by M J Sweeney
That done, I cautiously explored further. Adjoining the corridor on this side were two more rooms. Inside each room was a great number of small alcoves at set heights, basically round holes set into the wall. Each alcove had an old elven symbol—maybe numbers?—carved above them. Kind of looked like stone sleeping cubicles, only goblin-sized. Beside each row were some hollowed stone handholds, obviously to climb up and down like a ladder. As I peered inside one cubicle, I could see at the back what looked to be a round metal plate. It seemed that was probably where the sound of the alarm came from. I had a sense this might have been worker’s quarters back in the day, but I couldn’t see anything of particular value.
Walking back to Marcus, I gave him a thumbs-up.
He nodded gratefully. “I got experience from that for sure this time. Shall I try the next lot?” he asked.
“Sure. Was fairly easy.”
This time, I stood on the far pressure plate and waited for Marcus to set off the alarm. It went much the same. He was a little slower than me, and took a few weak blows, but was otherwise fine. He used the last of the holy jars of oil, so we wouldn’t be doing this again in a hurry. We’d also have to see if the zombies respawned at the same rate as the other risen—if that was the case, we’d have to find another way to burn them in future.
At the end of this set of rooms—the western passage—which was not quite identical to the eastern side, there was also a dead end. I’d been expecting stairs going down, or maybe more corridors leading elsewhere, but nothing.
“Damn,” I said. “Surely that can’t be it?”
We again searched the rooms—everything we’d seen so far—from entrance and stairs first going down, to the first set of meeting rooms, small dining room, circular garden rooms, and lastly these workers quarters. And that was it.
“You said you read some notes on this place?” Marcus asked.
“Yes. But there wasn’t much info. It did say there were mini-bosses and a boss. And I don’t think anything we’ve encountered so far counts.”
“Yeah… let’s keep searching.”
When we came back to the dining room, Marcus noted something interesting. “You see the statues around the wall?”
“Yeah. Looks kind of incomplete. Like they didn’t have enough stone to finish them,” I commented.
“Right… two gaps here and here.” Marcus pointed. “About two metres.”
“Yeah, it does look odd.”
“Right. And does anything else in this place actually look incomplete? I mean, look at those blade traps. Silver-steel that’s still sharp after all this time?”
“Yeah, good point.”
We got to searching the spaces between the statues, and with a few thuds of his hammer, Marcus soon found a hollow spot. With a big grin he gripped a near-invisible stone handle and pushed a large doorway open. Secret door!
“Nice!” I congratulated him. “That was well done.” He grinned even more. As we still had plenty of time, we continued on.
Chapter 15
The corridor curved around and then forked to the right and left—one passage going steeply down and the other slightly up. We took the upper passage and found it ended in a small storage room, now mostly devoid of anything except old timber boxes, looking ready to fall apart. As there were no spirits or moaning wind inside, it might be a convenient resting place, sealed away as it was from the rest of the ruins.
The steeper corridor kept turning to the right and ended in a stone door, not dissimilar to the larger entrance—it was finished with a smaller carved Quadrinity symbol in the middle. It was also locked tight. I was about to say ‘Cylvai’ again, but stopped.
“I want to try something, or you rather.”
“Yes?”
“I want you to try it. Touch the door and say the name of your God. I’m curious if it opens.”
He frowned dubiously at me. “And if a lightning bolt from Cylvai strikes me dead, what then?”
“You’ll go to heaven having had the name of God on your lips.” I smirked at him.
He shook his head at my humour. “Funny man. Okay, sure, why not.” He held his holy symbol. “Aras!”
Nothing happened. We looked at each other. I did the same and said, “Cylvai.” The doors grated and creaked and slid open obligingly.
“Interesting,” Marcus observed.
The stairs kept turning to the right, clearly tucking under the upper rooms. The next corridor led to a massive banquet hall. Here we found all sorts of mess, with bones and dust scattered throughout. There were a few large golden candlesticks on the huge stone table (tempting, but no thanks, cursed treasure), expensive-looking wine glasses, most of them broken, a couple of gem-encrusted goblets (be still, sticky fingers, be still) wooden debris, but also a couple of wooden chairs that looked strangely fossilised (some weird effect from being in ancient undead ruins?), and a massive chandelier that had smashed to the floor, scattering glass and brass links everywhere.
The sense of ominous presences was a lot stronger here than upstairs. It felt like every little shadow was hiding a spectre of some kind. My hair was constantly prickling, and my elbow leaves on high alert—so much so that I had to ignore them completely. We did our best not to touch anything, though occasionally we did, and each time the moaning and wind increased. Once or twice I could see a ghostlike hand snatch out at whatever we had bumped, scream “Mine!” and disappear. I jumped more than once, my spear at the ready, but nothing further occurred.
The next room—a large kitchen—was even more of a mess. Broken pottery, old knives, pots, pans, wooden debris, you name it, were all scattered everywhere. There were fewer bones in here, but it was still not empty or clean by any stretch. There were also a set of three massive cast iron ovens that looked otherwise serviceable—one of the only things in the place that wasn’t decayed or destroyed.
The next small corridor from the kitchen led to a set of closed-in rooms with three or four old doorways from each wall, some still with doors attached. This area was dimly lit, unlike the rest of the gloomy place. I couldn’t really tell where the light source was coming from—maybe from the ceiling—it just seemed to emanate out with a dull, lifeless radiance. Marcus’s priest light was a lot brighter and cheerier. Most of the walls of these rooms had more statues carved into them, each one gloomy and gothic. Some of the walls were also partially collapsed, with holes so I could peer though. Statue heads and limbs also littered the stone floor.
As we entered the first room, I could hear talking ahead. It was ghostlike and elvish, but also sounded rational. I couldn’t understand the words, though, so I looked at Marcus. He shrugged, then loosened the thong of his hammer a little and rolled his shoulders, swinging the thing slightly in preparation. All right then, I thought. We both had Holy Aura activated, so we strode through the next room and into another—to confront four well-dressed elven spirits sitting around a table playing cards. Their faces were haggard, flesh sunken and grey and melted like wax in a fire, their eyes dead and all black. There was a large golden candlestick on the tabletop, an eerie blue light emitting from its empty holder.
The four jumped up when they saw us, yelling something in olde elvish. The two closest to us promptly disappeared, knocking their seats over, and the other two menaced us with weapons. One, who looked to be the major-domo—well-dressed, pencil thin moustache, and goatee—snatched up the large candlestick, and the other pulled out a large machete from his stained apron. He appeared to be the head cook.
Both spirits howled when we started to approach, and two dark auras expanded out in a circle. I felt goosebumps along my arms, then a creeping sense of trepidation and doom that quickly passed. It seemed to be some kind of fear attack, but we both shrugged it off.
Marcus and I ran to meet them; I faced the cook, he faced the major-domo. As we closed and our Holy Auras affected them, each one seemed to diminish slightly. After instantly activating Breath of Life, I engaged and dodged its first two swings. Marcus
landed a Smite, but took a hard blow from the candlestick in return. We traded blows like this for a moment, while I was more defensive. Then I found my rhythm, with Marcus on my left defending my flank, and landed two smites of my own, driving the cook back. He seemed to be a better fighter than the major-domo.
Then the two other spirits returned. Oh, the pain. A short sword pierced my lower back and kidney and out the front. I couldn’t seem to breathe. As I dropped to one knee in weakness, the elf-rogue howled in my ear, his sword pulling out of me with an awful wet sucking. The cook had dropped back, but was quick to hack at me again with his machete. I deflected feebly and activated Heart of Oak, slowly rising to both feet. Marcus had not fared much better—a dagger pierced his side. Both rogues disappeared again. Damn.
“That one!” I yelled, thrusting at the major-domo instead of the cook. Marcus was quick to heal himself and join me, his hammer cracking down on the spirit’s shoulder, and it crumpled with a howling wind. I was able to dodge the cook despite my wounds. “Backs to the wall,” I said, before the rogues could reset themselves and attack from behind.
I kept on full defence mode while Marcus healed me. In my group view, I could see he was a bit over half-health and I was just below, even with his heal. But my health was steadily increasing, with both heal-over-time ticking over. I continued to defend while Marcus smashed with his hammer.
Once again, the rogues attacked from stealth, their weapons piercing. This time they were less effective, as we knew they were coming, but it was still bad. The sword strike pierced my armour, but not nearly so deeply this time. I kept defending with light but sharp thrusts at the cook’s torso. His machete did not have my reach, so he had trouble getting past my guard. Before the rogues could disappear, Marcus abruptly expanded his light spell, causing the brightness to flare and dispelling all shadows.
I was temporarily blinded, but the spirits fared worse. The cook dropped to his knees, and the rogues writhed with one hand over their eyes. Marcus was quick to capitalise on that, smashing the cook flat and activating heal on himself once more. I was on about one-third health, but I activated Frenzy and aimed some rapid heavy smites at the closest rogue.
Marcus then healed me again, and said, “I’m out,” meaning he had no mana left. As both elf-rogues recovered, we both laid into the one with the short sword. It managed to land a few feeble strikes on my leather, but we smashed it down. The one with the dagger did not flee or fade, but swiftly attacked Marcus. Its dagger was fast and deadly—Marcus took a few bad blows to his weapon arm and in the vulnerable spots around his breastplate. But the creature was not strong enough against two. It crumpled with a howl. We both stopped and caught our breaths.
“Gods…” Marcus gasped. “Intense.”
“Yup.”
Casting Breath of Life, I touched Marcus’s shoulders, and passed the healing energy to him. And then I was out of mana. After a few minutes’ wait, I cast it again for myself. Marcus’s mana was also renewing, so he healed himself once more, and me again a minute later.
“Two rogues and two warriors…” Marcus said. “Nasty little set up, in small rooms like this. Even against a full party of six, that fear affect would be nasty if you were running around panicked getting back-stabbed by the two rogues. Gods, this world is great.” He grinned maniacally.
“You’re mad,” I said, “but I agree.” I checked the logs and read: Level 12 and Immortal Warrior Spirits, two level 15 Immortal Rogue Spirits.
As they were each considered champions, we had both received bonus experience. I had missed the fanfare and trumpets in the heat of battle, and was now level 15.
“Hey, I levelled up.”
“Congrats!” Marcus said.
“Thanks. Let’s see what stash we can grab.”
On the rogues, I found a small pouch of coins—old elven silver and a few copper. They both had quality leather boots, and one had a gold necklace. They wore nice clothes, if a bit aged, plus one shortsword and one dagger. None of it looked particularly special or magical.
Marcus checked the other two and brought over two rings from the major-domo, an embroidered pair of silk slippers, and the machete from the cook. The slippers actually appeared magical, giving off a faint tell-tale gleam. That was it.
“What about this?” he asked. He bumped the dented gold candlestick with his steel toe.
“There’s no howling wind. Let me pick it up, and you get ready to smash anything that appears.” Gingerly, I picked it up. Nothing happened. “Cool.” It was quite heavy, and whether it was solid gold or only gold-plated, I was sure it would still be worth something. I stuffed all of that in my Bag of Holding. We examined the rings. One had a green stone and one was just a gold band.
“Can’t tell if they’re magical. You?”
Marcus shook his head. “No, not like the slippers. In any case, they’re worth coins.” He grinned.
I looked over at the table and saw there were neat stacks of coins on it—small stacks of copper and silver near each hand of cards, and one small stack of zorb. It looked to me like one of the rogues had been winning. Curious, I put one hand near a pile of coins and carefully reached out and touched one. No reaction. I picked up a silver. Nothing. Grinning at Marcus, I pocketed the coins, keeping them separate from my usual stash. I also picked up the deck of cards when I got no reaction from that.
“We’re rich!” he said.
“Ha. Not really. But with this loot, we can at least upgrade some gear, no?”
“Can’t wait.”
We decided to rest for a little, drink some water, and eat some strips of dried bacon. We still had at least an hour before the respawn. After a quick look at my new ability points—I had three active and two passive ability points now available—I chose to keep all those aside until level 20. I should be able to upgrade all my level 2 abilities to level 3, so better not waste points now. Plus, I didn’t want to make Marcus wait while I dithered around.
I examined the pack of cards. It looked like it had only three suits, each one coloured red, white, or blue. On the back of each card were three intertwined circles: the coloured Moons, White Ei, Red Maor, and Blue Iss. The pictures on the front were quite detailed as well.
“Hey Marcus, does that look familiar?” I held up one card.
“Yeah, that’s Aras, handsome fellow.”
It depicted his God dual wielding sword and axe, with a black beard and black hair in a ponytail. He was leaping in mid-air, face contorted with a war cry, and about to smite some poor creature off the edge of the card.
Some cards had ‘Major Arcana’ written at the bottom, each of those a Divine, and some had ‘Minor Arcana’ with all the major races (seelie) and most of the major monsters (unseelie). There were eighty-one cards in all—thirty-nine gods, twenty-one seelie races, and twenty-one unseelie races. It was quite a stack. I did find the numbers odd, for as far as I knew there were twenty-five playable races on character selection. I wondered where the extra four had gone. Then I saw that dark elves and dark dwarfs, plus orcs and goblins, were all on the unseelie cards, so that accounted for the difference.
Looking them over, I found a picture of Seti, the Ever-Young, holding what looked like a four-leaf clover and examining a muddy set of footprints that trailed off into the distance. She wore a red shirt and a bright gold dress.
“Ha, all the Divines and Races in a deck,” I said. “I wonder how you play the card game?”
“No idea. Maybe you can sell those to a rogue?”
“Maybe worth something, yeah.”
There was a deep ache in my insides, and I knew I would need proper rest to heal from the vicious backstab. My health was greyed out at one end slightly, a little less than a healthy maximum. Same with my stamina.
/ Impairment Status /
[Ruptured Kidney (Repaired) - 8% Health and Stamina Reduced until proper bed-rest]
I asked Marcus if he had the same message.
He nodded. “Mine is only 6% reduction,
though. I don’t think I had it as bad as you. Both of the tougher spirits attacked you; I’m thinking that wasn’t an accident. The smart ones tried to take out the one they thought was the biggest threat.” He smiled.
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short. Without you, I’d have been shish-kebabed.”
“Yeah… I guess so.”
Looking at my interface and stats, I saw I had four points to distribute this time, as per every five levels. After righting one of the chairs, I sat down. I allocated three points into intellect and one in vitality. Once again my body and perceptions of the world expanded a little; this was quickly becoming addictive. Such a rush to feel my consciousness expanding like that. It was also becoming a bit of a routine. Eventually, I wanted to shift the points I was putting into intellect and really boost charisma, but for now, it was fine.
“Allocating stats feels good, eh?” Marcus commented.
“Almost too good…”
He frowned at that thought, but didn’t comment further.
/ Cordaen Sequoia / Level 15 Warrior-Priest /
STR 22
INT 30
AGI 35
VIT 33
CHA 24
LCK 21
Health: 924 (+40%)
Mana: 690 (+15%)
Stamina: 640
Pushing up from the table, I got up before losing myself in the interface and sub-menus. “Okay, let’s just check the next few rooms. If there’s a lot more to explore after this, we’ll have to consider going back up top before respawn.”
“I’m in favour of continuing on, even with the respawn. Given our two healing abilities, unless one of us dies, we can easily kill the mobs up there even if we’re impaired.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
There were nine rooms in a square in our current location, with one corridor branching from the last room—it curved to the right and gradually sloped downwards. There was nothing else but debris in the other rooms. I looked at Marcus and he shrugged, so we went on and down.