Chapter Twenty-Four
“DON’T YOU THINK it’s kind of weird?” Hailey asked as she advanced along another of the branching corridors. “I mean, from what you guys said, the morphkin had closer to animal intelligence than human.”
The woman gestured toward a stone wall where a sculptor had carved a mural. On it, a procession of humanoid creatures were frozen in a tableau of daily life, building, eating, and standing in conversation. None were in the midst of a transformation to animals, which made Devon wonder whether the human manifestation of their nature had some sort of disdain for their other form.
Or maybe that was just her projecting her disdain and shame over a similar transformation she was struggling over.
“Maybe their level of intelligence varies as much as their shape,” Jeremy said. “Anyway, the chisel marks look fresh to me. I think the human forms are new. The whole morphing situation probably kicked off when Devon woke up the magic.”
“Maybe,” Torald said. “Or maybe they had the power long ago, and now it’s returning. Fresh chisel marks or not, I think it’s clear their intelligence hasn’t been awakened in the same way as their shapeshifting.”
Of course he would say that, seeing as they had plans to massacre any resistance on their way to the awakening stone. His vows as a knight of the faithful would probably make it difficult to slaughter intelligent beings if the corruption was temporary.
Devon dropped her head and sighed. She needed to start being more charitable.
“Actually, I think you’re right, dude,” Jeremy said. “That’s got to be why my Mind-bender abilities are fizzling.”
“What do you mean? Mind-bender?”
“It’s my unique class. Confusion, fear, over-confidence. Basically some cool crowd control. But most of the abilities only work on intelligent beings.”
While the men were talking, Hailey glanced back and met Devon’s eyes. She seemed to be wondering why Devon wasn’t contributing to the conversation. After all, cleansing the awakening stones would represent a big step forward in securing the region.
Devon might have cared a few weeks ago—a few days ago even.
Right now, all she really wanted to do was avoid another demonic episode. She glanced at the dwarf toddler as he broke into a dead run, stopped ten paces later, then squealed as he pointed his warhammer against the corridor’s stone floor.
The impulse to hurt him still echoed, and it was all Devon could do not to retch at the thought.
“Dev?” Hailey asked. “You look pale. What’s going on?”
Devon hesitated, and almost brushed the question away. But all at once, her willpower broke. She couldn’t keep her fears inside any longer. “I don’t think I should be here. The transformation…”
Hailey stopped walking. The seeker planted her hands on her hips. “You warned us, remember? We accepted that you might turn into a hellish beast, and now we’re here. What’s the worst you can do? Kill us and send us to our spawn point?”
The rest of the group stopped as well, and Devon scanned their faces. Except Bravlon—who was invulnerable—the NPCs were all advanced, meaning they could be resurrected at the Shrine to Veia. Players, of course, would be transported to their bind spots and afflicted with the death penalty. Yes, Hailey was right. The worst she could do was kill them, probably in a twisted way so they’d suffer first. Bravlon would see a group of stuffed animals waging a laughter-filled cuddle fight or something, so she wouldn’t have to worry about causing him psychological damage. And if he were left alone after a group wipe, he’d probably toddle back home.
So yeah, not so bad.
She’d been trying to tell herself she should leave out of concern for her friends. But what she really meant was that she wanted to escape for herself. What if Bravlon’s Adoration spell didn’t work next time and she actually tried to attack him? What if she tore Hailey and Jeremy limb from limb, reveling in their pain? How could she move on from there? How could she lie down to sleep at night without dreading the nightmares to come?
“Because whatever you end up experiencing today,” she muttered to herself, “Owen will have a hundred times worse.”
“What?” Hailey said. “You have to speak up.”
Devon shook her head. “It’s nothing. Just…”
She trailed off when she spied motion behind her friends. Perhaps noticing the sudden widening of Devon’s eyes, Hailey spun. At the far end of the corridor, filling it wall to wall, was a mob of gray-fleshed creatures. They walked on three legs and two, scuttling forward, lips pulled back from pointed teeth. Most raised creepy wooden shivs.
“Incoming!” Devon shouted as she shoved mana into her Wall of Ice. The frozen barrier slammed into place, sealing off the corridor and trapping one of the creatures in its icy depths. The morphkin stared out from its prison, dull shark’s eyes unreadable. But the snarl on its face said what its eyes hid.
“I suppose I won’t scold you for casting before I grabbed aggro. Just this once.” Torald winked as he stepped toward the barrier. “Just try not to steal all my thunder.”
A smile tickled the corner of Devon’s mouth, but it couldn’t infect the rest of her face. She stepped back and laid a hand on her doublet, ready to activate Night’s Breath once the ice wall shattered.
***
“More fuzzies!” Bravlon shrieked with joy as yet another wave of morphkin tumbled down the hallway toward them.
Devon leaned against the wall, shoulders sagging, as she watched Torald step with tired strides into the monsters’ path. They’d mowed through at least a hundred of the demented beasts, and the sight of so many human-looking dead was starting to press on her psyche. It seemed likely that these poor creatures had lived peaceable—if simple—lives until her efforts in restoring Ishildar had sent power to the awakening stones. Of course, what would have happened here if she hadn’t arrived? What if there were no Champion to wake Ishildar as a center of power in the coming battle against Zaa? To hear someone like Shavari tell it, demons would boil through rifts in the earth, obliterating all of Veia’s creations.
Or maybe Ishildar wouldn’t even have existed if she hadn’t spawned here. Maybe another location would have become the nexus for the forces of light.
Devon shook her head, confused. The game created stories for its players. Without the players, there would be no story. Without the story, there would be no reason for Zaa or Veia or any of this suffering to exist.
Considered that way, she couldn’t see any good in her choice to log in and experience the world.
But without the players—without her—the settlement and possibly even the citizens of Stonehaven wouldn’t exist. How would her followers feel to learn she regretted logging in for that first time?
Devon felt like she could chase these thoughts in endless circles.
She’d gone totally emo.
“Dev?” Jeremy asked as he played a short riff on his harmonica and smacked a partially-transformed muskrat in the face with a whipping motion of his accordion.
“Sorry.” She shook free of her thoughts and finished her spell combo, conjuring a lightning-based Shadow Puppet. She sent her creation far down the corridor into an otterball that was still out of range of the group. Her Night’s Breath ability was up again, and with gritted teeth, she activated it. Nearby rodents fumbled the next strikes as the accuracy debuff took hold.
Darkness spilled across her mind, and a longing to please Zaa gripped her spirit. At least she could distinguish the sensation now. Her demon-self remained penned within her mind, and now that she recognized its presence, she could control the impulses it generated. But the fact that it had broken through earlier gave her some hope. If the darkness inside could influence her before the transformation, maybe the woman inside the demon could do the same.
Her Shadow Puppet plunged into the group of otters, and electricity arced over the group. Singed animals dropped from the mass, and steam rose from their fur. Th
e survivors shriek-howled and focused on her. Devon cast a glance at Torald, who just shook his head.
“Slow learner,” he muttered.
Smirking, Devon dropped a Wall of Ice between the otterkin and the group. “You can handle grabbing a few slightly-pissed-off adds, right? Or is that too much challenge for your tanking skills.”
The man snorted. “With Veia’s blessing, I could withstand the ire of every monster in the dungeon. I must only prove myself worthy of her greatest regard.”
Hailey caught Devon’s eye as she dropped another Guide Vitality spell on the paladin. She shrugged, then stepped close. “Takes all kinds, right?”
Devon laughed, too quietly for Torald to hear. “I guess it does,” she whispered.
You receive 2200 experience!
You receive 1800 experience!
The experience messages flashed past as a pair of beaver-morphs—merely human-sized, not the gargantuan sort who had flattened half the player camp—fell to Greel’s flying leap and simultaneous kick and punch. The lawyer straightened his shoulders, looking far too pleased with himself.
“Yay! Bell!” Bravlon squealed.
“Bell?” Jeremy asked.
Hailey cast a glance at the toddler. “I heard a faint chime. I think he…dinged?”
“Level four,” Dorden said with a grin. “Told ye. If we bring ‘im on enough of these ventures, the lad will be halfway to hero class by the time ‘is first whiskers sprout.”
Again, he raised his eyes to the ceiling and muttered a prayer. Devon caught the words, “thick like a tangle of brambles, bushing from ‘is chest like foam spilling over a mug o’ ale.”
A beard like beer foam? Dwarves were weird.
Distracted by the toddler’s power leveling, Devon forgot to focus on her Wall of Ice, and the frozen barrier shattered with a crash. Otters came streaking down the hall, their sinuous movement broken into awkward crawls when they shifted toward human and back.
Torald gave a beleaguered sigh and stepped forward, the horde of muskrattons he’d already engaged leaping at his ankles and calves like a litter of rabid puppies. He stomped on one while setting his stance and drawing breath for another battle cry.
“He’s even worse than me own husband,” Heldi muttered as Torald let fly with another flowery burst of role-playing.
“I heard that, woman!” Dorden shouted. “Don’t think I don’t know what ye say about me battle fervor.”
Jeremy raised an eyebrow and played a few bars from Eye of the Tiger.
Sighing, Devon scanned the oncoming otterkin in search of one she could pick off. She called down a tier 2 Flamestrike near the rear of the pack, delivering a killing blow while splashing nearby attackers with tongues of flame. The burning otters squealed as they morphed and writhed, their shouts turning uncannily human with the shift.
She shuddered. The sooner they found the awakening stone, the better.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“IT’S AWFULLY QUIET,” Hailey said.
“Too quiet,” Jeremy continued, looking way too pleased with himself.
Devon rolled her eyes and crept forward. They’d been climbing for the past half hour or so, leaving behind the stonework in the lower reaches of the burrow and ascending through woven sticks and packed mud. Side chambers held what looked like nests. In the flickering light from her Glowing Orb, Devon spotted tufts of cattail down and other bedding. Fortunately, no young were in evidence. She doubted that any of them could force themselves to massacre infant morphkin, corrupted or not.
She placed her feet carefully, aware that her Stealth was probably the worst in the group—even Bravlon moved more silently than she did, especially with his parents shushing him at every opportunity. She shivered as a wave of unease passed into her. Jeremy might be annoying with his “clever” remarks, but he was right about the silence. It was frankly creepy, the kind of quiet that, in some games, was followed by an automatic save point—the sure sign that a horrendous boss fight loomed.
Devon took a deep breath. The air smelled of animal musk. Scratch and drag marks marred the floor where creatures had walked when the mud was wetter. She paused for a moment, dropping to a crouch to feel a set of deep parallel gouges.
“See these?” she whispered. “Something big has been through here.”
You have gained a skill point: +1 Tracking.
Even the toddler could figure that out. Consider this a “pity” skill-up.
Devon brushed the message popup away with a quick flick of her eyes. “It wasn’t like anyone else bothered to mention them,” she muttered.
Maybe some people understand the concept of not stating the obvious.
At the front of the group, Torald stood with feet planted wide, eyes peering into the corridor ahead. Despite everything, his armor still managed to reflect the light from her orb, making it harder to pick details from the darkness beyond. He had an ear cocked and had raised his mace in preparation to strike.
As Bravlon started toddling forward, the group seemed to shake off the sense of foreboding.
Greel sneered and muttered to himself as if disgusted with the moment of weakness. Straightening her shoulders, Devon pushed down the disquieting urge to snarl and slap him for that same weakness. She took a shaky breath and made sure to wrap another layer of awareness around the demon stirring in her mind.
She followed Torald as he advanced along the corridor, the paladin’s strides only slightly less confident than they’d been in the lower reaches of the den.
After another couple of turns, a stretch of tunnel led to a wide opening and vast chamber beyond. For the first time since entering through the underwater tunnel, natural light filtered through the woven branches and mud, still quite dim, but in the faint glow, Devon spotted a large pillar of what looked like stone. Cut into organic-looking shapes, it towered over the earthen floor.
As the group crept closer to the tunnel mouth, and Devon’s Glowing Orb added blue light to the lances of sunlight that fell through the ceiling, she realized that the carvings on the pillar were of animals and people, faces and figures ascending the column. It reminded her of a Native American totem pole.
“What do you guys think?” Jeremy said. “Looks like an awakening stone to me.”
Quest Updated: Drowned Burrow
Seeing as the former denizens of this place were awakened, it seems likely that the Drowned Burrow would be a good place to find an awakening stone. Go there, and you might actually find a way to fix this issue.
Objective complete: Search the Drowned Burrow for an awakening stone.
Bonus Objective: Cleanse the stone of its corruption.
The other group members glared at Jeremy’s sudden and careless words, his voice having sliced through the silence.
He shrugged and widened his eyes. “What? Do you see a boss in there? Seems to me we’re just about done here.”
Devon peered. No, she didn’t see anything but the stone pillar, an earthen floor, and scattered piles of sticks. But that didn’t mean they were safe. Across the chamber, additional dark openings yawned in the walls. Any one of them could hold a boss.
“Veia’s armpit, man. Show some care,” Greel hissed. “Do you think I want to repeat the journey that brought us here if you get us killed?”
Sighing, Jeremy rolled his eyes.
“Fuzzy!” Bravlon said abruptly.
“Shit,” Hailey said.
“You see,” Greel said with a beleaguered groan as Heldi dashed forward and scooped up her son.
From around the far side of the pillar, a small figure emerged. The human-like creature moved awkwardly, almost scuttling as it dropped an arm to the floor to support its weight. A mop of short, pelt-like hair fell over its brow. Flat black eyes stared out from beneath.
The figure opened its mouth and let out a stream of garbled sounds, the first attempt at speech they’d heard.
“Well… I hope you enjoy eating your wor
ds,” Jeremy said with a snort as he adjusted his grip on his accordion. “I don’t think we’ll have much trouble with this one.”
Hailey, however, remained stock still. She squinted intensely at the figure.
“Hailey?” Devon asked, remembering the woman’s elite Combat Assessment skill. As a seeker, a class based in looking at the true nature of things, she gained much more information on potential enemies than the rest of them.
“She resists water, but we knew that already,” Hailey said quietly. “But…uh…can anyone here hit a level 37 enemy?”
“She?” Dorden bellowed. “Ha! That wee thing! She’s scrawnier than a human female.”
“Wait, level 37?” Jeremy said at the same time.
Greel shook his head. “I should have known better than to head out with a group of cotton-headed starborn.”
The figure advanced a few more shambling steps, revealing that she was indeed female. Beneath her fur clothing lay the unmistakable suggestion of breasts and hips.
“Ah, blight,” Torald muttered.
“What?” Devon asked.
The man pointed across the chamber to the other openings where a few lights had appeared. The dancing sparks appeared to be a mix of torches and magical conjurations.
“So not just a level 30 boss. A level 30 boss and a couple dozen lieutenants…” Devon said.
“Well, I guess it’s not like we just have one life to live. Once more into the breach?” Jeremy asked, raising an eyebrow.
Devon smirked. He had a point. “Okay. It’s on.”
As the boss continued to babble and gesticulate, Torald squinted at the tunnels. “Can you seal the tunnels, Devon?”
Inching past the chamber’s entrance and shook her head. “Just one. I can’t have multiple walls active.”
Torald planted his feet, eyes locked on the boss. “One is better than none.”
Citadel of Smoke: A LitRPG and GameLit Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 4) Page 20