The Wastes

by Alexey Osadchuk

Looking over the fanciful designs, I had no choice but to click my tongue in admiration.

  “What?” Farhas called back just then. It was like I could feel his whole body starting forward with my back.

  “It’s highly skilled work,” I answered. “This craftsman really put in effort.”

  “I hear surprise in your voice,” said the old man. “Is something the matter?”

  “We-ell,” I drew out pensively. “I have a strong feeling that this place isn’t quite as ancient as the one where I first encountered this symbol.”

  And for the record, I couldn’t help but be pleased about that. After all, if there was an armory here, its contents would be better preserved.

  I took a fleeting glance at the troll. Based on the careless look in his black eyes, his race was probably ignorant of the complex arts of stone carving or gilding for that matter.

  I finished looking and extended my right hand to the familiar groove. As they say, the moment of truth. I hope it works!

  — Attention! Blood analysis: Positive.

  — Mark activated. Would you like to continue route to next mark?

  — Cost of service: 50 mana points.

  “It worked!” I exclaimed, unable to hold back and showing my companions the droplet of blood where my index finger had been pricked. And meanwhile, a familiar arrow appeared in front of me.

  Farhas stared at my finger in incomprehension. I could read doubt in his eyes. And I understood. He didn’t see the message. The gray-haired troll was looking at me exactly the way he should have. Like a boy enthusiastically showing off a tiny cut on his finger.

  As not to give rise to more doubts in the trusting old troll’s heart, I pointed at the dark bushes and said:

  “Come, this way!”

  * * *

  While making my way through the dense dry brush, I was glancing occasionally at Farhas. His face looked bleaker with every step. It looked like the old troll was no longer thrilled he agreed to this mad undertaking. I tried to explain that the symbol was showing me the way and that I could see an arrow, but he seemingly did not believe me.

  Gorgie, sensing my worry, was constantly at my side. Ready to deflect the somber troll’s attack at any time. Mee, sitting on the harn’s back, was concealing a stone for his sling in his little hand.

  Overall, tension was mounting, and that had me pretty nervous. The troll’s muted grumbling and heavy breathing, the thorny bushes, the ghastly silence of the forest... A conflict could flare up at any second.

  Just when the old man’s grumbling turned especially displeased, we reached the next marker. And more accurately, we reached another pillar, twin brother of the one the trolls called the Black Fang.

  And the way Farhas’ jaw dropped... Where’d all his skepticism go?

  The symbol we uncovered beneath a layer of moss took its drop of my blood and fifty mana points, then pointed us to the southeast.

  For the next half hour, thankfully, we walked down a fairly wide path that curved around all the rougher patches of undergrowth, which was latched dead together, all interwoven. Despite the thick top layer of soil and leaves, I sometimes saw pieces of paving stone beneath my feet. That meant this was not some mere animal trail, it was an unkept road.

  I was also delighted at Farhas’ change in mood. His angry sniffling and grumbling had disappeared. And the looks he shot at me no longer contained the same mistrust.

  A little while later, he broke the silence:

  “I don’t understand...”

  “What?” I asked.

  “We’ve been on cursed ground for over an hour, yet we still have not been damned by fell magic,” Farhas explained, looking around with fear.

  “I have two ideas about that,” I answered calmly. “And they both could be true.”

  For fairness’ sake, I should note that my calm was for show. The farther we went, the more I started thinking about the mysterious sorcery purported to kill all outsiders who trod upon this land. But I wanted to look confident and in control of the situation in front of the troll elder.

  “Would you care to share them?” Farhas asked, intrigued.

  “The monster hunters were quite shrewd,” I started. “In their day, I’m sure they’d have taken care to provide plenty of ‘entertainment’ for the beasts on their way to their fortifications from the portal.”

  “What fortifications now?”

  “A fortress, city, castle...”

  “You mean to say there’s a city in front of us?” the troll’s eyes turned fully circular.

  “It is a possibility,” I answered seriously. “And the whole area around is most likely jammed full of magical traps.”

  The old troll froze and started looking around warily.

  “Don’t worry. None of them got us yet, so their supplies must be empty. And there certainly isn’t anyone to refill their mana.”

  “You said you had two ideas.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “I think if there is any dangerous hocus-pocus around here, it would perceive me as a friend.”

  After that, the old man took an unwitting step forward, closer to me.

  We walked the rest of the way to the next marker in silence. As we trudged down the trail, from time to time, we noticed yellow animal skulls and bones among the trees. Many of them were of quite impressive dimensions, and several were obviously “fresh” because the moss had yet to swallow them up. If the traps were responsible, it would follow that there must have been some mana left in their supplies.

  Farhas peered into the darkness of the forest with sorrow. I couldn’t say whether it was fear or a desire to see the remains of a family member. Although, if his words were to be believed, no trolls had visited this side of the Boundary for several decades at least. Their bones would have already long been buried beneath a layer of moss and soil. Then again, maybe not? Could I really believe the old troll? What if they sent scouts out here from time to time and hadn’t ever stopped trying to investigate? While I mulled that over, I came to the conclusion that I’d have done just that in the trolls’ place.

  * * *

  Nearer sunup, the path led us out of the trees onto a wide clearing with a big old potbellied tower in the middle of it. Encircled by a tall stone fence, it looked like a small castle.

  “A watchtower,” Farhas said, breathing wearily.

  Catching a puzzled gaze from me, he asked mockingly:

  “What? Surprised at my familiarity with your architecture?”

  “To be frank — yes,” I said, not wheedling.

  “When I was young, I was taken captive by a western baron,” the elder explained. “I still have dreams about the mines where I was forced to work.”

  “So you escaped?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered shortly. “Orcs helped me...”

  Hm... So there’s the end of a thread I could pull on to maybe find the reason the trolls and orcish shamans get along. Though if I may be so bold, there could be several such threads.

  “Rick, look!” Mee shouted, pointing at the massive gates where the path ended.

  “I see,” I answered.

  By the looks of things, the craftsman who made that marker did not suffer from excessive modesty. I was reminded that the symbol that opened the door to Stonetown was the size of a small keyhole. But this anonymous craftsman was clearly on a hot streak. Two sizable fishhooks adorned the most prominent part of the middle of the two gate doors, their golden barbs glimmering in the rays of the predawn sun. Anyhow, neither the thorny bush branches nor the omnipresent black moss touched the local fortress or, as Farhas called it, watchtower. There must have still been mana in the supplies.

  “I’ll go first,” I turned to my companions. “Just in case, try to follow in my footsteps.”

  Mee and Farhas nodded in unison, and Gorgie snorted in agreement.

  Once next to the gates, I froze, looking closely at the gigantic symbol. Finally finding the groove that visually linked the two tips, I placed my palm on
the bronze surface.

  A light prick followed, then a familiar block of text came before my eyes. At that very moment, the gates gave a shudder and slid aside surprisingly silently.

  I turned. Mee and Farhas were standing still as stone statues. They had identical expressions of surprise and admiration on their faces.

  “Let’s see what’s inside,” I said and headed forward. Based on the rushed footsteps behind me, my companions were trying to stay as close to me as possible.

  The inner courtyard of the watchtower greeted us with silence and desertion. Also, in the middle of the small square was a towering bronze statue of a broad-shouldered warrior, clad head to toe in armor.

  The inscription on the pedestal said we had the honor of gazing upon Gunnar the Destroyer himself, Vanquisher of the Horror of the Depths, Killer of the Black Fear and so on, and so on, and so on...

  The appearance of the bronze giant amused me.

  “What are you laughing at?!” Farhas exclaimed. “This Gunnar guy doesn’t exactly look like a jester!”

  He and Mee were looking at the statue with reverence and took my mirth with incomprehension, to put it lightly.

  “Oh!” I said, drying tears. “He’s certainly not a jester, but I am still quite sure this statue would amuse him as well.”

  “Who is he?” the old man asked, frowning.

  “The founder of the order of monster hunters. And by the way, everything written about him here is the pure truth.”

  “Then what are you laughing at?”

  “Because I saw another statue depicting Gunnar the way he really was — as a common unprepossessing fisherman. Believe you me, this hunk of metal is pretty far removed from the original. But I’m laughing because I was reminded of a sly foxman and what I thought when I first saw a statue of the founder of the order. I thought then that a person with such fearsome sobriquets should look just like this.”

  When I finished, I nodded at the bronze idol.

  “So he was a common fisherman?” Farhas asked, perplexed.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Take a closer look at the symbol. It’s two fishhooks. You’ve probably seen ones like them in the west.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re right!” the old man said, scratching the back of his head. “How didn’t I guess right away?”

  Once we’d gotten our fill of the statue, we started looking around at the internal courtyard. A small stable, a cowshed, a barn, a smithy and another few practical structures — I had to admit that the hunters had built themselves some pretty fine digs.

  There was a fairly wide platform running along the wall and narrow arrowslits that allowed archers to fire on attackers. Other than that, every three feet I saw ovular indentations on the inner side but I honestly couldn’t tell what they were for.

  “Let’s see what’s in there,” I said to my companions, pushing open the tower door.

  Like the main gates, it opened without a sound. We crossed the threshold with trepidation, came inside and stopped, turning our heads in all directions.

  I’d never in my life been inside a tower of any kind but, for some reason, this was exactly how I’d always imagined them. In the middle of the wide round room was a rectangular hatch. Clearly the entrance to an underground tunnel that would lead somewhere deep in the forest. There was also a stairway going up, clinging to the wall like a stone snake. Along it, approximately every five paces, there was an arrowslit.

  “You wanna go check?” I asked the harn, nodding at the stairs.

  Gorgie snorted in agreement.

  “Be careful,” I warned him. Honestly, there was no need. The cat understood perfectly where he was and how to conduct himself.

  His bendy black shadow glided up the steps fairly quickly but at the same time exactingly. And a few minutes later, I already knew the stairs were safe and the upper platform contained nothing of interest.

  “Well?” I turned to my companions and tapped my right foot a few times. “All we have left is to check what’s down below...”

  All that Time, Mee and Farhas hadn’t breathed a word. But now they nodded in near perfect syncopation.

  The hatch was quite heavy, so we had to get the troll to help, but it didn’t seem to be much trouble for him.

  Gorgie dived down the hole first and, a few seconds later, gave a quiet growl to let us know everything was fine.

  While going down the stairs, I was expecting my nose to be struck with a smell of damp, but there was nothing of the kind. In fact, it was dry and even warm. And by the way, the passage was quite high. Farhas didn’t have to triple over to fit. He just stooped his head a bit.

  Mee had discovered a torch in the wall and was already hurriedly striking a flint. A moment later, its timid flame lit up the insides of a cellar.

  “What is this?!” the troll asked, puzzled and batting his eyes at the well-organized rows of shelving.

  I gave a happy laugh and answered:

  “Welcome to the armory of the monster hunters!”

  Chapter 17

  IN COMPARISON with the Stonetown armory, this one couldn’t exactly boast of grand dimensions. The small room was seven paces in length and five wide. But if you ask me, the value of an armory isn’t in its size, but its contents. I walked slowly along the shelves with a happy smile. Almost everything on the shelves was in decent condition. And lots of it looked familiar...

  Those three short long chests over there are full of Potions of Satiety. And those trays there on the third shelf are laden with Blots. I also saw some Fury scrolls in cases.

  “Now this is something I haven’t seen before,” I whispered, glancing with interest at a box with rounded edges.

  As I cautiously lifted the lid, I was expecting it to crumble to dust at any second, but it didn’t. Apparently I guessed right — this place was “younger” than Stonetown by several centuries at the very least.

  The inside of the box was split up into twenty identical slots by narrow dividers, each of them containing a steel sphere the size of a quail egg.

  Picking up one of them, I delved into the description.

  Tick Sphere.

  — Type: Munition.

  — Rarity: Rare.

  — Effect:

  — Once stuck on a target’s body, a Tick will reduce their mana supply by 30%.

  — Note:

  — Must have reputation 300 with the Monster Hunters to purchase.

  — Price: 6 tokens.

  — Sphere disappears after activation.

  — Weight: None. Takes no space.

  “Great,” I whispered, carefully closing the lid of the box. “New ammunition for our slinger.”

  But there was also some disappointment. The lower section of one of the shelves was completely full of boxes approximately two and a half times the length of a forearm. I opened one of them and found it empty. The same happened with the other six boxes.

  I didn’t want to guess what used to be there. What would be the point? Obviously their contents were needed by the former occupants of this tower, just like the contents of most of the other boxes.

  Running a sad gaze over the armory, I breathed a heavy sigh. I set my sights too high... In the end my fellow hunters only left me a tenth of the treasure that was once stored here. If not less...

  I was about to go back to my companions, who were standing at the stairs, but my attention was drawn by a small niche in the stone wall behind the last shelf. Curious that I didn’t notice it before.

  I took a few hurried steps and found myself exactly opposite a precise indentation. Inside it was a thin scroll that reflected back a familiar pale blue magical glow.

  “And here is the map,” I whispered with just my lips and extended my right hand.

  Hold up! Hey, what do we have here?

  Next to the scroll was a small barely noticeable box. In fact, if not for the magical glow emanating from the map, it’s not likely I’d have been able to see the box. And I’d probably have taken it for a fallen piece of
stone facing if I did.

  Despite its resemblance to stone, the box was almost weightless. It opened like a matchbox with some clever mechanism, which I spent a good ten minutes figuring out. The longer I held it in my hands, the more worried I felt. It just didn’t look like the kind of thing made to hold meaningless baubles. Accessing the niche itself required more than a thousand points of reputation with the order.

  When I finally got the box open, I stared at its contents with acute fascination. The rectangular cavity was divided into twenty narrow slots shaped like elongated honeycombs. Alas, only three of them had anything inside. Three crystals. And they looked dissimilar to one another in shape and color.