“Submit and you shall yet live,” Azrael said softly.
Aurelius’ face turned beet red, his breathing rapid and shallow. “I —I submit to you.”
Azrael ran a finger lovingly down the Emperor’s cheek. “A lesson well learned.”
Before rising, he lifted the crown off Aurelius’ head with an exaggerated delicacy, milking the moment before tossing it to land before his stitched colossus. The great monstrosity let out a bellow then stamped on the crown.
Done with his theatrics, Azrael rose to his full height, bones clicking loudly as he shuffled to the door. The camera floated behind him, tracking his every move. Abandoning the Emperor and his guards, Azrael allowed his undead minions to assemble behind him. No other players were in view. Whether Azrael had subdued so many elites alone or not wasn’t the point. I could see he was a powerhouse unto himself.
The camera zoomed down to focus on Azrael’s face, as it did in his broadcasts, only this time it was his true face; the scarred, deathly gray, skeletal face. Enormous green eyes sat in hollowed sockets, webbed in bloodshot veins, the last color in his avatar’s gruesome form.
“Hello, Zoran.”
I halted mid-stride, about to take the dungeon stairs. I turned and placed myself up against a nondescript segment of the wall, so that he’d have no way of telling where I was. If he didn’t know already know.
“Answer me,” Azrael said.
I gulped. If attempting to stand up to the fat hotel owner yesterday had been troublesome, this was a thousand times worse. My throat jammed from nerves. For a moment, I forgot words.
“I know you can hear me just fine.”
After a concerted effort, I managed to open my mouth. “H-hey… jackass.”
He smirked. “I hear you have been causing my associates some trouble on the lower levels. To be frank, I’m impressed. I wonder if you’ve been getting any help?”
Did he know about Ellie?
“Nope. No help for me. I’m just that awesome.”
“But, of course. Awesome, but not the brightest. You should have kept your head down. My task here is too important to be interrupted.”
“Putting lives in danger for money is important, is it?”
He didn’t flinch.
“It was clever of you to use the NPC reset to your advantage, a feat you shan’t repeat. As you just saw, I have rounded up the rest and they shall be placed under guard. I saw your class and level from the video Karl sent me, so I know you won’t be so foolish enough to attempt a direct attack. Your access to the armory will now be cut off. Take my advice, and don’t interfere any further. I do not wish to take a life, but one would be a small price to pay in the course of events.” He motioned the camera closer with one finger, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Today is not for foolish heroism.”
The call ended.
I stood dazed, unsure of how to process this.
“Enemy players closing in,” Ellie reminded me.
Shaking my head, I took the winding stairwell down to the dungeons. I kept going, although my pace slowed as a sense of defeat washed over me. The stitched colossus alone had appeared insurmountable.
“How long until they find me?”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said. “I know where they are, but they don’t know where you will be.”
“Okay, so I’ll just hide,” I said, leaping over the trapped slabs at the bottom of the stairwell. “Keep my head down. This was always going to be a mad chance anyway.”
“Your overall health is still declining,” she said. “Others out there might be stuck alone like you are. If you hide, you’ll condemn them. And yourself.”
“Ellie, I can’t defeat him. I’m only level eleven.”
“You must try.”
I let loose another shuddering sigh, bending over double in a moment of existential horror. As always, she was right. Putting the screws to me about helping others had been a low jab but, that aside, I couldn’t just sit idle and let my body slowly deteriorate. Whatever Azrael’s mission here, it clearly wasn’t moving quickly. Nor did it seem like he was close to completing it if he was concerned I might exploit the next reset in twenty-four hours.
“How is he even doing this?” I asked. “And why does it matter if he has control of the Spire or not? Why—”
Why did he have to do this to me? Is what I wanted to ask.
“Azrael’s workaround, using a backdoor piece of code, is now determined on him being online,” Ellie said, as though explaining something perfectly simple to a child. “If he can be removed from the game, then I will be able to get a message to my creators about the issue. He won’t get a second chance. As for the Spire, it seems he already knew about the Game Master spawn point at the top of the tower.”
“The what?” I asked, somewhat weakly. It was all becoming a bit much to take in. My head hurt; my nerves could barely take it as it was.
“The Game Master spawn point. A locked segment of the Spire that exists on the ninth floor, you can see it on your map.”
I checked this for myself. Unlike the other floors, very little was on the ninth other than the exit of a stairwell, a short corridor and then a large room marked ‘Hall of the Makers’.
“Ordinarily, the room is sealed shut and inaccessible to players,” Ellie continued, “But part of Azrael’s exploitation is to trick the system into thinking he is a Game Master from Frostbyte. GM’s will spawn into that room before getting their bearings and teleporting to their destination to act as moderators in player disputes or illegal activity. There’s an in-game console where they can run basic diagnostics, report abuse, and many other features required for their work.”
“It doesn’t seem like the GM spawn point would be common knowledge.”
“Only members of the Frostbyte development team would be aware of it,” Ellie said. “Although any of them could have talked for a bribe.”
“I guess,” I said. Another horribly thought occurred to me. “I take it he can’t just log me out from there?”
“I imagine he would have if he could,” Ellie said. “If a GM felt a player should be forcibly logged out or suffer account penalties, they would need to raise it with the accounts department.”
“Well, that’s some relief,” I said. “And whatever Azrael is doing, he needs access to this console?”
“It seems that way.”
Her curt tone conveyed that she either didn’t know the specifics and was frustrated by that or didn’t want to discuss it. I didn’t feel like pressing either way. My only desire right now was to reach relative safety, and my feet led me step by step through the darkened dungeons. Instinct guided me towards the interrogation chamber.
Yet the dungeons were no longer silent corridors. Prisoners groaned and pleaded, reaching out to me through their bars. By the time my worried mind worked out the meaning of this, I had already arrived back at Kreeptic’s lair.
I entered without thinking and there was the chief interrogator himself, upright and brewing some smoking concoction, very much alive.
“Oh crap,” I said.
Kreeptic turned slowly, a smile stretching from ear to ear. In one fluid motion, he put down his potion, picked up a menacing knife and swept towards me.
I never had time to leave. His hand beat mine to the door, pulling it firmly shut. Then he found my throat, pinning me in place.
“Uh, uh, uh,” he tutted. “There will be no stealing from me, little scav.”
His voice was disturbingly lyrical for one so absorbed in the art of pain. He brought the knife first to my throat, then chest, then directly before my face as though debating where best to sink it.
“You’re about to find out what happens to thieves in my dungeons.”
19
With Kreeptic’s hand at my throat, I was held firmly in place and I couldn’t get a word out in my defense.
“Someone has ransacked my chambers already,” Kreeptic said. “Many potions and poisons are miss
ing.”
With a great effort, I managed to gasp, “Not… here to… steal.”
“That’s right,” Kreeptic said lovingly. “You are here to be caught. Dear boy, I train assassins in the shadowy arts. No scavenger could hope to outwit me.”
“Not… trying… to.”
“Don’t worry, Zoran,” Ellie said. “He’s harmless really.”
“Harmless?” My hands struggled uselessly against him.
“Whom do you speak to?” Kreeptic said, drawing the knife up against my cheek, the metal ice cold. “Please tell me you are mad. I should like to crack open your skull and study the ruins inside.”
He squeezed tighter at my throat and my health bar started ticking down.
“Not mad,” I struggled. “Spire. In danger.”
“What drivel is this?”
Ellie cut in. “Mention Highcross.”
Wishing I could ask her to explain, I took my best guess at her meaning.
“Enemies,” I wheezed. “Emperor – taken. Marshal Highcross sent me.”
“Highcross?” Kreeptic said, eyes widening. Evidently, the torturer feared the chief intelligence officer. “Why would he send a lowly scavenger to deliver such news?”
“Because everyone else is dead.”
Kreeptic let go of me. I gulped in air before descending into choked coughs, as pain throbbed in my neck.
“I shall discover the truth of this for myself,” Kreeptic said. In a puff of sour white smoke, he disappeared, vanishing as a result of some ability. I thought I heard footsteps in the corridor beyond, running at speed back the way I had come.
“Where’s he going?”
“He’s heading up to the throne room,” Ellie informed me.
“But what if he’s seen?” At once, I pulled out my map. To my horror, the three players Ellie had warned of had arrived on the ground floor. After the initial shock, I realized they were standing guard outside the armory, just as Azrael had warned. I felt a pang at the loss of such a bountiful resource. Still, so long as Kreeptic didn’t venture down that way, it wouldn’t be a total disaster.
“He’s a master of stealth,” Ellie said. “He’ll be fine.”
“They killed him before.”
“When he wasn’t expecting danger.”
“This is so weird,” I said. “A piece of you controls him, yet you don’t have any actual influence over his actions.”
“Not in my current state,” Ellie said glumly.
I rubbed at my neck, concerned that I’d lost a sanctuary. It would have been useful to pick up more slime, but I doubted Kreeptic would be all too happy with me pilfering from his cauldron.
“Let’s make use of our time while he’s gone,” Ellie said, in a cheerful tone. “You can pick your class specialization too.”
“Oh, fantastic,” I said, my voice lousy with sarcasm. “That’ll make me forget about everything. A nice spec choice.”
Inside, I was still quite excited to see what I had to choose from, but the stubborn side of me didn’t feel like admitting it to her.
Opening my character sheet, I saw there was a new tab helpfully labeled ‘Specialization’. Delving into it, I saw that after I picked my preferred spec tree, I would have access to a broad perk choice every ten levels within that tree. At a glance, they seemed to fall into one of three variations: a combat spec, a crafting spec or an economic spec. The latter choices I assumed were there for those who planned to go down the merchant route. Indeed, the very first choice along this route made this evident.
Trader
You shrug off a life of the wilds and adventure for the comfort of a city, fine inns and good coin. You’ll lose your edge but you’ll no longer be seen as a vagabond either, so that’s nice.
EXP gain from Crafting items increased by 25%
Will unlock skill Haggle
Will receive Merchants Guild Tabard
Attack power is reduced by 30%
This would be ideal for someone planning on staying mostly in the city markets, crafting and trying to make money. Like I had planned to do. But in my current predicament, I wasn’t so sure. The extra experience from Crafting was tempting but I’d lose a chunk of offensive power, and I had so little as it was.
I checked my other choices.
Scrapper
Some scavengers are happy to take the leavings of others. But not you. Having others fight for you was never quite your style.
Weapons made or upgraded by you will be 25% more powerful
Attack power increased by 20%
Constitution increased by 20%
Though it had no drawbacks, I knew from my research that everyone considered this spec a bit of a joke. Scavengers were still so poor in combat, lacking a range of abilities. Then again, my situation was unique. Getting a bonus to my crossbow might prove invaluable, and I’d get improved survivability from the health increase.
My final choice related specifically to crafting.
Inventor
The workshop calls to you, the spanner over the sword. Honing your abilities, you require minimum concentration to deconstruct and assemble items, lending more thought to your next contraption.
Mana cost of Crafting reduced to 1%
Mana cost of Breakdown reduced to 1%
Mana cost of Tinkering reduced to 1%
All items created and upgraded by you will be 5% more powerful
I bit my lip, hesitating. In the end, I went with my gut and picked Inventor. The reduction of mana for Crafting and Breakdown meant that I wouldn’t have to worry again about regenerating enough, like just before the ambush, and the fact that everything I’d make – not only the weapons – would have a power bonus was simply too useful to me. I’d surely make more traps before the end and having them be a touch stronger might be the difference between life and death.
“Good choice,” Ellie said. “I’d say let’s move onto Tinkering, but Kreeptic is about to return.”
Her timing was impeccable. The torturer reappeared in the room in a whirl of a dark cloak, seeming to unfold from the air itself. He looked breathless, shaken even, having likely used every ability he had to move with such haste.
“It is true,” he said. “The Marshal is… vanquished.” Mouth agape, Kreeptic allowed this development to settle upon him, testing how it fitted. It appeared he found it favorable, for he smiled widely again. “The Emperor is yet alive, you say?”
“He is – for now,” I added ominously. “Though his captor has threatened his life. I saw it through a vision he sent me.”
Kreeptic eyed me. “Strange that a lowly scavenger should be so wrapped up in these events.”
A half-baked excuse rose to my mouth, but the torturer silenced me with a cold finger against my lips.
“Strange, yet many adventurers come to me with incredible tales. I wonder now, Zoran, what yours is?”
Without stopping to think I began to gush out my story of the previous night, in a style that would suit his understanding of how this world, his world, worked.
I was a traveler from a far-off land, intending to visit the great city of Argatha. I’d found mercenary work from the Mayor of Rusking to help cover my expenses, and from there had been sent to deliver a message to the Marshal. Kreeptic was particularly engaged on the topic of the attack and how Marshal Highcross had fallen. Sensing this was a way to score some points with the torturer, I embellished my memory of how the bat creature clawed savagely at the Marshal’s face as he cried in pain.
“Like a little girl,” I added.
For a moment I thought I’d gone too far, but Kreeptic chuckled appreciatively and I carried on.
“Before I was shoved into the safe room, Highcross told me I should seek you out. He said you would know the best way to secure the Emperor’s safety.” The sole member of my audience looked eager for a riveting conclusion, but I felt the climax of my story wilt like a flower placed in vinegar. “And so here I am,” I ended lamely.
Kreeptic stroked his go
atee, his eyes glazing over. I could almost hear the wheels spinning in his mind.
“You say this villain we face sent you word of the Emperor’s imprisonment through a vision? Be he mage or warlock? No, more likely he is a shaman to be sending visions.”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters a great deal, you scrawny boy.”
“Hey, you’re not exactly ripped yourself.”
He raised the knife again. “Such gall might have seen you through the hell of a scrap I saw upstairs, but it won’t get you far with me. I seek the truth, boy; through whatever means necessary.”
“Alright, alright.” I tried backing away but soon bumped into the torture table in the middle of the room and could go no further; the site where Kreeptic extracted his ‘truths’. “Our enemy is called Azrael. And he is none of those magic users you mentioned. He is a death knight. Is that a problem?”
“Possibly,” sneered Kreeptic. “Pray tell, where does he hail from?”
“Uh,” I said stupidly. What the heck did that matter?
“He’s asking what race Azrael is,” Ellie said.
“Undead. Azrael is undead.”
“Curses,” hissed Kreeptic. “I suppose it was only a matter of time before such a servant of the Dark Council came to blight the Spire. He cannot be harmed like mortals.”
“I’m certain he can be killed,” I said.
“Indeed. Burn an undead or cut off the head and it won’t come back again.”
“So, what’s the issue?”
“Do I look like I command fire or a warrior capable of dueling and beheading?” he said, advancing upon me again. “My ways are in the quiet corners, the slow methodical stripping of spirit until I get what I want.” He raised the knife. I flinched, not even attempting to prevent it from falling, but Kreeptic slammed it into the wood of the table behind me.
“Poisons and knives, boy.”
Watching the knife shudder where it stuck fast in the wood, I gulped again.
“Eyes on me,” Kreeptic said. I did as instructed, taking in this rake of a man. He was as terrifying a person as I’d ever met. His every move teetered on the edge of violence, an experience I’d only found before in the campus drunks looking to provoke a fight. Whatever part of Ellie that was able to control NPC behavior could win Oscars.
Battle Spire Page 20