I nod, though I am almost as concerned about securing the Genke bracelet again as I am about Lugg and Ta’rox. Without it, the coven’s plans could be ruined.
“And the rest of the lizard folk?”
She makes a face, and I notice her big dark eyes regarding me for a moment. “That was really horrible. I mean… I dunno. Perhaps I’d better let Connor speak to you about that. Our house is just at the end of this street.”
I briefly wonder what she means by ‘our house’. She lives there – with him? Are they a couple or something? And if so, does that extend to their in-game existence too? I feel curious, but a bit too shy to ask.
We turn down what appears to be a dead end, again a wide street and with taller trees lining it this time – elms, perhaps. At the far end is a triangular tower made of reddish stone, and my eyes widen, but before we reach it Zakira stops and points to the black-painted door of a half-timbered townhouse. “In we go,” she says.
Chapter 40: Connor’s House
The interior couldn’t contrast more with the hovel where I spent the night. Connor Champion, wearing loose pale-blue robes and an emerald leather vest, is lounging on a leather armchair, listening to a rotund and elderly dwarven man who is reading from a tome. He looks around as we enter – and perhaps recognizes the hostile look on my face.
“Daria,” he says with a wry smile, without getting up. “Is everything all right? Welcome to my city house, by the way. Much more pleasant than the compound in Nimroth. Indeed, you are very welcome to stay here, if it would suit your plans.”
“I am having my doubts about your hospitality, Connor,” I say, stalking towards him. I can feel myself glaring once again. “What is going on with the gaming pods in the office? I can’t let myself out.”
“Glombo, leave us,” he says, gesturing at the elderly dwarf; the latter rolls up the scroll in a painfully slow fashion, shoots me a dirty look, and then departs by a second door that presumably leads towards the interior of the house.
“Now – tell me everything,” Connor says, folding his arms and smiling at me, leaning back in his chair as he does so.
“What’s to tell?” I ask. I am standing just a yard from him now, almost leaning over him. “As I said, I tried to get out of the pods, but I’m stuck inside there. What’s going on, please?”
He unfolds his hands and holds them up in a defensive pose. “Don’t shoot!” He laughs hollowly to himself. “Really, Daria, don’t get over-excited about a door malfunction. I’ll have one of my people look at it straight away. We have pretty good technicians, you know. In the meantime, you are entirely safe in there, I promise you. I hope you are finding it comfortable?”
I sniff, and look back towards Zakira, who is leaning on the doorframe where I first came in, her arms folded across her chest. “I guess,” I say, lowering my voice a little – I suddenly realize I have been shouting. “Sorry – I didn’t want to overreact. I know I owe you for finding me somewhere safe to log on. It is just a bit frightening to think that I am stuck in there.”
“It will be sorted within an hour or two at most, I assure you,” he says, standing and clapping his hands together. “And in the meantime, you may enjoy my in-game hospitality for a little time. Finally, back in the civilisation of Katresburg. That coastal town is a real dump, right? Now, Daria – follow us.”
He turns on his heel and begins to walk through the same way that the dwarf Glombo previously retreated, and Zakira begins to move that way too.
But I don’t go with them.
“That’s far enough for me, Connor,” I say. “Sort the gaming pod, and then we can talk about other things.”
He looks at me for a moment, but if he had anything else to say, I didn’t hear it.
I turn, hurry back outside, and make haste towards the city walls.
* * *
At the walls it is – as Zakira had promised me – quiet. I soon find Garner, who is striding around talking to local guards, and giving orders. It’s impressive and exciting to see him taking command of the local troops, and he seems to be born for the role.
“Any news of Lugg? Or our lizard comrades?” I ask after greeting my friend.
“No, Daria, but no news is good news, for the guards are informed of any new deaths among the wounded. Let them rest until they feel ready to come to the walls themselves.”
“Right.” I look around. “And what of Josa? I don’t think I saw her yesterday after the battle.”
Garner frowns at this. “I have been in touch with the coven. Josa was wounded in the battle at the gate, but she is all right, she made it to safety. Now she must rest for some days to come, to recover her strength.”
I frown. “Then she is in the amphitheatre, too?”
He shakes his head. “No. The coven are taking care of her.”
“I see. That is a blow, but at least she is somewhere safe.”
“Indeed.” Although I don’t comment on it aloud, I am mindful that Josa had two of the artefacts that we brought into the city. Another reason not to leave her with the healers?
“Now, come, please,” says Garner. “I have some things to show you.” He begins walking eastward around the wall, closer to where the enemy is camped.
We pass a local guard or volunteer every few yards – the walls are lined with defenders, but not heavily. There can’t be more than thirty people on duty in total, and most of them look like townsfolk with little experience of warfare. Most don’t even have armor, or have only a leather cuirass and a pair of gauntlets. I even see one middle-aged man holding a bow the wrong way around, so that it’s pointing towards his own body. Garner notices too; he stops, speaks to the man reassuringly, and takes a minute to model how to hold the weapon and draw an arrow, one finger above and two below. He passes it back to the man who has a try as Garner gives a few more pointers. “Elbow up a bit… that’s it. And make sure you are looking ahead at your target, not at the bow itself. Right.” He smiles to see that the man is making some progress, and we move on.
A couple of dozen yards from the tower that marks one end of the southern portion of the Katresburg city wall, Garner stops.
“Do you see the tent there? Two of the Knights of Dawn are in there now. Most likely the knight Barzolk that you spoke of. Arrived not long after you left the wall yesterday evening, actually.” I nod, but say nothing.
“And those carts there,” he continues, “behind where the horses are billeted?” I look out and can indeed see several carts, containing what look like strips of wood and large pieces of leather. “Those are siege engines – or at least, they will be,” he continues. “I’d guess they can be assembled within a few hours into the sort of tower that can be rolled up to the city wall, and which is proofed against fire arrows.”
“And what about that?” I point to a low metal container near the river. I think I already know the answer.
“It’s some kind of poison that they have been pouring into the river,” he says. “No wonder the lizard folk are so angry. Perhaps with your crafting skills, you have some idea how we could…” he trails off, looking at me and shrugging.
I frown. “I think I can help,” I say, “but not from here. I’d need to be closer, and I’ve put myself on the wrong side of the walls for that.”
“Then our only hope is to somehow defeat the knights and their troops. Then we can get out and destroy that abomination.”
“Yes. But that reminds me, what about the defensive towers?” I point up ahead of us, where the tall and partially boarded-up tower marks the end of this section of wall, and then glance backwards at its partner tower to the south west.
“Not used at all,” he says slowly, stroking his chin. “But you are welcome to have a look. Saul!”
At the latter shout, a rotund guard comes over – short, with teeth that stick out. He looks like a grown-up version of a kid that would get picked last for a sports team. Not an encouraging sign.
“Saul, take my friend Daria here up to that to
wer,” says Garner. “She’s a crafter, and wants to take a look and see if it could be of a bit more use to the city.”
With that, Garner claps me on the shoulder and walks away, and I follow, flicking my friend a thumbs up and a smile as I leave. Saul says nothing at first, and then looks around at me. “They are haunted, those towers. And locked.”
“The lock I can deal with,” I say. “But what do you mean by ‘haunted’? They have something dangerous in them?”
“Strange noises at night. Been boarded up since my parents were children.”
I look at Saul; he could pass for twenty years old, so it’s plausible that he has actually grown up from his own childhood in the time that the game has been running without real players taking part. On the other hand, the time that would need to have passed for his parents to be children would predate the existence of the game. So to some extent, this must be an in-built feature of the city.
“I’ll take my chances, Saul,” I say. “Just show me where I need to go.”
We stop at the foot of the south-eastern tower. It looks even larger from this angle – taller than any of the houses I passed earlier. From the ground up, it could rival the height of a typical eight storey building – and more than half of that is above me.
I can see the doorway, too. It looks like should be a double door facing towards the city (which makes sense from a defensive point of view). The walkway along the city wall narrows at that point in order to take in the tower, which partly sticks out beyond the line of the exterior wall. Slightly less than half of the tower’s diameter encroaches onto the walkway on the inside – room to walk right past, but not more than two abreast.
At that point, I look down again at the mustering area near the gates – which are now behind me – and see a familiar cloaked figure with lank reddish hair, smoking a pipe. Lugg is up, and back on his feet, and I smile.
“Lugg!” I call out. “We have a job to do.”
Chapter 41: The Tower
Lugg hurries up to the wall, while Saul and I wait.
“I’m telling you that place is haunted,” says Saul, though he doesn’t look very passionate about it.
“Tell me more,” I prompt.
He looks at me. “There was a reward set, long ago, so they say. Ten silver doubloons for clearing out the ghosts. But that was many years ago now. I don’t even know where you would even get the money. There’s a new ruler in Katresburg. The Princess Thacla von Dathmir.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I just want to have a look inside. I don’t need any reward.” I’m tempted to press him for more information on this Princess Thacla, but decide that now is not the time. Looking up at the structure, I add: “We might need these towers to be operational, if we’re to defend the city against the Imperial forces.”
“City is lost, so they say,” he says to me. He really is a gloomy guy.
Lugg is now jogging along the top of the wall, his pipe extinguished and put away. I greet him warmly as he approaches. “You made it here okay, my friend,” I say. “Are your wounds fully healed? And did you get something to eat?”
“Wounds are all right now. Lugg is strong,” he says. “But not hungry yet. Had a good smoke while walking here, for sure, Daria.”
He says nothing of the payment for the healing services at the amphitheatre, and I decide not to mention it; he already acted like he was in my lifelong service after I paid him a fraction of the amount to show me around Zagra Town, back on the Islands of Dubasa. “Well, if that’s enough to keep you going,” I say. “Now, look here” – I point at the blocked doorway – “and let’s see if we can work together to rip off these wooden boards here to get into this tower.”
Lugg moves over and begins tugging at the edge of one of the weathered boards.
“And keep your knives handy,” I add. “We don’t know what will be inside.”
I then look back towards Saul; his face is staring at us, now looking deeply concerned, and he is beginning to step back – a little too close to the edge of the wall.
“Woah, there, Saul,” I say, grabbing him by the elbow.
“Breaking those boards, I… I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says.
“Leave that to us, Saul. We’re not going to ask you to come inside. Just get back to your post, and keep your sword handy. There’s a war going on. A rebellion, anyway.”
As he scuttles off, we both turn our attention to the doorway. As we work, I check that Lugg still has the bracelet, and he does – still wrapped up in the bloodied cloth, too!
“Throw that away, Lugg,” I say, “and if you are sure you are feeling better, I’d better take that bracelet back. I’ve been tasked to keep it safe, so it’s my responsibility, you see.”
“Very well, Daria.”
It’s a real struggle to get the board off, and both Lugg and I work at different areas for a while, making little headway. Eventually we agree to tug at the same piece of panelling, and manage to peel back enough that I can access the doors themselves, and the lock. There’s still a lot of wood blocking the door, but pulling off what we have has given me an unexpected bonus – I see my stamina stat increase:
Increase in attribute level: Stamina level 20 (+1)
While the increase is surprising for a relatively small amount of work, it will have been accumulating over my time on the ship and then as we made our way through the mountains. I guess I have been very active, and have really pushed my resilience and endurance. Nice. The boost will feed into all the things that I use stamina for, like running, as well as making me more resistant to poison or illness. It will also bump my hit points by one.
While Lugg continues to chip off the wood piece by piece in order to make the doors free to move, I take out my crafting tools and kneel down, working at the lock mechanism of the door itself. It shows its age – another beautiful detail in the game world – looking every bit like a well-made bronze and iron lock that has been left to weather and deteriorate for a couple of decades. There are even tiny cobwebs inside it.
Despite the state of the lock, picking it doesn’t take me all that long, and there is no skill bonus this time. While sturdy, the lock has a relatively basic mechanism. I briefly wonder who has the key; presumably not Saul or the other guards. Another reason, perhaps, that nobody’s used the tower for such a long time.
In fact, it’s probably safe to assume that the structure has been like this for the entire time that the game timeline was glitching. Hopefully, that means that any monster that was lurking inside back then is now no more than a pile of bones.
All the same, I push the door open with considerable caution. Obviously, it’s pretty dark inside and the door is north facing, but the morning light streams through from behind us, and more is coming in through cracks around the wooden panelling low to our right. The upper levels are likely to be a lot darker, I realize, as I take a moment for my eyes to adjust. I reach into my pack and pull out the lantern that I picked up in Nimroth, and then curse softly as I remember that I don’t have anything to light it with. Is there a flaming torch outside, perhaps?
But then I remember something.
I turn to Lugg. “Hey – do you still have that lucky charm, from Dubasa?”
“Sure.”
“Can I take a look?”
My companion rummages around inside an inner pocket of his cloak, and then pulls out the planet-like object, passing it to me. I try to squeeze it in the same way that I saw Connor doing back in his office, and sure enough, sparks come out. It doesn’t, however, produce a flame.
“Be careful, please,” says Lugg. “I like that little trinket.”
“I will.”
I turn the object over in my fingertips and then see the smallest indentation with a little hole. On a hunch, I try to pour a tiny amount of lantern oil from my flask into this hole, keeping my hands as steady as I can. Sure enough, when I squeeze the outer ring of the trinket now, the sparks ignite a steady flame.
I hold i
t up. “See? It’s a firelighter.”
Lugg grins.
After pouring more of the oil into the lantern, I light it, and then pass the little treasure back to him.
Even with more light, there is very little to see inside, at least on this level. The stone floor is bare and dusty, with no footprints that I can make out. The ceiling above is formed of plain square wooden panels. There is a stair at the far end which coils around the outer edge of the tower and then doubles back on itself, with the side to my left running downwards and the side to my right going upwards.
“Come on, Lugg,” I say, and begin to walk towards the steps.
* * *
As I can see from the stairway, it’s presumably possible to go down inside the wall. There may even be some viable stores there – worth exploring before too long. But for now I want to go up, as that’s where I am more likely to find what is of interest to me.
I hold the lantern up above my face, trying to avoid staring straight at it so as not to dazzle myself. After going up the first few steps, Lugg following just behind me, I glance back at the doorway; I see Saul’s face at the door for a moment, and then it disappears again. He’s nervous, but I’m somehow reassured that he’s still around; if necessary, he will alert Garner.
The stairs lead to a second level which is much like the first. Further stairs lead up beyond, and in the chamber to the north side there is little to see except for a couple of barrels. I walk over and have a poke around at them, using my dagger blade in case anything is lurking there. I successfully pry the top off one of the barrels and knock it aside; it clacks loudly on the stone floor and raises a small cloud of dust. I find that the barrel is full of what look like unusually broad crossbow bolts, but they appear to mostly be rusted up into a solid mass, the wooden segments having rotted nearly to nothing.
The Call of the Coven: A LitRPG novel (Shadow Kingdoms Book 2) Page 28