“I’m not saying we go back,” Mira said, annoyed. “All I’m saying is there’s a good chance we’re going to die in there.”
“Oh, THAT’S all,” the dwarf said sarcastically.
The barbarian laughed. “The way you people are talking, you would theenk you’re actually go-ink to die for real.”
Simik squinted up at him. “What strange religion do you Hurokians have, that you believe you never die?”
“It’s called a monthly gaming account, doot.”
“…what?”
“Never mind,” Daniel interrupted, and exchanged glances with the others. “We are here… and Eric could be inside…”
“Screw Eric, mahn,” Drogar growled. “I want treasure.”
Daniel shot him a disapproving look. “What about Lotan? We need to find him, too.”
“Vahtever, doot. If he’s swimm-ink, he’s happy. And if he’s dead, he can haf a sixth of whatever we pull out.”
“Again with the ‘nobody ever dies’ nonsense,” Simik muttered.
Daniel noticed Drogar’s choice of words. “What about Eric? It should be divided up into sevenths.”
The barbarian laughed once, without any mirth in his voice. “Yeahhh… IF he didn’t sell us out. Which I’m kind of doubt-ink.”
Daniel opened his mouth… but couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
Because I think he might be right.
Mira shrugged. “Might as well check it out.”
“Vlisil?” Daniel asked.
“We came all this way. It’d be stupid not to go in,” the goblin answered.
“Actually, it would be stupid not to leave,” Simik argued.
“I think you’ve been overruled,” Daniel told the dwarf.
“When was I ever not?” he snarled.
“All right,” Daniel sighed. “Let’s do this.”
And he walked through the giant gates, leading the group into the darkness.
61
Eric
Guided by his spell light, Eric used the staff he took from Merridack to make his way through the ruins – up broken stone steps, through convoluted passageways, past sepulchers and crumbling temples.
Not all the crypts were empty, either. He kept a circle of demons around him at all times, and at the appearance of anything suspicious, dispatched a bodyguard to deal with it.
A trio of rotting, pointy-eared ghouls attacked him and were immediately cut down.
An elephant-sized, octopus-tentacled horror slithered out of another structure. That one he tried possessing. When that didn’t work, it took the deaths of ten demons to force it back into its hole.
There were other minor annoyances, but finally he reached the top.
As he’d seen from the shore, Stonehenge-like structures ringed a flat, open space.
What he couldn’t see from the shore were the thousands and thousands of bones that made up the ground. Broken, split, pulverized into pieces, and only occasionally intact, bones formed the terrain beneath his feet, just like the pebbles had formed the shores of the lake.
He suspected that the bones made up the core of the entire island. A single glance revealed everything from orc-sized femurs to the delicate hand-bones of… elves? Fairies?
…children?
In spite of himself, Eric shuddered.
He was literally standing on an island made of death.
In the center of the clearing was a rough-hewn block of obsidian. Its shiny surface was marred with gouges and nicks, probably from axes and swords.
There was no doubt within him that this thing was an altar… and that it had been used for blood sacrifice.
As though to confirm it, the bones around the altar were stained a deep rust red.
But he gave all of that nothing more than a passing glance. No, the thing that caught his eye was the perfectly round, luminescent blue sphere that sat atop the altar.
The Orb of Therot.
It glowed in the light. Its surface glittered – maybe even pulsed.
He walked over to it with a mixture of awe and greed and stood spellbound before its beauty.
The thing spoke to him, he was sure of it. It was like a memory rather than a true voice, but he understood it all the same:
…take me… use me…
He put out his hand to touch it… hesitated…
…TAKE ME… USE ME…
…and then touched its surface.
Something like an electrical shock ran from his fingers, up his arm, to the very core of his body.
POWER.
Pure, unbridled power.
He gasped, his face contorted in a mixture of agony and ecstasy. Merridack’s staff slipped out of his grasp and clacked! onto the ground.
When he had grown used to the thrumming, buzzing sensation circulating inside him, he picked up the orb in his left hand. With the right he unpacked the Demonomicon and set the book down on the obsidian altar.
The lock clicked and the cover flipped open on its own.
He placed his right hand on the pages –
Up until that moment, he realized, everything he had experienced with the book had been nothing more than a trickle.
NOW he felt the full force of its power.
It was like he was the human conduit between a fire hydrant and the hose.
Power raced through his every limb and felt like it would explode out of his skin.
Black ink an inch thick rushed over his fingers and hand, gushing like a fountain.
Voices whispered all around him, then rose in volume until they howled like a thousand winds –
And then everything went silent.
He looked down at his hand. The liquid ink was gone, but now his hands were tattooed with words… ancient words that had not been spoken by anyone other than sorcerers for the last 10,000 years.
Not just his hand, either. He pulled back his sleeve and saw tattoos there, too. He lifted his shirt –
Every inch of his skin was marked, like parchment scrawled with black ink.
He turned back to the Demonomicon and flipped to the end.
Every last page was filled with words and pictures.
It was complete. Finished.
All of its creatures were now available to him to summon.
He looked at the orb in his left hand. It seemed to pulse against his skin as though alive.
How should I carry it with me?
A voice inside him whispered, Pick up your staff and I will bear it for you, Master.
He picked up Merridack’s staff.
“Karthotis immoxik,” he said, and from out of his sleeve slid a loathsome black thing. Half shrimp, half squid, it slithered up the staff to the end. The squid-like tentacles wrapped themselves and hardened around the tip of the staff, and the spindly legs opened up like a claw.
Eric gingerly set the orb within its grasp. The insectile legs closed and clutched the sphere, then hardened with an audible kkrrrkkk sound. When Eric tried to pry it loose, the Orb of Therot was fixed as firmly as though it were encased in steel.
He smiled, then laughed, unable to contain his dark joy.
Then a voice spoke behind him – a real voice, not one in his head.
“W-what are you doing?”
Eric whipped around in surprise.
There stood Lotan, carrying a shining crystal, dripping with bloody water and trembling at the top of the steps.
62
Daniel
They silently entered a massive room. Not a cavern, but a room, with carved stone pillars ten feet in diameter that stretched endlessly into the darkness above.
The group spread out and moved silently amongst the columns, straining their eyes into the darkness beyond their glowing crystals.
The first thing they saw was a reflection – a shimmering light that rippled in the darkness, like a bioluminescent tide on a pitch-black ocean.
Smaller sparks of light glimmered here and there, like lightning bugs flashing briefly on a summe
r’s night.
“…is that what I think it is?” Vlisil the goblin whispered.
“Wait,” Simik ordered.
He reached into his satchel and pulled out several torches. Clutching them all in one hand, he lit them with a flint. As soon as they burst into flames, he threw them out into the darkness.
The torches clinked on massive snowdrifts of yellow metal, which tinkled down musically in glittering cascades.
Gold.
Twenty-foot-tall dunes of gold coins, stretching hundreds of feet into the darkness.
Diamonds big as a baby’s fist.
Emeralds… sapphires… rubies…
There were other things, too, half-submerged in the piles of gold:
Suits of armor.
Golden chalices.
Swords.
Shields.
“Holy crahp,” the barbarian murmured.
“Oh my God,” Mira whispered.
Daniel couldn’t say anything. He was entirely overwhelmed.
Vlisil, though, wasn’t quite as restrained.
“WE’RE RICH!” he whooped with joy.
Drogar picked up the goblin and started twirling him in the air as they both shouted, “WE’RE RICH! WE’RE RICH!”
“SHUT UP, YOU FOOLS!” Simik roared.
His voice echoed over and over in the darkness.
…you fools… you fools… you fools… you fools…
Everyone grew quiet.
“We have no idea what’s IN here,” the dwarf hissed.
They all stood still as statues, anticipating something horrendous from the dark.
A rumbling growl… the slither of tentacles… the snapping of jaws…
It never came.
After a full minute of silent waiting, everyone looked at the dwarf.
He relented, though grudgingly. “Stay close – and be watchful.”
They all spread out to look at the riches twinkling in the firelight of the torches.
Daniel sank his hands into a nearby drift and pulled them out. Coins clink-clink-clinked back out onto the pile like golden drops of water.
“Throw me in, throw me in!” Vlisil begged. Drogar reached down, picked him up, and hurled him effortlessly atop a 20-foot-pile.
“Wheeeeeeee!” the goblin squealed as he slid all the way down on his backside in a shimmering cascade. “I’m Scrooge McDuck!”
“Who’s dat?” the barbarian asked.
“You don’t – ?” the goblin asked, confounded – then decided he’d rather play than explain. “Never mind. Do it again, do it again!”
As the barbarian kept throwing the goblin like a football into the heaps of gold, Daniel walked through the mounds of wealth, staring all around him in wonder and awe –
Until something caught his eye.
It was a suit of armor, bright silver against the shining yellow. It lay in pieces, with portions of the arms and legs sticking up out of the gold.
The helmet was a beautifully crafted dome, all one piece, with a surface as sleek and delicate-looking as a silver bell. There was no hinged visor for the eyes, only a T-shaped gap for the eyes and nose and mouth.
He reached out for it thinking, It must be heavy as hell.
But the helmet was as light as if it had been made of paper.
He frowned. Surely it’s got to be weak, then.
But when he tried to bend it, the metal was as fixed and immovable as steel.
He took his sword and struck the sharp edge against the helmet.
The sound of metal tapping fine crystal rang out and echoed throughout the hall.
Daniel looked around guiltily, sure that Simik was going to appear and furiously whisper Shhhhh! like some tiny, bearded librarian.
But no one came.
Daniel slipped the helmet on over his head –
It fit perfectly.
Not only that, but a list of stats came up:
Enchanted Armor
Quality: Epic
Durability: 20,000/20,000
-98% to physical attacks below 500 hit points
-90% to physical attacks above 500 hit points
-100% to magical attacks below Level 15
-50% to magical attacks above Level 15
+20 Endurance in extremes of heat and cold
“Whoa,” he whispered.
The gold was spectacular to look at, but he couldn’t shake the reminder that it was all a computer simulation. Beautiful, yes, but otherwise only good for paying for experiences… like this quest.
But this armor was more valuable than anything else in the room, as far as Daniel was concerned.
He hurried to put on the rest of the pieces.
It felt light as silk, and as easy to put on as regular clothes. The arms and legs snapped magnetically into place against the torso.
The benefit of designing something in a computer game, he mused. You can make it as unrealistic as you want.
A message came up:
Add armor to inventory?
He tapped ‘yes.’
Then he tried walking, thinking he would sound like a bunch of pots and pans clattering all together –
But the metal was whisper-quiet. His jeweled scabbard even hooked neatly into place on the suit of armor’s belt.
Too bad I’m going to have to give it back, he thought somberly.
He walked back out amongst the drifts of gold coins, eager to see what the others had found.
Mira was about a hundred feet away, her back turned towards him.
“What did you find?” Daniel asked.
She glanced over her shoulder – then whirled around, startled.
And immediately pulled back an arrow in her bow.
He realized he’d just snuck up on her in a suit of silver armor, his face obscured, sword out.
“It’s me, it’s Daniel!” he said hurriedly, holding his left arm up in surrender. He kept his right arm low, figuring it wouldn’t be a good idea to hoist the sword in the air.
Mira looked at him in shock, then lowered the bow and eased up on the string. “You scared the hell out of me!”
“Sorry…”
“How the hell did you sneak up on me wearing that?”
“You like it?” Daniel looked down at his silver-clad arm. “Magical protection, quiet, and super light.”
“Wow,” she said, clearly impressed – then grinned. “Look what I found.”
She held up the bow. At first he didn’t see what the big deal was. It seemed to be an ordinary bow, crafted from some pale wood.
Then she relaxed her draw on the string so that it went back to straight – and the arrow disappeared.
“What the hell?!”
Mira laughed and pulled back on the string. The arrow magically reappeared.
“It’s enchanted. Any time I draw on the string, voila – more arrows.”
She pulled back on the string and released three times in rapid succession – twang, twang, twang. Three arrows shot fifty feet fwip fwip fwip into a nearby dune of gold, where they disappeared into the coins until only the feathers where showing.
“Holy crap,” Daniel marveled. “How many arrows do you have?”
“They have to regenerate, but basically an infinite amount. My old quiver was the same, but I actually had to nock the arrows before I fired them, and it took a lot longer for them to regenerate.
“With this bow, I don’t need a quiver, and I can fire up to 30 arrows back to back without running out. After that, it takes three seconds to regenerate per arrow. And they’re powerful. +100 damage on limbs, +200 on torso, and +300 on head or neck.”
Daniel whistled. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.”
She laughed, then grew serious. “This bow is worth more than anything I could carry out of here – probably more than the entire group could carry out if we had wheelbarrows. You can’t buy something like this out on the open market for less than ten million gold.”
“This armor’s the same way. I don’t e
ven know how much you’d have to pay for it.”
Suddenly, Drogar’s happy roar came from behind, followed by a metallic avalanche. He’d shimmied up a nearby pillar, then dived off and belly-flopped in a pile of gold. Twenty feet away, Vlisil was splashing coins in the air like a baby in bathwater.
“Of course, there are some dumbasses who just like shiny things,” Mira said.
Simik’s angry voice came hissing out of the mounds of gold. “Quiet!”
Chastened, the goblin and the barbarian stopped their noises – then looked at each other and began to giggle.
“I think I’ll go see what Simik’s up to,” Daniel said.
“Good thing your armor doesn’t make any noise, or you’d be in for an ass-whupping,” Mira said.
Daniel grinned as he walked away.
He threaded his way through the mountains of gold and headed in the direction of the dwarf’s voice. As amazing as this place was, Daniel wanted to leave as soon as possible.
They had to go find Eric. He obviously wasn’t here, and every second that passed was making Daniel more and more nervous.
He might have died and respawned…
Daniel checked his messages, hoping for a text.
Nothing.
He knew it was against the spirit of the quest – the whole point was to experience the mystery and the drama of it all – but he tapped out a quick message anyway.
Where are you?
He pressed the translucent ‘Send’ button midair to send it.
If he’s respawned, he should answer right away.
But no answer came, and he became more worried than ever.
He comforted himself with Eric’s favorite saying:
It’s only a game.
No harm could come to him in here – or to any of them.
It was only a game.
Daniel found Simik several hundred feet away in a clear patch, staring at a series of statues half-buried in gold.
The statues were like nothing else in the room. They were made of iron, for one. There was nothing inherently valuable about them, other than the undeniable artistry with which they were made. They were life-sized images of dwarves – nine in all. Their features were stern, forbidding – majestic. Some were dressed as warriors, with intricately sculpted chainmail and horned helmets. Others looked like they had just stepped away from the forge, carrying hammers and tongs. One held a scroll out in front of him as though reading a proclamation. There was even a female dwarf, covered in battle armor and wearing an iron crown.
Shattered Lands: A LitRPG Series Page 26