by J. J. Lorden
Carson called over his shoulder. “Come on, we can come back to this door later. Maybe we’ll unlock different clearance levels or something by finishing the dungeon quests. For now, let’s finish getting gear and see what kind of trouble we can find.”
Erramir leaned back against the secret door. What the hell is going on? He wracked his brain to understand–their responses were just so out of character. Wait, wasn’t there a note... He pulled up the description for Presence. The note was at the bottom.
Advanced Attributes Note—It is impossible to light the way for those unwilling to open their eyes. For this reason, any discussion of Advanced Attributes with players who have not unlocked them will be met with confusion or disbelief.
He relaxed. That explained it. For a moment, Erramir had been genuinely concerned that Kuora was harming their friendship. Wait... that kind of is a negative impact, he realized. Especially if I forgot about the note. But if I forgot about it, would that mean I’m not present? So, did I unlock this attribute because the game knew I wouldn’t forget about the note? Nah, that doesn’t make any sense; being present doesn’t mean remembering things, does it?
He pushed off the wall and decided not to worry about it. He’d remembered the annotation, so he knew their reaction was just part of the game. Whatever else that implied was irrelevant. “Is what it is.” He said quietly as he went back to finish gearing up.
Thirty minutes later, the three of them entered the kitchen in search of rations. Erramir had abandoned the full plate because of its lack of mobility, settling instead on a set of scale mail. It still offered him significant protection but with much greater freedom of movement, which would better suit how he wanted to fight.
The helmet was the only plate piece he kept, it was a little loose, but it had an open face to maximize sight in the already low-light environment. His feet remained bare. An extended search had affirmed that nothing in the armory came even close to fitting him. He didn’t mind, though–his feet on the ground felt right.
For a weapon, he’d decided to hedge, choosing to wear the two-handed sword in a back scabbard as a reserve, with the blue-steel longsword and a kite shield as primary. It was a more traditional tank setup and had an emblem of a black dragon-head profile before an evergreen tree that he liked. For close-up fighting, he’d picked up a blue-steel dagger with a slight curve.
Slung under all of this, he had a new messenger bag. Val had found bags and waterskins with the leather armor. They all carried one of both in various states of awkwardness under and over weapons and armor. Erramir had cut the strap from his starter satchel and put the bag part into the bottom of the new one with the stone, vial, and vellum still inside.
The new bag lacked a leather slot to protect the vial of quantic elixir, and he also wanted to keep the stone and vellum separated from any rations they found.
Valerie had decided upon leather with chain mail integrated into the chest and several other critical areas. She’d picked up a pair of long daggers and attached them, handles down, in the small of her back. The armor was designed for it, and the scabbards had thumb releases so they wouldn’t fall out while being carried inverted. She wasn’t skilled with daggers, but they didn’t impair her staff, so there was no good reason not to bring them along.
Her leather vambraces were inlaid with plates of rippled steel that flared at both ends by her wrist and elbow. Val had puzzled out that the washboard design was intended to block a sword and keep it from sliding. None of them had ever seen anything like this, but it made sense for leather armor to have some way to deflect a blade.
Carson had eventually decided to follow Erramir’s lead and also hedge on weapon selection. He had the short sword Erramir had recommended strapped to his upper back, as well as a bladed mace hanging from a loop on his right hip.
The blades posed something of an issue at first. Hanging without protection, they were prone to cut up his pants and leg. However, below the mace, on the bottom rail of the weapon rack, he’d found a flat leather plate that had a magnetic pull on the blades. The plate strapped to his leg, and the mace was held snug against it, unable to swing about.
Finally, he’d also grabbed a dagger and affixed it to his upper thigh. Carson hadn’t taken any armor since none of it measured up to the set he’d received from Nero.
Erramir stood in the armory door. “Kitchen?” He looked at Carson.
“Kitchen.” Carson replied and led the way.
The whole kitchen was built of white stone with swirls of grey in it. Dark iron ovens squatted in a row immediately on the left, while half of the right wall was dominated by an open hearth built of black stone. A thick lintel spanned its width.
In the middle was a two-meter-long, blue-steel spit for roasting meats, and bolted to the sides were multiple black-iron arms on hinges that could rotate to hold pots over the fire.
The center of the room had three rectangular, wheeled prep tables with dark wood surfaces that were scored with ages of thin knife scars. In one corner, a butcherblock the size of an executive desk stood on thick legs.
A trio of cleavers hung from its front; one was as long as Erramir’s forearm. Beside the butcher block were stairs down to a cold room that held massive sides of meat, barrels of fruits and vegetables, as well as a mushroom garden through a door in the rear.
In the back of the kitchen, they found the dried goods pantry. Down the center was floor-to-ceiling, free-standing shelving that held hundreds of fired-clay pots and jars of brown glass all sealed with wax, cork stoppers, or steel lids.
On the ground against the walls were stacks of large sacks.
Small tears in them revealed flour, millet, beans, and something that looked like rice, but it was red.
Above those, running the length of the pantry, were shelves divided into shallow bins filled with various dried meats and fruits. This was what they’d been looking for. They all filled their bags with these travel-ready rations.
When everyone’s bag was stuffed with food, they headed back to the stairs behind the throne.
Standing at the top, Erramir nodded to his two friends. “Alright. I’m ready. How about you guys?”
“Yes, sir,” Val said as she started down first. “Stay close. Err, you be sure to keep an eye out for any more runes, please. I don’t fancy getting barbequed by a fire trap.”
Carson was right behind her, and Erramir followed.
“You got it, boss lady.” He said, smiling as they began the descent. Even though Kuora felt nothing like a game, strictly speaking, that’s what it was. And the first dungeon you explored in any game was almost always one of the most memorable. Which meant, despite the danger, they were all smiling with anticipation.
25
Blood
The stairs curved around to merge with the opposing set and then descended to a room that served as a landing. Erramir estimated it sat three stories below and just forward of the throne.
Straight ahead, the stairs continued down, and on the left was a door with a rune-lock. Erramir recognized the same yellow-red glow from the secret door in the armory, so he didn’t mess with it.
As a group, they stopped to stare at the other prominent feature in the room. Hanging on the right, a circular metal plate, large as a dinner table, with three vividly detailed insignias. The insignias were arranged in a triangle and divided by tapered black lines, ending in points.
The bottom-right emblem was the same as Erramir’s shield, a dragon profile in front of a pine. In this version, the dragon head was majestic and more detailed, while the pine reminded him of the statue up in the throne room.
The bottom left was a complex tangle of roots rising to a tree trunk topped by a dull-grey, forge-style hammer. A complex Gaelic design, also shaped like a hammer, filled the middle of the hammer connecting it to the tree. In it, Erramir saw several runic letters, horns, a pair of inverted dragon heads, and centered at the top, a blood-red ruby in a three-pointed crown.
His eyes
wanted to dwell on the crown. But, the sigil on top had an energic pull that was impossible to ignore.
It was a twelve-pointed star. The narrow points alternated in color between red and black, and the center was split, red on the bottom and black on the top. Erramir got an eerie sense that it represented night over an ocean of blood. An involuntary shiver gripped him, “That star is... disturbing.”
“Yeah... that’s a lot of blood,” Val said, just above a whisper.
Carson stepped closer and held a hand toward the star without touching it. “This is more than it looks like.” He pulled his hand back, unsettled. “I... don’t think I’ll mess with that.”
He turned to Erramir. “Do you see anything in that thing?” He shook an unsettled hand toward the star. “With your rune magic sight thing?”
“My True Vision, you mean?” Erramir said. “No. It just feels... dense. Magically dense.”
Carson nodded as he moved away from the trio of symbols. “Yeah... that’s one way to put it. Although I’m leaning toward just fucking creepy.”
Val wasn’t as affected as the men, although she was in complete agreement with Carson’s appraisal, and she went to the stairs that continued down. She took a long look down, noting that the walls had silver sconces below the landing–they were unlit and dark.
Val checked back on Carson and Erramir. The two men were visibly disturbed, she could see it in their disgusted faces and defensive body language, but they remained entranced. “Is there anything you guys can do over there, or are you just ogling the creepiness?”
“Just ogling... but... I can definitely stop,” Carson said, turning away. Erramir broke away with a shuddering grunt and a shoulder twitch, but no other comment.
She looked at Erramir, and as he considered the descending darkness, she said, “There must have been some other method they used to light the upper area. I didn’t see any of these wall lights up there.”
“Yeah, That’s kind of strange. Why would they just be from here down?” he replied thoughtfully.
“It’s probably the entrance to the dungeon,” Carson chipped in as if it was apparent.
“Ohh. Yeah, I guess that kind of makes sense,” Val replied, surprised she hadn’t thought of it. Carson did have a way of intuitively seeing things like this that weren’t so obvious. “Although, I’m not sure about that. This seems a lot more like a ruin than a dungeon.”
Carson looked back toward the steps up to the throne room. “Not much of ruin, really. Everything is in perfect condition.”
“Shall we?” Erramir asked, looking to his companions and ignoring their discussion.
By unspoken agreement, they arranged themselves in their battle wedge instead of their single-file formation. Maybe it was just that no one wanted to be last, or perhaps the star insignia had them all expecting an attack; whatever the reason, there were no comments on the change. With an exchange of nods, they headed down together.
Not far down, the stairs curved left for a bit before straightening. They moved in focused silence for probably ten minutes without any changes. Val was the first one to notice a marked drop in temperature. “It’s getting colder.”
Carson responded with a dismissive shrug. “Yeah, that’s normal. We’re pretty deep underground now. Although, it does seem pretty dry…” He touched the wall as if seeing something new. “Humm, maybe not so normal. There are air and water resonances in these walls that weren’t there up above. If I had to guess, the magic at work is using them to drop the temperature and pull the moisture out of the air.”
Erramir nodded and closed his eyes. He’d been keeping a mental map of the underground city and thought maybe he could use his recall to figure out how far down they were.
In his mind’s eye, he dropped down through a 3D recreation of the entrance ramp, throne room, and their path down to this point. As he descended, he counted vertical slices that he estimated to be ten feet each. His mental image reached their current location, and he announced his estimate.
“We’re about 480 feet down from the hilltop right now. That’s a long way, and in any lush, verdant area like this, there should be ample groundwater this deep. These walls could hold it out, but the air should still be damp. It doesn’t make sense for it to be so dry here.” A message notification flashed. “Hello there.”
New Skill learned (Typical): Mapping—The mapping skill will allow you to create maps of the places you travel and store them for future use. You may access these maps at will, and you can also maintain a map in your vision for quick access. Details recorded will improve as you improve this skill.
Experience gained: 1000
Experience for learning a Typical skill without a trainer—1000
“Hey! I just unlocked mapping! Sweet!” Erramir grinned like a kid in a candy store. Then he thought about wanting to look at an image of the map in his head.
Instantly, his vision was covered with a semi-transparent overlay of the city ruins. The surprise nearly caused him to stumble and fall, which in turn frightened him. The stairs were steep, and although probably not fatal, any fall would be long and painful.
“Ahh! Stupid map,” Erramir grunted brushing at the air before him, trying to force it away.
Resultantly, the map spun wildly, flipping about on three axes like a mad toy. Only when Erramir calmed his mind did the wild gyrating stop, and the overlay disappear under the directed pressure of his desire.
The chaos left Erramir unsteady, his extended hands groping for a wall.
Valerie grabbed his outstretched arm, supporting him with a smile. “Yeah,” she chuckled. “It did that to me too, definitely a bit disorienting.”
She smiled brightly and cocked her head. “Can you imagine if you unlocked that during a fight?”
“You’re not kidding,” Erramir replied. Bearings settled and feet firmly on the ground, he pulled the map back and tinkered with its dimension and location, placing it like those he was accustomed to, in the corner of his vision.
With that handled, he commented to his friends, “Alright, got it set up as a mini-map. Looks pretty sweet too.” He shook his head. “That was crazy, though. I can’t imagine any situation where it would be okay to suddenly be looking at the world through an all-encompassing map.”
“Maybe over dinner while you’re sitting down,” Val mused.
“Right,” Erramir said around a laugh. “Not sure how much mapping you’d get done like that, though.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. You just visualized a map of where we’ve been to estimate our depth, right?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I did,” Erramir said with his brow raised and nodding.
“Well, you could do that after you sat down somewhere safe,” Val said. “Then the overlay wouldn’t be so disorienting.”
Carson frowned at them. “Okay, if you two map buddies are done, those of us without cool map widgets would like to keep going.”
“Ahhhh, does little Carson feel left out of the map club?” Val cooed. “Maybe you should try a little harder to track our path through the dungeon, and then you can be one of the cool kids too.”
“She’s got you there, bro,” Erramir said. “Don’t be jealous; just refocus on making a map in your head. That’s what I did.”
“Humph. Yeah, I guess so,” Carson replied, somewhat mollified. “Can we get on with it now? We haven’t found a single mob yet. It’s almost like we’re not even in a dungeon.”
“He’s right,” Val said with a nod. “You good to push ahead, Err?”
“Yep, map is dialed in,” Erramir confirmed. “Let’s go.”
A few minutes and another 180 feet down, according to Erramir’s new elevation tool, they reached the bottom and found themselves in a circular stone room about 30 feet across. They all realized the problem at the same time.
“There’s no damn door,” Carson said. “There’s got to be a way out of here. Err, you see anything with that fancy magic sight of yours?”
Er
ramir was already slowly scanning the room for any signs of runic magic. “I’m looking. It might take a few minutes, though. Why don’t you guys look around for anything non-magical that might open a passage,” Then, slightly confused, he asked, “Can’t you see magic too, Car?”
The mage shrugged dismissively. “Yeah, but it’s a passive ability, and it’s also sensory. Which basically means it gets more sensitive the closer I get or if I interact with something. Either way, it’s not that good for runes. You see them much better than I do.”
“I’ll circle to the right,” Val said, already moving along the wall. Carson started to the left. They hunted for long minutes, covering every inch multiple times each.
Then they focused on the floor and did several slow, detailed scans. There were patterns, scrawl work, and a perplexing central focus split in three, which seemed promising, but it was obscured by a covering of tangled vines.
Eventually, the perplexed group stood together in the room center, frustrated. Other than the vine-covered thing, nothing stood out in the mechanical or magical sense.
Erramir grumbled, “Well. This is either the shortest and most pointless dungeon ever, or we’re missing something.”
“I gotta go with option 2 on that one,” said Carson. Then his face creased up in thought. “Wait, are there any clues in the quest description that we overlooked? Maybe we just aren’t searching for the right thing.”
“Oh, that’s a good thought,” Valerie responded. “Let’s check and compare notes. Maybe we need to cross-reference the quests since we have companion quests and Err has the main quest.”
“Good thought, bud.” Erramir said, clipping Carson’s shoulder with a nod. “Let’s take a look.” He pulled up his quest description as Carson and Valerie did the same.
Quest: Blood of a City—Welcome, Child of the Ancients. The lost city of Qar’Dakar has lain dormant and uninhabited for millennia. Only one of the ancient blood can lead the effort to reclaim the city and reawaken its living heart. Although you possess the blood and can lead the quest, it cannot begin in earnest without at least three minimally advanced beings. Choose your party wisely.