The Life

by Paul Kite

  I wasn’t going to feel sorry for the investigator who could cold-bloodedly torture humans, elves, dwarves and other races.

  “I don’t know…”

  “I told you not to lie!”

  Of course, I wasn’t going to stoop to his level and engage in torture by removing excess body parts. A threat was understandable, but it was too much to cut something off, so I just hit the man’s head hard with the handle of my dagger.

  “Don’t make a sound, bastard,” I pressed my knee on his shoulder, and put the blade into his mouth opened in a silent scream, pushing the sharpened edge into his cheek. “Do you like it? What if I push a little harder? I’m going to cut you a wider smile!” I was furious, remembering that girl from the chamber, and barely restrained myself from slaughtering the fat bastard right then and there. But it was too early!

  The torture buff moaned; his eyes wide open. How did he manage to open them up like that? The investigator was afraid to move because he could lose his plump cheeks easily after the smallest movement.

  “Where’s Lsaeros?” I whispered, leaning over his ear.

  “Eef ee wuh” It wasn’t convenient for him to speak with the blade between his teeth, but I guessed what he had in mind.

  “Tell me everything, got it?” I demanded, removing the dagger.

  “He’s in the sixth cell designed for special prisoners. It’s right here, on the first level,” the investigator said in a hoarse voice.

  I was surprised but tried not to show it. A special cell for high-risk prisoners, available right there on the first floor. It was strange. Well, it was better than the fourth or the fifth level!

  I wouldn’t dare go to the lowest levels of the prison while they were full of warriors.

  “Where are the keys? I hope you have them. If not, I’ll have to say goodbye,” I gave him a hint of what I meant by pushing the tip of the dagger into his neck, where the first cut had already been made.

  “Th-there,” the investigator said pointing to the desk with his trembling hand.

  “So get up then, get it for me!” I kicked him and stabbed him a couple of times in the back for more believability. “Get up, get up... Well done,” I praised the man. He clamped his bleeding neck with one hand and opened the nightstand that was built into the table with another hand.

  Suddenly, I heard the swish of a blade. It was an inept, weak, but a sharp swing by a hand holding a long, narrow dagger. I intuitively leaned to the side.

  I ducked to avoid the second swing and stabbed the hand that held the blade with two quick slanted strokes. With a cry, the fat man dropped his weapon and backed away against the wall. I kicked him in the stomach with my knee and looked into the nightstand while my stunned opponent was trying to regain his breath.

  He wasn’t lying about the keys. I took the whole bunch and suddenly saw something flashing in the back of the drawer. It was a pair of different daggers, unlike the one the investigator tried to stab me with. Probably, they were the ‘gifts’ from prisoners. Well, they’d come in handy, I decided. One glance at the pop-up message of the system was enough for me to understand that the weapon wasn’t simple. Then I leaned over picked up the blade lying on the floor and sent everything into the inventory bag.

  “What level have those two guards gone to?” I asked, coming to the investigator, who began to recover gradually.

  “The fourth,” the investigator’s eyes were moving nervously.

  “Are you lying?” I smiled predatorily, or rather, grinned.

  “N-no,” the man bleated like an aging goat.

  “Fine, then lead the way,” I ordered the investigator.

  I was hoping to free the wizard while the guards returned the tortured prisoner to his cell. It might take some time for them to go down one more level. After all, the guards had to warn the captain about the arrival of the wizard.

  “Be quick!” I pushed the fat man, who wasn’t in a hurry.

  I decided to to take him along as leverage. It was rather simple — I was going to use him as a hostage. If the guards returned before I had the chance to liberate Lsaeros, the body of that bastard would serve me as a shield. I was hoping they’d take longer, though. Time would only show what would happen next.

  Pushing the investigator ahead, I followed him out into the corridor and looked inquiringly at the man.

  “Well? Which one?”

  “That one,” he nodded at the cast iron door without a small window.

  I gave him the keys.

  “Open the door and go in first,” I ordered, in case it was a trap.

  The key turned in the lock, the investigator opened the door with difficulty and went inside. After waiting a dozen seconds, I pulled the key out of the lock and crossed the threshold. I barely held in a disappointed sigh.

  “Is that him?”

  A battered and wrinkled body covered with blood sat on a dirty stone floor. He had broken fingers and toes, and there was not a single hair on his head. I got the impression that he was scalped. His face looked like a creepy mask. It could not belong to a man, it resembled the face of a corpse which had been recently dug from a grave.

  The shapeless heap stirred and the man, it was a man without a doubt, lifted his crippled face and looked at us with dull, lifeless eyes.

  “I won’t say anything, go to...” he spoke with difficulty with the remnants of cracked lips and dropped his head heavily on his chest.

  “Are you lying to me again?” I nevertheless clarified just in case.

  “No, no, this is him,” the investigator nodded.

  “Hey, man!” I called the prisoner. And when he grumbled something unintelligible and moved again, I added, “Master Zorkhan sent me. What’s your name?”

  The wizard jerked his head, trying to raise it again. It was evident that every movement brought him unbearable pain. When he finally mastered the muscles which seemed to be filled with lead and managed to lift his head, his eyes snapped wide open and looked at me. Tearing open the bloody gashes on his lips, he grinned gruesomely.

  “Lsaeros,” the man wheezed. “Zorkhan finally sent help.” The wizard mumbled something else, but I had already stopped listening to him.

  Did all the knowledge of the Ilian barrier over the Cursed Lands cost such agony? The knowledge of the wizard might be invaluable, but how did the rest of those people and that girl deserve torture?

  I wanted to burn the whole monastery to the ground along with those kind-looking monks and warriors of the Nazhar kingdom! Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough strength for that. I would happily have made a huge bonfire out of this place. And this monster, the investigator, would have been the first person I would push into the flame. He had pressed himself against the wall in fear, without risking to utter a word. Well, I was able to do one good deed. For example, to slaughter the fat man slowly and thoroughly! I stepped closer to the investigator, playing with a pair of daggers of Chaos that appeared in my hands. I didn’t even notice when the second dagger materialized. I remembered clearly that I was holding only one of them after I entered the cell. The rage that had overtaken me began to get out of control. I wanted to exact my revenge so much!

  “Wait!” Lsaeros commanded from behind me. I turned partly to the old man, not letting the fat man out of my sight. “Don’t kill him.”

  It looked like the old man had gone crazy after so much torture. The entire journey I’d gone through was to save a mad mage!

  “I’ll do it myself!”

  I suppressed a sigh of relief. That explained everything. The released prisoner was filled with a thirst for blood and revenge. I wasn’t exactly against it. I could even hold the investigator for him.

  The wizard stirred and crawled with difficulty, periodically moaning from pain in his broken bones and damaged organs. Such endurance and willpower! A person like him deserved admiration, even if he was an NPC. I was convinced once again in the great realism of the world, which was created for the game.

  “Give me,” Lsae
ros pointed to the dagger with his crooked, bloody finger without a fingernail.

  “I can’t,” I shook my head. “However, here you are. Take it,” having dispersed my daggers of Chaos, I took out one of those blades from the investigator’s office. I handed it to the mage with its handle forward, holding onto the blade.

  “Hold him tight,” the wizard asked, somehow clasping the handle with his crippled palm.

  “With pleasure.” I took a step forward and struck the investigator with several blows, forcing him to bend over in pain. Then, clutching his wrists, I twisted his arms behind his back.

  Lsaeros growled happily, plunging the blade into the man’s leg, first once, then the second time.

  The fat man screamed, squealing like a wild a pig being butchered alive.

  A few more stabs with the dagger and the body in my hands suddenly grew heavier. As it turned out, the wizard cut the tendons on the legs of his investigator without hesitation. I let go of the man, and he fell like a sack on the floor right in front of Lsaeros.

  “Move back,” the wizard ordered, and I took a couple of steps toward the door, deciding to cover it just in case.

  The investigator’s wheezing gradually turned into gurgling. I turned around with interest and froze in astonishment like a statue. As it turned out, the wizard wasn’t going to take revenge on that man.

  At first, Lsaeros cut off the investigator’s tongue, then cut the tendons under his armpits so that the fat man couldn’t move his arms. Then he tore off the shirt and began to draw something with a dagger on his chest.

  “Talier als haar hont…” the wizard began chanting some strange spell in a strange language.

  “Sial rakan. Tul Baer Salm Zur Contar. Zoal Iera Mel Sacratos…” with each new sentence, the symbols, or maybe runes, inscribed on the investigator’s skin began to flicker with dark red light, turning brighter with every word.

  “Ral Bary Coliar Hel. Norrigal!” Lsaeros exclaimed and plunged the blade into the heart of the still-breathing man.

  It wasn’t like necromancy. Thin red pulsating threads reached out to the wizard from the chest of the dead fat man painted with symbols.

  Lsaeros watched them approach fearlessly. The first thread touched his hand, then the second, and the other pair of threads, trembling, wrapped around his head and soon a strange and terrible, bloody cocoon of pulsing red threads covered the entire body of the wizard. In the blink of an eye, the investigator’s body dried out and began to crumble into dust, leaving only empty clothes covered with dust.

  It was amazing! If my memory served me well, it was the purest Blood magic in its fullest manifestation, but not those weak pathetic spells that were accessible to necromancers, demonologists, and some other classes. I witnessed another living myth inscribed by the writers of the history of the world of Noria a long time ago! It was very ancient history, brimming with secrets and omissions, but not any less interesting. At that point in time, such a thing as Blood magic should not have existed. Necromancy existed; witchcraft based on rituals was also common among players. Ordinary magic also featured classes of shamans and many others; but not wizards of blood, who according to the historical data, were destroyed thousands of years ago, before the Elven War. However, a clear violation of the game laws was happening right in front of me. Although, this violation wasn’t the first and I doubted it would be the last one.

  Chapter 12

  A few minutes later, the cocoon crumbled into dust and the body of the wizard, who emerged from it, was very much transformed.

  The wounds inflicted by the investigator had healed, leaving only thin strips of scars behind them. His broken and crooked fingers regained their intact, quite healthy appearance, and his face became quite recognizable. It was no longer a scary and deformed zombie mask. Only the completely bald Lsaeros’s head glistened with absolutely clean skin without a single hair. Did he not have enough life force drawn out of the investigator or was it the desire of the wizard himself?

  “Oh, yes!” A completely naked man (for some reason, the remnants of his clothes were completely destroyed by the cocoon, while the knife, surprisingly, was safe and sound) stood up from the cold stone floor of the chamber and stretched, in an attempt to remove the stiffness from his stagnant muscles, tendons, and bones.

  “Is that Blood magic?” I asked a question that concerned me a lot, deciding to clarify my suspicions.

  “Blood magic?” The wizard asked again, squinting. “Well, yes, some people sometimes call it that way. Zorkhan should have told you about it. About the essence of the Blood magic, as you call it. Although, in general, it’s not quite magic. This is ancient runic witchcraft, which only the very first and oldest kind of sinrims owned. It’s all connected to the barrier of Ilian.”

  “He didn’t tell me about it,” I shook my head. “I know about the War, but not about the magic.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you more about it when we get out of here. I hope you didn’t get into the prison through the barracks?”

  “No, I came through the Airnas temple. There’s a secret passage that leads to the third level of the prison.”

  “The exit through the temple’s rather convenient, but the third level... Damn it!” Lsaeros cursed. “Where are the other guards? Have you killed them?”

  “Well, I couldn’t kill them,” I grinned. “They’re supposed to be on the fifth level now, but they can come back any minute.”

  “Hurry up then,” the wizard began to fuss. He picked up the shirt left after the investigator and then tied up the sleeves around his waist. “Couldn’t Zorkhan have sent someone stronger?” Lsaeros mumbled softly, cutting off the extra pieces of cloth, but I heard him. “Well, I’m sorry this dropout isn’t able to cope with several experienced warriors. Damn it!”

  He didn’t return my..., well, after all, it was my knife, even when we left the first level of the prison, hurriedly rushed through the second and were on the third platform.

  “Why did you stop?” The wizard asked in surprise when I stopped near the door to the chamber with that poor girl and took out the keys.

  “Why do you need her?” He guessed what I was going to do.

  “I must save her.”

  “What a fool! You can’t save them all,” Lsaeros said callously.

  “I can save her,” having coped with the lock, I opened the door and rushed towards the girl.

  I easily opened the iron bracelets on her wrists with one of the keys in the bundle. The unconscious body immediately fell into my hands. Gently placing her on the floor, I opened the chains on her legs.

  “Let’s go,” I nodded at the far end of the corridor, having run out with the girl in my hands. “I hope there’s no one inside the temple. I left the old man, an Airnas priest, lying dead in his room, and the stunned guard is right at the entrance.

  “Couldn’t you kill him, too?” the wizard said with displeasure. “Anyway, you should have told me this sooner!”

  “Him? Actually, I didn’t kill the priest.”

  “Oh?” Lsaeros said slowly. “I don’t understand. But then who?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Oh, my God! Ardal has turned into a public thoroughfare,” the wizard spat. “By the way, why are you leading us into a trap? Don’t you think that the monks in the temple have already realized that someone took advantage of the secret passage?”

  “Of course, they know this,” I said on the run. “But anyway there’s no other way out. We’ll break through.”

  “Very well, death doesn’t threaten me,” the wizard grimaced. “Although I don’t want to go back to the cell. If they catch us, they’ll return me to prison and I will again be turned into a helpless heap of meat. The girl, she will also be sent back to the chamber,” he threw a thoughtful look at the child in my arms. “But they’ll surely kill you!”

  “We’ll use ordinary magic, then,” I shrugged my shoulders, having decided not to tell him about my immortality. I placed the amulet on the wall try
ing not to disturb the girl.

  “I can’t,” Lsaeros was the first to enter the open passage. “My internal source’s completely depleted. The monks did their best to weaken me. As a wizard, I’m nobody now! I can’t even create a simple firefly.”

  “It didn’t look like it back there in the chamber.”

  “The Blood magic... hell, the silly name’s already stuck to me. Well, okay, let it be Blood magic. It has nothing to do with the internal source. This witchcraft is tied to the vitality and blood of the targeted creature. And the stronger the creature is, the stronger the spells are.”

  “So, does any ... hmm ... sacrifice suit us?”

  “Better if it’s a human,” said Lsaeros. “And why the sacrifice? It is not necessary to kill him. You can get him to stand in your defense. You can make him a spreader of a contagion. You…”

  “... can recover yourself fully, right?” I interrupted him unceremoniously.

  “Sure. Like I did it in my cell. Of course, if it doesn’t take much time to apply runes and create a suitable spell, and besides ... Did you hear that?” Lsaeros walked in front of me and was the first to hear a strange noise far ahead of us.

  “I did,” I listened to the foreign noise somewhere above us. “Is that ... an explosion?” I caught a distant thunderous sound, and soon we all together felt the vibration under our feet, and then several more times with a whole series of explosions—bang-bang-bang, pause and again—bang-bang-bang.

  “Hm ... The magic of the highest rank!” As if having tasted something very delicious, Lsaeros pronounced with pleasure. “A very powerful person has decided to have fun in the territory of Ardal. It won’t last for long, though, because the monks aren’t as simple as they seem to be. But if we hurry, we can manage to get out of here on the sly, while they’re distracted by the attack.”

  I was grateful for the attacker or attackers of the monastery.

  “Of course, come on,” I said out loud, agreeing with the wizard. “Run! I have a complete map of the monastery. There’s one convenient tunnel that starts in the basement of the temple and stretches far into the forest.”