The Fourth Secret: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Divine Apostasy Book 4) by A. Kay (best short books to read .TXT) 📕

ones I take. So her emotions become your emotions. You taking her Dark Portal triggered this memory, the day she received it.

Ugh. It feels awful. Couldn’t you have seen the memory of the battle plan?

Maybe eventually. For now, we get what we get.

Did you find anything else? And no, I don’t want to see it.

I got a glimpse of what she was doing before coming to face you. Water surrounded her, but those Haffa Mages kept the water from touching her. She fired those exploding tubes into the stone, and then cut the weakened stone into uniform sizes, which she stored in the bands. It looked efficient. They are definitely tunneling.

Why the water?

Maybe to move Haffa’s troops?

Ruwen stared at the Dark Portal. Before it had just been loot, now he felt all of Valora’s emotions: pride, fierce determination, and thankfulness. She probably felt another one now: rage. The fact was, she had tried to kill him. This only happened because they’d taken Lylan prisoner to begin with.

I’m going to see if it works on my wrist. Do you think it’s safe?

I’ve been thinking about that. My guess is Naktos can track that item, since it belongs to him. But your Hooded Pacifist’s Cloak of Wandering makes you immune to location magic. So if you’re within fifty feet of your cloak, he can’t locate that item or you.

What if the cloak is in my Inventory?

I’m not sure. We’d have to test that. For now, you better just wear it.

Ruwen removed his Bracer of Freedom and carefully laid the Dark Portal across his wrist, unsure what might happen.

The black strip sank into Ruwen’s skin and stretched, wrapping around his wrist until it connected with itself. The back of his neck grew cold, but not with the intensity he’d experienced when soulbinding the Void Band. It now looked identical to his Void Band. He focused on the Dark Portal, channeled one Energy per second, and willed it to open.

The Dark Portal opened, but so did the Void Band, his Energy draining by two per second. Frowning, Ruwen focused on his Void Band and closed it. But the Dark Portal did as well. Why were they synchronized? The Stone Carver had opened and closed them separately.

Ruwen opened his Void Band, causing both to open again. He wondered if the synchronization affected retrieving items from Inventory. Placing his Void Band over his lap, he prepared to drop out something small like the wax ear plugs he’d used when facing the Exploding Burrowers.

Instead, Ruwen closed both bands.

“What are you doing?” Sift asked.

“Using Wisdom for once,” Ruwen said.

Sift nodded. “Probably something I taught you.”

“No,” Ruwen said.

Sift turned to Xavier. “Did I tell you about the Plague Siren? ‘Use her strength against her,’ I told him.”

“The hot demon you mean?” Lylan asked.

Sift’s eyes grew large as he realized his mistake. “I’ll tell you about that later, Xav.” Sift faced Lylan. “You know I meant fire hot.”

Ruwen laughed at Sift’s self-inflicted pain, and then turned, hanging his arms off the wagon. If the bands really were synched right now, accessing one slot might access the same location on the other. And then another potential danger occurred to him.

If Ruwen opened a slot with a lot of larger items, it might expand the Dark Portal past his ability to sustain it, killing him. He needed to compare the contents of both first and he opened his Inventory.

Instead of the single grid, Ruwen now had two tabs. The first was marked Void Band, and the second Dark Portal. He selected the Dark Portal tab and looked at what Stone Carver Valora had collected.

Almost the entire Inventory contained rocks and mud, more evidence of Valora’s tunnel digging. The Dark Portal’s tenth slot contained something small, thirty-nine hand sized rocks. He checked the tenth slot on his Void Band and found an empty coin sack. The bag had contained the fifty copper he’d received after completing his first ever quest, Work is its Own Reward. That had been the first time he’d met Bliz.

Concentrating on just the Dark Portal, Ruwen opened it with one Energy per second. His Void Band opened as well, and he frowned. Hopefully, the synchronization didn’t extend to retrieving contents. Focusing intently on the Dark Portal, he emptied grid location ten.

The thirty-nine rocks dropped out of the Dark Portal in a rush, briefly expanding the opening to five Energy per second. His Void Band mirrored the expansion, even though the empty coin bag was the only thing that dropped out. The brown bag struck the ground and was buried by the rocks falling from the Dark Portal. He felt a little sad at the loss of the coin purse. Maybe he did have a hoarding problem.

Ruwen closed the bands, sat back down in the wagon, and carefully looked at the entire contents of the Dark Portal. Two items weren’t tunneling leftovers, and Ruwen compared the slot numbers with his own grid, confirming his Void Band locations were empty.

Rami, any ideas why I can’t access just one of these? Ruwen asked.

No, but I’ll look through my indexes for help.

Thanks.

If Ruwen couldn’t figure out how to manage the dimensional bands separately, the Dark Portal was useless to him.

Chapter 62

Ruwen opened the Dark Portal and held his now open Void Band under it. He accessed the first item of value in the Dark Portal, emptying the slot.

Hundreds of silver rods fell out of the Dark Portal and into Ruwen’s Void Band. In seconds, the transfer had completed. The Dark Portal had contained three hundred forty-eight silver rods that looked identical to the one that had exploded inside his chest.

Tring!

You have discovered…

Name: Hardened Instability Rod

Quality: Uncommon

Weight: 14.7 lbs.

Effect: Penetrate quartz rock and softer.

Effect: Delayed detonation of Instability Sigil.

Description: A one foot silver rod with a terium alloy tip. After impact and penetration, Instability Sigil detonates weakening the surrounding structures and creating an ideal environment for tunneling.

Ruwen guessed that living underground meant you needed things like this to make tunneling easier.

Holding the