The Wastes

by Alexey Osadchuk

  “Why explain? Better to show you! Shen!”

  “Yes, milord,” came the blackblood, on the lookout as ever.

  I must give the redheaded mage his due. He didn’t even shudder when Shen appeared. And no surprise. He is level forty-three after all. Tricks such as these are no novelty to him.

  “Is everything ready for the crossing over?” asked Chi.

  “Yes, lord,” Shen answered phlegmatically.

  “Where are you planning to go?” Ting inquired.

  Chi, still smiling happily, replied:

  “Well, first of all, not me — we. And second, it’s better to see a thing one time than hear about it seven.”

  Ting chuckled rakishly. Getting up from the table, he reached for a flagon.

  “Well, in that case! I’m not going anywhere without wine!”

  They laughed together and, embracing at the shoulder, headed to leave.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, we were on a small plaza in the manor’s internal courtyard. Other than the two mages, Shen and myself, there were four warriors laden with bales, baskets and boxes of rations. The fourth and healthiest was carrying a bulging barrel on his right shoulder.

  When Ting saw the food and wine, he smacked his lips in delight and took a swallow from his rather emptied flagon. Wiping his lips on a pure white kerchief, he finally saw me and frowned in surprise:

  “Is that bag of bones coming with us, too?”

  I was standing at a slight distance. On my back, a small pack of zero food. In my hands, a familiar raspberry-red little chest. Chi handed it to me with a smirk before leaving his study. May the abyss swallow him up!

  The master gave a careless wave and, with a surreptitious wink to me, answered:

  “Pay him no mind, Ting! The boy is carrying delicacies for us to eat.”

  The redhead shrugged his shoulders and got back to slurping at his flagon.

  Meanwhile, Chi pulled a small scroll out of his pocket.

  “A portal?” Ting asked with slight surprise. “Are we going far? I promised the missus I’d be back by dinner.”

  “Don’t you worry, old bean. We’ll have you back in fine form.”

  At that, Master Chi activated the scroll, which turned into thousands of glowing little sparks and dispersed, leaving behind a blurry arch the size of a normal door.

  “Okay then, let’s go!” the master proclaimed, walking first into the portal.

  And the redheaded mage followed calmly behind him, as if taking a relaxed stroll. A moment later the rest followed. Meanwhile, Shen pushed me lightly on the back.

  In the space of a second, we were transported to a stone platform on the tip of a huge rock. The wind was blowing from all directions and it was so cold and piercing I felt like the marrow in my bones was about to freeze solid. Ting’s calm showed a crack.

  “Where’d you drag us off to now?” he exclaimed, looking around in alarm.

  “Old bean!” Embracing him by the shoulders, Chi was laughing uncontrollably, joyfully. “Don’t you worry yourself so! We’re merely in the Wastes! I put lots of effort into creating this place! And today, you are the first to look upon my creation! I call it the Hive. Down there is my entire collection. It took me a long time to gather all these specimens! Rare magical beasts from all corners of our world! And now, this location will provide me a level of power you cannot even dream of! This is where the first stage of my ascent to the summit will begin! And I am offering to let you share a portion of my future might!”

  I turned my head, stunned and saw nothing but endless steppe in every direction. But what scared me most of all was whatever was resting there, in the bowels of the cliff. I finally realized what the nutty bastard had in store for me.

  “This way!” Chi said, pointing to a wide opening in the cliffside.

  But by the looks of things, Ting wasn’t going anywhere. He shook his head and said contritely:

  “They were right... You are losing your judgment and becoming dangerous! You spit on our laws and rules! And that cannot be! You make people into puppets and treat the nobility with arrogance. Your behavior is drawing too much attention to our Order!”

  Chi opened his mouth in surprise and looked at his fellow mage.

  “What are you saying my friend? My mind is clearer than ever before! It runs like clockwork!”

  But the redheaded mage wasn’t listening anymore. He breathed a heavy sigh and quietly said:

  “Forgive me...”

  A glowing object suddenly appeared in his hand. One sharp swipe and I found myself in a daze and watching another portal open. And gradually, figures enshrouded in black cloaks began to emerge from it.

  There were seven of them. All over level sixty. As soon as the portal disappeared, they surrounded Master Chi.

  It all happened so fast I didn’t even have time to blink an eye.

  “Ting!” my master cried out in a voice not his own. “What have you done, you old fool?!”

  The redhead was no longer looking at his associate, instead moving toward one of the dark figures.

  “What took you so long, Ting?” one of the strangers asked calmly, throwing back his hood.

  It was a tall bald man with sharp facial features. The powerful gaze of his black eyes stopped on Master Chi. In his turn, covering himself with a semitransparent dome, Chi shouted defiantly:

  “You doddering old backstabber! You set this all up?! Why have you brought a pack of Executioners here?! Have you forgotten the law?! You cannot execute me extrajudicially!”

  The bald man replied dispassionately:

  “Hm... Didn’t Ting tell you? The trial has already taken place, and a verdict has been rendered. You have been sentenced to death!”

  What happened next felt like a nightmare.

  As the old man said his last words, the dark figures lunged toward the reviled mage. With my characteristics, I couldn’t quite make out what was happening. It was just too fast-paced.

  Gradually conjuring a ball of lilac smoke around his fist with intricate hand movements, Chi gave a curt shout. Shen and the warriors immediately dashed out to meet the attackers.

  Suddenly, the earth shook and I heard a loud roar from down below. That must have been the master summoning a specimen from his collection to his aid. But to his great misfortune, help never arrived.

  The warriors died first. The Executioners dispatched them like little paper soldiers. Shen held out a bit longer. But he had no way of standing up to opponents almost two times higher level than him. Run through by several icy stakes, he fell at the bald mage’s feet like a broken doll.

  To be honest, I was surprised. Why hadn’t my master ordered me to fight as well? Does he think he can win and is trying to keep me secret to the very end? Now there is a truly calculating bastard.

  Master Chi’s defensive dome cover was constantly flickering and blinking, but it was still holding out. I saw his amulets, rings and bracelets give a bright flash and fall to dust one after the next.

  Finally, he finished casting the spell and tried to use it to strike his attackers. And that was the very moment the old bald man joined the fray. He extended a twig-thin hand toward the condemned mage. A coal-black arrow raced away from his long, dry fingers and, when Chi saw it, he squealed in a voice not his own. My mouth immediately filled with bitter saliva and a slight taste of rot.

  Passing unimpeded through the defensive dome, the arrow entered the mage’s chest with a flourish of black. Chi choked on his own scream. His body started jerking in violent convulsions. A tar-black spot appeared where the spell made contact and expanded like an ulcer before my very eyes! A moment later, what was left of Master Chi fell to the ground like a formless sack. And I saw a message:

  — Attention! The mental magic you were subjected to has been terminated!

  At that very moment, I felt the ground beneath me shudder again. Tearing through the stone flesh of the platform, a gigantic level-thirty spider-like monster crawled out from b
elow. While my former master’s Executioners focused on the new opponent, I ran toward a small passage in the cliffside, not wasting any time.

  A wail came from above mixed with the cracking of stones and hissing of spells, driving me farther and farther inside the cliff. I activated my amulet and Gorgie appeared, quickly got his bearings and led us forward into the darkness of Master Chi’s Hive.

  The farther we went down the tunnel, the louder the horrible din, howling, squealing and creaking from all sides became. The inhabitants of the Hive spun out of control after the death of their master.

  The hallway quickly came to an end and we jumped outside. It was a broad terrace. The harn tore off to the opposite edge of it without stopping. A narrow stone stairway started there and stretched to the foot of the mountain.

  Meanwhile, the mountain continued to quake and everything was plunged into chaos. Shrieks of pain, snarling, roars of rage — it all mixed together into one deafening howl. I’m afraid to even imagine what was happening inside.

  When we reached the middle of the stairway, something small and hairy jumped down on us from above. Not especially caring what it was, I rushed to activate Ram.

  The beast flew back like a hairy blob, stunned by the spell. When the monster landed on the sharp outcroppings of rock below, the system immediately told me I had defeated a level-sixteen black biter.

  I noted mechanically that it was not a magical creature. And that was a shame. It was an easy victory.

  Finally the stairway ended and, not turning back, we ran onto the steppe. The distant roar and thundering of stones followed us for a long while.

  With my elevated characteristics, I could run much faster than before. It was a glorious feeling! The cold wind beating right against my face, blowing away the hot tears of joy on my cheeks. We’re free!

  The harn was constantly telling me we were not alone. The beasts fleeing the Hive were small for the most part as, for the record, were we. Informed by self-preservation instinct, they were driven by a single-minded urge to get as far from their fearsome prison as possible. And twenty minutes later, when the harn sensed no other creatures, we decided to stop at a small ravine for a short breather.

  Only then did I realize, when the initial fear had passed, that all that time I’d been carrying Master Chi’s raspberry-colored chest.

  “Bastard!” I shook a shivering fist menacingly in the direction of the mountain, just visible on the horizon. “Bet you never thought these things would come back to me!”

  Spitting on the ground emphatically, I gave a nervous laugh. But it didn’t reach the point of hysterics. Gorgie made me get myself together.

  I calmed down a bit and opened the top of the box. Alas, to my disappointment it contained no more tablets or esses. But it did contain the monster hunter tokens, blots, potions of satiety and scrolls of fury. I don’t know about the tokens, but clearly the mage was planning to give me everything else to help me fight his monsters. Well, at least I made away with something...

  I quickly transferred the arsenal items into my ephemeral backpack. But the box was too heavy and bulky, so I threw it into some bushes. I also transferred all the quick-spoiling foods from my new bag into the freshness-preserving backpack.

  After that I quickly had a bite to eat and sated my thirst, then we started for the west. If I’m not mistaken, that is the way that will take us to Orchus.

  I walked at Gorgie’s side, taking in deep breaths of the frosty air of the orcish steppe. I was immeasurably happy! I’m sure I’ll remember this smell forever.

  The smell of freedom!

  Chapter 5

  ONCE UPON A TIME, in natural science class, our teacher compared the Wastes to an endless sea. I remember guys from better-heeled families exchanging glances when he said that. Every summer they would go to the beaches of the Pearl Sea with their parents and come back overfed and sun-tanned. They looked down on everyone else for being poor. Father promised mom that we would go work on our tans one day, too. But it just was not fated to be. Now I understood that they were setting aside every extra copper coin to purchase artifacts of the Ancients.

  At any rate, the only more or less large body of water I’d ever seen before was our Whitlake, which was fed by a wide navigable river called the Whitewater.

  But this gave me an approximate idea of what a sea should look like. The wide-openness of the step made a big impression! To me, a person that grew up among houses, the distances were imposing.

  But I must note that it was nowhere near endless. To the right, in the north, I could make out a mountain ridge capped with snowy peaks. It stretched along the horizon like the spine of a gigantic monster. To the south, based on the characteristic outlines, there was a forest. The large number of hills and hollows made the steppe look like a giant billowing grayish-yellow tablecloth.

  And to think, my older brother Ivar died somewhere in these lands...

  Incidentally, the orcish masters of the steppe were nowhere to be seen but, as father loved to say, “the night is young...”

  Walking the dry packed ground, I thanked the gods for putting this year’s rainy season on hold. Otherwise our journey would have been a true ordeal.

  I wasn’t cold either. My former master, out of concern for his slave, had picked me out some pretty good equipment for my level zero. And although I may have looked like a ragamuffin before, now it would have been easy to take me for just a normal traveler.

  Comfortable pants made of thick fabric, a shirt, a crudely knit sweater, a vest of frayed leather. And an extra special thanks to the mage for the high boots of thick leather and the old hooded jacket of dark-gray sailcloth. But still — may the abyss swallow his soul.

  By the middle of the next day, Gorgie led us to the banks of a steppe river. It looked like a gigantic snake curving around hills and stretching ever westward.

  Short trees and bushes grew along its banks. We selected a stand of the low trees to set up camp for the night. The deciding factor in our choice of location was a small eddy nearby where the harn smelled fish.

  Five minutes later, using the chain lightning, I stunned a large level-four pike. Sitting unmoving amongst the reeds, it was itself there watching for prey. But its hunt ended in misfortune. Today Gorgie will dine on fish. The harn took a quick bound, dragged the greenish-gray fish on shore and snapped its spine. I also did my part, stabbing the whopper with Dragonfly.

  — You have killed Mottled Pike (4).

  — Congratulations! You receive:

  — Experience essence (800).

  — Stone tablet of Agility.

  — Stone tablet of Strength.

  — Stone tablet of Endurance.

  — Stone tablet of Wisdom.

  — Stone tablet of Mind.

  — Stone tablet of Accuracy.

  — Stone tablet of Speed.

  — Stone tablet “Fisher.”

  — Stone tablet “Hunter.”

  Because I had a backpack full of food, the pike went to the harn. He scarfed it down in a matter of minutes, the glutton. Then he stood perfectly still on shore, watching for the next one.

  On an old habit I’d picked up in the caverns, I didn’t start a fire. There was no particular need for one, but it could certainly draw unwanted attention.

  I activated Lair and looked at my now higher figures with satisfaction.

  — Gulper’s Lair.

  — Level: 1 (0/30).

  — Type: Active ability.

  — Rarity: Common

  — Description:

  —A Gulper can create a temporary shelter in an appropriate location such as a secluded cave or hidden amongst large stones. Using magic, it weaves a web around itself which provides both defense and a kind of alarm system.

  — Effect:

  — Absorbs 500 units of damage.

  — Creator is alerted to unauthorized entry.

  — +5 life every 20 minutes (while inside)

  — +5 mana every 20 minutes (while insid
e)

  — +5 energy every 20 minutes (while inside)

  — Requirements:

  — Intellect — 6.

  — Expends 60 mana points.

  — Note:

  — Duration: 6 hours.

  — Radius: 10 feet.

  Before I fell asleep, to Gorgie’s enormous delight, we caught another three pikes. The last one was level five and noticeably larger than the rest. Closing my eyes, I smiled. If things kept up this way, we’d replenish our losses soon enough...