The sky, which had been clear of demons while we were near Orthrus was becoming populated by distant—for now—swooping and screeching demons. Even at this distance I could discern the red warning markers over their heads. If we were spotted out in the open like this, that Canadian dude would be the least of our worries.
The entrance to the groundling village was still a good mile away. Sparse vegetation dotted the rocky ground. The scattered trees were gnarled and stooped, barely enough cover.
“Stop,” I called a third time.
She did finally, stopping dead out in the open, breathing heavily.
“Banksy, come on,” I called as I grabbed Clara by the arm and dragged her to the closest tree.
“I do not like this ground. It is not good for burrowing,” Banksy muttered. I pulled Clara down to the rough dirt at the base of the small tree. The bark pulsated, as if the tree was alive. I hoped not, remembering the wendigo monsters.
“That was Olga. The frog. She’s always near her master. So if Olga saw us, then Jenk will know we’re here.” She wheezed out the words. “He’s going to find us. This world isn’t that big. We should never have left Bast. It’s not worth it. It’s not.”
“It said he’s offline. For all you know he’s been offline for weeks. He’s probably in jail right now.”
“No, no, no. He’s not in jail. I can feel it.”
Even though I didn’t understand why she felt that way about the man, I respected it. The panic in her words was terrible, familiar.
This is too much. This is too much.
“Okay,” I said. “We gotta keep moving. We’ll move from tree to tree, and only when the sky is clear.”
Clara had said earlier the man wasn’t like SmashSouth. This guy played the game. He leveled up. He’d even beat the game once before. He knew what he was doing. So on the off chance he still was here, we had to stay away from him at all costs.
Looking at my map, I wondered if he’d be able to discern where we were going. There weren’t too many active towns and villages outside of Medina, but there were enough that searching each of them would be a pain. There were a couple other villages we could be headed toward, along with a few quest locations and points of interest. Our destination of Kinnegad was only obvious if one knew what our plan was. I hoped.
It was pushing midnight by the time we arrived at the entrance to the underground village of the groundlings. We’d jumped from tree to tree, only moving when a demon flock wasn’t near.
Large, rhinoceros-sized monsters patrolled the area, all with blazing, red warning markers over their heads. These demons roared and moved slowly, picking their way across the rocky ground. I watched one launch a beachball-sized fireball from its maw at an unseen creature 100 meters away. The ground exploded at the point of impact, showering rocks and dust.
We had to keep low to avoid them. It was easier to move once it became dark. The gnarled trees unfurled and swayed in the darkness, becoming much bigger. The tops glowed red, giving the night a blood hue. I was afraid the trees would attack or thrash at us with their limbs, but they didn’t.
The entrance to the village was easy to find with the map. We passed around the corner of a nondescript outcropping, revealing a large cave. We took two steps in, and the notification came.
Entering Kinnegad.
This was a low, wet cave that angled downward. The passage was about ten feet wide, but I had to stoop to make it through. The temperature dropped a few degrees every hundred feet we traveled. Rough-hewn stairs appeared on the floor. A sickly green light filled the cave. The illumination came from clumps of lichen-like growths that gathered in the corners of the ceiling and the walls. The result was something akin to starlight on the night of a new moon. It was very dark, but I could still see the walls and floor enough that I wouldn’t trip. I hoped the village itself wasn’t this dark.
“Do you hear anything?” I asked. “How far down is the village?”
Banksy growled before Clara could answer.
A rough, female voice shouted “Who goes there! Show yerself or you get the sticker!”
I raised one hand and put another down on Banksy’s head to calm him. “It’s okay. We’re friends.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, mate,” came the woman. It was an odd accent, not quite cockney British, not quite Boston brogue, but a bastardization of the two. It echoed with reverb, and I had the sense it was coming through a speaker somewhere.
A yellow spotlight cut through the darkness from above. I looked up, startled at the defensive nest nestled against the high wall. Just a few feet back, the ceiling had been right over my head. I hadn’t realized we’d entered into a larger room. I stood to my full height.
“My name is Duke, and my friends are Clara and Banksy. We’re seeking the temporary refuge of Kinnegad,” I called.
A second spotlight shone down from another defensive nest on the high wall. I shielded my eyes and looked about, getting a better sense of my surroundings. The tight cave we’d been in had opened up into a large chamber. The wide stairs continued downward with no railing on either side, spanning over a deep drop. A slip, and we’d fall into the unseen depths. The downward bridge of stairs crossed about 100 meters before it entered another cave further below.
On the walls all around us were defensive pockets. There were about a dozen of them at various heights. Unlike the village of Charnel, the defenses here appeared to be fully manned. Large, hand-cranked guns trained on us from some of the bubbles. Groundlings with bulky crossbows and blunderbuss-like guns with flared muzzles filled the other nests. They glared down upon us with black, beady eyes.
A large set of clockwork gears filled the far wall. It had been sitting silent or dormant. With a burst of steam, they started ticking, a loud click, click, click. More light flickered on, filling the chamber.
The mayor of Charnel had said groundlings used celestial magic, but I knew they also had to have a second magic school. “I take it these guys use steam magic,” I said.
Clara nodded. “Yes. But don’t let all these gears and engines fool you. They favor the celestial way more than the steam. They’re crazy religious. They worship their kaiju like a god.”
Great, I thought. Paladin dwarves.
The ticking was suddenly overpowered by a metallic clanking and hissing, like an old-school steam engine train spinning itself up. We stepped back as a brass, robotic arm appeared, coming from underneath the stairway bridge. A rush of steam appeared, blasting sideways. A second robotic arm appeared, and then a something emerged from under the walkway.
The steampunk mech pulled itself onto the stairwell. It wasn’t huge by mech standards, but the round, brass robot stood about eight feet tall, just a bit larger than SmashSouth the nerve agent. It consisted of two, squat legs that appeared as if they could alternate between walking and rolling on treads and two, orangutan-like arms that lowered to the ground. The body was perfectly round, a clockwork gyro of spinning gears. A pair of brass tanks were attached to the back of the mechanism, each spewing random bursts of steam.
Centered in the gyro, strapped in with a mess of tubes and leather bands was a groundling. Floating over her head was her title:
Madame Throb – Mechanized Sentry Leader of the Protectorate Templar (Level 26)
The woman—Madame Throb—glared at us angrily. I’d only seen a groundling in passing before. These creatures weren’t quite like the dwarves of lore, but it was the closest description. Mole men were much more like the squat, bulky creatures of fantasy. Groundlings had human-sized torsos, only a bit wider. It was their short legs that gave them their squat appearance. They didn’t have visible necks at all, just large, moon-faced heads planted right on their torsos, giving them an oddly stupid appearance. While the women wore their hair long, the men all had friar-like bowl cuts, which didn’t help them look any more intelligent. It seemed their arms mirrored that of the mech, extra long. They seemed chimpanzee-like, and I wondered if they could swing thro
ugh trees.
The mech raised its arm, pointing it at me. With a shing, a long, white spike appeared out of the brass finger of the mech. Sharp and thin, like a pale kebab skewer, it grew until it stopped right at my neck. I raised my hands, standing perfectly still.
“How’d you find this place?” Madame Throb asked.
I didn’t hesitate. “I have a magic map.”
She nodded. The motion was odd, given her lack of an outward neck. The whole mech shuddered with the motion, and the skewer at my throat came perilously close to scratching its way up and down my flesh.
“I would expect you ghouls to have unholy tricks like that,” she said.
“Peel it,” another voice called from above. “Don’t let it in our village.” Followed by a chorus of agreement.
“The only thing less trustworthy than a ghoul is a gremlin,” Throb said. She pushed the spike harder against my throat. It thrummed against my skin, like it was attached to an engine. I took a step back. She walked with me, each step a metallic hiss. Banksy pressed against my leg, shuddering.
Father, I do not like this metallic thing. But say the word and I will devour it, Banksy said in my mind. All living things are wet on the inside.
“Calm, Banksy,” I whispered.
My charm was only an 8, and until this moment I hadn’t really thought much about the stat. It’d never seemed necessary. I was now regretting neglecting it. I had no idea what Clara’s charm was, but it had to be higher than mine. I gave Clara a pleading look.
She sighed, blinked, and the look on her face completely changed. She went from a scared girl to a self-assured, person in charge. Just like that. The new look on her exasperated face said, for chrissakes do I have to do everything?
“I would guess that the demons are the least trustworthy,” Clara said. “They’re the ones killing everybody, invading our world.”
“Kill them!” someone called from above. “They are unclean! They threaten us and our souls.”
“Amplify the ghoul!” someone else cried.
“We are trying to save Medina from the demon threat,” Clara said. She boldly stepped forward and raised her voice, addressing everyone in the cavern. She swatted at the skewer at my throat. It thrummed like a bell when she hit it. It did not move. “That’s who you need to fear. Fae, groundlings, worm surgeons. We all share the same ancestors. It’s the demons who are trying to kill us. Duke here is a worm surgeon, tasked with healing the Shrill. Once the guardian is fixed up, the kaiju can attack the threat head-on, finally aiding in the defense of the realm. We are here for a reason, damnit, and if you stop us, you are effectively killing us all.”
Throb indicated to me with the mech’s free hand. “This is a ghoul. He is one step above a demon himself. He serves the Shrill, who is nothing more than another demon. An abomination who does not deserve to share the same light as Moritasgus.”
Clara snorted. “Like it or not, the Shrill is a guardian. It has fought and continues to fight for this world’s freedom. Duke here is a worm surgeon, yes. Yes, he smells really bad. Yes, he’s uglier than a scarab grub that’s been chewed up and spat out. But he’s still of the same blood as you and me. Look at him. He’s not exactly a threat. He’s no match for your mechanized templar infantry. Also, Banksy here trusts him, so there’s that.”
That garnered a reaction. Shiiing. Throb recalled the skewer back into her hand, lowering it. Steam hissed out of the back of the mech, and the whole thing seemed to relax. She looked down at my worm. “Do you trust this ghoul?”
Banksy looked back and forth between the armored sentry and me.
“He’s my father,” Banksy said.
This was the opposite of what had happened when we entered Charnel. The worm surgeons did not trust my hook slayer. Here they held him in higher esteem than they did me.
“Very well,” Throb said after a moment. “You may enter the outer circle of Kinnegad. But not the residences or sheriff seat or any of the barracks or armories. And if you set foot near the temple, you will be killed immediately. This is not negotiable. You may visit the merchants. There is an inn for sleeping.” She looked at me with disdain. “If your unholy kind sleeps.” She whispered into a microphone-like device on her shoulder. She looked back up at us. “You will be watched at all times. Do not cause trouble, and you will remain tolerated, if not welcome. Follow me.”
She turned and stomped down the stairs, causing the whole bridge to waver ominously. The twin brass tanks on the back of her mech were each adorned with the likeness of a badger. We hurried after her.
“Good job,” I whispered to Clara. “What is your charm?”
She shrugged. “I just said the first thing that came to me. My charm is 11. Not great. You were just unlucky. Like that one lady said before, celestial magic users don’t like resurrection users like yourself too much. ”
“They seem to hate shade gremlins more than worm surgeons.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that. If I remember the spell cycle correctly they’re actually supposed to be enemies with the leechers. Everyone hates someone and gets along fine with someone else. There’s a whole complicated circle of relationships. Your main enemy is the radiants. For my kind, it’s the midwives. I thought the enemy of the groundlings was the leechers, but I guess it’s the shade gremlins.”
We followed Throb through a short passage into a bustling underground cavern. The well-lit cave went on as far as I could see. The ceiling stood about fifteen feet over my head, but the ground descended in a massive bowl shape, like we’d entered a stadium at the top level. This place was significantly bigger than Charnel, much larger than I’d expected. Despite it being the middle of the night, the town was alive and thriving.
Pipes snaked the walls and ceilings, and a constant thrum, thrum, thrum filled the air, the sound of a steam engine somewhere below, keeping the lights on. I could feel the engine in the ground, pounding. Hundreds of groundlings were about, moving every which direction.
Soda can-shaped buildings, running from floor to ceiling dotted the downward-angle floor. Metallic cobblestones indicated the main thoroughfares.
The town stank. Almost as bad as the interior of Bast. But this was a different smell, musty, like uncleaned cages from a barn. Added to that was an electric smell, too. Like that of burned wires from an overloaded circuit.
Almost every creature was a groundling, but I did catch sight of a couple others. A physicker skulked through the streets. He or she was a tall, hunched-over humanoid with no features on its pale face other than a pair of slits for eyes. It wore long, flowing wide robes and seemed to float instead of walk. The creatures reminded me of Japanese anime ghosts with their expressionless faces. Clara said they were steam and wind-based.
“There was a woman they brought in here, a consumable. She was a poet. She chose a physicker when they pulled her in. SmashSouth used her at first, but then Frank had her. They look human on the outside, but when you open them up, they’re all sawdust and clockwork parts, kind of like those steampunk robot guys, the menders. Frank didn’t like that at all. They got him someone else, this time a goat-headed viceroy. I think that’s one of the reasons why he went back to hunting in the real world. Frank is like SmashSouth. He wants to play with humans, not any of these weird creatures. Anatoly didn’t program out the races fast enough for him. Plus Frank’s whole thing requires multiple victims, and that wasn’t possible the way this is set up. With only 22 spots, it gets full pretty fast. So Frank had to be supplemented with NPC body parts. The poet lady was then traded off to Princess, who’d been waiting for someone. And even she wasn’t happy with the consumable.”
I nodded. It seemed like a simple enough problem, making it so multiples of a single race were allowed. But I had the impression the co-op version of this game was built around the whole endgame scenario, which was all about getting the various kaiju to fight together. That wouldn’t work if everyone were human.
At the center of the cavern was wh
at I assumed to be the temple of Moritasgus, their guardian. The temple was oddly shaped, like a massive, brass badger head with heavy rivets all up and down the building. The badger head was the size of a church in the real world. Hell, it was probably the size of the actual kaiju’s head. Its open mouth beckoned worshippers within. A stream of robed groundlings exited the mouth and wandered onto the streets. It appeared a service just ended.
“We need to find a flesh modder,” I said to Madame Throb as we walked the street. Groundlings glared at us from open doorways. The streets became more crowded as the worshippers returning from the badger church reached the outer points of town. “But first we need to find a place to sell a couple potions. Also, I was hoping to buy a pet carrier.”
We only had 325 teeth, and I suspected that it wasn’t nearly enough. We had four of the “Extract of Colo Colo Menses” potions we’d received from Stolas the owl demon. If we could sell just one of them, I suspected we’d have enough to buy whatever upgrades and brands we needed.
The mech pointed at a pair of tin can buildings further down the street. “There is a flesh modder available at the upgrade center. The building will soon open. The proprietors are most pious and attend the evening services. Right next door is the apothecary. He may be willing to look at your potions. We do not have a pet shop in Kinnegad. You will have to find one elsewhere.”
“What about a transport gazebo?” I asked. If they had a working one, we could at least zap ourselves to Medina.
Throb paused for a moment. “We have a gazebo, but it is out of order. We are seeking a quantum mechanic to fix it.”
A quest notification appeared in my vision, popping itself into a folder. This was almost identical to the first part of the fix-the-gazebo quest over at Charnel. The only difference was these guys didn’t want to abandon their city. I wondered if all the small, race-specific towns had gazebos that were out of order.
Now that both Clara and I were high enough level to obtain and cast Teleport, I spent some time reading the complicated description for the otherwise simple spell. At level one, I could transport myself and my familiar from one travel node to any other active travel node that I’d already visited sometime in the game. So far the only active one I’d seen was the one in the center of Medina. At level two I could transport myself and Banksy to any travel node I’d visited plus to any location to which I held a brand, whether there was a travel node or not. I wouldn’t be able to zap my way out though, so that could get sticky. At level three I could transport large groups and access branded locations as long as one of my party held the brand. I would need to have Teleport level three to complete the Charnel quest.
Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon Page 16