by Sean Davies
“Of course, I’d only be taking you into custody,” Alice said, looking to Ricardo’s small group of mercenaries, “so your friends here would be free to go, unless they tried to intervene.”
The adventurer wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead. “It’s not that simple. You’d need a Book Wielder, for a start.”
“We have a volunteer,” Alice replied quickly.
Stern swore under his breath. “My manager and publicist both agreed we should stay out of it, especially after the deadly losses.”
“Our ranks were cut to ribbons,” the armoured Mage said gravely.
“Explain,” the Lord Imperator demanded, already knowing she’d won. “From the start, please.”
“Don’t go spreading this around,” Ricardo began, letting out a defeated sigh. “We made our way past the initial traps and were all set to scope out the pillar’s interior, when a Vampire Nightclaw rushed ahead and tried to gain access, even though some mocking mechanical voice told us we weren’t going anywhere without a Book Wielder.”
“Dan ‘the Sabre’ always had to be first into the action,” the armoured Mage said in annoyance, “no matter how many fucking times we told him to stay back.”
“He was a pain in the arse, but a bloody good swordsman,” the younger armoured human added.
“He accidentally triggered the pillar’s defences as he was trying to get a magic elevator working. Everyone was filtering inside the main chamber, so dozens of people were evaporated in a flash,” Ricardo continued grimly. “We convinced the Tropican forces to withdraw, but they wanted us to head back to Azalea… and we knew she’d convince us to return.”
“So you ran?” Alice interrupted disapprovingly.
“The publicity would’ve been awful,” Ricardo exclaimed. “We scattered, and then my team suggested heading back into the Deep Vein Oil channels for an easy buck. We got some good snaps, but when we got back up near the surface, we noticed an entrance to a small chamber.”
“And it contained a secret Catacomb entrance?” Alice assumed, putting the pieces of the story together.
The adventurer nodded. “One of our guys stuck his head into the portal… and his head didn’t come back out. Then the portal changed, and a little girl and a robed creep strolled out. It was definitely your old pal Theodore Miller. They didn’t pay us much notice as they were busy chatting to each other, but we freaked out and legged it inside the portal, hoping that it wouldn’t disintegrate us.”
“Then we lost another dozen-odd people from the tunnels’ traps,” the Mage said, looking irritated.
“This is Az Hillia, by the way,” Ricardo said before finishing his drink. “Leader of the Swords of Fortune mercenary group. The ranger is his son, Kyle, and the other knight is his son too—Kieran ‘the Warrior’.”
The Hillia family nodded coolly to the Justiciars and let Ricardo carry on with his reluctant tale of their recent misfortunes.
“I’m Till Vanderborg, by the way,” the hairy Werewolf mercenary added drunkenly, clearly annoyed that no one had introduced him. “You know, there was a time when I—”
“Keep a lid on it,” Az interrupted gruffly. “Remember, you’re representing our organisation right now.”
“Somehow, the few of us ended up in eastern Tropica,” Ricardo continued on. “There was a massive Archmage city—”
“I think Azalea would’ve noticed an entire Archmage city on her precious continent,” Alice cut in with a disbelieving frown on her face.
“It’s shielded,” Kyle the Ranger explained. “You can’t see shit from the outside.”
“And you don’t think that knowledge would’ve been useful to anyone?” the Lord Imperator replied, deeply unimpressed.
“It’s not a real city, it’s mostly empty. It reminded me of one of those Great War bomb test sites the continents used to have, with all the dummies and fake furniture,” Ricardo said defensively. “We thought it would make a great piece, until we investigated an elevator at the heart of the city. Then it was like the pillar all over again. We all agreed to stay off the radar, and here we are. So, in summation: the pillar is lethal, the secret Catacombs are lethal, and so is that Goddess-damned city. So, thanks, but no thanks. We’re going to stick with easy ruin-runs from now on.”
“As much as I’d love to leave you in this cesspit,” Alice said dryly, “we need your expertise to get our people into that pillar. A lot could be riding on it. After you’ve got our Book Wielder in and safely to whatever it holds, you can cut and run again, or you can stay in the limelight and get even richer from the best story of your career—I really don’t care. I’ll be needing the coordinates of that city, too.”
Ricardo clenched his jaw and looked around to Az for support.
“I want that pillar cleared, for the sake of our lost people,” Az, the armoured Mage, admitted.
“Same,” Kyle added. “The Swords of Fortune are famed for being kick-ass, not cowards. But you’re the one who pays our bills.”
“We can do it,” Kieran said resolutely. “We’ll need to get the others together, though. Archmage ruins are filled with things you don’t want to face without a team.”
“Fine,” Alice said, pleased that the mercenaries had more professional pride then their financier. “You’ll have two troopers from the TMF, along with three of my own, to add to your squad—and to make sure you stay on track,” Alice added, giving the adventurer an icy look.
“Doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice now, does it?” Ricardo sighed, unimpressed by the whole matter.
“Not when the fate of the world is hanging in the balance,” Alice replied flatly.
✽ ✽ ✽
On the other side of Gloomingdale, Genevieve, Constance, and Joran and Olishia of the Tropican Military Forces waited for a convoy of Spidercars to stomp, by and then crossed a wide crumbling road on the way to Quoronastra’s tower.
“This place makes the shadier parts of Wastewater Isle look tame by comparison,” Constance said to Stitches as she eyed the shifting shadows of a nearby alleyway, convinced that she’d seen something glaring at her from beneath the lid of a massive dumpster.
“I hear it’s about as close to the original Gloom as you’ll find these days,” Stitches replied. “Complete with the same old Freaks, monsters, and mutants lurking out of sight.”
Genevieve tapped the hilt of her Katana nervously as they skirted around a rattling manhole. “Well, I’m packing Spell-forged steel if they try anything,” she said bravely for Connie’s sake, but she truly hoped the violent denizens of the Gloom stayed out of their way.
Constance picked up the slight hint of fear in the Vampire’s voice and smirked. “Not scared, are you?” She turned her head slightly to obscure the creepy alleyway from her vision.
“I’ve spent years listening to Chloe’s horror stories about the Gloom, not to mention the Shadow Circle Book Wielders who crossed over in Fort Dominia,” Genie replied. “So I’d say I was more cautiously aware of the Gloom’s inherent dangers than afraid.”
“I like it when you show off your literary skills,” Constance said with a smile. “You sound so inspired.”
“Thanks,” Genevieve replied with a meek grin; her beloved Annabelle had always said the same. “You’re clutching your book awfully tight. Is that a comfort thing?” she remarked, hoping to change the subject.
“Well, you never know when you’ll need to learn an extra spell or two,” Constance replied awkwardly, both dejected from her brushed-off compliment and annoyed that Genie had spotted her own nervousness.
Joran and Olishia loudly unloaded and reloaded the clips of their rifles making Genie and Connie jump, and then proceeded to laugh hysterically.
“Sorry, we could not resist,” Olishia said, wiping away a tear of mirth with her armoured forefinger.
Genevieve and Constance glared and pouted at the two Tropican troopers, and quickly tried to compose themselves.
“It was quite funny,” Stitches
admitted, which earned him a pair of scowls from Genie and Constance.
They passed by several posters of Winston Reynolds, all of which looked like a cross between a political party’s propaganda and a religion’s depiction of their deity, and Constance smirked reflexively before remembering the state he was in.
“I hope the Winston recovers soon,” Stitches said earnestly, looking up at the renditions of his hero with a deep-seated reverence.
“Do you think Veronica has made any progress?” Constance asked.
Genie patted the concerned Book Wielder and Alternative on their shoulders. “He’s going to be fine. If you knew Veronica like I do, then you’d be more concerned about the poor fuck on the receiving end of her wrath. Once, some chick called Mary at the Hotel Noir tried to split her and Winston up, while spreading vicious and compromising rumours about her and Lucius—”
“What did V do?” Constance interrupted eagerly.
“Veronica lured Mary and Winston to her room, tied her up, shaved her bare downstairs, and…” Genevieve trailed off like she was reaching the pinnacle of a campfire ghost story. “Well, let’s just say Veronica saved her a fortune in haircare costs after that night,” the Vampire concluded, tapping the shaven side of her head.
Constance clutched her hair and gasped. “No way…”
“Veronica cut off Mary’s head?” Stitches assumed wrongly.
“No, she shaved all her hair off,” Constance corrected.
“It grows back, though,” Stitches frowned. “They should’ve done something more permanent,” he added, touching one of the posters before him and bowing his head respectfully.
“It’s a pretty big deal, Stitches, especially if you value your hair,” Constance explained with a shudder as she imagined herself bald. She knew she didn’t have the right face to pull that look off, although she imagined wistfully that Genevieve would look gorgeous whatever style she chose for herself.
“I wouldn’t want to be your enemy,” Genie told him as they continued along the filthy pavement.
“Don’t worry—I’d never even wish harm, not even in jest, against Connie’s lover,” the Alternative said reassuringly.
Both girls stiffened and said nothing, causing Stitches to let out a sigh of confusion and exasperation.
“All the weirdness in the Gloom is less confusing than you two,” the Alternative remarked, as Genevieve took the lead by a noticeable distance and Constance dropped back to accompany Joran and Olishia.
The group turned the corner of a crumbling grey apartment block and saw the Dragon’s tower sitting at the heart of what once would have been a small public park but was now a well-ordered garden, lit up with purple-flamed sconces and filled with a dizzying array of flora locked behind a tall wrought iron fence.
Quoronastra’s home was a marvellous tower made of smooth stone blocks that were painted black, purple, and white, with arched stained glass windows that matched the colour scheme. It widened near the top and ended in a curved dome, crowned with a bizarre ring of spiked antenna and a gigantic, multi-lensed telescope pointing diagonally upwards towards the dark swirling clouds above. Although it was not the tallest building around, it was certainly one of the most prominent and attractive structures in Gloomingdale City.
“Wow, I can’t wait to look inside,” Stitches uttered, hungry to explore. “And the outer garden looks like an Alchemist’s dream come true!”
“I’m just glad it smells better than the rest of this rank pit of a city,” Joran scoffed.
“I still think we should have gone back for our helmets,” Olishia said, “or at least pegs for our noses.”
“It’s a shame the flowers on your armour aren’t real,” Connie joked.
“Every sweet scent in Tropica could not drown out the smell of this place,” Olishia groaned back.
“Alex said we have to ‘knock’ on the gate,” Genevieve announced loudly, ignoring the others and still leading the way.
Constance felt like she had to say something about their murky standing with each other, and caught up with Genevieve. “Hey, you got a sec?”
“Now’s not really a good time. We’ll catch up when we’re out of Gloomingdale,” Genie replied with a half-hearted smile, and began fumbling with her silver locket out of habit.
Connie frowned and grumbled; she’d been trying to keep her best side out for Genevieve, but her patience was wearing thin. “Look, I like you—a lot, and as much as I hate to make Veronica right, I feel like there’s something between us. My own intuition is prodding me towards you an annoying amount,” she began, with her temper creeping into her tone, “and I know this isn’t the time for a relationship, but being around you takes my mind off this crazy world-ending crap. And I know I’ve got nothing on Annabelle—”
“That’s not true,” Genie interrupted, giving Constance a sad look with her blood-red eyes. “It feels like I’ve moved on, until I start getting emotionally attached to someone. It sounds stupid, but it makes me feel like I’m cheating on Anna. We danced around our weird unofficial relationship for years, and then when I found out she loved me as much as I loved her, and we were finally going to be together, she was gone. What we had just stopped, but it never felt like it ended… if that makes any sense whatsoever,” the blue-haired Vampire concluded glumly.
“I get it. Your relationship was stolen from you, it makes total sense,” Connie replied, trying to stay on point while also showing her sympathy. “I just wanted you to know that I’m happy just to have a laugh with you while we still have the time, or what we did in the airship can be a one-off. It’s cool either way.”
“I…” Genie hesitated as the others in their group overtook them. “I don’t want it to be a one-off, but you might have to be patient with me.”
Constance felt slightly uplifted, and smiled.
“I actually feel better getting that off my chest,” Genie admitted, surprised at the difference speaking her mind had made to her mood. She had a bad habit of keeping her innermost feelings under lock and key.
“You guys coming?” Joran called from the gate.
“Yeah, hold on,” Constance shouted back.
The Book Wielder and Vampire Nightclaw made their way to the massive wrought iron gate, where Joran and Olishia were waiting impatiently and Stitches was peering at the garden beyond, and Constance was pleasantly surprised when Genevieve gently stroked down her arm and held her hand.
Stitches tilted his fabric head and smiled. “One day you’ll have to explain to me how relationships work.”
“We’ll fill you in when we know for ourselves,” Genie joked.
Olishia repeatedly stomped on a white cockroach bigger than her armoured boot that had burrowed out of a wide crack in the pavement, and gagged when the flattened bug leaked a puddle of thick green ooze that stank of compost. “Can we please get inside?”
“Right,” the Book Wielder said, getting her head back into gear. Her eyes scanned the thin curved and swirling metal bars for some sort of knocker. “Do I just hit it anywhere and hope he hears?”
“I guess so,” Genie shrugged, wondering if she’d misheard Alexander.
Constance put her book away in her handbag, and banged on the gate with both hands as hard as she could without hurting them too much. “Hello! Quoronastra!” she yelled.
The metal bars of the gate came to life, slithering like a wall of eels, until they had twisted and weaved themselves into the rough outline of a dragon’s face.
“What brilliant magic!” Stitches said excitedly.
The metal face regarded the group with its empty eyes and growled. “There’s no need to make a racket, you know. If you’re another pack of bloody thieves, sit tight, and I’ll be down to incinerate you shortly.”
“No, we’re not thieves!” Constance said quickly. “I’m the Book Wielder Alexander sent!”
The Dragon face looked from person to person, before growling disappointedly. “I was hoping Alex would come along too.”
“His wife wasn’t keen on the idea,” Genevieve explained.
“Oh, that bloody wife of his…” the face grumbled jealously. “Well, Book Wielder, you can come inside—and the Gloom dweller, if it’s tame. The rest of you aren’t welcome.”
Constance tensed her shoulders. “Excuse me?” she asked, highly offended by the Dragon’s tone.
Genevieve linked arms with the angry Book Wielder. “It’s okay,” she said, more to the gate image than to Connie. “We’ll just go back to Central Isle and tell Alexander that Quoronastra didn’t let us in.”
“Yes, he’ll be really disappointed,” Stitches added, turning away. “Especially after all that nice stuff he said about Quoronastra…”
“Fine,” the dragon grumbled. “You can bring the Vampire too. But don’t touch anything on the way up to me! Leave the two walking suits of armour behind—I won’t have them tramping through my garden and tower. Maybe they can help drive the packs of loonies away,” he mumbled, as the bars wriggled back into place and the gates creaked open
“You are not seriously leaving us out here, are you?” Olishia asked icily, sounding almost like Cherriesa for a moment.
“We could just shoot our way in?” Joran suggested, cringing as he kicked some yellow-eyed rodents with two tails away from his feet.
“Not afraid, are you?” Constance sneered, keeping her arm linked with Genevieve; she saw the situation as poetic justice for their earlier jump-scare.
Genevieve glanced back as she strolled into the garden with Constance. “You have such big rifles, you’ll be fine.”
“Yes, but they will not save our noses,” Olishia said miserably as the gates slammed shut.
Stitches, Constance, and Genevieve walked along the main pathway that led directly to the tower’s stone doors, passing by plots and trellises of Gloom plants first, and then mundane flora, and lastly the fully magical varieties that radiated a gentle glow. The doors slid open as the three friends stepped up onto the porch, and they headed inside to meet with Quoronastra in person.
The interior of the cylindrical tower was lined with fully-stocked bookshelves and display cases, and had a wide wooden staircase leading up to the next floor. Their way was illuminated by sconces containing arcane purple flames, like the ones in the garden.