Clan Dominance - the Sleepless Ones 2

by Dem Mikhailov

  There is but a single shop in this entire location; the range of goods is very narrow, and the sullen and shaggy shopkeeper doesn’t ever wish to expand it. There are hardly any mobs in the environs. The terrain is extremely rough, all made out of broken blades of rock jutting out in all sorts of angles. The locals tend to be reticent. They never welcome strangers or give any quests. The place isn’t particularly popular with the players; the location is empty most of the time.

  And yet the sealed doors of the temple open every now and then; very slowly so, and a loud howl reaches the very heavens, making one think of the Hound of the Baskervilles. The doors remain open from dawn till dusk, and that is when the Foothills of Sorrow become a place of pilgrimage for virtually every player. They come to the foothills of the mountain in their hundreds and thousands, making their way up to the temple slowly — a magnificent tableau when seen from a bird’s-eye view. Such videos are usually rather popular.

  When the day ends, an invisible wave of air ejects the latecomers, and the gate of rock closes slowly, which is when the air become filled by something other than mournful howling; namely, the irritated swearing of the players who’d failed to make it and catch the tear.

  What tear, you might ask? Well, the tear is the very reason why everyone’s so eager to participate in this.

  The temple is absolutely empty — no decorations, not a single sarcophagus, and no altar, either. There is but a face, which is a grotesque mask.

  It is a huge and rather uncomely face carved in sharp relief on the back side of the temple; a face covered in hideous scars and wounds. A face of a crying woman. The rock is red hot, emitting heat waves, while the heavy hooded eyes rains tears of fire in a fast staccato; tears that resemble lava the most.

  These bitter tears are what everybody’s after. If you let them fall on any weapon or piece of equipment that you have, the item gets extra bonuses without losing any of those it has already. They are added randomly; however, they’re free, and they’re plentiful. I didn’t get lucky the previous time. The tear that had touched my bow gave it fifty extra intellect points, and that’s a stat that a bowman needs the least. Others have been a lot luckier. I have personally witnessed a half-orc getting a few dozen Strength points added to his sword, and the item could nearly compete with those of the Rare class afterward.

  In general, it could be described as a magical lottery where everybody wins. The downside was that one could only charm an item this way once. If one exposed an item to the falling tears again, it would instantly turn into a pile of ashes. The system would instantly recognize the impertinence and gently push the offender away. If one failed to take the hint, they’d be immediately transformed into a very neat handful of ashes, blown into the crevice by the wind subsequently, silver mist and all. There have been a few cases, after all.

  An important fact is that when the temple doors opened, the entire location remained completely peaceful. You couldn’t attack anyone or steal anything. As legend has it, the deity that the temple had been consecrated to detested violence. De facto, it was a protective mechanism for low-level players who’d managed to get a decent item lest the big meanies rob them of their new toy.

  Everyone had to stand in a queue and to join it in due time. There was virtually no waiting per se; the mass of people kept on surging forward. After all, the procedure didn’t take that much time. You’d just have to place your item underneath one of the drops, and, hey presto, you could leave immediately.

  This is the very reason why I felt genuinely puzzled as I left my private room, pulling out my transportation scroll and wondering what Gosha could expect.

  Had we joined the slow queue then, we wouldn’t even manage to reach the distant gates of the Temple of Sorrow, and one simply couldn’t jump the queue in that scenario.

  However, I came fully equipped, having taken everything with me except for the legendary bracelet and my money. My very soul was demanding for me to strap it to my forearm; however, remembering that we’d only have a vague chance of succeeding, I decided not to take any chances. No one knew what the second part of the chain would have in stock for me, after all.

  The chain being what exactly, I wondered?

  The scroll worked perfectly. As soon as the light dispelled, I found myself standing on a rain-soaked street. Visibility nearing nil; there were shreds of whitish fog filtering through the pouring rain — or could it have been the clouds crawling so closely to the ground?

  “Ros! Ro-o-o-o-o-s!” When I turned my head, I saw a familiar shape, waving her arms frantically and hopping under the pouring rain.

  That thief of glasses.

  “I’ll give you a what-for right now!” I promised as menacingly as I could, moving toward Kyre. I filled my lungs with air, took a closer look, and said something quite different from what I’d originally intended to say. “Level 15? Really?”

  “Well, yeah, I know I’ve barely managed to grow!” Kyre replied, irate, removing a lock of soaked dark hair from her face. “It was a completely harebrained idea! Gosha must have hit his head on that windscreen harder than we thought!” Then she made a perfectly illogical conclusion. “But he was right, after all. Have you got all your stuff with you, Ros? Haven’t forgotten anything, have you?”

  “I haven’t,” I replied.

  “Then hold on tight,” said Kyre curtly, stepping really close to me. “Our ride’s about to arrive.”

  “What’s about to arrive?” I asked; at the very same point there was a strong gust of wind and a mighty tug, my feet left the earth, and the earth started moving further and further away. “Damn!”

  I twisted my entire body, looked up and discovered a huge clawed paw, holding me by the scruff of the neck, with Kyre dangling about next to me, held in the exact same manner. There was a sound of huge wings flapping over our heads, and a shrill and wrathful squawking filled the air.

  “Chill! This is Bumpkin, our clan griffin!” The girl shouted. “He’ll deliver us right to the top of the stairs.”

  “A good name for a griffin!” I shouted in reply, secretly glad I wasn’t acrophobic — we might have been in a virtual world, but the sight of rocky peaks jutting up below us couldn’t fail to impress, anyway.

  The mountain was approaching at a frightening rate; the griffin flapped its wings a few more times, right over the stairs filled with people.

  “Here they are!” Kyre shouted. “Bumpkin! Stop!”

  The griffin squawked, and then dove sharply and used his wings to break the fall, disregarding all the laws of aerodynamics. Before I could even react, the next order came,

  “Bumpkin! Drop!”

  “Drop?” I yelled.

  Bumpkin opened his claws at once, and Kyre fell feet down, shouting “Geronimo!”

  I was next to drop with an angry yell of “Shi-i-i-i-i-i-it!”

  There was a short free fall before I made very hard contact with the ground, having managed to bend my knees just before landing. I was thrown forward and barely managed to hold my balance. The landing wasn’t perfect, but there was no place to roll on landing; the whole thing was filled with people. I got really lucky as I’d landed in the middle of an empty space free of people, and I could but muse what would have happened had I landed on their heads.

  I checked my health automatically, realizing I’d had some fifteen percent taken off. What would have happened had I landed on their heads, I wondered?

  “We’ve done it!” Kyre said with tangible relief in her voice. I could hear her tiny voice coming from somewhere overhead.

  I raised my face to discover myself lying at the feet of three half-orc hunks, one of them holding the girl in his hands with the greatest care.

  “They’ve caught everyone but me once again!” I mumbled, rising to my feet. “Miss me once, joke’s on you; miss me twice, joke’s on me... Oh, Gosha, I might visit you in the hospital... I might get you the biggest condolence bouquet and a bunch of funeral home booklets for you to choose from.”


  “Hi!” the gray-skinned half-orc said as he demonstrated his most impressive fangs, placing Kyre down on the ground. “What are you muttering there?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. Reading a mantra to calm me down,” I took a few steps forward as I made a dismissive gesture, since the queue had been moving all that time — in two directions, to boot.

  There was an angry shout from behind me.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing? You can’t jump the queue! Get on your bird and shove off!”

  “Chill!” the half-orc by the name of Guantanamacho raised his hands in the air. “It’s all fair! The three of us are leaving, and these two are taking our place. It’s to your own advantage — there’s one person less in the queue.” Then he added, in a softer tone of voice, addressing us, “Right, we gotta split before they raise a hue and cry. You’re next after this elven maiden with pink hair.”

  “Purple!” the abovementioned maiden said crossly, pointing somewhere about her head. “Are you illiterate, or what?”

  All of us spent the next second studying her nickname attentively, and it took us just as long to process it; it was Purple-Haired Snow White. And yet her hair was pink (or, perhaps we’d all gone color-blind).

  “We’re off;” the half-orc said again in a muffled voice. Then he slapped me on the back and added, “Good luck.”

  Kyre’s friends exited stage left in a rather eccentric manner by taking a step away from the ladder and then diving into the abyss.

  “Impressive,” I commented. Kyre shrugged.

  “Bumpkin will catch them... most likely. Ros, I realize you have lots of questions, but give it some time, will you?” Kyre mumbled quickly, her eyes fixed on the players standing nearby.

  “Right,” I agreed, forcing myself to squeeze out that word. “Give me a second.”

  I opened the interface and dashed off a short message to Kyre.

  Gosha told me to remind you that you have to raise the stone to the face of fire. What the hell is all that about?

  The reply came instantly.

  “Oh, I remember, FFS! I’ll explain it later. Join the group.”

  Kyrea the Protectress offers you to join her party.

  Accept/Deny

  Accept.

  You have joined a party! Kyrea the Protectress is the leader!

  A soft iridescent glow forms around Kyre and reaches toward me. The girl’s curt gesture makes the cloud vanish into thin air reluctantly.

  Kyrea the Protectress, the leader of the party, requests access to your status

  Accept/Deny

  A hard-headed woman, like the song goes.

  Deny.

  I had nothing to hide at that moment, but why would I change my modus operandi all of a sudden.

  “Again?” Kyre said, looking amazed, as she took a few more steps up the stairs. There were less than a dozen people between us and the doors to the temple.

  Instead of responding, I made a wide grin, and my battle companion said gruffly,

  “I remember when you used to call me boss.”

  “The comeuppance for the stolen glass is still waiting for you.”

  “Oh, you’re just... Right, Ros, we’re nearly there! We’ve formed the group, I have the item with me, and the words... Yeah, I remember then. And now, the main thing is... Hold all this stuff.”

  “Once we approach the face of fire, stand close to me. Say nothing and don’t even think of placing anything underneath the falling tears. Once it begins, grab all of the extra stuff I’m carrying; I get the Overload notice with every step.”

  Once I read the message, I nodded silently, and together we entered the temple. It was dark, with a fiery face of stone protruding from one of the walls. Even though I’d been there before, I winced again, seeing this horrendous scarred and wounded face. The impression was that the woman had been mutilated like that while still alive before she turned into dead stone.

  The players in front of us approached the mask of stone one by one, ascending a small pedestal, offering some item or another, catching a tear and instantly stepping aside so that the others would take their chance, too.

  The player, dressed in a black robe with a hood, covering his face fully, places a small book underneath the hissing fiery drop, and then there’s a sotto voce sigh — he must have gotten luckier than he’d expected. He instantly placed the book in his inventory and almost galloped toward the exit.

  Then a man who’d had a tear drop on his pointy steel helmet made a bitter grimace of disappointment. The swordfighter must have received characteristics completely useless to his class.

  Now there are five players in front of us... four of them... two of them... suddenly, it was our turn. We ascended the mountain one by one, ascending a few steps. I started to slow down, but Kyre grabbed me by the sleeve, saying, “We do it together.”

  We got through the last couple of meters shoulder to shoulder, stopping one pace away from the face nearly melting in its own heat.

  Kyre took a chain off her neck, which made a soft clinking sound, and I saw the prize she’d received from Grym the Inconsolable for the first time; it was a transparent stone hanging on a thin golden chain filled with iridescent light.

  She never let go of my hand or took her chain off her neck as she lunged forward and placed the stone underneath the next fiery teardrop.

  A fierce fiery flash illuminated the dark temple for a moment; the ground shook under our feet, and the players’ amazed cries filled the air. I barely managed to refrain from chiming in.

  Kyre paid no attention to what had been happening, voicing one word in a very loud voice:

  “Revenge!”

  “Must be done!” The voice that had filled the Temple of Sorrow was full of fury unvanquishable enough to make my hair stand on end.

  There was a sound of rock grinding rock as the face of stone transformed into a grimace of malice ground its teeth, and the mouth started to open slowly, revealing the roaring flame inside. The flames of fire wound themselves into an infernal vortex howling shrilly; a jet of air pushed our backs. The next moment our feet lost contact with terra firma and we were sucked up into the fiery maelstrom of that enormous maw.

  “What the actual...?” One of the players cried out, baffled. Then all sounds became muted instantly, and the fiery waves of transitioning engulfed us.

  A flash.

  The teleportation.

  There was a powerful pull, and I felt I was in free fall for a while, dropping into the unknown, the flames engulfing us. Then shortly afterward, both of us fell into the water, the hissing flames trying to follow us, but getting reluctantly extinguished by the surface of the water.

  Having realized that we’d gotten there, either fortunately or not (I couldn’t really tell),I started kicking my feet in an attempt to reach the surface. I surfaced with a loud splash and started to look around me, spitting out water. Kyre was nowhere to be found; just an even blue surface covered in lazy rippled, brown seaweed, and a few floating splinters of wood. Nothing else.

  I cursed and dove in again, trying to see something in the greenish murk. I noticed the girl immediately; she was relatively close to the surface. Her arms and legs twitched convulsively as she kept trying to swim, her entire body making those motions, but she remained in the same place, stuck in the water like a fly in a piece of amber... She’ll drown, I thought to myself. Could some item of her equipment have become caught on something?

  I straightened my legs and dived deeper. Having reached Kyre in just a few strokes, I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and pulled her upward toward the light seeping through the water. The relentless timer went wild counting the seconds of my remaining light as I made an effort to finally emerge before my health started to drain away. Kyre came out of the water right next to me, wheezing in relief. I took a few deep breaths myself in turn, for no real reason — there was no reason to give one’s lungs proper ventilation in Waldyra. Your underwater time limit would become restored after a s
ingle breath. But one does get certain human reflexes, after all.

  Having turned toward Kyre to find out what was going on, I found myself staring at the water with nothing but ripples upon it. The girl was gone again.

  “Pull me out!” a panicked message popped up before my eyes and something slid over my leg softly.

  I dove in hastily and managed to grab Kyre, who’d been drowning slowly, by the hand and pull her out again.

  “Overload... Dragging me down...” Kyre said, spitting and scattering droplets of water in every direction. “Hold my stuff. Trade.”

  “Can’t swim?” I asked in a gentle voice, dragging Kyre up and then letting her hand go again. “I see.”