figures moved quietly at the edges of the hall, their footsteps muted by the stone and swallowed by the space.
At the center of the hall, a broad stone altar rose from the floor. Its surface was layered with etched formations, overlapping arrays that pulsed faintly as they processed distant flows of mana and information. Above it hovered a projection so stable it might as well have been physical, a shifting abstraction of regions, forces, and mana movements spanning far beyond any single nation.
Behind the altar, raised slightly above even the carved stone, sat a throne wrought from dark metal and ancient bone. Its design was severe, shaped for endurance and dominance rather than display. Upon it sat a figure, motionless save for the faint rise and fall of breath, armour layered and heavy, plates interlocked with sigils worn smooth by time. A deep hood of shadowed cloth fell over the helm, concealing the figure’s face entirely, its edge catching only the faint glow of the surrounding crystals.
A single man knelt at the foot of the dais.
His head was bowed low, forehead nearly touching the stone as he spoke, voice carefully controlled. “My lord,” he said, “one of the goblin breeds has been slain. A third generation.”
The figure did not respond immediately.
Their attention remained fixed on the projection above, one hand resting lightly against the carved stone as distant regions shifted and updated. Only after a few heartbeats did they incline their head, granting permission to continue.
“Speak.”
The kneeling subordinate swallowed before continuing, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the stone before him. “The specimen was stationed near a minor settlement in Prasanth, in a forest on the Orenthian border.”
The projection behind the kneeling man suddenly shifted, rotating and then zooming in on a particular area highlighted in green; precisely where the goblin camp had been located.
“I see.” The figure muttered. “And how was it discovered?”
“An unfortunate coincidence.” The subordinate replied. “A Wood rank adventurer took on a herb gathering task in the forest and stumbled upon a couple goblins. The guild treated it with the seriousness it deserved and dispatched the local guild master and a group of adventurers to the scene.”
“Unfortunate.” The figure intoned, causing the kneeling subordinate to break out in cold sweat. “But no matter. Losses are inevitable in plans of this scale. As long as our overall purpose is not discovered, there is nothing to worry about.”
“…” The kneeling man started trembling.
The figure on the throne frowned. “Speak.”
“There was another… incident.” The man spoke haltingly. “A calamity-tier adventuring party entered the mountain region,” he said. “They call themselves Ashen Vow.”
The figure’s fingers paused against the stone.
“Continue.” they commanded.
“Yes, my lord,” the man replied quickly. “They do not serve Ecrait or the Free Kingdoms. Their presence appears to be the result of displacement caused by the oncoming war.”
The projection shifted once more, the forested lowlands fading as jagged peaks rose into view. Thin lines traced a path through the mountains.
“They wandered near one of the abandoned sites.” The man continued. “A facility vacated several years ago, after its purpose was fulfilled. Though the primary work had been removed, the defensive measures remained.”
The figure leaned back slightly in the throne. “And those measures were triggered.”
“Yes,” the subordinate said. “When the party drew close, groups of lesser monsters were drawn in to bar their path.”
“I assume that didn’t result in the desired outcome?” the figure asked.
“No, my lord,” the subordinate said at once. “The creatures left over in the region were incredibly weak. All they served to accomplish was alert the party that something in the region didn’t want them near.”
The figure on the throne let out a weary sigh.
The kneeling man trembled harder.
“Stop that.” The figure commanded. It waved a hand and the man froze, unable to even blink. “I am not unreasonable. This is not something you could have foreseen or prevented. You will not be punished.”
The subordinate remained immobile, though tears of relief shimmered in his eyes.
“Reduce residual pressure near abandoned sites,” the figure shifted in its seat. “I will not have forgotten work acting as a lure. If Ashen Vow depart, let them. If they insist on sticking their noses where they don’t belong…” A terrible, dread inducing aura erupted out of the figure, causing the light in the hall to dim and warping the space around them to warp. The distant servants and subordinates all paused in their movements, then as one, dropped to their knees and bowed to the throne.
“And the war?” the subordinate asked with excitement, finally able to move again.
The aura of power retracted as the figure’s gaze returned to the broader projection, where borders shifted and fronts bled into one another in slow, grinding motion. “The war continues to serve its purpose,” they said. “The more chaos in the land, the less likely we are to be discovered.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then you are dismissed.”
The subordinate did not rise at once. He bowed again, deeper still, before retreating backward into the shadows, careful never to turn his back on the throne. His footsteps faded, swallowed by the vastness of the hall.
The projection zoomed out, the mountains shrinking back into insignificance among countless other regions. From this height, from this distance, the loss of a goblin and the curiosity of a wandering party were barely ripples.
The figure remained seated, unmoving, as the ancient formations beneath the throne resumed their steady pulse.
The design endured.
And the world, unaware, continued exactly as intended.

Interlude 9 - Stumbling into something big