C110: Fear, Change, and Phenomena. Part 2
Overall Word count = 1275 on 7/8/2024.
While Airmid worked on Syr/Horn. The world outside was not peaceful. In the Far East, a new bamboo forest suddenly grew in the middle of a city. The rapid expansion was never seen before yet that same forest wilted very soon after. The citizens of that city evacuated under the premise that a bad omen or curse was cast upon them.
Deep to the south within the Kaios Desert, giant sand storms and Tornadoes have risen over the grand dominion of sand. The threat to regular folk is so irregular that many Hassans have been moved to assist the various desert oasis cities. Near Shalzard, the capital of Sorshana, the divine king summons a single weapon from a golden gate to raze the oncoming sand storm that would truly cover Gilgamesh's hard work in dirty coarse sand.
Enkidu was dispatched to the other cities to establish suitable rock walls to block the sandstorms, luckily the tornadoes are not too dangerous, it's more of a problem of number as 10 of them can be gathered in one area. Strangely, the tornadoes seem to gather more the closer they are to the cities. Thankfully for the citizens, the rock walls provide assistance to block them or reroute them away.
The Beolo Mountains directly north of Orario, are half known to possess a secondary but smaller entrance to the dungeon. This place soon encountered a catastrophe as the mountain peaks collapsed suddenly, and hundreds of tons of rocks fell upon the Rakia soldiers stationed here to help their army grow.
Soldiers who one day hoped to fight against Orario were crushed while those who survived found various mountains amongst the rubble. These survivors sought to get their friend's and comrades' bodies back. Found the bodies of various low-level monsters as well. Yet there is only a single problem, each and every monster appears to have been turned into dry husks, lacking even blood.
These monsters had, of course, been crushed by the rocks but they had already been drained dry around the same time.
The survivors quickly sent a help response to Rakia to the West, while the remaining soldiers regrouped to find the dungeon entrance and create a blockade against any monsters that might break out.
Yet they found no dungeon entrance nor any more monsters. The 'Evil' Mountains have fallen to ruins.
For the dungeon itself has stopped the spawning of ALL creatures. For it is afraid of a presence it senses upon the surface. Any other time it would have gladly roused all monsters and creations to destroy this presence but when it could very well 'feel' how the mana and life force of hundreds of its beasties were drained over the course of a few hours. It became fearful.
Not because the various monsters died…no. It is afraid because it itself has become weakened. The upper floors, a staple of easy to kill monsters for beginner adventurers and even those experienced ones who needed to make some quick Vali were stumped to find that the cave itself became dark as all the mana flowing through the walls and ground was drained away. When the phenomena started, it had only affected the first 3 floors but quickly spread up to the 7th now. What surprises people most is that the top most upper floors seem to have just been moved down one. So now the 8th floor is considered the first floor. Likely whatever this change is, stumps the adventurers just as much as the guild as they receive plenty of complaints as if the guild did something to make it like this. But in the end Ouranos learned of this situation and understood why the dungeon has taken to stopping all monster production.
"Hmm, something is draining away all the energy in the dungeon. With no energy, no monster cores can be made, the dungeon even loses the ability to even make monsters in the upper floor."
"Well, do you consider this the end times? Is this worthy of intervention or do you pray for the downfall of life before you can make a move?" Ouranos finishes speaking and looks to the meditating figure who Ouranos is shocked to find that they have covered themselves in hundreds of layers of blankets, as if they are undergoing a fever which the head god knows is impossible. Yet the reality of it remains before him.
Alaya, the spirit of humanity is shaking due to the sense of danger 'it' feels. It had felt a similar sensation when it met the new found immortal, Axel Gram. Yet this sensation is so much more dense and powerful that the world itself rejects the source of this power. Of course with the source supposedly being human, Alaya herself is now being threatened by the world.
She is stuck in a situation where she is a humble peasant before a mega corporation and the corporation is suing her for all she has. Alaya wants to cry but even those tears would be used against her. Which is why she huddles herself under the blankets which are various defensive artifacts she had collected as bribes from certain immortals who just didn't want to deal with her whenever she was to give them a spanking for potentially harming other people. As such, she accumulated quite a few of these blankets and is now wearing all of them. She looks like a clothes pile in the corner of the room.
Alaya would want nothing more than to head out and seal away the source of this calamity to her but even a single twitch seems to agitate the world in its grudge against her. This is why she is content to be within her barriers and not care about anything Ouranos is saying.
Said God is baffled and after a few minutes of silence he gives up. That is when the thunder clouds above the city make their power known to the city as a massive rain storm begins to pour upon the city. Every single god is confused about the phenomena as they have never witnessed anything like this in all their years. A monsoon that covered the entire sky in the span of less than an hour. Originally there was just a few black clouds but then they all rapidly gathered for this monstrous storm. Many people seek shelter or lock down their stores. The city is still quite fragile due to the recent earthquake but plenty has been rebuilt with both Ganesha and Goibnu working together to revitalize the city. Many immortals have helped as well but their contributions were more limited in scope since there were very few who were able to pay for the help.
Nevertheless, over a hundred saints with a third of that number being mages, volunteering some help to the citizens had allowed the city to regain it's balance so it wouldn't crumble under the pressure of the storm.
Meanwhile after 2 hours and the storm is well on it's way to destroy the city, within the Dian Cecht Pharmacy, a slight tired Airmid and a now awake Heith Velvet are comforting and guiding Syr/Horn on pushing the baby out. They do this by having Freya hold the pregnant woman still while one of the two doctors massage her bully to coax the further out.
Axel himself was originally beside Syr, holding her hand just like Freya but then his body started to revolt against him, so he had to excuse himself to the corner of the room.