HIDDEN QUEST UNLOCKED!
One True Winner of the Trial of the Banners:
Description: You have claimed more banners that what has been required of you, showing off the dominance of the Ravenlight over those known to be your peers. Providing such a display of dominance with quite some time remaining until the Trial of Banners comes to an end, shall be offered both a threat and an opportunity. The location of your banner will be constantly given to all within your Floor Four upon accepting the quest. However, in return, if all seven opposing team banners are placed along with your own, you and your team will be given a substantial reward.
Task Objective: Claim all opposing team banners and have them placed beside your own banner.
Time Remaining: 00:02:28:49
ACCEPT QUEST?
Achievement Upgrade: [Finder of the Hidden I → Finder of the Hidden II]
Finder of the Hidden II:
You have found both a Quest that had been undiscovered for over 300 years along with a Hidden Quest within another Floor shortly after. Hidden areas are much more noticeable to you now. Gain: +10 All Stats.
Deacon blinked, lips parting slightly as the weight of the notifications settled over him like a bucket of ice water.
"…No way," he muttered under his breath, sitting upright in his chair so fast it scraped against the stone floor. Starting at all three notification screens he'd suddenly received.
"Okay! Everyone up!" he barked suddenly, voice snapping with authority as he surged to his feet. "We've got a Hidden Quest, and we're on a clock!"
Bonehead jolted slightly on the table, legs swinging over the side. "Wait– what the fuck? +5 to all stats! Wait you got this one before, did your title upgrade?"
"Yes, but this isn't the time right now," Deacon said before getting everyone's attention.
"We have a hidden quest and it has a timer on it. We need to have all 7 opposing team banners beside our own for a total of 8 banners, of which we have 6 already," he said, voice quick but clear, eyes sweeping over the table and then to the party as Jass and Sam hopped off the table and joined Esmerelda and Bonehead as they gathered around him in a semicircle. "That leaves two more. And we've only got just under two and a half hours to find and bring them back here, without letting a single one get stolen or moved. If even one goes missing, we fail it and the hidden reward."
"Exactly. Now listen up," Deacon snapped his fingers and pointed sharply. "Three stay here, hold this place down. No one gets near these banners."
His gaze cut across them like a blade.
"Jass, Bonehead, Esme – you three guard the Grand Hall. We've already swept the halls, we've cleared the courtyard and underground. That only leaves two areas where banners could be hidden: Outer Moorlands and the Fortress Walls."
Stopping his gaze on Esmerelda, he said, "Sam's coming with me. Between the two of you, he's more used to the outside environment, but he also has slightly higher physical stats which is to be considered due to our time limit."
Then, turning to Jass, he added, "Your glaive's still repairing, and since we don't know when we might run into combat once we head out, it's better you stay here. Focus on getting it fixed and help out Bonehead and Esme in case a team or three wake up and come here."
Sam nodded, already reaching for his gear. "I remember spotting a passage toward the walls of the courtyard, near the fallen horse statue. Judging by how high it was it should connect to the parapets; worse case if we go up there and it stops a couple meters from us being able to get up onto the parapets I can just use Gust to carry us the rest of the way."
"Which would mean that we would have to deal with banshees," Deacon reminded him grimly. "And take the Rising Sun banner with us, which would slow us down."
"Those shouldn't be a problem for us anymore," Sam cut in smoothly, already pulling his gloves on and tightening the straps on his vest.
Deacon frowned, confused at what Sam was referring to. "What do you mean by that? If we were to rush past them I would need to constantly grease my swords and carry the banner for when we would need to take breaks. "
"I figured it out; why and how the Rising Sun banner repels the spectrals. Why Manabolt hurts them, and why no other spell I've used works. It's soul-based," Sam answered.
They all stared at him in confusion.
Sam continued, "Manabolt uses a sliver of the caster's soul – like a signature imprint. That's what makes it able to attack spectrals and why when a spectral being attacks you it hurts a lot harder than anything we've been faced with – because they're soul-based creatures, meaning when they attack you they attack your soul."
"The banner works the same way; it draws a tiny sliver of the soul from whoever places it. Barely enough to notice unless you're really paying attention. It regenerates fast, so fast you wouldn't even realize it unless you were actively looking for it or burning through Manabolt twenty times in a row."
"That would explain the fatigue," Esmerelda said softly, eyes narrowing in thought. "My mana held up, but whenever I'd cast Manabolt repeatedly it would leave me fatigued even when I'd still have over 50% of my mana reserves remaining."
"Exactly," Sam said, gesturing to her. "It's not mana exhaustion – it's soul exhaustion. In order for it to be expanded we simply need to train it like a muscle, unlike our mana pool which can only expand by putting stat points into Wisdom."
Jass tilted her head. "So, the banner works by leeching just enough from our soul to make spectrals ignore or avoid us?"
"Yes," Sam confirmed.
"And you figured out how to apply that to your Manashield," Deacon guessed.
Sam smiled. "Yup. As soon as I came to this realization and implemented it to Manashield, I felt that it upgraded on our way back here from Common to Uncommon. Which means that when I focus on not wanting spectrals to pass through, they won't be able to. Once I get the time, I'll be able to experiment with seeing how to do the same with my other spells."
A pause.
"…Holy crap," Jass said out loud, eyes wide. "You did that in three minutes?"
Esmerelda, despite her typical ditziness, gave an approving nod. "That's really great news! I'll try and do the same to my Manashield and see if I can implement a soul imprint onto my other spells."
Deacon grinned. "Well then, I guess we don't need to take the Rising Sun banner with us now that you're able to take us across the Courtyard with no issue."
Sam gave a mock salute. "Pleasure to serve."
Jass stretched and cracked her knuckles. "Go find those banners. We'll make sure no one even breathes near the six we have."
Deacon clapped a hand to Sam's shoulder. "Let's move."
With no more words, the two of them swept out of the Grand Hall, banners fluttering faintly behind them as the doors shut once again, sealing the others inside.
***
Deacon sprinted across the cracked flagstones of the hallway just mere meters away from reaching the courtyard, with Sam close on his heels.
They vaulted over a collapsed railing, ducked beneath an arched skeleton of ivy-choked stone, and burst into what was once a grand courtyard – though now, it barely resembled its former glory.
"There!" Sam shouted, pointing toward the far east wall, and already angling his run toward the east wall. It was nearly invisible, painted the same dusty gray as the stone it clung to, only noticeable now because the failing light caught the edge of rust along one of its rungs.
Deacon nodded, pace not slowing as he withdrew Echoform Reliquary from its dual short sword sheathes – both having been greased in Spectral Grease. "We'll bulldoze through the banshees. If they start to overwhelm your barrier, let me pass through it so I can kill them quickly."
"Got it," Sam muttered, and with a sharp exhale, raised his hand. "Manashield."
The spell cracked into existence around both him and Deacon with a low thrum. However, unlike a normal Manashield, this shield looked far more translucent and looked like if it were struck by a physical attack, it would easily shatter.
The banshee cries twisted as they neared, wavering, then veering off, curling away like smoke in wind.
None of the banshees were able to touch them.
They passed beneath the hanging remnants of old statues, around still standing fencing, and cracked urns, something caught Deacon's eye.
The five corpses; Conrad, Consta, Corben, and the two mages they killed all looked like shriveled prunes. Like their bodies lost every ounce of moisture within them.
Is this what happens to you when your soul gets destroyed? Deacon grimly mused. Or was this done by someone or something else?
Flicking his gaze back to the ladder in front of them – ignoring the fifteenth or so spectral that bounced off Sam's Manashield, Deacon focused back on the present.
Without wasting another second, he leaped forward, grabbing the rust-streaked rungs, and just as his boots hit the metal, he quickly began to climb up - ignoring the dissonant wails of banshees swirling below as they attempted to strike Sam's modified Manashield, who was still hot on Deacon's heels.
The ladder was far longer than it had any right to be, at least nine stories tall, maybe more, but neither Deacon nor Sam slowed as time was not on their side.
When his fingers closed around the top rung, Deacon hauled himself over the lip of the wall in one fluid motion, feet landing in a half-crouch against the ancient stone battlement. Sam landed beside him a moment later, heavier and slightly less graceful, the Manashield fizzling away just as he peered over his shoulder and saw that the banshees' stopped their pursuit.
Then for just a moment as Deacon took a couple of steps forward and took in a breath, something in his gut screamed, seconds before his brain could process what was going on; his instincts taking control over his body.
He twisted hard to the side just as a blur of something tore through his right cheek, flinging a hot spray of blood and flesh into the air – some splattering onto the left side of Sam's face and chest.
A heavy crack echoed behind him as the projectile slammed into the stone floor where he'd just been standing. Deacon's eyes snapped to it, narrowing as he took in the sight; a freshly torn forearm bone, long as his actual forearm, jagged at the base and sharpened unnaturally at the opposite end was embedded halfway into the floor.
Sam's eyes widened. "The hell–"
"Sniper," Deacon growled, already crouching and dragging Sam down beside him behind a crumbled section of parapet walls.
Sam nodded, taking out his staff from his Spatial Satchel and peeking cautiously over the edge. "Didn't see the shot, but who the fuck would use a bone as a projectile?"
Deacon scanned the far end of the parapet wall, narrowing his eyes.
[Reanimated Skeleton Lv 11]
"Crap," Deacon muttered as he saw not one reanimated skeleton archer, but at least twenty of them, all of which were standing in front of or around a massive dome-like tornado.
"You can say that again," Sam muttered as he ducked back under the crumbled section of parapet wall he was behind. "Looks like they're guarding one of the banners."
"Twenty skeletons," Deacon muttered, watching the distant figures scuttling into position, taking their aim at them and launching bone-like arrows at the crumbled section of parapet walls they were hiding behind.
"… Alright," Sam said while giving a glance at Deacon. "You ready to bulldoze through them?"
"Do you even have to ask?" Deacon smirked at Sam who mirrored his own smirk.