by Galen Wolf
‘I don’t know. Let’s follow them.’
They’re heading for the stone stairs that lead down to Bernard’s level. I hear them clatter down just out of sight. They’re going fast, it’s as if they want to complete something before we catch them. We hurry down. They trigger the acid trap set up by Peter the Silent. It’s a Level Seven trap down here, but still they’re pretty much ignoring it in their hurry to get to their destination.
Then they run into the first acid golems. The stone things grate and rumble as they rip themselves out of the wall. They’re about seven feet high with glowing green eyes and acid drooling from the crack in the stone that forms their mouth. They raise their hands and Elizabeth Bathory screams as one rips at her with its stubby stone fingers.
Reza turns and jabs one in the stomach. There are three golems and I hear the Morrigan say, ‘We don’t have time to fight them. Look!’ She’s pointing at me and Fitheach and as she does so, she intones more phrases of summoning and throws broken teeth onto the stone floor to summon up four armoured skeletons.’
“Come on!” She yells at Reza. Elizabeth Bathory cowers beside her as the skeletons take on the golems.
Reza can’t resist finishing off a golem and Fitheach fires a dazzling beam of light into his face. He screams and puts his hands to his eyes. ‘I’m blinded.’
‘It’ll wear off. Come on.’ The Morrigan tugs at his arm like he’s a baby leading him away from us. Elizabeth Bathory darts a glance at me and there’s something in her eyes. Fear certainly, but something else too.
They hurry off and we can’t get through the battling golems and skeletons. I push and shove at them to create a space for us to get through but Fitheach raises his hands. I hear the music and popping sound again and the skeletons vanish leaving the golems looking stupidly around for their enemies, then the golems return to the walls and blend in as we hurry down the passage. They’ve managed to get ahead of us and we play cat and mouse with them as we run through the maze of tunnels that makes up Level 2. We follow a trail of dead gnome NPCs. I hadn’t realised Bernard had populated the area with gnomes, I thought it was only golems, but it makes sense.
Then we see the Fangs on the arched bridge. There are three of them on the bridge, the two women in front and the heavily armoured Reza coming up last then the trap triggers and the bridge falls into the acid. So does Reza. The Morrigan and Elizabeth Bathory leap to safety and Fitheach and I stand at the crumbled bridge end.
Reza’s being eaten up by the river of acid. I see the acid worms start to bite at him. He looks up, his face bloated and strange in the green liquid, then his eyes close and he’s dead.
‘I’m glad he’s dead,’ I say.
Yes, but we can’t get over,’ Fitheach says.
I sigh. He’s right. The bridge is gone and the gap is about six feet. I’ll never make it. Now the acid river is active, I’ll fall in and die if I try to jump.
‘How’s your jump?’ I ask him.
‘Lousy,’ he says. ‘Everyone knows clerics can’t jump. How long before the bridge re-sets?’
‘Thirty minutes maybe? I’m not sure.’
‘They could kill Bernard in that time.’
This isn’t making me feel any better. I look around. ‘A good dungeon designer is going to create an alternative way for players to cross an obstacle.’
‘Yeah but Bernard designed this.’
I can’t help but laugh but I say, ‘Bernard’s pretty smart actually.’
‘I know. I was just joking.’
‘So look around for some other way of getting over.’
The acid river flows across the room. The banks vanish out of sight in the gloom to both left and right. ‘You go that way, look for any kind of clue.’
Fitheach nodes, hitches up his white robes and walks off left. I go right. The river goes along for about a hundred yards then disappears into a tunnel mouth. The river banks end here. There’s nothing on my side. I peer across to the far bank and see nothing notable there either. The green liquid glows eerily and stinks of chemicals. I see fluorescent acid eels fluttering in the acid like so many green ribbons. Disheartened, I make my way back to the bridge. As I get there, Fitheach emerges from the shadows. ‘There’s a boat,’ he says.
‘A boat? Great!’ Then I scratch my head. ‘Where?’
‘On the bank.’
‘Out of the acid?’
He nods.
I sigh. ‘Then it’s a trap. The acid will eat through any wood. We’ll get so far and sink. Then we’ll die.’
He’s grinning. ‘No, Gorrow. You’re too suspicious. The boat’s made of crystal. Acid doesn’t corrode crystal.’
‘A crystal boat to sail over an acid river?’
He nods. ‘Almost poetic, isn’t it?’
‘If you say so. Let’s go.’
We hurry to where he’s found the boat. He’s still holding up his white robe. I ask him why and he says he doesn’t want to get it dirty in the mud.
There’s the boat. ‘You get in,’ I say. ‘I’ll shove it off.’
‘Better put its nose in the water first.’
‘Put its bow in the acid, you mean.’
‘Whatever.’ He gives me a hand and we nose the vessel into the river. The crystal is smooth and heavy in my grip. It’s hard to believe it’ll float at all, but the boat’s the right shape. Fitheach gets in and I push the boat further into the acid. The liquid fizzed and pops around the crystal hull, but doesn’t seem to be eating through. I give the boat a final heave and it moves clear of the bank. Just before it does I get my hands on the stern and pull myself in.
‘How do we propel it?’ Fitheach asks then finds the answer to his own question. He pulls out a crystal oar, then another. ‘You take one. I’ll take the other.’
The acid river here is broader than where the bridge crosses it, but not much. We’re over in minutes and I jump out and pull the bow up so Fitheach can step out without getting too muddy. It’s acid mud too from the fizzing round my feet, it would really ruin his hem.
We’ve been delayed and I just hope Bernard is okay.
We hurry back to the bridge, which still hasn’t re-spawned whole, and we turn and follow the way the remaining Fangs of Koth went. We see a ruined iron golem and the fast disappearing corpses of three ghouls. Round the corner there is another destroyed golem. We’re almost at Bernard’s hall now.
I hear sounds of combat. Then we enter the high-ceiling stone chamber that Bernard is using as his boss room. He’s there, standing with a flask of acid and a flask of light in his hands. His eyes are fierce. Behind him are the sheet covered magic mirrors and in front of him Elizabeth Bathory and The Morrigan. There are also seven or eight undead summonings called up by the Morrigan: two nosferatus, ghouls, skeletons and a ghast.
She’s saying. ‘So this is it? It goes no further?’
Bernard snarls at her. ‘This is as far as it needs to go. You’re going to die here.’
‘But there’s no door? No further levels?’
‘Bugger off.’ Bernard hurls a flask of light and it smashes on the Morrigan. It’s hurt her and almost in reflex she fires a bolt of necrotic energy that hits Bernard full on. He grunts but hurls the acid flask at her and then gets a health potion and sips it. The Morrigan is flapping around blinded and Elizabeth heals the Morrigan with negative energy then turning and, seeing us, hurls a bolus of pulsing disease. The green miasma lands in front of us and blows up into a stinking cloud.
I sip a health potion. Some of the undead turn and stagger towards us. Fitheach raises his hands and casts Turn Undead and they vanish.
Elizabeth Bathory sees that and panic grows on her face.
Bernard roars and drags out his runesword and charges The Morrigan.
Fitheach dissolves the remaining undead who were about to attack Bernard. Elizabeth Bathory backs
against the far wall.
This is annoying. I go for the Morrigan and I feel a golden dazzle all over me as I run across the floor.
I shout my thanks without taking my attention from the Morrigan. She’s fired up a deadly aura around her like the Death Knights have. It burns Bernard and he staggers back. She follows up with a shriek and a torrent of screaming spectre faces blast from her hands and he starts batting at his face at imaginary beings.
She cackles, but I’m on her. One plunge of my sword into her side does the job.
Then another golden glow from Fitheach and Bernard’s cured of the affliction the Morrigan set on him.
‘Thanks for that, Fitheach,’ he says then turns to me. ‘Damn, Gorrow, you’re getting good with that sword of yours.’
I shrug. ‘I got her in the side. Not really chivalrous.’
Fitheach has come over to me. ‘She doesn’t deserve chivalry, Gorrow.’
‘Everyone deserves chivalry. It’s about me not them. Anyway, there’s one left.’ I point to Elizabeth Bathory who’s pressed herself against the wall, her eyes wide with fear, licking her dry lips.
‘Kill her,’ Bernard says. ‘Or I will.’
I raise my hand. ‘No. We can’t do that.’
Bernard looks sceptical. ‘What? Chivalry again?’
I shake my head. ‘I’ve got a few questions for her.’
The three of us line up and if she could press her way through the wall, I think she would. ‘I surrender,’ she says.
‘It’s not as easy as that,’ Bernard says. ‘There’s such a thing as revenge for the mess you made of this place. I want to torture you.’
‘Please, Bernard.’ Fitheach frowns at him.
Bernard blushes. ‘I didn’t mean it. I was just trying to scare her.’
‘What questions do you have? I heard you had some questions.’ She’s almost stammering in her fear.
I stare at her. ‘Why didn’t you fight us up there? What was the hurry to get down here?’
‘Maligon gave us a mission. Nobody wanted to upset him. You know what he’s like.’
‘But you fought at first,’ I say.
She looks at the ground. ‘We thought we’d easy beat you. But when you killed three of ours, Maligon had already told us it was imperative we get to the bottom of the dungeon.’
‘Why?’
‘To see where it led.’
‘To see where it led?’ I frown. ‘I’m not following you.’
She exhales. ‘Maligon said this isn’t just a dungeon. That there’s a settlement hidden here.’
I feel an icy fist squeeze my heart. How can they know?
Neither of my companions say a word.
‘A settlement hidden here? Why would he say that?’
‘He had word from up high. From the General Command. They believe you are planning to raise an army against Satanus. That you’re drilling troops here somewhere. Somewhere in the dungeon. So it’s not just a dungeon at all.’
I’m astounded and appalled they know so much. But they don’t have it quite right and if they were certain they wouldn’t have needed to come down here to look.
Bernard says, ‘Kill her now. Get it over with.’
I’m prepared to let her leave the dungeon. She can tell her guildies that there is no settlement at the bottom of the Silver Drift dungeon. And Morrigan can vouch for that. She saw there was no further door before she died.
Then Elizabeth Bathory says, ‘Can I come over to your side?’
I’m so astounded I want to laugh.
Bernard sneers. Fitheach is thoughtfully quiet.
‘Excuse me?’ I say.
She can’t meet my eyes. ‘I don’t normally play evil alignment. I just thought I’d try it out. Normally I play good types. Do you play The Greenwood?’
I shake my head. It’s another Miskatonic game, but I’ve never played it.
‘I play a druid there. A pacifist called Birog.’
‘A pacifist?’ Bernard laughs out loud. ‘So this was a real career change.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t like it. The people on this side are really horrible. They’re bullies and most of them are psychopaths I think, probably in real life too. So I wanted to leave the Fangs of Koth and come over to a good guild.’
‘They’ll slaughter you. Hunt you down,’ Bernard says.
‘How can we trust what you say?’ Fitheach finally speaks. ‘What token can you give us?’
‘I don’t know. But I mean it.’ Her voice is faltering. ‘Either that or I quit the game. I just like the way you guys stick up for each other. It’s what I’m used to from the Greenwood. The Fangs of Koth and all the other Satanus guilds are all trying to be the best killers. They don’t support each other.’
‘Then quit the game,’ Bernard sneers.
I’m thoughtful. I say, ‘There is one thing you could do.’
She looks up hopeful. ‘Just say. I’ll do it if it means I can join King Arthur’s side.’
‘I don’t know if you’ll want to do it,’ I say.
‘Just tell me. I’ll do anything.’
‘I want you to be our spy in their ranks.’
Holy Light
‘I say we should kill her.’ Bernard’s looking grimmer than I ever remember, the runes on his sword shining and shifting in the torchlight of the huge chamber.
‘Let’s not be hasty,’ Fitheach says scratching his cheek. ‘Mercy is a virtue.’
Elizabeth is glancing desperately from one to the other of us, hoping we’ll let her go, I guess. Finally, I say, ‘We need to kill her.’
Bernard grins while Fitheach frowns heavily and turns to study me like I’m a stranger.
She groans, lowers her head and says, ‘I might have known. Well get on with it.’
I raise a finger. ‘Will you be our spy?’
She briefly lifts her head to meet my eyes. ‘To prove my loyalty? I guess that’s why you’re asking.’
I nod. ‘That, but I genuinely want to have someone on the inside that can tell me what they know and what they’re plotting against us.’
Her lips set tight, and I continue. ‘But you have to die or else they’ll want to know how come you got out while all their bigger and tougher guildies died. Do you think Maligon will trust you if you say you just walked out?’
‘I don’t want to go back there anyway.’
I tilt my head. ‘If you want to be with us like you said, then the only future where that can happen is one where King Arthur wins. We’re weak now in the north.’
Bernard grumbles, but it’s true. We all know it.
‘So we need an advantage and you being our spy in their ranks will be an advantage.’
Fitheach sees where I’m going with this. He says, ‘I agree, we should give her a chance.’
Bernard still isn’t convinced, I can tell by the hard set of his face and the way he’s holding his sword. He shakes his head. ‘Fitheach, you give people too many chances.’
The saint says, ‘That’s why I’m a saint.’
I say to Elizabeth, ‘But we’ve still got to kill you.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she says, then more plaintively. ‘I do want King Arthur to win. A world run by those sadists and monsters not one I want to play in. But I love the game. I love the setting.’
‘So help the King. Help us defeat Satanus and Maligon and all the rest.’
She nods. ‘Very well. I’ll do it.’
‘I’ll send you a personal message when we need you. And if you’re loyal to us, I promise you a place in Camelot when it’s restored.’
‘Okay.’ She looks at Bernard. It’s obvious he’s going to be the one doing the deed. I nod at him and he plunges the sword into her. The runes on his
blade trigger and she’s poisoned and blinding and bleeding and dead.
Her ghosts rises from her corpse. She looks sad, but then she’s gone back to Carrionburg where she is most likely bound.
Fitheach looks sternly at Bernard. ‘Did you enjoy that? Killing a defenceless woman?’
Bernard sheathes his sword and wipes his brow with the back of his hand. It’s hot down here. ‘No,’ he says finally. ‘If she’d been trying to kill me, that’s different. I actually feel lousy about it.’
Fitheach’s still looking stern but he says, ‘And that’s why you’re on our side not theirs.’
As we walk back everything’s resetting and re-spawning. We meet Tye coming down the long corridor to his chambers. ‘You got them all?’
I nod.
Bernard says. ‘I didn’t like killing her—‘
‘—Murdering her,’ Fitheach butts in and Bernard sighs heavily.
‘You were saying,’ I say. ‘Go on.’
Bernard turns to me. ‘But I don’t trust her.’
I say, ‘Neither do I completely. Don’t worry I’m not going to blurt out secrets. She could come in useful in our quest.’
‘Which quest?’ Fitheach says.
‘The Quest of the Jabberwock.’ Since we spoke to Lancelot about it, the quest has appeared on my quest tab, waiting for me to take it.
‘Goodness,’ Fitheach says, ‘There it is.’
Bernard shakes his head. ‘The AI of this game is scary in how predictive it is.’
‘I agree. It’s almost like it’s listening to us.’
‘Yew, that is scary,’ Tye says. ‘I don’t like the idea of a sentient game.’
Bernard says, ‘So are we going to take the quest?’
I say, ‘I want to work out who’s best to come. I had hoped Lancelot would lead, but that isn’t going to happen now. It’ll take him too long to come north again through enemy territory. I think we should just go ourselves.’
‘I’m down for that,’ Tye says.
I grin. Of course he is.
‘And me,’ Bernard says.
I glance at Fitheach. The saint is looking thoughtful. ‘Someone should stay to look after the dungeon. But I really want to see Cuthbert.’