Nic dragged his scarf out from under the rubble, sighing to see how torn up it was. The ends were frayed and rips had appeared in the fabric. Still, the hand at the end animated weakly, giving him a high five. He’d need to get the weavers to stitch it back together.

He took the time to sweep the area one final time. This chamber had been taken over by the spawning sand devils, but there was something here before that. A reason the System had chosen to preserve this portion of the buried city whole and intact.

He found it at the end of the bath-chamber, where the water flowed from. A trio of dryad statues stood holding basins of water, surrounding a dying hero who lay in the lap of a marble goddess. It was a beautiful scene carved from stone with such skill that the drifting fabric of the dryad’s dresses seemed soft, and their eyes looked full of life, as if they could see the strange little creature exploring their ruined city.

As Nic approached a soft voice spoke from the central statue, light filling the eyes of the goddess who held the dying hero. “Once…”

“Once a long time ago, our dead kings ascended to godhood and ruled from palaces of fire within the sun. When a pharaoh died they were placed into a boat and sent along the river to the Hall of Night. Their organs- the lungs, liver, heart, and brain- were carried by four guardian spirits, who presented them to the Master of the Hall so that the king could be judged on the Four Virtues contained within- strength, courage, kindness, and wisdom.”

“If the king was found worthy, he ascended, joining his ancestors and looking down upon his former kingdom from the height of the sun. But…”

“One day, at the end of our time, a pharaoh arrived at the Hall to find that the four guardians had betrayed him. They had consumed his organs, stealing his power, and without the four essential portions of his flesh he could not prove that he was the king he claimed to be.”

“The Master of the Hall was enraged. He declared the pharaoh an imposter and cast his soul to the wastes. With one hand, he lifted the sacred river and the Hall of Night into the sky, separating them from the land below. By his decree, not one drop of rain would fall until the rightful pharaoh stood before him.”

“And so our land withered to dust, and all memory of rain was lost…”

There was the sound of water rushing down a drain, and the pools of the bathhouse emptied, going dry in instants. The watery atmosphere- like a drowned undersea cave- turned to barren desolation as the light in the statue’s eyes faded.

You have discovered

Lore Fragment of the Scales of Sand

200 Essence Awarded

Discover four Lore Fragments to bind and weaken the Guardian ‘Sand Devil Monarch’

“Sofia? Anything you can add to that?” Nic asked. The story was sad and somewhat beautiful- but it didn’t explain why one of the four false gods he’d been tasked with killing was the sand devil queen. The insect-devils had come to this planet after Integration, so how could their monarch be one of the four ancient guardians?

“This time, I suspect they were largely telling the truth. The System wouldn’t completely fabricate a story- but it would hide it’s own part in leading the world towards destruction. If I had to guess, these ‘guardians’ were tempted by Logos into betraying their world. It fits with Anet-Mu’s anger towards the gods, and Logos’ curiosity about their cultivation methods.”

“We could attempt to do- whatever it is I’ve been doing, to reveal the truth- on the next fragment we encounter, but it may not be worthwhile. Every time we use this power it makes the crystal infection grow faster.”

Nic nodded. The Esper Fruits had slowed down the strange cluster of Sophont crystals growing from his eye, but there was no reason to push his luck. If he didn’t find a cure before the infection progressed further, there was the unsettling possibility they could end up like the mad, miserable abominations that had wandered Lavhin’s hermitage.

He had to be careful how far he delved into the System’s secrets.

Turning, Nic departed. He took a random route, quickly flickering through a few chambers- he didn’t even kill the few devils he encountered, sliding around and evading their notice instead so as not to leave an obvious trail of blood.

The remaining Ascended would be hunting for him, he already knew.

Reaching an abandoned edge of the underground complex, Nic threw up a wall using shaped sand and tar to hold it in place, making the entrance to his lair impossible to spot at a glance. He could finally rest himself and meditate, flooding energy through his broken leg and injured arm. It was hard to say whether restricting his Warform and its overwhelming power had been worth it- but injuries like these would have crippled him for days without the axolotl salamandrian’s native regeneration.

For Nic, what mattered most was keeping up the pace.

If he waited a day he’d be slipping behind the front runners.

If he waited a week, they might reach the heavens without him.

Put simply…

If he allowed others to race ahead and close off the path towards strength by seizing the materials, by taking the opportunities, then his position, in the end, would be little better than on City d23. He was more afraid to be trapped again than to throw his life against every obstacle.

And the pain of constantly knitting his body back together with regeneration, of letting his skin become a garden of scars? That didn’t even compare.

Every time he started to stray. Every time he started to falter.

Nic simply remembered the hopelessness of being no one.

With that thought burning in his soul he settled into work. Taking the quiver of Featherflight Arrows from his back he separated them into two piles. There were seven left, and three of them he broke, snapping the shaft and fletching away from the arrowhead- that was where the enchant was anchored.

He’d learned you didn’t need to fire them from a bow to use that enchantment and teleport. You only needed to break the arrowhead, and you’d leap to its location.

What made that interesting was his ability to make delayed explosive fuses.

Dropping each arrowhead into a bamboo canister, he sealed them up with a small assortment of herbs meant to produce a vicious, eye-burning smoke. Adding runes to enhance that effect and create a covering cloud of smog when the grenade went off, he finished them with a trigger rune that could be delayed, held, or set to fire off on impact.

The end effect was far more versatile than the arrows, at the cost of range.

Featherflight Grenades. He even stuck on some of the brilliantly colored fletching from the arrows to mark them out from his other explosives.

Reaching into his bag, he took out what he needed to make the scorpion tail into a real weapon. It was long, an arm-length blade even for the naga Warform, so he chose an equally long handle- a length of sturdy yew wood from the elves he’d planned to shape into a giant bow. Their magic made the timber especially strong and supple, and Nic worked gently, choosing not to drill or to cut.

Instead he used seeds and glyphs. By taking some of the larger pits from the poisonous fruits he’d devoured and drawing simple glyphs of directed growth, Nic made them sprout into green-yellow vines with small white flowers, spreading over the wooden haft in vein-like clusters and naturally weaving it to the scorpion-chitin blade. The seal was natural, but so strong that the vines, blade, and haft felt like a single solid whole- and with his glyphs circulating a small amount of Essence between all three, perhaps they were.

Next came the shaping of the blade. Taking a stone and a few other tools, Nic spent the better part of an hour scraping, grinding, and cutting at the blade to take the natural bending shape and fix it into a long, half-moon glaive. By the end he was left with a weapon that could scythe brutally, catching enemies with its inner curve, but retained enough straightness to pierce with an upwards twisting bent. He sharpened and sharpened till the scrape of the grindstone became like a mantra, lulling him into a meditative state as he worked.

Taking the cords of alligator teeth from his neck, Nic wove them around the haft, binding them in place with fixative glyphs. The alligator teeth had served well as aura batteries, but they were falling behind. Added to his new weapon they’d be able to extend its fighting ability more than they could offer him added use of his aura-thirsty new Shards.

Lastly, he took the broken teeth of Regent from his bag.

The spirit weapon had served him well, but in the end, it was a dead thing. It had no capacity to grow and couldn’t follow him towards the top.

But he could remember the fierce tiger’s spirit. Weaving the three flame-scorched teeth onto the tassel of fangs at the front of the blade, Nic looked down at his creation.

A brutal glaive.

A weapon of purple-white chitin fused to an alabaster haft, with ivory fangs hanging from the grip. The presence of the vines and the beastly material of the blade made it feel organic, a thing from the jungle, a tool of survival.

As Nic began to weave the runic design, he sought for a name. It had to embody a spirit, a purpose- it had to guide the Echo he was creating by stealing strength from the dead Ascended devil.

His first rune was simple. It was meant to extend the sweep of the blade into a cutting edge of wind that would fly outwards, extending the weapons long reach even further. It mimicked the way the scorpion devil had fought in life and was a natural fit.

Next, a minor glyph that added speed to his attacks, augmenting the first and fitting the weapon further towards a specific goal- to overwhelm an enemy and hold them back with a furious volley of blows. Combined with the speed of the Sarradur Warform, it would shine with a raw offensive might that doubled as a wall of defense.

It was the advantage of reach his axolotl form totally lacked.

But as he went to add the design’s centerpiece, the glyph that would bind the devil’s spirit to the blade as an Echo, the unruly and powerful nature of the beast came to bear; it took a tactic none of the previous spirits had even thought of.

It went on the attack.

Rather than trying to resist his attempts to reel its lingering strength into the blade, trying to wear him down until his Essence was exhausted, the spirit slammed into Nic’s soul with a brutal, dizzying wave of pain. It felt as if needles and jagged pieces of glass were flooding through his veins, ripping him apart from within.

Nic gasped and nearly threw up with pain, fist slamming into the ground. Slimy sweat fell from his face as he tried to hold onto the core of the design and not let his energy slip into chaos- destroying the glyphs and the weapon both.

As the second wave of attack came, he was more prepared. He hardened his soul to the assault and reached out, grasping the spirit with an iron will within the mental battlefield.

“You…” He gasped out, and found he was laughing.

“You are suuuuch an angry piece of shit, I have to respect it.”

“Not even going to stop fighting when you’re dead?”

“I know what to name you.”

“I’ll name you Scarseeker.”

Glaive of the Devil’s Vengeance (E)

Glyph of the War-Hungry Soul

(100% Charged)

Rune of the Farblade

(100% Charged)

Fine Glyph of Acceleration

(100% Charged)

Aura Reserve

(20% Charge)

Created with a dead spirit and living materials, this blade resembles a shock-white scar as it sweeps through the air. Capable of projecting energy blades up to a hundred feet, its reach is unmatched, and t can unleash a whirlwind of blows in seconds. Once each dawn the spirit within can be summoned for a space of three breaths, unleashing a heretical strength.