Chapter 61: Lore drop continues

Alaric didn’t interrupt Marchioness Orlen as she continued speaking.

"No one wanted to wait because everyone was afraid that someone else would take the treasure first, so all of us entered.

"We discovered too late that the aura hadn’t come from a treasure. We had intruded upon the hiding place of an existence that didn’t want anyone to know he was there.

"The being began killing everyone who had entered, without wanting to communicate whatsoever. Nearly a hundred Paragons fought back with everything they possessed, but none of them could escape the cavern while he remained alive.

"I was the strongest among all those Paragons and survived until the end.

"By then, the being had also been pushed to his limit by the combined attacks, leaving the two of us in a position where either could continue fighting, but both would die at the end."

"You were the last person standing after something like that?" Alaric asked in disbelief. "And you were still strong enough to threaten its life?"

"Only an avatar which had already killed almost a hundred Paragons and exhausted nearly all of its remaining strength," Rowena corrected him. "If we had met when he first appeared, I would have died without understanding what killed me. Even at the end, killing him would have cost my own life."

"Wait, that was just an avatar? How do you know?" Alaric was even more baffled.

Rowena nodded. "Yes, it was an avatar. Just listen, don’t keep poking."

Then she continued. "That existence apparently understood the same thing as me that we would both die if we fight. So, instead of continuing the fight, he laughed helplessly and finally became willing to communicate.

"Before he explained his situation, he gave me a name," Rowena said. "Vharaketh. I have no way of knowing whether it was his true name, but it was the only name he offered."

Vharaketh wasn’t there in his true form. He had paid an unimaginable price to send down an avatar, but someone had interfered with his sense of time during the process, causing him to arrive twenty years earlier than he had intended.

Due to the change in plan, he had thought of concealing himself, while waiting for the correct time. The sudden arrival of nearly a hundred Paragons destroyed that plan.

"Not to mention that escaping after exposing himself would have created other dangers, that person still thought of himself as an existence far above us and chose to kill everyone who had seen him.

"So by the time he accepted that the situation had gone wrong, he had already placed himself on his last legs."

Since neither of them wanted to die in that cavern, Vharaketh offered Rowena a deal. He would use what remained of his power to give her several benefits, and she would perform one task for him.

"I would have agreed to almost anything reasonable if it allowed me to leave," Rowena admitted without any embarrassment. "He created an empty human body which looked like a newborn child and told me to keep it alive, healthy and well fed for twenty years.

"He said that he would eventually have a use for it, but he didn’t explain anything more."

Vharaketh placed the infant body inside a special sealed space capable of preserving living things, then handed Rowena the spell model required to control it. Once their agreement was complete, his avatar finally collapsed.

Rowena left the cavern carrying the sealed body and everything she had collected from the dead Paragons.

She was severely injured, exhausted and still trying to understand what had happened when the first person waiting outside approached her.

"It was my father, Alastair Orlen."

Alaric’s confusion increased once again. "Your father? Didn’t he disappear?"

"That is what I believed as well. He claimed that he had reasons to remain hidden but came as soon as news of the strange aura reached him."

Alastair asked whether she was safe, how severe her injuries were and whether she needed help.

He said that he had come despite the danger because he couldn’t ignore news involving his daughter, then asked what had happened inside the cavern.

His voice carried all the concern expected from a father who had found his daughter barely alive, but Rowena didn’t believe any of it.

She had just survived something far stranger than anything she had previously experienced, and her attention remained sharper than ever.

Every question her father asked eventually returned to the cavern, asking what had happened inside.

"I told him that a strange existence had appeared and that everyone joined forces to kill it, but I was the only person who survived. He listened before asking whether I had obtained anything from that existence."

Rowena told Alaric what her father had warned her about back then as she still remembered it clearly word to word.

"Do not keep anything that belonged to that creature. Whatever it left behind could be dangerous, so tell me if you brought something out."

"He wanted whatever you received," Alaric said.

"That was also my conclusion. I told him that nothing belonging to Vharaketh remained and that the cavern only contained the possessions left behind by the dead Paragons."

It was a lie mixed with enough truth that Alastair couldn’t easily find a fault.

The possessions of the dead Paragons really had been left behind, and Rowena had collected all of them, but she never mentioned the benefits Vharaketh gave her, the spell model or the infant hidden inside the sealed space.

Alastair continued questioning her for some time, but Rowena maintained the same story. Eventually, he told her to take care of herself and disappeared.

Due to one of the benefits given by Vharaketh, Rowena soon noticed that her father hadn’t truly left. He had concealed himself nearby and continued observing her.

She didn’t dare bring out the prepared body or examine Vharaketh’s other gifts.

Rowena had no confidence that Alastair wouldn’t kill his own daughter after taking everything, especially when her death would keep the secret from spreading.

"That wasn’t the end of it. Even more trouble arrived soon." Rowena sighed.