Chapter 80

“Huh?”

“Esriro asked some of her contacts to keep an eye out for any members of The Storm Bringers, and someone finally got a hit,” Abi said as the screen turned on. “She just forwarded these to me.”

An image appeared on the screen, one of N’ardil Vilos herself, along with a jotunn man that was quite a bit bigger than she was. It was clear that either one of them would dwarf my seotross form, and the only way I knew that was because of the much smaller kobaloi woman that was also photographed. When I had first seen N’ardil I assumed that all jotunn were bald, but it was absolutely bizarre seeing something similar to a giant with a full head of hair.

“You undoubtedly recognize N’ardil Vilos, but you probably don’t recognize the man beside her. That is Kar’grom Vrikk, governor of Kograrth, however he is more well known as the leader of a triad going by a name that roughly translates to Onyx Knuckles.”

“As far as gang names goes, that one is pretty lame,” I replied. “How does someone that is the leader of a gang even become a governor of an entire planet?”

“Jotunn society is different from what you’re used to, but jotunn triads are governments unto themselves. Sometimes they war against each other and that can get very bloody, but they protect those within their territory. They used to fight over land on their homeworld, but nowadays each triad controls many planets and systems. Unlike most other space faring species you’ll find, the jotunn don’t have a centralized government. They’re more like countries on Earth in that regard, but every ten years they hold an election to decide who the next warleader will be.”

“How does that work? I can’t imagine anyone voting for another triad, so wouldn’t the biggest triad always win?”

“It’s actually the leaders of each triad that votes, but the triad that the previous warleader belongs to is unable to put forth a candidate. Sometimes they are the ones to decide which triad’s candidate will become the warleader, but sometimes other triads make deals to either cause a stalemate or elect someone else. In the rare occurrence of a tie, all tied candidates will fight to determine who it will be.”

“I see. So N’ardil is on Kograrth meeting this Kar’grom Vrikk?”

“Yes, but that’s not all,” she replied as the image was replaced with another. It looked to have been taken earlier and was a much wider shot, showing that she was being escorted by not one, but two of the teams that help make up The Storm Bringers. “The team in the grey and red suits are called The Whirling Blaze, but they also go by Inferno. Named such because they’re specialists in both wind and fire magic. The team in the blood-red suits are The Crimson Tide, and are extremely deadly with all sorts of martial weapons. Going by internal rankings that I found in the Hellraisers’ computers, the two teams now are second and fourth, respectively.”

“This means that she’s untouchable for the time being, unfortunately, but at least we know where she is and we’ll be able to track her when she leaves. Her ship’s drive signature was transmitted alongside the pictures, so if she flies within range of one of my transmitters I’ll be able to let The Indomitables know exactly where she is.”

“Cool, let Esriro know I said thanks. Have they had any luck tracking down any of the other teams?”

“None as of yet, but they’re keeping an eye out and scanning for the mana signatures I passed along. They appear to be laying low for the moment.”

I nodded. There wasn’t anything else to go over, so the screen turned off and retracted back into the ceiling. Once the practice orbs were back in the air, I went back to reading.

My sisters and I arrived at the vault nearly two hours earlier than we had the day before, and we didn’t waste a moment getting started. We wanted to get as much done as we could before our grandparents arrived in the early evening. If we could get everything taken care of, that would only be a bonus.

Before we got to anything, we set about removing four full skill gem sets from the boxes, followed by the skill gems for Mason, Ben and the twins. Abi had some of the coin purse-like pouches to put them in, which made everything that much easier. Once that was taken care of, we set about doing a much more thorough inventory of what was in the crates and chests.

The girls went a lot more in depth than I thought they would. They even went so far as to take each weapon out of the crate it was found in, photograph it, input the exact stats that were on it, and even mark exactly where it was inside the crate. But they didn’t only do that for the weapons, they did it for nearly everything. The only thing they weren’t able to get to were the skill gems, simply because we didn’t have the time and that would be a time-consuming process.

There was a bonus to the fact that the girls were so thorough, beyond the fact that it would be incredibly easy to find stuff in the future. Because they wanted everything removed from each box or crate so it could be photographed, we ended up finding small hidden compartments. Not big enough to hold a highly valuable weapon or piece of armor, but certainly big enough to hold jewelry boxes, and that is just what we found.

There were two of them, in fact, and we weren’t disappointed in what we found within. While there wasn’t nearly anything as good as Tessa’s [Liasi’s Eternal Salvation], there were certainly some gems. For example, there was an epic ring that increased all attributes, but the best thing about it was that it had a dimensional storage linked to it; one capable of holding up to one thousand kilograms worth of items. My friends and I were spoiled in that regard, especially thanks to my Beacon and the suits we wore, but people would pay a lot for it if we decided to sell it.

In the same jewelry box that we found that ring in were a pair of somewhat plain necklaces, but appearances proved to be deceiving in their case. They were linked to one another just like the rings that Tich had given us were. They were crafted as well, and despite only being epic in rarity, had a very powerful effect: As long as each wearer channeled their mana into their necklace, something called a soul-link would form between them. While active, all damage taken by one person would be halved and sent across the link to the other person.

The effect had the potential to greatly increase the survivability of the two wearers as long as they weren’t both being attacked simultaneously. At the same time, it didn’t mean that one of them couldn’t be killed just as easily if struck in the right spot, such as the brain or the heart. As well as being killed almost instantly, a massive amount of damage would be transferred across the link to the other wearer.

It was when we got to the second of the two jewelry boxes that things got a little more interesting. There were no legendaries or mythical items to be seen which still surprised us, but there were still a multitude of very nice rings. One of the first ones I picked up would be reserved for Sonja, I decided, and that was because it was very similar to Ben’s [Mageband]. The difference was that it only worked with air skills, which was Sonja’s focus.

On top of being able to store a spell so it could be cast later on, it also increased the damage or effect of that spell by 50%. Aside from her [Summon Earth Elemental], the rest of the air spells she had were currently instant cast, but I was interested if the former would be affected by the ring.

Another ring was very well suited towards either Mason or myself, and that was simply called [Stoneskin Band]. Like the name suggested, it was a ring that would temporarily turn our skin into stone, increasing its durability. It wasn’t as good as the [Metal Skin] perk that the Kobold High Chieftain we killed had, but it was still a solid defensive effect.

Either the best or the worst of them, however, was called Pol’cala Bol’arv. It had no stats and the name itself gave no clue as to what it did. The description didn’t help much at all in clearing it up, either. Essentially, it stated that the first attack every 15 seconds by the wearer would have ‘enhanced cutting power,’ with a 1% chance. Just about the only thing that was cleared up by the description was that it needed to be used in conjunction with a bladed weapon like an axe or a sword.

Even Abi didn’t know what it did after searching the Net, but she did posit an idea the four of us were familiar with; the fantasy term vorpal. Usually it was a ‘vorpal sword’ or ‘vorpal’ blade, but all vorpal items were said to be able to cut through pretty much anything like a very hot knife through butter. If that was indeed what the ring did, then it meant that even the least-threatening strike could have some very mortal consequences.

Imagine fighting against a monster that goes to parry one of your attacks with their own weapon, only for your sword to cut right through it and continue onward. Or you’re fighting another person in close quarters combat; you’re evenly matched and neither of you are giving up an inch. The ring could activate almost immediately, but the probability of it activating would steadily increase, the longer the fight went on.

If it was, indeed, a vorpal effect that could cut through armor with ease, I wondered what it could do against Mana Shield and other similar effects. Would it negate the shield? In the case of Mana Shield, would it drain all of one’s mana? I was certainly tempted to test all of that out, but that would bind it to me when there might be better choices out there. Besides, there was a possibility that the Spectres or Hellraisers might be able to tell us about the effect, so there was no need to rush into it.

There were no more hidden compartments anywhere in the vault, and we made sure to move everything around just to make sure. The vault was easily big enough with thick enough walls to have some smaller safes built into it, but we didn’t find any. Even taking that time to do a thorough search, we still managed to complete everything the girls wanted to get done for the day.

Abi had let us know that our grandparents would be arriving in-system shortly, so I grabbed the suit that they had made for me and then the four of us left the vault. While our bodies had now well surpassed the unleveled norm, the work we were doing was still enough to get us sweating. Not wanting to stink when we greeted our grandparents for the first time, we headed to our respective rooms to clean up a little.

We soon met up again at the bottom of the ramp leading up to Abi, just in time for the roar of a ship’s engines to permeate the berth. The new ship was a lot smaller than Abi was, and was much more angular in comparison. The most interesting thing about the ship didn’t show itself until the landing struts were deployed, and it was the front strut that drew my eye. As well as being significantly bigger than the back two struts since it had to hold more weight, it also served as the ramp to enter or exit the ship.

It was only a few seconds after the ship touched down before we saw movement, though it was hard to see because of the ship’s bulk blocking then lighting. It didn’t take long for them to emerge from underneath the ship, however, and soon we were able to make out details.

The first person to emerge wasn’t our grandparents, but was instead an ork that towered over them, easily doubling our grandfather’s height. Dressed head to toe in auburn armor that matched the paint scheme of the ship behind him, it was clear that he was the frontliner for the group. Not only because of his size and the two handles that could be seen on either hip, but because of the two belt-fed railguns that were attached to each arm. After looking around for a moment we could hear him grunt, and then all of his weapons disappeared.

His companions following behind our grandparents were dressed in much the same way, though their auburn armor appeared to be a bit lighter. Both of them were beastkin females, with one looking like a crossbreed between a wolf and a bear, while the other sported a beak and was capable of turning its head around over 180 degrees. The former was quite a bit more heavyset than the latter, but I was surprised to see that she carried a staff. The avian beastkin, on the other hand, was somewhat predictably carrying a very long-barreled railgun with a scope mounted on top.

After the ork stepped aside, we were finally able to get our first real look at our grandparents, and it would take some getting used to. Not because they were ugly or deformed or anything like that, but because of how young they both looked. Our grandfather had a full head of hair, and it was black hair at that. There wasn’t even the smallest hint of grey, nor the sign of any wrinkles, either. They just looked like many of the other Scyftans we had seen.

My sisters were the first to move before our grandparents had even stopped, and I followed them a nary a second later. Our grandfather wasn’t a big man, but even he was able to scoop up my sisters in one great big hug, while I made a beeline for our grandmother. As I embraced the smaller woman, I was able to feel that she was family. She had been doing a good job of keeping her mind shielded, but I instinctively knew that we were related because of what was able to leak through.