Jack set the stone down and leaned forward slightly, dropping his voice to something that wouldn't carry past the two of them.
"Every rare summoner I've crossed paths with said one word at some point. Said it the way you said things you heard in your sleep that won't leave you alone." A pause.
"System.
None of them could explain it. Could be a chant, could be something else entirely." He picked up another stone and turned it in his fingers.
"The ones that were different had abilities they didn't fully understand. Things that showed up sideways when they weren't expecting them."
He stood and pointed east down the main road.
"Cave Mrellie. Follow that road until the trees thin and the ground turns dark. You'll know when the air changes."
Marcus looked at him. "Why the rush old man. You seem like you want this conversation over."
Jack glanced left, then right, then back at Marcus with the expression of a man who had learned that certain information had ears.
"I don't want someone hearing me spill about this," he said simply. "Keep it in mind."
Marcus kept it in mind.
They walked back to the horses without hurrying. Liz swung up onto her white mare and looked east down the road Jack had pointed to.
"Ready?"
Marcus straightened the black coat, felt the familiar hum settle across his shoulders, and climbed onto Dusk.
"Move boy," he said.
They rode through the night.
Not because they planned to but because the road east held them and the hours passed quietly and neither of them suggested stopping. The forest on both sides thinned gradually, the trees growing further apart, the canopy pulling back until the sky above them was fully visible, pale and wide and crowded with stars.
Dawn came in quietly.
The sky shifted from deep black to a bruised purple, then to a pale grey that sat low over the treetops before the first real light arrived. By the time it did the trees had thinned almost completely and the ground beneath the horses' hooves had changed, packed dirt giving way to something darker and harder, dry and dense, the kind of earth that looked like it hadn't seen rain in a season or more and had stopped expecting it.
Then the cave appeared and Marcus pulled Dusk to a slow stop.
It sat at the base of a rocky rise that pushed up from the earth at an angle, like something underground had shoved it there with deliberate force. Wide mouthed and still, the entrance gaped between two walls of dark stone that were slick with old moisture despite the dry ground around them.
White boulders surrounded it, massive things the size of small huts, their surfaces pale and smooth in a way that looked less like natural stone and more like something that had been worn down by centuries of proximity to whatever lived inside.
They caught the early grey light and threw it back in dull uneven flashes, cold and flat.
Above the entrance a wooden sign hung at an angle from a rusted nail, half the letters weathered past reading, the other half still holding on.
CAVE MRELLIE.
The air around it was different. Not temperature different. Presence different. The particular stillness of somewhere that was aware of being approached.
"Well," Marcus said. "That's a cave."
Voices from ahead.
The three from Poco's tent were already there, horses tied to a cluster of trees twenty meters from the entrance. Lisa spotted them first and raised a hand.
"You made it. How are you guys doing?"
"Good," Liz said, dismounting. "Long ride."
"Forgot to ask your names properly back there,"
Lisa said, moving toward them with the energy of someone who treated every new situation like a social opportunity. "I'm Lisa. Loud, excellent in a fight, generally right about most things."
"I'm aware," Marcus said. "Marcus. She's Liz."
Fredrin gave a casual nod from where he was leaning against a boulder. "Fredrin. I mostly keep these two from killing each other."
Eudora stood slightly apart from the group, arms folded loosely, watching the cave entrance with those careful dark eyes. She turned when Marcus and Liz approached and something in her expression shifted into something more open.
"Eudora," she said simply.
Marcus caught her eye and raised a hand.
She raised one back.
"So what's the plan," Marcus said, looking at the group.
"We camp here today," Lisa said. "Rest, eat, go in tomorrow properly. That entrance has old energy. Better to go in fresh than tired."
Marcus looked at the cave. Looked at the boulders. Looked at the sign.
"Camp it is," he said.
They set up two camps a short distance apart, the natural separation of two groups who were friendly but not yet familiar. Marcus tied Dusk to a tree and gathered enough wood for a fire while Liz spread her pack across a flat piece of ground and organized it with the efficiency of someone who had been living on the road long enough to have a system.
"Seems you got comfortable with your new friends fast," Liz said without looking up.
"We have similar interests," Marcus said. "Nothing more."
She said nothing. Just glanced once in the direction of Eudora across the other camp, then back at her pack, her expression somewhere between unreadable and a verdict that hadn't been announced yet.
"Alright," she said. "Tomorrow's a big day." She folded her coat into a rough pillow, settled onto the grass, and pulled her pack over herself. "Don't stay up too late thinking about your similar interests."
Marcus looked at her.
She had already closed her eyes.
He sat by the fire and called the system up mentally.
[STATS]
Name: Marcus Vael
Level: Unclassified
Class: Summoner
Subclass: Sovereign Tier — Unclassified
Race: Human
STR 15 / 100
DEX 5 / 100
SPD 20 / 100
CON 3 / 100
INT 10 / 100
HP 100 / 100
MP 100 / 100
Equipment: Devil Loom Coat — Tier A. Enchanted. Nullify lethal damage once per encounter.
He read the equipment line twice.
Tier A. And the ability is that strong. He thought about the tier breakdown the system had provided when he'd first equipped it. D, C, B, A, S, S Plus.
A was the fourth tier from the bottom and the coat could already nullify a killing blow completely. What does an S Plus tier item even do.
He filed that question away and pulled up
Malachar's status.
[SUMMON STATUS]
Name: Malachar — The Crimson Tyrant
Status: Unawakened
Summon Cost: 50 MP
Abilities: Titan's Advance, Crimson Verdict, Warlord's Presence, Unbreakable, Conqueror's Return
Still unawakened, Marcus thought. Five abilities at this level and he still hasn't reached his full form. Fifty MP per summon no wonder I felt dejected on he's first summon.
He looked at his MP bar sitting full and comfortable at one hundred. Need to keep that climbing. And I need to find out if his abilities cost MP on top of the summon cost.
He closed the windows and looked at the cave entrance across the dark.
The sign. The boulders. The particular quality of the air around the mouth of it.
Tomorrow.
His body made the decision before his mind did.
His eyes closed and the fire crackled quietly and the camp settled into the kind of silence that came before something that mattered.
********
SPLAASSH!
Cold water hit his face.
All of it. At once.
Marcus opened his eyes to full morning light and Liz standing over him with an empty water skin and an expression of complete satisfaction.
"Morning sleepy head,"
"Cave's not going to explore itself."