Mantle of the Gods

It was another attack.

Trent folded his hands as he sat on the couch on Tres’ floor and watched his friend pace.

“How many is this?” The old man knew that things like this were kept away from the general populace, but he would have hoped that someone would have kept him in the loop.

“It started about a month ago.” Tres motioned at the window wall and it went black and screens started opening on it. “Vefe got hit first. The same day as the Mantle trials.” He pointed at the outpost on the map. "Upgraded it to an Uncommon dungeon but they were able to contain the break. Their dungeon is still a mess though.” He pointed at Slece. "Two weeks later, they hit Slece. It broke her personal dungeon as well as the Temple dungeon.” He looked at Trent and shook his head. "I see you didn’t know anything about that.”

Trent was upset. He’d been working on getting Atlas and Rix back, but his people should have still told him about this. “How bad was it?’

“Temple got destroyed and Slece did her thing to clean things up.” The God shook his head. "Honestly, she was probably the one who destroyed the Temple, but it’s her city…” He pointed at the four dungeons in that city. "Rumor has it that there are Tunnels connecting all of them on the sixteenth floor.”

The ArchWizard gritted his teeth. “Any other attacks?”

“That’s the second one here.” Tres shook his head and pulled a purple seed out of the Crystal Band on his wrist. “We were able to stop this one from going off, but…” He tossed it to his friend. "It’s still live.”

Trent examined the seed then tossed it back. “Any idea how they’ve gotten so powerful so fast?” He got up and looked at some of the other notes and reports on the wall. “Until today, I thought they were just a misguided fanatic group.”

“The Dispatchers are busy trying to stabilize the dungeon in Vefe and the Temple…” Tres shook his head. "You know their stances on Desolations.”

Trent sighed. When a Desolation happened, it usually bound all the dungeons in the immediate area together, but it also created cases of high level monsters that roamed lower level floors. Until the floors were cleaned, the Temple wouldn’t go anywhere near them. Even then, they’d wait until Noble families got assigned to the city before they’d start building a Temple over the dungeon.

“I’d love to go check it out, but…” Tres let the implications vanish.

It was too dangerous. There were Gods that took control of multiple cities, but very few. It was too much power and other Gods tended to band together to remove them. The only way that Tres could go to the Desolation of Wurn to see what was going on without inviting war into the Ward was to wait until the Adventurer Games at the end of the year when all the Gods of the Ward met for their annual meeting. Even then, the other five would have to approve his request. And that was a longshot.

Which led to the next best thing.

“You want me to go check it out…” Trent looked over at his friend.

“You’re a little too high profile to do any subtle investigating…” Tres swallowed. "But…”

“No.” Trent shook his head. "There is no way I’m sending them over there.”

“We can package it as a learning excursion.” Tres folded his hands together. "We don’t have to let them know about Gesai’s level. She’s still in the database as a twenty-three. They won’t think twice about her bringing a class over there.”

“A class…” The ArchWizard shook his head. "You want me to send six students with a new teacher into a minefield of a dungeon and think I’ll be okay with it?’

Tres took a deep breath. “I’ll send Arlo with them.”

That made it even worse. "You want to send your SON into a Desolation?! Seriously? You think that makes me feel any safer?!”

“He can keep them safe and no one knows of his connection to me.” Tres swallowed. "He’s been working as a Guide for the last decade and…”

Trent knew by the long pause that he wasn’t going to like the next part.

“Celia is here.”

That was news. He had talked to the Amazonian the day before and she hadn’t mentioned being here.

“She wanted to check on Vefe, so she brought her class here to grind a little.” The God looked at his friend. "She already agreed to go before this happened. So…”

Trent saw where this was going. "So no one will question a new teacher tagging along on a trip that’s already been scheduled.” He sighed. "And I’m assuming that you want me to do something to draw the bulk of their attention elsewhere?”

Tres nodded. “Wurn has started to rebuild. It won’t be long before someone tries to claim it. You can keep their eyes on you above ground.”

“What makes you think that they’re in the dungeon, on the lower floors at that?”

Tres pulled up a map of the Desolation of Wurn. "This dungeon is unique in that it’s made up of pockets." He pointed at the numerous small rooms littering the map. "There are a lot of unexplored places and since they’ve been using Mundane to transport their seeds…”

“Then they have to have some type of base on the first floor and you need a low level team that won’t draw too much attention to ‘look’ for it.” Trent shook his head. "And if I’m scouting around topside, while the Temple…” The ArchWizard realized he'd been played. “And Celia are arguing over who is going to claim it, then they won’t be as worried about the leveling teams that are killing time on the lower floors.”

Tres nodded. "Honestly, I had just been planning on using Celia, but…” He looked at his friend. "When you showed up, it makes it look even more convincing.”

Trent shook his head. "Fine. I’ll play.” He closed his eyes. He had a bad feeling about this mission.