B2 – Chapter 17: Delve into a Lost Realm

Felicity came back quickly and landed on Tristan’s head, making her usual paw-claw biscuits. “I saw something interesting off to the side of the road when I got way high up. Some type of hole in the ground. A campsite was set up outside of it – tents, abandoned fire…a lot of blood on the ground. Soaked into the dirt.”

Tristan glanced at Obadai, trying to gauge the man’s reaction. He was quietly sitting, contemplating, before speaking softly. “It could be worth investigating.” He glanced at Tristan, “Holes in the ground that appear…” looking up to Felicity, he inquired with her, “What was the hole like? Black in the center? Ragged edges?”

“Nope. It was like a big tube! Smooth circle. Totally black in the center. A rope was tied off to a rock and led down.”

Obadai looked back to Tristan, “It is probably a Delve.”

“Never heard of that,” Tristan replied.

“Delves are phenomena that appear when a Lost Realm gets…squished, for lack of a better term, against the Mortal Realm. It creates something like an Incursion. But an Incursion is for an active, alive Realm. Delves are for Lost Realms.” He looked at Felicity, “Lead us toward it.”

“What is in there? Treasure?” Felicity asked as she directed Tristan by tugging on his hair, and he maneuvered Onyx in the direction she tugged.

“Perhaps,” Obadai replied. “Lost Realms contain many things. Treasure, foes-”

Tristan interrupted, “The Matriarch told me that the Lost Realms don’t have living things in there.”

“I never said the foes were alive,” Obadai replied. “Remnants of what once lived there. Think of them like echoes of the past – but they are indeed dead.”

Tristan frowned, “How could you fight an echo?”

“Hit them,” Obadai said with a chuckle. “It’s just a lesser, hollow version of its former self.”

Felicity giggled, “So we beat up a bunch of husks of things, get a bunch of treasure…will the hole close on us?”

Obadai shook his head, “No. Once this Lost Realm is ‘squished’ against The Mortal Realm, it is stuck in place until whoever the Realm Protector is decides to graft it on. And as for treasure? It depends on the Lost Realm. There might be nothing there.”

That gave Tristan and idea that he voiced, “What if I grafted it onto the Fey Realm first?”

Obadai’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, “I…I don’t know. Your Realm Protector would have to do it. You would have to get her attention across Realms. I don’t know how you would do that. Communication spells cannot cross between them.”

Felicity frowned, “How would someone normally do that?”

“I only know what I’ve read. Realm Protectors have to travel to the Delve and then they can graft the Lost Realm onto their own.”

Tristan sighed, “Then it’s not possible, since The Matriarch would have to be here to do that, and she can’t leave the Fey Realm.”

“What could be done,” Obadai said, “Is we go into the Delve and I use a Realmwalking spell to open a new Delve to the Fey Realm. Then, you could get The Matriarch to come over and graft it. But…that might piss off whoever the Realm Protector is over the Mortal Realm.”

Tristan chuckled, “If there was a Realm Protector for this one? They would have dealt with that Incursion we dealt with.”

“Could be that whoever it is didn’t bother showing up since we were there,” Obadai replied. “Maybe we were the people sent to close it?”

Tristan scoffed, “Please. I helped out of my sense of doing what’s right.”

Felicity scratched his head, “Yes, be the good boy we all know you are.”

Obadai chuckled, “And to be clear – Incursions are from a living Realm to another living Realm. Delves are Lost Realm to any other.”

Felicity cleared her throat, “No more lessons! The camp is just over the hill.”

Tristan dismounted and led Onyx over to a bush, leaning in, he whispered to the mount. “If anyone except for me, Felicity, or Obadai comes back – run from them and circle back when the sun sets. Keep your distance from all except the three of us. Alright?”

Onyx whinnied and dipped his head in acknowledgement before munching on the bush nearby. Tristan repeated the instructions to Midnight as Obadai dismounted, and after the other mount acknowledged his instructions, Tristan drew his sword and began walking towards this campsite Felicity had spotted.

Over a small hill, and a few hundred feet away, he found what she had spied from the skies. A series of tents set up around a circle of stones, with brown blood soaked into the tamped-down dirt. “Hello?” Tristan shouted as he arrived at the campsite. No sounds met his ears.

He walked over to one of the tents and opened the front flap, finding only some incidental camp supplies. Checking each tent resulted in more of the same, and finally he forced himself to look at the object that stood out the most but gave him a feeling of dread that worked its way up his spine. A black pit. A perfectly round, black pit that was akin to a painted blot on the ground. A thick, braided rope extended out of the pit and to a nearby boulder.

Obadai walked over and tugged on the rope, “Feels like there’s a lot of length left. Thoughts?”

Tristan walked over next to the man and felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise up. “It feels…wrong.”

“It is a Lost Realm. They tend to have that effect – from what I’ve read.”

“If we go in there,” Tristan said as he began to spin his essence crucible and push the powerful substance through his channels, “We might be able to make another Delve to the Fey Realm?”

“We can try it.”

Tristan looked up at Felicity, who was making paw-claw biscuits at a much faster pace. “What are we waiting for?” she asked impatiently. “I want to see if there’s treasure!”

Right, Tristan thought. What am I worried about? I’ve got an Archon with me. He grabbed the rope, gave it a few tugs, and then sat down on the lip, dipping his feet down into the blackness. It felt fuzzy; that feeling he experienced when his foot was falling asleep – but only once he initially lowered his feet in. Once they passed some threshold about a foot deep, the sensation faded.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Unintentionally, he took a deep breath before dropping down, gripping onto the rope as he descended. Felicity gripped down onto his head, her paw-claws digging in for purchase as he dropped through the blackness and was temporarily blinded. Only for his vision to return a moment later as he passed all the way through the darkness.