In Service of the Pharaoh (League of Losers Book #2)

by Michael Atamanov

  The monster didn’t attack, just cocked its head curiously at these adventurers who dared challenge it. Golden cat’s eyes with vertical pupils closely tracked Sergeant and the Philosopher as they headed in opposite directions, but the monster remained passive for now, save nervously twitching its twenty-foot-tail side to side. But when the veyer flapped his wings and flew up toward the ceiling, the manticore stretched out like a cat expecting a fun game. Its eyes sharpened, it licked its lips and adjusted its wings.

  “Careful! It’s about to take off!” Sergeant shouted and started running forward, axe in hand, trying to draw the guardian of the ancient catacombs to attack him.

  But the manticore had no desire to play with the human. A jump, a sweep of huge wings, and the giant creature was chasing our Thief. Avir Tan-Hoshi screamed like a little girl, clumsily flipped backwards head over heels and only through some miracle avoided a bite from terrible teeth and a whip of the tail. But the pursuit had only just begun, and the giant cat was in the mood to play aerial catch. Landing feet-first on the wall, the beast instantly turned and bounced off again, launching a new attack on the veyer as he flew as hard as he could to the other side of the hall.

  A crossbow string thrummed — the Swordmaiden hit the fiery manticore with a bolt to the stomach. Only then did I recover from my strange stupor and get to work. Curse Magic! Slow the enemy! Slow! Slow! Slow!

  Curse Magic skill increased to level seventy-four!

  Stealth skill increased to level twenty-six!

  I planned to deprive the manticore of one of its main strengths — speed. But even at level seventy-four (and with the Shadow Hexxer class bonus, that was actually ninety-four), my Curse Magic spells had almost no effect. Just like with the giant megasaurus before, the target’s size mattered, and my magic was extremely weak against the large creature. I redoubled my efforts, casting one Slow after another on the manticore. Avelia hadn’t stopped shooting either. She’d already put half a dozen bolts in the target, but it didn’t even seem to notice them.

  The veyer successfully evaded the claws, teeth and tail once again, although the flames still scorched him. Avir Tan-Hoshi threw off his burning cloak in flight and went into a sharp dive, pulling up only just before he hit the floor. I didn’t know if it was by accident that the Thief brought the fiery manticore to the Philosopher, or if he planned to switch the beast’s target, but that’s what happened. The massive winged body landed with a crash a couple of paces from the human, catching our Diogenes with a wing and knocking him over. The fiery manticore watched the human for a few seconds as he got to his feet, groaning in pain, but it seemed to think this toy uninteresting and switched its attention back to the fast winged Thief, now already hovering beneath the ceiling.

  At that moment, Sergeant ran up to the manticore, swung his arm as far back as he could and buried his axe in the gigantic cat’s side. The manticore roared in pain and instantly turned to face this new danger. Sergeant began to raise his weapon to strike again, but the monster was faster. It lashed its tail, flinging my master fifteen feet away and sending him rolling across the floor. The axe clattered from his hands, his helmet and heavy armor flying off as he landed.

  Coughing up blood, the Beast Catcher pulled himself up to one knee and groaned in pain, clutching his apparently broken right arm to his chest. The manticore didn’t attack, just watched as the injured man stood with a great effort, then, leaving droplets of blood in his wake, began to stagger toward the exit from the arena and the still ajar gates, where the Philosopher had already managed to make his escape. Uh-oh… Just one hit and our ‘tank’ seemed to be out of action. The beast didn’t try to stop them from running, just watched in disappointment as the winged veyer flew after them through the gates — apparently, he too decided that the manticore would catch him eventually and it wasn’t worth tempting fate.

  Only Avelia and I remained. Although our allies had left, the Swordmaiden kept firing her little one-handed crossbow at the massive winged cat, although I could see clearly that her weapon was dealing no damage to the guardian of the ancient ruins. But even those little needling strikes annoyed the creature. It turned its gaze to its final opponent remaining in the arena. The guardian turned toward where the shots were coming from, loosed a fearsome roar like a lion. The roar boomed around the hall, echoing endlessly off the walls and blocking up our ears.

  Luck check failed!

  Magic Resistance check successful!

  ATTENTION! Your character is stunned! Duration: 120 seconds.

  ATTENTION! Your character is shell-shocked! Agility reduced to 3. Movement and action speed reduced to one third. Duration: 120 seconds.

  I didn’t know which debuff I’d avoided, but plenty had found their mark. And worse, I was knocked out of stealth, and so was the Swordmaiden. Now that the manticore could see the enemy annoying it, it folded up its wings and galloped toward us!

  Luck check failed!

  Agility check failed!

  Damn it… I couldn’t keep hold of the girl’s shoulder as she rolled away. I flew to the floor. Having learned from previous painful falls, this time I landed on three legs, keeping my wounded one up. I wasn’t too successful — I still fell on my side, but at least I didn’t worsen my old injury. A heavy clawed paw landed a mere inch from my face, singed my whiskers with fire. I was lucky it didn’t crush me.

  Choose the learnable skill Tenacity for your character?

  Tenacity like defense against fire and other non-physical stuff? No need. Right down at floor level, I barely felt the heat from the manticore’s flame aura. It didn’t even drop my health. May the battle continue! Stoneskin on Avelia, and on me too! Slow on the manticore! Another Slow! I even tried Icy Touch, since the target was so close.

  Elemental Magic skill increased to level twenty!

  Woah, it actually worked! The fiery monster must have had a weakness to ice spells. The hot flames wreathing the guardian fell! The giant beast, until now trying to grab the swiftly dodging Swordmaiden with his teeth and claws, roared again (thankfully, my deafness prevented me from getting any new debuffs) and turned sharply toward me. A tooth-filled maw yawned above me. I flinched, expecting imminent death. Looked like this was the end…

  But the beast just cast an indifferent gaze at the tiny kitten, then started to turn its head in search of the true foe that dared cause it pain. I was terrified of drawing its attention, but it was just too tempting to hit it with cold again. Especially since Avelia was taking advantage of the situation — she took out a dagger and drove it into the guardian’s scorpion tail. She had to demonstrate great feats of agility and acrobatics a second later to avoid furious sweeping wings and tail strikes. In any case, the Swordmaiden got the manticore’s attention. My turn!

  Only first, I needed to prepare. Darkness Aura to at least somehow hide me from the creature’s gaze and make up for my lack of stealth. Incorporeal Beast form. And finally, a combined spell — Icy Touch combined with Weaken!

  Elemental Magic skill increased to level twenty-one!

  Transformation Magic skill increased to level fourteen!

  Conjurer skill increased to level five!

  The gigantic monster roared in pain and stared at me with a strange expression of surprise and mistrust. It seemed the creature couldn’t believe that the tiny little critter next to its paw could be the source of its suffering. Taking advantage of the unexpected breather, the Swordmaiden… did not attack again, but shot for the exit from the arena with incredible agility. What? She was abandoning me?! But while the manticore froze, glancing first at the escaping prey and then at the tiny kitten, I used my battle-tested combined spell again!

  Conjurer skill increased to level six!

  Mysticism skill increased to level twenty-six!

  Your character is now level twenty-seven!

  Reward: three skill points (total available: twenty-six) and one mutation point (total available: twenty-six).

  My mana was restored, and just in tim
e, too — now I’d really gotten the fiery manticore’s attention. Uh-oh! One of the creature’s giant paws was coming down on me! I covered my ears in fear, preparing for pain and death.

  What? I’m still alive? I couldn’t believe what had happened. Although yes, while I was still in my incorporeal form, I was practically invulnerable to physical attacks, and the guardian had lost its fire aura. Shame the invulnerability didn’t last long — just thirty seconds, like any other transformation. Somehow I didn’t want to check whether the spell had a cooldown time. Time to get out of this arena! I bolted for the half-open gates. Alright, ‘bolted’ might not be quite right. With the debuffs to my movement speed and Agility, it looked like a slow-motion film. The beast tried to attack me with its huge paws, teeth and even its tail a few more times, but got another Icy Touch in response and backed off. It flew back to the center of the hall, sat down on its haunches and started licking its wounded paw with an offended look on its face.

  The first round, such as it was, had ended in a draw — we hadn’t defeated the guardian, but at least we were still alive.

  * * *

  The big oafs had a long meeting. They were all in a bad mood, and even my Soothe didn’t help. First of all, they bound their wounds. Thankfully, Sergeant’s arm wasn’t broken, just badly bruised, which wasn’t a problem. The big oaf’s Regeneration could handle it. Then they counted their remaining crossbow bolts. The Thief had twelve in his quiver and the Swordmaiden had just four. And she’d already managed to spend all her throwing knives, though I didn’t know exactly when. As it turns out, the white-haired girl wasn’t just dodging the manticore’s attacks as I suspected, but also counterattacking in response. The sherkh Swordmaiden was some fighter, that was for sure! Although her skills in battle still weren’t enough to defeat the guardian of the ancient ruins.

  While our fighters rested and went over the mistakes of the last battle, the Philosopher came downstairs and soon told us that the bridge we’d built across the gap had already fallen and there was no way back because all the planks were on the other side of the drop. It soon became clear that there was no way out except through the fiery manticore.

  Radar Ear skill increased to level twenty-six!

  My fur bristled, my ears pricked up — I felt sure I heard careful footsteps from the direction of the stairs. Strange. All the group members were here in front of me. A false alarm? An echo? I strained my ears, but the sound of distant footsteps was gone. I must have imagined it. Anyway, my master distracted me by starting a new conversation.

  “It’s going to be hard to kill that thing. But we could try to take away the guardian’s Stamina Points. I still have some of the sapping potion left,” Sergeant suggested, digging around in his backpack.

  He took out a folded faded leaf, unfolded it and looked doubtfully at the remnants of the dark brown mixture. There was only a tiny amount of the mixture of the red villus mushrooms left, barely enough to dip a few arrows or just one blade. Not enough to work.

  “How have fiery manticores been defeated before?” Avelia asked. “I get the impression humans are familiar with this creature.”

  Sergeant just shrugged his shoulders vaguely, unaware of the answer and apparently thinking of something completely different. The Philosopher answered for him:

  “In one of the legends, the hero jumps onto the creature’s back, provokes it to attack him with its tail, then jumps out of the way so that the beast kills itself with its own venom. In another, I seem to recall a strong pet fighting a manticore… I think it was a dragon. I can’t seem to recall any other cases. Hey, Sergeant, where are you going?”

  My master stood up suddenly and walked toward the arena entrance with purpose. The Beast Catcher stopped, turned.

  “I want to try something. What if Hundred Skull City is something more than just a load of ancient ruins? What if the traps here are specially tailored for each person? We came here in a group, right? And Hundred Skull City presented us with challenges to suit each one of our group members. All of you — Thief, Swordmaiden and Philosopher — have been able to use your skills to help the group make progress. But there hasn’t been anything for me. What if we have this wrong? What if the fiery manticore isn’t our enemy to fight together, but my challenge? A challenge for a Beast Catcher?

  Avelia and Diogenes exchanged confused glances, but couldn’t find any objections to Sergeant’s words. As for me, I thought my master’s reasoning was perfectly logical. It made sense — our group had no chance to defeat such a dangerous high-level monster with brute force. What if we really did need to take a different approach to this challenge?

  “And if I’m wrong…” Sergeant continued, smiling awkwardly, “well, the game system often tells me that my character doesn’t have enough Intellect. It’ll just be my punishment for being an arrogant dumbass.”

  I jumped onto my human’s shoulder, showing that I approved of his decision and planned to go with him. Sergeant turned toward the arena again, but Avelia Un Ponar shouted him back.

  “Wait!” The girl ran up to the Beast Catcher and stopped a step away. “Sergeant, your ‘league of losers’ has gone beyond my zone of responsibility. After the challenges in Hundred Skull City, our paths will diverge, and we may never meet again. But no matter how it all ends, I want to tell you — I admire your bravery and nobility. And this is for luck!” The long-eared Swordmaiden raised herself on her tiptoes and kissed the boy, then blushed and moved away, disappearing into stealth.

  “Thank you, Avelia!” Sergeant said to the empty air, then turned and walked decisively toward the dangerous manticore awaiting him.

  Now that no flames emanated from the guardian’s body, the hall was dark. Only our companions’ flashlights behind the gates barely banished the impenetrable darkness. That and the manticore’s glowing orange eyes. The beast still lay in the center of the arena and barely reacted to the human’s approach, just turned its face lazily toward the returned enemy. The human took ten paces forward, stopped, showed his empty hands.

  “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just here to talk. You must get bored, alone in here all the time. The only entertainment you get is when the occasional adventurer wanders through, and all they want is to hurt you. Right?”

  The human slowly walked forward, step by step. The manticore raised its upper lip, baring its fangs, but did nothing else. Still no flames appeared.

  Soothe skill increased to level twenty-six!

  Sergeant walked almost right up to where the gigantic creature lay, sat down beside it. He shook his head as he examined the arrows deeply embedded in the manticore’s body, along with three knives driven up to the hilt into its chest.

  “Will you let me ease your pain? I can pull out those dumb knives, if you want.”

  Without waiting for an answer, the human carefully pulled one of the throwing knives by the pommel. The fiery manticore growled, nervously twitched its tail, but didn’t attack. Sergeant threw the bloodied weapon away and reached for the next one. A fearsome roar stopped his outstretched arm.

  “What’s wrong?” the human asked quietly, calmly, looking the monster right in the eyes. “It’s alright. It’ll be over before you know it!”

  Sergeant pulled the second knife from the beast’s chest and threw it away too. Then, ignoring another growl of displeasure, he pulled the final knife from the manticore’s body. Then he carefully stroked the thick fur on the neck of the gigantic half-lion, half-scorpion creature. I figured my master must be using Calming Touch at the same time. The manticore voiced no objections.

  “I told you it’d feel better. Manticore… Uhm… Manny, I’m going to try and pull the arrows out too, but it’s gonna hurt a lot worse. Will you let me?”

  The human rose and walked around the huge beast, but the manticore suddenly stood on all fours and turned, preventing the human from reaching its vulnerable stomach. Its dangerous tail moved and the venom-tipped stinger gleamed in the light of the flashlights.
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  “Alright, Manny. Not the arrows, then. But what else can I do? How can I help you? If I had meat, I’d feed you. But what would a steak be to you? A mouthful. Anyway, you’re a magical creature. You probably don’t even need to eat.”

  I noticed that Sergeant had leveled up to twenty-one. So far, my master’s plan seemed to be working — the game algorithms approved of his behavior. Now the human needed to somehow press his advantage. Sergeant continued to talk to the dangerous beast.

  “What do you want? Entertainment? Of course, you must want to stretch your legs, have some fun. So why sit here alone? Come with us and leave these boring catacombs! There are lots of birds you can chase up there, and plenty other fun things to do. We’ll play so many games… More than you can imagine! We’ll explore all kinds of places. And if you let me fly on you, then we’ll be kings of the sandbox! All the pharaohs and sherkh leaders in the world won’t stop us. Nobody will stop us! And once we get bored of hanging around here, we can go out into the big wide world! We’ll even find you a nice lady manticore! You’ll have little winged kittens and they’ll play with Whiskers. Just make sure they don’t hurt my pet, he’s only little!”

  Soothe skill increased to level twenty-seven!

  Sergeant was talking total crap, but his even calm tones seemed to be working on the beast. The manticore stopped twitching its tail and laid back down again. It even turned its face to present the other side of its neck for stroking. Suddenly, I realized — the noises the beast was emitting weren’t growls of displeasure, but a pleased guttural meow like a big cat.