by Tim Johnson
Well, look who has a new ability. Ice Armor, that looks interesting.
Ice Armor I
Your skin becomes encased in a layer of rock-hard ice.
Damage received reduced by 20%.
Active: 30 seconds
Cooldown: 2 mins
He closed his screen and held out his palm. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the ice-magic which began to swirl. Let’s see this Ice Armor he asked.
Deep inside, he felt a strange rumbling answer, like he had opened a vortex to something much darker and colder. Then his hand grew heavy; he opened his eyes to see his entire hand glowing a bright white.
He squeezed his hand into a fist and then, from his arms, shins, and chest, solid ice exploded from him, covering him with plated Ice Armor. Last was his neck, with a helm encasing the back of his head and then slamming down to protect his face.
He looked at his hands. The Ice Armor was a frosty gray and sketched along the shining lengths of ice were interlocking geometric patterns that shifted in the light.
But he could close and open his fist rapidly and move as if he was wearing no armor at all.
I wish Alexia could see this.
He went over to the little mirror. The helmet was beautiful, covering his face and shaped with ice-like scales. Two eye slits gave him perfect vision and no restriction. On each shoulder were two sharp pauldrons and on each elbow were short spikes along with small icy mounds on each knuckle.
All the better for punching you with, he thought.
He pounded the wall with his fist with a fast one-two and it made a satisfying heavy crunching sound like his hand was made from cement. He felt no pain.
He grunted in approval. Nice.
Christian remembered his bounty from the Goblin Lord and tried to select the Goblin Lord’s sword from his Inventory but found that he could not yet equip it.
Darkstar Blade
One-handed sword
Level requirement: 8
Damage: 100
Strength +10
I’m still one level away. When I get my hands on this will be a serious step up. Plus ten in strength will give me a huge bonus.
Then after 30 seconds, as fast as it had come the ice armor retreated, folding away and disappearing back into his body.
But still, thirty seconds is a lifetime in battle.
He was starting to understand it now and knew how this could come into play. He could fight at range with his Frost Bolt attacks, use the Artic Gale to slow his enemies down, and then be a deft killer up close, protected in his ice armor. Things were starting to come together.
He reviewed the Goblin Lord’s armor.
Splendid Steel Amor
Level requirement: 9
Armor +150
Two more levels and I’ll finally have access to some good gear. Gear that I’ve won myself.
A knock interrupted his thoughts. It came from where he had just pounded his fist. He inspected the wall and saw a seam surrounding one of the large stones that made up the wall.
What’s this?
The sound came from the other side once more and then the stone grinded a centimeter forwards from the wall.
Christian got his fingers around it and helped pull the stone back, slowly, with help from the other side. The stone was heavy, and he placed the block on the floor.
Through the hole, about a foot away, was Alexia.
“Well, hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“Found this, after you were thumping on the wall. Looks like whoever was in here before made it so they weren’t so lonely.”
Christian inspected the rest of the wall, but the stones were all secured in with cement. Someone, long ago had taken some serious time to loosen this one.
So perhaps Sark wasn’t above jailing wanderers.
It wouldn’t help them break out, but at least they could talk and pass items across.
He looked through the hole to see Alexia smiling at him.
After everything, they could take this as a win.
The next two weeks passed by in a routine. Christian and Alexia were woken at dawn for training. The mornings were crisp and cold and Christian could feel the season’s end begin to near. Each morning they would train separately; Christian training with other swordsmen, badgered by Sulfur’s insults and instructions, and Alexia with the archers under Ardios’ silent gaze.
In the afternoons, they would be tasked with a building team, hauling stone after stone, helping expand Sark’s fortress until nightfall. Beyond, Christian watched Sark’s armies drill, he saw Sark’s mages perform incredible magic and swordsmen launch astonishing attacks that would be impossible in his world.
Christian was tasked to build the dragon’s pit, laying rock after rock down for mind-numbing hours. Slowly they paved the massive bowl-like construction that would one day house Sark’s dragons, coming from an expected union with Valeria’s mysterious dragon riders.
The evening was what Christian looked forward to. This is when he was secured in his cell and got to spend time with Alexia. They would pull the stone between their cells free and he could finally talk to her. They had to whisper and occasionally rush to secure the rock back when they heard footsteps in their corridor, but it was their time.
Alexia explained more about what she knew of the portal plinth. The gate to their world. It was the white circular flat stone that Christian had seen when he had first landed in Valeria; a match to the trophy on the wall of Sark’s throne room.
Everything comes back to the portal gate.
Night after night, Alexia gave him the full story. His uncle had decoded the signal bouncing through space. He bought the old mansion out of town and built the machine in secret, sucking power from the pulse-train grid. He finished the machine to the signal’s designs and finally mustered the courage to step on the plinth. It meant his body was broken down molecularly and reanimated in a new world: Valeria. When he arrived, the plinth was there, the circular stone glowing a bright white on the ground in Valeria and the energy from the portal vanishing back into it.
In his uncle’s inventory was a key, which only his uncle could use to activate the portal to go back. He only needed to merely touch the plinth – then he was reanimated back in his secret lab.
The problem was, once he left, the portal plinth remained in Valeria. Unguarded. Like the game wanted you to build a base around it.
For a long time, his uncle didn’t worry, after all, he was the only one with the key. He stayed in Valeria for weeks at a time, exploring, helping and levelling up. He built himself up to become the Artificer; a travelling Valerian warrior and inventor who would help those in need.
His uncle believed that he wasn’t like the other wanderers. He didn’t seek to exploit Valeria but to live peacefully among them and saw a future in which the two worlds could work together for the betterment of all. He had heard about the times of the Emperor, the Ten Years War and the wanderers that couldn’t be killed. He had heard the grim stories of wanderers who could come back and avenge their own deaths. But did he believe that is was all that bad? No. These were villager’s tales.
Christian learned that to some extent his uncle had sympathized with the Valerians, and even Sark’s cause – after all, who wouldn’t want to escape the yoke of a terrifying Emperor who they believed couldn’t be killed?
Once he was a high enough level, his uncle decided he had to meet this Sark, under the guise of the Artificer. He had drawn some designs for better sanitation and city building. He kept his real identity a secret and finally had an audience with the Knight Lord.
This was his first mistake.
They met and his uncle showed Sark some of his designs and ways to help their world. Sark struck him as intelligent and curious. Too curious. Sark asked question after question, first about his inventions, then where he grew up, what townstead he was from, where he was for the Ten Years War.
Christian’s uncle lied as best he could, and it w
as good enough to free himself from the audience with Sark, but not enough to free himself from suspicion.
From then onwards, Sark’s men were watching him.
His uncle learned more about the way Sark had brought a demon through the portal to break the old wanderer Emperor’s world.
He started to worry.
Could Sark open the portal to their world without the key? Some had said Sark had ripped open the portal to the other world with his own magic, others that wanderers had betrayed their own kind and let him in.
But everyone was united on one theme – once in their world, the wanderers were weak as children, their powerful magic abandoned them and the Valerians kept theirs. And best of all – in their own world the wanderers only needed to be killed once.
Once Sark’s demon hosts were through, they burrowed deep into the wanderer’s worlds and multiplied in their fresh lairs and dungeons. Then the tables turned, and it was the demons who could return.
The universe, it seems, balances itself out.
Sark had found the key.
Christian’s uncle was concerned and needed help. He needed to understand the portal better, needed more time to research the technology. Building something wasn’t the same as understanding why it worked and what he could do to change it. But he couldn’t leave the portal unguarded long in Valeria for fear it would be discovered.
This is when he brought Alexia into his secret. For days and days, they tried to understand how the portal worked and if they could close it.
In Valeria, it seemed like Sark’s men were closing in on them. The portal was located deep in a forest, but each time they arrived, they would soon see Sark’s men.
They needed more help, but more wanderers might only expose them. They needed someone with skills and experience. That’s when his uncle told Alexia about Christian in cryo-jail, a disgraced special forces soldier. He could be the edge they needed. But it was becoming too dangerous to leave the portal unguarded in Valeria. Even when they covered it with brush and leaves while they were in Valeria, it was exposed when they left.
They were in a tough bind.
This is when his uncle made his will in the real world. If something went wrong, Christian would find them.
And something did go wrong. They ported to Valeria to find the portal discovered, surrounded by some of Sark’s soldiers. They barely escaped with their lives.
From then onwards, they were on the run.
Sark took ownership of the portal plinth, moved it to his grounds and began to build around it, just like he had done in the past.
The rumors started to slither out into Valeria about the new wanderers.
But Alexia had good news as well. His uncle James wasn’t without friends. There were some powerful Valerians that had privately opposed what Sark had done and the way he had done it. They called him the Demon Lord. They believed it was possible to live in peace. Alexia explained that James had made some allies, although they of course hoped to profit if James could take down Knight Lord Sark. These allies would take hold of Valeria in the subsequent power vacuum.
His uncle’s plan was simple. Kill Sark and then go home and have his allies destroy the portal once they had left. He would then destroy the one in his house and dedicate his life to stopping anyone building another.
Christian had thousands of questions. He had to stop Alexia multiple times, ask her to go back and repeat and re-explain this crazy mess. He asked, why couldn’t they destroy the portal on Earth’s side? She explained that from what they understood of the technology, the position of the portal was already marked – so if Sark did break through, it would be in Earth and they would tear through regardless. So, they needed to both destroy the machine and the portal plinth.
Another question he had for her – how had his uncle avoided capture for so long?
Alexia explained that James had one advantage. His uncle had completed a quest which had led him to unlocking a secret and ancient fortress, which Alexia assured Christian was safely hidden from Sark.
While his uncle James was in that fortress, Sark couldn’t get the key.
“But does Sark need the key to open the gate to our world? Or is there another way?”
“He is building his army for when the time is right. He doesn’t know what’s on the other side of the plinth or what might face him.”
When Christian pressed her for more information about his uncle’s mysterious fortress, Alexia wouldn’t budge. She said if they made it out, the portal stones would take them there directly and if they didn’t make it out, it was best Christian knew nothing.
At least that’s something.
There were a thousand small details he didn’t understand. “Why did we come back from the dead in the dungeons?”
Alexia didn’t know and they tried to puzzle it out. She guessed it was because the ‘game’ would respawn them away from enemies. The Dark Brotherhood didn’t have proper bladed weapons, only clubs, so perhaps they weren’t counted as legitimate enemies? Everywhere else around was full of armed soldiers, who were most definitely their foes.
Christian had explained to her that he had been reborn on a marble stone in front of Sark. Sark had known exactly where he would be.
“Perhaps it’s because we were undertaking a quest for Sark?” Alexia offered. Sulfur had said something similar.
Christian updated her on Kit and his warnings. “Kit might be the last of his kind. He was a traitor to his world.”
But could he be a potential ally?
The next night Alexia asked more about Christian’s past and he opened up to her. His life had been one of poverty and then violence. While his uncle had discovered Valeria, Christian had been fighting for the republic. He had been behind enemy lines with no way out and no extra lives.
It stung Christian that he hadn’t been brought into this great secret earlier, but it hadn’t been easy for his uncle and Alexia either. Two years of being in Valeria had hardened Alexia up, Christian could see that. He was glad he had her with him.
One afternoon they were guided into the forest to help chop wood. It was a rare time that Christian and Alexia were allowed to work together.
Christian thumped his ax into a piece of wood. “We need to steal the Astral Diamond back.”
“That’s a bit hard,” Alexia said. “It’s with Sark, who is going to use it to crack open a dungeon that has been sealed for a hundred years. So, what can we do?”
Christian took his time lifting the next wood block up.
“An opportunity will arise and then we must be ready. For now, we do anything that will build trust with Sark’s men. We have to pretend to be like Kit, use the truth to cover-up our big lie.” Christian picked his ax back up. “Sark doesn’t have all the pieces yet. The portal to our world is closed. Sark doesn’t have Uncle James and we are here, learning everything about Sark, about his fortress and his men. But right now, we need the Astral Diamond back. That’s it. It was me and you who got that diamond, Alexia, not Sulfur, not Sark. It was me and you. It’s ours and we will find a way to get it back.”
With that Christian threw the ax down into the wood, splitting it neatly in two.
He turned to see Alexia staring at him intently with a small smile on her face.
“What?”
“Maybe your uncle was right,” she said. “Maybe you are the edge we need.”
Christian lifted the ax. I just hope I can help, he thought, and not get everyone killed in the process.
Then, from the looming fortress a great horn sounded. Around them, Sark’s soldiers dropped their axes, whooping and shouting.
Sulfur arrived, grabbing them. “I’m taking you back to the fortress, immediately.”
“What’s going on?” Alexia asked.
“Well, Alexia, our sorcerers have finally broken the code that’s kept Arnook’s dungeon sealed for a century.” Sulfur gave them a cold smile. “It’s time to gear up wanderers, that Astral Diamond is going to open the du
ngeon’s gates. It’s time to meet the legendary great fire demon Arnook.”
17
It was a full day’s ride from the Red Fist Keep to the dungeon gate. The path cut through the deep forest that surrounded the keep before the winding, wooded paths broke, leading up to tall gray mountains.
There were thousands of Sark’s men on the path, and hundreds of villagers who walked up and down the line offering bread, meat, fruits or ale. Christian studied everything and saw how Sark’s men lacked the uniformity of a traditional fighting force. This was no blanket force of soldiers. Although there were some squads that consisted of mostly barbarians or knights it seemed most were mixed together, and each group had a mage.
They’ve evolved to deal with magic, Christian realized. But their mix reminded him more of special forces operatives on Earth. Each soldier with their own specific skill, and if necessary, each unit could be broken down into a small, effective fighting party, which was better for exploring the small winding tunnels that made up dungeons.
The variety of soldiers was fascinating, and the military man in Christian couldn’t help but marvel at the people that existed in Valeria and wondered what culture or fighting style they might represent. There were huge Viking men and women, others whose armor seemed to cling to the shadow, mages wearing cloaks and carrying gnarled staffs, powerful spearmen, archers and knights carrying war hammers, axes and greatswords. All were set in a great crawling line along the path. Some were mounted on horses, but ahead Christian saw a man riding on a mounted bear, another astride a massive white sabretooth tiger, its muscles rippling as it smoothly paced past the horses, making them whiney as it did.
The air was filled with an animated babble. Pre-battle soldiers were the same no matter what dimension you were in. There was a boastful sort of cheeriness mixed with the undercurrent of fear, so clear Christian could almost smell it. It was the first time that they would experience a raid in a fresh dungeon. This one had been sealed for a century.