Allevia gasped as she passed the border without difficulty. She felt like laughing at her incredible luck, but she knew she had to continue. There was no time to celebrate. ‘I shouldn’t waste time… I need to find a safe place to use Avatar. Maybe I can get an Oracle before meeting with the Dwarven gods who rule here…’
She felt like this was her best chance to secure her continued existence in the game. Jor could kill her Oracle in Skardia at any moment now. ‘I don’t understand why I can’t reach out to my Oracle from here though to warn them…’ Allevia sighed as she thought about it.
She had many guesses. But each sounded more outlandish than the last. She had never heard of something like this happening. It was as if something was interfering with it whenever she attempted to make the connection. She glanced around at the barren landscape as she tried to locate somewhere safe.
It was a longshot to go looking for a second Oracle among the dwarves, but she had no other options. It took her the best part of a day to find something she deemed suitable. There was a cave in that barren landscape that went underground. However, it branched off in different directions every so often.
Even if someone stumbled across it, it would take a long time to search those different paths. This made her feel a little more secure as she located a dead end as deep as she was willing to go after a few turns. Allevia settled in and prepared herself. With a deep breath, she cast her Avatar spell.
The familiar sensation of falling washed over her as she complained in her mind. ‘Wait! Why couldn’t I pick my location?’ Her eyes flew open as she landed on a barren mountain in the dwarven kingdoms in the mortal realms. ‘Something is wrong… Skardia and the Dwarves are allies. I should have been able to choose to spawn in a dwarven temple of our allies…’
There were many questions floating in her mind at this turn of events. She had no idea why she would be dropped at a random location instead of Skardia if she could not descend in a dwarven temple. She glanced around at the mountain and the plains at its foot. Trying to figure out if she knew where she had been brought to.
The wind carried the faint trace of voices to her ears. She shot a confused look in their direction. ‘That’s definitely dwarf voices… But…’
Allevia felt a strange need to hide from those mortals and began to back away towards a large a large rock. A deep frown crossed her face as their voices became clearer.
“I’m telling you Mrok, we definitely grounded a god this time! The King will be pleased if we can capture them for future study!”
“Hah! That’s what you said the past ten times with that thing of yours! There’s never been anything here! I don’t get it… What is the King thinking supporting dwarves like you? Mark my words! One day, the great god Vors will visit his wrath upon us when he discovers your schemes!”
“Hmph, he hasn’t so far and we’ve been right under his nose! I’m telling you, the gods are not omnipotent! They don’t know everything! My master says that the devices he set up around the kingdom stops the gods from being able to come and go as they please! They are not something to be afraid of anymore!”
Allevia’s eyes narrowed as she listened to the traitorous conversation of these dwarves. ‘They mentioned Vors… He’s a close ally to Skardia. he doesn’t get involved with our internal affairs but always comes to our aid during invasions. These should be his followers, yet they seem to be plotting against him.’
Allevia felt deeply confused, but there was one thing they had said that stuck in her mind. ‘Have the dwarves really created something that stopped me from descending in their cities? Is it the same reason I can’t reach my oracle in Skardia?’
Allevia could not help but sigh at the implications of that. It meant reaching out to the dwarves in this area may not be safe. If they could accomplish these things, who knew what else they were capable of? Allevia immediately attempted to cancel her Avatar spell… However, nothing happened. ‘What the?’
A crystal clear ringing sound came from the direction of the nearby dwarves. Causing Allevia to curse and hold her breath. ‘What am I doing? It’s likely they can’t hear or see me anyway. So why am I so afraid?’
“There’s a god over there! See! I told you it works! Quick! Get it ready so we can capture it!”
Allevia cursed loudly as she began to sprint in the opposite direction. She had no idea how they located her, but she did not like how confident the dwarf had sounded when he spoke of capturing her. ‘This is a damn nightmare! Are the mortals really starting to rebel against us? I have to survive this. I have to get the word out! We can’t let them continue studying whatever these things are that lets them confront us!’
Even as she ran across the barren mountain, she could hear the dwarves cursing and yelling from somewhere behind her. It did not take her long to realise that she seemed to be under some kind of suppression. Normally, she would have outrun them long ago. The crystal pinging noise came again from somewhere behind her, and she clearly heard the dwarves changing course to follow the same direction as her.
‘They’re definitely tracking me! It’s not just a lucky guess!’ Allevia glanced around frantically as she realised there was no way she could keep this up. She silently swore as she activated Lesser Miracle and targeted her pursuers. The chase continued for a while longer. As Allevia under a cliff edge on the mountain, she heard a slight rumbling from it.
A smile crossed her face as she decided to stop once she reached the other side. The dwarves soon came into view as they began shouting ecstatically as a red orb with golden bands around it began to ping continuously. ‘So, that’s what they are using? What even is it?’
As the dwarves reached the halfway point of the cliff wall to their left, pebbles began to fall from it. The dwarves slid to a halt as they looked up and their eyes widened in horror! Cracks raced across the face of that cliff as they struggled to decide whether to run forward or back the way they had come. .
Just as they sprinted towards Allevia again, the cliff gave way. That solid wall fell on top of those dwarves, burying them beneath its weight. Dust and dirt flew into the air as Allevia kept her eyes focused on that scene. She wanted to wait and see if they had somehow survived. Not only that, but she wanted to make sure that strange orb had stopped pinging.
She waited silently by the side of that disaster. However, no signs of life or that strange orb appeared. Allevia let out a sigh of relief before realising the bigger problem at hand. She tried to cancel her Avatar again, yet she remained exactly where she was. ‘Damn! That thing isn’t what’s stopping me! It must be something else. Something in their tunnels that reaches a large area.’
Allevia felt like slamming her head against the ground. She was low on time as it was. Nevermind having to sneak through a dwarven kingdom to destroy something she knew nothing about. She could easily destroy the wrong thing and give away her presence. ‘If they don’t find me first with more of those orbs.’
Her situation felt helpless at this point. There was no telling how far she would have to travel to escape the area that whatever the dwarves had created could reach. Whether she liked it or not, she had to take a risk and descend into those dark places. She let out a heavy sigh as she began scouting the environment for any telltale signs of dwarves living beneath it.
‘There has to be something! They must have been living nearby, in a surface building that guards an entrance. Otherwise, they could not have responded so quickly!’ This was the frustrating thing about the skill of the dwarves. If they built secret entrances or something that was meant to be hidden, well, you could be sure that they would do an incredible job of it.
Allevia cursed as she helplessly spun in a circle. Not knowing which direction to search in next when she was sure she had probably missed it. She began to have second thoughts about trying to run out of the range of the interference when something came through.
[A Mortal is praying for help somewhere nearby. Do you wish to accept their prayer?]