This Quest is Bullshit - Chapter 164

Chapter 164 - No More Side Quests

Daddy says it’s all Uncle Calibax’s fault. He keeps saying if Uncle Cal hadn’t researched the all-cleansing Mana, the mist-man wouldn’t be coming for us. Uncle Cal thinks he was plenty careful—he even set up those extra dimens-whatever incursion warnings in the enchantments. Daddy says that wasn’t enough.

I’m scared.

Uncle Cal left three weeks ago with some plan to trap the mist-man’s army, but daddy says that hasn’t stopped him. Uncle Cal is like, the smartest, cleverest person in the world, so if he can’t stop the mist-man, I don’t know who can.

At least the palace is secure. Even better, since Daddy’s evacuated the city, Milio is staying in the palace! His eyes are just the dreamiest thing I…

The excerpt justifiably ended there.

This doesn’t even confirm he wiped out the Burendians, Lumy sent.

“Somebody did,” Eve replied.

And what makes you think humanity’s next.

“Well for one, according to this he went after the Burendians because they were getting close to letting an extra-dimensional entity into our reality. Who else do we know who’s triggered those same extra-dimensional incursion alarms?”

You think he’s after Wes?

“He didn’t just kill Calibax, he killed all the Burendians.”

Which would make him thousands of years old, Lumy argued. You don’t even know it’s the same person. Besides, we don’t have any evidence he wants to wipe out human civilization.

“Actually.” Eve gulped. “We do.” With that she telepathically shared the notification she’d received the moment she’d read the diary passage.

Legendary Quest Milestone Reached: Doom Humanity!
+ 8.576t exp!

Shit.

“We have to stop him.”

How? Lumy asked. We don’t know where he is or what his plan is.

“We know where the humans are, though,” Eve said, already jogging off towards the leyline.

So let’s warn them.

“We’ll get there.” Eve stopped just in front of the leyline. “First, I’m going to need to call in some help. They’ll probably want to kill me even more after today, but Alex’s boss has exactly the kind of firepower we need.”

And how do you intend to find them? Lumy asked. Last time, it took a whole dungeon crawl to shared quest objective where Alex had chosen to set a trap.

“I just need to meet them,” Eve explained. “I just need to get the message out. It’ll probably take him a while, but I think I know a guy who can handle it. Follow me.” She stored her pack and other valuables in the Burendian crown and stepped into the leyline, allowing the force of its current to disintegrate her body, weapon, and armor. In a blink she emerged, reforming on a railed-off ledge just above a different line. She kicked down the steel door behind her.

The Burendian stronghold where she’d first unlocked Ethereal Manifestation and found the map to the crown was the closest exposed leyline to her destination. Without the need to search for loot or battle any incorporeal Mana wraiths, Eve made it back to the surface in record time.

For a moment she lingered at the cave entrance on the mountainside, considering stopping at the nearby lungeon to warn anyone there, before remembering Alvin and Lina were off on their honeymoon, and nobody else who’d be at the lungeon was likely to care about humanity’s fate. Monsters didn’t exactly have a reputation for saving humans.

So, instead, Eve ran. She blasted down the mountain trail, leaves and grass twirling in the wind as she passed. In the few minutes she had before arriving, the Defiant forced her racing mind to a halt by distracting it with the other two notifications she’d received courtesy of her most recent milestone.

Level Up!

Ability Upgraded!
Active Ability - Jet
X Mana/Sec
Can now be channeled for continuous momentum control!

It was a good upgrade. It was a damn good upgrade. She’d have to test out exactly how much Mana it cost, but the skill offered flight—true flight, not the jerky series of angled launches she’d used thus far. The milestone that granted the ability hadn’t been a happy one, but at this point, Eve would take every advantage she could get.

Perhaps worse, the windfall of exp had placed her at an absolutely tantalizing level ninety-nine. Even four and a half trillion exp away, she could practically taste the level one hundred upgrade. She could only hope she’d make it that long.

Eve slammed the notifications shut and cordoned off thoughts of advancement to the back of her mind as she skidded to a halt outside the entrance to Dragonwrought Hold. She had a half dozen things she needed to do and no idea how long it’d be before the man of the mists made his move. She had to act fast.

The first step was to leave a note for Valya. Eve didn’t dare risk awakening any of the aging Dragonwrought, but they deserved to know what was happening. She scribbled a quick missive and left it atop the geriatric guild leader’s latest romance novel. Her next stop was upstairs.

Eve stopped in a small room atop one of the keep’s many spires, sitting at sparse writing desk within and penning her first message.

Alex,

You were right. I don’t know how much your organization knows, but I can say with confidence the man of the mists intends to wipe out humanity just like he did the Burendians. We have to stop him. I don’t know when or how he intends to move, but I’m hoping your people will. The Mistlings are free. I was wrong. I’m sorry.

-Eve

With a heavy hand, Eve folded the message and slipped it into one of the many envelopes sitting in a loose stack at the Dragonwrought missive station. She looked over to the bell that would summon the delivery man, but opted to draft her other messages first.

Preston,
I need your help. Misty boy killed the Burendians, and he’s gunning for humanity now. It may or may not have something to do with Wes. I’m wagering he’ll target Pyrindel first, so head there until I have more info. I don’t need to tell you Wes needs to stay behind. There’ll be fire in the city. Sorry to interrupt your retirement, but humanity’s at stake and all that. See you soon.

-Eve

Folding, enveloping, and sealing it, Eve moved on to the next missive. She drafted two dozen in all, sending the new out to every with any amount of power that might prove useful. She spent an hour writing to local leaders of every large human settlement, representatives to all the major mercenary company, adventurer’s guilds across the kingdom.

In each, the message was the same. She detailed the nature of the threat, what little she knew about the man of the mists and his history, and where she expected he’d strike first. Eve sealed them all with wax impressed with the Burendian royal seal from the base of the Ar-iron letter-opener she’d found. She could only hope it would be enough to catch the attention of those recipients she didn’t know personally. Eve prayed they’d believe her. They had to believe her.

She stopped for a moment to stare at the pile of letters in front of her, eyes falling out of focus as Eve contemplated using the message room for the one purpose she’d used it for the most over the past year. With a knot in her throat, Eve slid over a fresh piece of paper and wrote the words Dear Ma atop.

Eve spent some time gazing down at the blank paper, mind spinning as she scrambled for something to say. Nothing quite fit. ‘Hey, ma, I may or may not have inadvertently caused the downfall of humanity’ didn’t exactly feel like a letter worth sending. Did Martha Greene need to know what was happening? Strictly speaking, no. Informing her of the danger would only make her worry.

But maybe she had a right to know. Maybe everyone did. It irked at Eve, realizing that any given person may or may not wish to know of humanity’s potential end, and she couldn’t ask their preference without revealing the truth. One could say the letter she ended up writing was selfish, that it put her own desire not to make her mother worry over Martha’s best interests, or even those of the citizens of Nowherested. One could also call it a mercy.

Dear Ma,

I wanted to let you know that I’m doing well. I hit level ninety-nine today—one hundred is so close! Unfortunately, Art’s da wasn’t able to help Wes, so he and Preston had to retire. By the time you get this letter, you may have already seen him. Don’t believe anything he says about me. They’re lies. All lies.

Luckily, I’m not alone. Lumy stayed back with me. Oh, I can talk to her now! Telepathy is pretty neat. We’ve already had one adventure together, and there’ll be at least one more. I’ll come visit once it’s over. I promise.

Anyway, I hope things are going well back home. Has Mr. Honsan finally stopped bothering you about the hole in his socks? I can have a chat with him when I get back if you want me to.

I love you, and I’ll see you soon.

-Eve

It felt wrong, acting like everything was okay, but Eve couldn’t bring herself to write anything else. Maybe, at the moment, everything wasn’t okay, but it would be. She could still fix this.

Once she’d individually addressed her oversized stack of letters, Eve grabbed silver bell off the writing desk and gave it a single ring.

“You again,” growled the familiar voice.

Eve smiled at the shadowy form. “It’s a lot, I know, but these are urgent. Extremely urgent.” She shoved the messages towards him. “Just short of thirty shadowgrams in there. Rounding up and adding fifty percent to make sure these get out now, I’m counting a hundred gold.” Eve pulled ten inscribed, ten-gold plates from her pack. She handed them over.

The man grunted, not trying to negotiate above the already outlandishly large sum of money she’d already given him. “What’s so urgent?”

“The potential end of humanity?”

The figure nodded. “That’d do it.”

Falling for the same trick for the eighteenth time, Eve opened her mouth to say thanks only to find the figure, letters, gold, and all, had already vanished from the shadowy corner. She exhaled.

Stepping back out from the shadowgram office, Eve found Lumy floating in the air above the stairway.

Done?

Eve nodded. “The word is out. All that’s left is to hope Alex’s people and the other black pieces have more info for us. They’ve been worse than misty boy about hiding shit. I mean, seriously, they could’ve at least told me he wanted to end humanity.”

They might not have known, Lumy offered. And if they had, would you have believed them? On the face of it, it sounds like an obvious lie.

Eve sighed. “It explains why Mila was willing to hold Alex hostage to stop me. I’d go to extremes to save humanity too.”

Well, now you know, Lumy sent, trying to include a sense of comfort in her tone. You’ve done what you can here, and it’s not too late to stop this.

“You’re right,” Eve said. “We’re finished here. If they respond with a shadowgram, he’ll be able to find me anywhere, and if they come looking for me… it’d be best we meet where misty boy is most likely to attack first. We can even spend any downtime helping bolster the defenses.”

A wise choice, Lumy replied. There’s always more we can be doing, and at least for now, there’s a clear place to be doing it.

Eve nodded, her jaw setting in a look of determination as she led the way through the bowels of Dragonwrought hold towards the exit.

It was time to return to Pyrindel.

Next