by John Gold
Judging by the way the room is laid out, it’s a fortified laboratory. There’s a small couch, a pair of bookshelves, and a desk with a book on it. A small mana storage crystal keeps a magic canopy cast over the book, so it looks brand new.
If you’re reading these lines, the guild has fallen, and we are dead…
After that comes a small story about the demon invasion. One of the demonologists was able to find a half-ruined temple to an unnamed god from the Inferno. And he read the prophesy…
The wanderer will come, the darkness to bring,
Us to outdo, an era in to ring.
The fallen first, who once did lead,
Become the steps, the soil, the seed.
Following the first ones, they’ll surpass,
Going further than us, bringing darkness at last.
Evil will awake, what has always been here,
Virgil, the demon, from sleep will peer.
And three continents will bathe in blood.
The war will begin, faith undermined;
The demon will everywhere victims find.
The first will be sent on a journey to slog,
The first guard to the Stygian bog.
The first of the demons come to naught,
Younger brothers the gate will slam shut.
With the strength of the first ones, evil spirit driven out,
And thus ends the age in which darkness was sought.
Part of the prophesy was lost, and I’m not sure where to find it. That’s probably the part with the key to beating the demons.
The prophecy is already deciphered, and it’s pretty easy to work out what it means. The “first” are the gods, the “younger brothers” are the demonologists, and everything else is just noise. On the other hand, there is one couplet that I find incredibly valuable: Younger brothers the gate will slam shut. With the strength of the first ones, evil spirit driven out… So, the demonologists will use the power of the gods to open a gate between worlds which they’ll use to drive the spirit of the demon back into the Inferno. Only the gods can open an ordinary portal there. There’s some kind of idea or magic requirement I don’t know about, but the fact that the Gray Lands and Hell are in a different world means the key to getting there is a god’s intervention. I got there by being a sacrifice on the altar of Teurus, which confirms that theory. There are other principles and requirements here, but I can’t dig into them yet. I need to get my brain working the way it’s supposed to or find someone who can help me understand interworld portals. And since I don’t have any friends like that, I’m going to have to get my brain working again.
I have to take the note to Anri, but I’m going to keep the book for myself. It was what they used to summon the demons, including information about the seals used to summon the higher demons of the Inferno, and, if my memory doesn’t betray me, those seals were lost. If I’m right, my find is an incredibly valuable one.
A look around the room doesn’t uncover anything else. The only valuable things I’ve found in the dead city have been the note, the book, and the stationary mana storages.
The quest is done, and I have six more days in my back pocket.
I decide to get some rest. The demonologist guild’s building was preserved better than anything else in the city, and it’s deep underground, so nobody will bother me. The most important thing is to pick a good hiding place.
I jam the door to the basement closed on my side, wedge a chair up against the door to the room I’m in, and lie down inside the sofa bed. It’s in good shape, though I doubt it would survive a second nap. I remember my time in Hell and how I had to hide in the ground when I slept.
As soon as I dive back into my dream world, LJ returns. Part of me still thinks of myself as a cat, keeping an eye on the world around me as I sleep.
I see the field of flowers and the girl again. It’s odd, but I’m not afraid of her, calmly following her into the unknown. Peace and quiet reign in my soul the way they’re supposed to.
My dream, however, is rudely interrupted by a sound coming from the corner on the left. A rat got into the room, and it’s currently sniffing the furniture in search of food. Happily, it ignores the couch, though the bodies of the dead mages are an unexpected treat. The crunch of dried bone is unusually revolting. It’s almost like it’s gnawing on my bones, and that makes catching a glimpse of the feast even scarier. However things play out, I’m going to have to kill the creature and get out of the building. Opening the door made the room part of the location, apparently, and so bots can now spawn here.
As soon as everything around falls quiet, I sense an incomparable terror. The rat is so busy chewing its bone that it doesn’t notice a stone go missing behind it, followed by another one. I’ll be seeing those enormous hands with peeling skin, hearing the quiet, and sensing the strength for a long time. The wall behind the rat is slowly taken apart, stone by stone, in complete silence.
The air starts to fill with moisture, something that doesn’t escape the rat’s attention. Turning its head from side to side, it looks around and squeals wildly. The demon has taken half the wall apart and is now staring at the little predator. His hands continue to work, the opening into the room grows wider, and the rat shrieks as it looks for an exit. After making a couple of circles around the room, it finally sees the gap in the couch that I’m watching everything through.
What do two cornered animals feel when their eyes meet? Today, I found out.
The rat hurls itself at the couch and starts tearing at the gap with its short paws. Its teeth go to work as it tries to tear the material apart, but I’m there holding it together as strongly as I can. By the time the gap is wide enough for the rat to scratch me twice, the whole couch jerks. It’s about to collapse.
I’ve already been looking at the rat’s teeth through the hole, but suddenly, it’s raised up into the air. The demon, done with the wall, has picked the little beast up by the tail. His second hand starts to choke it. Seeing what’s going on, I break into a cold sweat, my movement and breathing stop. The demon is squeezing the rat with both hands. Its health bar is in no hurry to drop, however—the demon is taking his time. He’s killing his victim slowly.
My supply of air is going to run out in five seconds… Four… Three… Two…
I breathe in and breathe out. The rat dies painfully, its carcass dropped onto the floor. The demon looks down at the bodies of the dead mages before giving the rat a kick. After banging a couple times off the wall, the corpse flies out through the hole.
Undead, Erin the Loser, Level 2801, raid boss
The demon carefully adjusts the body of the mage the skeleton was gnawing on. Then, brushes away the bone dust and smooths down the mantle. After giving the room a look around, his gaze fixes on the chair wedged against the door, and then on the torn couch. Finally, he turns back to the wall he came in through.
Five minutes after the demon left, I’m still in a cold sweat, barely breathing, and only starting to recover. No, I have to get out of here right now!
It takes me almost an hour to get from the ruined guild building to the residential district, which is where the exit is. And if the quiet was driving me crazy, the murmuring of zombies and squeaking of rats is even worse. I come across possessed demons twice, both of them pursuing rats. They’re like harbingers of death, dashing along with clattering claws and constant squeaking. Whenever I see them, I hide and wait. First, the rats run by; then, once quiet settles, in comes the demon. It’s only when the sounds of the dead city start breaking out again that I resume my trek to the way out of this corner of hell.
The bots with bodies or magic are the most dangerous. Even one of the rats could kill me in just a couple of seconds.
Hiding out on the roof of a small building, I see three predators who are running from a demon eat a couple skeletons. They use combat techniques to move faster, getting what looks like a double boost for ten seconds. The blitz in to tear limbs off is a fast and effective attack.
They work in well-coordinated groups, while the skeletons cast bone shields or curses.
Happily, the exit is clear, with no zombie guards to be found. The stone plate slides to the side, opening the path to the darkened tunnel before me—my way to freedom. I take a step, then another, and then a third…
Something’s wrong.
I don’t hear my own footfalls; all I can hear is the darkness up ahead. It’s absolutely quiet, and…
Only one enemy can cause the kind of terror I’m feeling.
Undead, Piroxis Aransky, Level 2788, raid boss
He’s standing behind me, at the entrance to the dead city and just ten meters away. My suspicions are confirmed—he has a new body.
Lifting one rotting hand, he waves to me. The jaw kicks into action; the eyes shine green.
“See-ee…you soo-oo-oon…Sagie!”
My legs carry me away, and I turn on a lantern. The wall is in front of me. It’s cold, and I’m panting. Stop and open the door?
Dragon breath turns part of the wall to ash, and I dash out, slamming into Greta as she stands guard at the passage. Stop and explain? Wait? Screw it! How do I get out of here??
***
Krash teleported to Tiamad’s office. He was in good spirits, smiling and practically glowing, and he even showed up with gifts from the outside world and made everyone coffee.
Ten minutes later, nobody had uttered a word. Krash was humming a merry tune as he stood by the panoramic window, the picture idyllic—hot coffee, good music, silence, peace, and an ocean of enjoyment. Idzumi’s kiir settled in nearby as he watched the enormous fish swimming by in the depths of the ocean. The two shapeshifting cats basked in the quiet and homey comfort.
Tiamat put aside his copy of the latest Wanderer Herald issue.
“Hey, cat, has nobody ever told you how to say hi? Here you are again, and you’re even ignoring everyone.”
The invigorating smell of strong coffee tickled the nose. In his cat form, Krash’s perception was heightened, which was why he preferred coffee then. Even Tiamat’s sharp rebuke wasn’t enough to put a damper on his mood.
“I took another look at Sagie, and this time, I liked what I saw! The academy sent him into the dead city under Kkhor, so I took control of one of the roaming raid bosses and gave him a trial by fire.”
“You don’t think that was too soon? It’s been barely more than a week, and you’re already attacking him again.”
“Last time, he didn’t show me what he could do. Candidates need to be tested in a variety of circumstances so they flash their best side, you see their motives, and you get an idea for how they’re developing.”
“And your prognosis?”
“All I can talk about so far are his strength and his mastery. He doesn’t have much mana, he fights a defensive battle, he doesn’t have equipment, he doesn’t have battle mage abilities, and he’s not very experienced with magic battles. He does have basic knowledge about close-combat magic and spell combinations. His focus is on linear attacks to boost the raw power behind him, and he’s smart for his age, though he needs to fight a variety of opponents that will push him to use his mastery to beat them. For now, he relies on brute force. He needs more life experience and conversation, too. Oh, and he can’t tell which fights he can win before he joins them yet.”
“You can even see that?”
Krash closed his eyes, the question calling to mind some sad memories.
“We all do lots of things every day, and each of them tell the people watching quite a bit. The saddest and best part is his grief, his mood, his internal emptiness, his love, his desires, and his thirst to live and fight for what’s most valuable.” Krash remembered how he left the world. They’d made too many mistakes. “If I don’t see that in a candidate now, it’ll be too late later. And it doesn’t even have anything to do with manipulating what you know; it’s about motivation. I want to guide him along the path to happiness.”
Krash lost himself in his plans for how he could test the boy. He had the opportunity to evaluate other candidates, too, and the demon invasion would be perfect for that.
***
After my visit to the city of the dead, I have my battle for the title of apprentice. My opponent is a mage swordsman with a double Light Magic specialty. For the first time, I’m faced with someone just as capable as me. His light aura blinds me, he has two battle familiars he got with the title of mage, and there’s the well-developed swordsman skills to boot. It takes me five seconds to figure all that out—the amount of time it takes him to dash over. Up against somebody like that, I don’t have a shot at winning unless I change things up. I switch over to defense, throwing up my most powerful earth shield. The mage is focused on doing physical damage—my Achilles heel. I’m forced to pull an ace out of my sleeve.
After refreshing my still-strong shield, I wait for my mana to recover. My tsunami spell cost me ten thousand gold, but it saves my life this day. As the enormous wave sweeps across the arena, the mage swordsman summons a golem to establish his defense. Yes, I remember Gaia’s battle. My plan is to learn from her experience.
My opponent quickly realizes what trap I’m setting and protects himself, periodically probing my shield with long-range attacks.
Master swordsman amulets are designed for a specific type of damage. I need my opponent to switch over quickly to one that neutralizes lightning, and that’s exactly what it does. I’ve dug in, hiding from the other mage. And why is that?
“Meteor. Maximum.”
The second ace I bought gets thrown onto the table. I hadn’t been able to use those seals without victims, so they were the first two I bought when I had money.
The ground shakes, but that’s exactly what I was waiting for. Sure, my granite shield flying off from the force of the shockwave was no surprise. But sliding fifty meters across the sand on my nose and slamming into the wall of the arena? The double meteor turned out even better than I expected. Hooray! I have a new tactic for surviving in extreme conditions.
New magical mastery title: Life Magic Apprentice
Life Magic spell effectiveness +125%
I’ve never seen Anri this happy. Along with my new ring, he gives me a hug, telling me that very few life mages make it to the rank of scholar, to say nothing of apprentice. Anri loves Life Magic almost as much as a mother loves his child, and he’s always overjoyed when it succeeds. I’m tickled to hear his praise.
A week goes by after my trip to the city of the dead. I spend the whole time at the Two Trolls tavern sitting on one of the roof beams, with a vantage point from which I can watch all the guests. It’s a wonderful picture: the smell of good food, fresh gossip and news, and the voices of men and women, children and adults. Life reigns supreme, full of the people I missed in the dungeon. I can’t sleep, nightmares ravage me, and even snoozing doesn’t help me rest. A couple of times, almost falling down after one of the nightmares, I have to pull some impressively acrobatic tricks. I can feel LJ guarding me during my dreams, if less obviously than in the city of the dead. He only shows up in moments of mortal danger or when my exhausted mind needs a break.
My nightmares always echo reality. I see the ghosts even when they’re invisible, and the worst dream of all is the one about the man in black who I sense in every shadow. Sometimes, he moves from shadow to shadow, and I wake up with his evil eyes fixed on me. He never does anything besides follow me wherever I go.
On the first day back from the city of the dead, Kirk told me that Femida isn’t in Katain or Radaam. We’ll have our answer for Ovidius in another ten days, for Kongul, eight more after that.
Kirk tells me why he hates Sagie.
“You know, I had just turned eighteen, and I was in love for the first time. That was in Airis Castle, in the herbalists’ biggest greenhouse, one of the ones the Golden Hand built. Lira, this beautiful blonde girl, worked there. Her body was slender, her face was perfect, her wonderful hair was soft, and she had the personality of an angel. It took m
e almost a month to win her favor, and I dreamed of marriage. She said we’d have the wedding after the war with the undead. In the meantime, we just lived together in the house I bought. For a whole month, we lived in heaven. We went to cafes and theaters, listened to the bards sing in the best taverns, swam in the lake. I remember the romantic dinner we had the night before the battle like it was yesterday. Her red dress was made out of lace, and she had a wreath of white roses in her hair. The smell of her perfume and the taste of homemade pudding…I remember it all.”
Kirk takes a sip of tea and wraps himself tighter in his blanket.
“Nobody knew when the final battle would start, and there were new warriors making their way to the fortress every day. Then, the battle started, and the mana storages were emptied in a matter of seconds. Just a minute later, an enormous meteor demolished everything. The only people to survive were Rachel’s squad—they were guarding the control room, and they used a bubble to survive the strike and the shock wave.” Silence falls, and Kirk closes his eyes. “I didn’t know what to do when I found her body buried under the rubble. I just sat next to her in disbelief. All day, we buried the dead, and I wasn’t the only one to lose someone. That’s why I had to make sure you weren’t Sagie.”
He certainly has reason to hate me, though it would be a stretch to say that he knows even half the story.
A week goes by, and Kirk shows up at the tavern where I spend all my time. He’s nervous about something he wants to tell me himself. My orphanage experience kicks in, and the first thing I think is that it’s a setup. But it’s actually much simpler.
One of the seeker spirits came back with an answer: Femida is in Karpi, a dwarf city in Ovidius. We’ll be able to find out exactly where she is when we get there.