The First Legendary Beast Master

Chapter 1173: Abandoned Guild House

Karl stepped up to the barrier around the dilapidated stone building, and raised his hand to inspect the surface.

It wasn’t a barrier spell that he was familiar with, but it was most likely cast by Orthos before he left. The question was if Karl could enter without damaging it.

The spell had held the house in something close to stasis for thousands of years, and Karl didn’t want to do anything that would destroy the historical artifact. Even from here, he could see Dwarven runes carved into the stone, long since inert, but undamaged by time.

If he could spot some of the building’s defensive measures already, there had to be more. And if there were more, most of them would be considered lost arts by now.

At least by most people.

”Are you sure that’s wise, Sir?” The Bunga City guard asked cautiously as Karl’s hand touched the barrier.

”No worries, the house still belongs to the Guild. It won’t harm me. I’m more worried about damaging it when I enter, if it was intended to be a stasis spell to preserve the house.

So, I’m trying to determine what it does first.”

The Guard nodded slowly as Karl analyzed the barrier, and then tried to use his limited understanding of the Fundamental Rule of Mana Manipulation to trace the spell to its origin.

The spell stones were overgrown with grass, buried under a few centimetres of dirt and plant roots by the ages. But with mana flowing through them, they were easy enough to understand.

It was a preservation spell, the same sort that he had cast on the pantry, though written by a mage and not a Runecrafter, so the spell was somewhat different.

That meant all it was doing was slowing the aging of the building, and keeping unauthorized people out.

That was a feature that the pantry didn’t have, but he could see the value if he was making a copy for someone like Deve, who had a whole houseful of curious badger children to keep away from snacks and cleaning supplies.

There wasn’t anyone in the Alliance House or Guild House that wasn’t allowed to access the food as they pleased, so Karl hadn’t thought of it before seeing it in action.

Tentatively, Karl took a step forward, and the barrier offered no resistance to him as he stepped onto the overgrown walkway and headed for the building.

Dana followed him into the yard, but the Guard simply ran into the barrier as if he had walked into a wall.

”Just wait there for a few moments, while we make sure that the building is safe to enter.” Karl instructed, with no intentions of letting strangers into this relic of a house.

”That should be a preservation barrier, right? What happened to this place?” Dana asked as she looked around the yard.

”If the spell functions the same as the one that I placed on the pantry, it only slows decay to one percent of its original rate. It doesn’t stop it completely. That would be much more difficult without an affinity for time magic.

So, a cake in the cupboard reaches day old status after three months. But this place has been abandoned for thousands of years. Even with the barrier, it has essentially gone decades without maintenance.

That’s why the stones are all still perfect, but the yard is a mess and the paint has peeled.

I don’t know how well the building was made to begin with, I didn’t really inspect it last time I was here. But it should be solid enough to enter.” Karl explained.

The front door was open, with another barrier over it to keep out both strangers and the elements, going by the leaves that had been piled against it by the wind. Karl stepped over them and into the house, which looked faded and dusty, but still intact.

When the previous residents of the Guild House had left, they had taken most of the furniture. Karl could see the spots along the wall where large pieces had once stood, and the divots in the floor where something on rollers, likely a grand piano, had once stood.

But in the dining room, the massive Ironwood table remained with one single chair, and a carved stone tablet.

{To whomever should find this tablet.

My name is Orthos, Bronze Dragon of the Order, last living member of the Darklight Host in Bunga, and one of the few to still have any System Functions on this continent.

If the house still stands, and the System Resurgence has begun, please proceed to the basement and touch the Guild Stone to activate the branch house functions.

If I still live, I should feel it.

If the spells have failed, and the house is being visited by looters and not Guild Members, I ask that you not damage the relics left behind when you take them. In time, they will be immeasurably valuable.

Destroying them for sport would deny your family the chance at unfathomable wealth in the next generation.}

Karl and Dana both smiled at the matter of fact message left by the Bronze Dragon.

”Should we go bother the old man?” Karl asked.

”Oh, most definitely. If we didn’t, I suspect that Cara would.” Dana laughed.

In her space, Cara nodded eagerly. She liked that dragon.

He was fun to tease.

Cara exited her space to lead the way down the stairs, following instinct to the Guild Stones.

{Guild Branch Leader Karl has reactivated the Darklight Host Guild Branch at Bunga}

{Branch Members} 1

{Issue Call To Gather?}

{Portal Open}

Karl sighed as he saw the list of System Notices after Cara reached the System Stones.

The System letting her operate things on his behalf was somewhat problematic. Mostly just because Cara was Cara. If it was Thor who had learned that trick, Karl would have been much less concerned.

”What the, hey! I was teaching a class. Where are you dragging me, you damnable badger? Don’t think I forgot about the footprints on my ceiling.” Orthos was complaining.

”It looks like you’re still best friends.” Dana laughed as she entered the open stone basement and found the Dragon facing off against the Chaos Badger.

Orthos glared at her, and Karl began to explain.

”Lady Matilda asked us to find out why nobody on this continent is getting the System, and this is where we started. We saw that the System still listed the house as belonging to the Guild, but inactive. So, we reactivated it to see if the System started to come back online.”

Orthos tapped his chin. ”Did the old woman forget about the suppression?”

”What suppression?” Karl asked.

”Oh, at the end of the last resurgence, the Titans and Giants allied to cast a suppression barrier over the continent. It’s supposed to prevent anyone from advancing, a magical device that the Immortal Realms use to keep slaves in line.

That’s the most likely cause for the situation here.

Did you promise her that you would fix it, or just find out the reason for the issue?” Orthos asked.

Dana smirked and shook her head. ”Neither really. She insisted, and then sent us here. You know how she is.”