Digital Me

by Alston Sleet

  “But if you are close enough to strike at the core, then you are close enough to be burned or tossed about. How did the army first take the dungeon core if they are this troublesome?” I asked.

  “The wizard at the time had some way to quickly stop them, I think the stories said he was good with water so I bet that is how he did it. A bolt of frost or even throwing a barrel’s worth of water onto an elemental would work well enough.”

  Reasonable, but no help for myself.

  Coming over the rise I stood in the saddle looking out at the dunes on the horizon. I could smell the scents of a forest fire on the wind. The reality of the lands I would have to walk through hadn’t been clear to me. It was baked and cracked dirt, patches of stone blasted black, dunes of sand, charcoal, and ashes. The sky over the monster Wastes was dark with wind-swept dust and smoke, I could see lightning crack across the clouds deep out at the horizon.

  “I will camp just within the trees before the Waste, I have been commanded to wait for your return.”

  Then Rolick frowned and almost snarled out, “I have been commanded to wait for three months for your return. At the end of that time, I am to report to the capital, procure more supplies and return to wait. I am to continue my vigil in this manner for a maximum of ten years.”

  Now I understood Rolick’s frustration and anger. He had to see this assignment as a banishment.

  I nodded my understanding and moved forward on foot towards the Monster Waste. I carried no equipment but a sword I had purchased for the purpose. I had left my good sword with Seren, I had expected that I would die at least once in my trek, but looking at my destination I realized that I would probably be dying multiple times per day in my efforts.

  “I will return Rolick,” I said as I mentally signaled for a backup, then continued out of the woods and into a land of destruction and nightmares.

  Chapter 23

  Halfway Through Hell? Keep Walking.

  The first two days of my march through the Monster Wastes were relatively uneventful. Early on the first day I had just come over a rise on a wind and fire blasted hill only to see a trio of air elementals just passing over a distance range. Luckily, it was apparent I hadn’t been noticed since they continued over the terrain without slowing.

  I realized then that I was getting arrogant again and I needed to take pains to move slowly and carefully. One of the advantages I had was that I could move silently and with less difficulty than an army. If I just ran around moving through the terrain without care I would run into random elementals without even notice and fight unnecessarily. Slow, careful, meticulous, those needed to become my new watch word.

  Sleeping in the barren lands was an uncomfortable experience, dry dust and burned ash constantly drifted into my lungs while sleeping under the oiled leather tarp and covered by wool blankets. I packed very little gear, I was expecting to die more than once and it wasn’t clear if I would be able to recover my gear between deaths. I had no more than a days worth of hard tack and a single flagon of watered down wine. The scorched scenery reminded me that water would probably be difficult to find.

  At the end of the second day of travel I came across a destroyed town, the only part that was clearly artificial was a couple of stone foundations. I decided that I was going to setup camp in the corner of what I assumed was the local church or maybe a lords manor. It was the largest structure within town and the shaped and packed stone made a decent windbreak.

  I had made a habit of setting my backups in locations besides where I was sleeping in case I was killed in the night I wouldn’t re-spawn right next to my killer, it’s unlikely such trickery would be useful against elementals but it seemed like a reasonable precaution. I decided to create my backup in the opposite corner from my campsite within the walls. I could then be ready to rush forward and attack my would be killer.

  Hunching down in a sprint position I prepared myself to attack an assailant then I triggered a backup.

  The next moment I was whipped around upside down and thrown into the air.

  Wind and rain lashed against my body as I fell.

  I triggered my mana shield and felt a moment of smug pride in my quick reflexes until I hit the mud and slammed into the inside of the shield without slowing. The mana shield was supposed to resist impacts and attacks, but it wasn’t designed for a full body slam at high speed with nothing but air to push against.

  The sudden impact on the flat of my back knocked the air from me. I lay for a endless moment stunned as rain fell into my eyes, I could taste water and ashes in my throat and I tried to inhale even as I struggled to roll over and cough up the grit and rain. A few agonizing gasps later I managed to crawl to my hand and knees and inhale a slow breath as my lungs burned.

  Groggily I glanced around as I tried to put together what had happened. I eventually realized I was on the other side of the wall where I had created my backup. I looked up at the ten feet of crumbling stone I must have passed over and then the mud angel I made as I landed. Besides the general bruised and sore feeling I didn’t appear to have any broken bones or bleeding.

  The stone wall I was leaning on was shaking and rumbling and more rain and mud was thrown into the air over the structure. The sky was only gently drizzling but the additional downpour of mud, rain, and burnt materials flew from over the wall. I was still disoriented but I noticed that the sun was low in the sky and coming up.

  I pushed away from the wall and slowly tried to straighten up as I tried to get my wind back. I could see the rain of mud and ash from the other side of the wall was highly localized. Dimly my mind finally realized what was happening; an air elemental was flailing about over my spawn point.

  How long the air elemental had slammed my re-spawned body into the wall and ground wasn’t clear, but I could guess that the rain, mud, and a lucky lob over the wall was my saving grace. Moving quickly around the wall I saw through gaps that my carefully arranged campsite was ripped apart. Mud and ash covered what wasn’t torn to shreds, I could see small rocks flung around inside the hollowed out foundation as the air elemental continued to rip into the corner were I had spawned.

  I was naked, cold, without gear, and the elemental had obviously been killing me for a while. Some of the walls I had set my gear against was badly damaged. I wasn’t even sure if this was just the next day, given that it was pure luck I was thrown over the wall and landed safely in the mud, I could have been dying here for days or weeks.

  I had to test myself against this elemental, I needed to know how I would fair when prepared. It was also pretty obvious that in a direct confrontation, naked as I was, that I was going to die. I needed to save myself from a backup-death-rebirth cycle. Elementals didn’t eat, they didn’t sleep, and they didn’t get tired. If I wasn’t careful I could be stuck here beaten to death every day for centuries. If I’m caught out like this again without the wall to block the elemental, or I find myself in a similar cycle with a smarter opponent, then a long time may pass before I’m free again.

  I backed away quickly even as I could hear the violent winds slowing beyond the wall. I began looking for a flat area away from direct sight of the walls containing my former campsite. My plan was simple, I would set a backup then check the ground for tick marks, I would add a tick then implement one of my plans. I only had two real plans, if they both failed then I would just run.

  First was stone manipulation. I would try to funnel and direct the air elemental. This was a less aggressive plan and I had high hopes that with some patiences and stubbornness I could use this to make progress. I also expected this to be effective in blocking the elemental but I doubted I could use this to harm it. The upside is that this plan was likely to be effective against fire elementals as well.

  One of the few resources which would be available in the Monster Wastes would be stone.

  My second plan was to create a fireball and try and destroy the air elemental. I thought this would work, but I didn’t think this plan would be very eff
ective against a fire elemental. I was starting to get a feeling that my arrogance about my survival and capabilities had driven me into a difficult course.

  Flattening the mud down I prepared myself then triggered a backup. Since nothing changed, I created a single tick in the mud and then moved around back towards the crumbling wall of my campsite.

  Moving around the corner of the wall away from where the elemental was causing so much destruction I looked through a hole in the far wall and had my first up close look at an elemental. Floating in the middle of swirling winds was a rough fist sized glowing orb. My eyes widened as I watched the elemental slam itself into the far corner. Mud, rain, and ash was thrown into the air as the elemental bashed itself into the wall, slowly I could see the wall was being sandblasted away.

  Focusing intently I tried to raise the stone behind the elemental, it took a few minutes but quickly I had a lip of stone roughly four feet high. What was interesting was that eventually the air elemental slowed it’s wild attack at the wall and settled down to bouncing around in it’s new pen. Oddly enough I don’t think the air elemental could move over the lip. Mindless, tireless, and relentless but with very little maneuverability, even the small three foot wall easily penned it in.

  Quickly I moved back and marked the ground near my backup a second time. I didn’t think it was likely something would go wildly wrong and I would die, but I figured I would follow through on my backup communication idea.

  It took a few attempts, but I found a part of the wall which was sturdier then the rest, dropping down inside I watched the elemental and sure enough it started wildly attacking the small pen wall in my direction. I couldn’t see eyes for the monster, but it was clear it used some kind of sight. It cheered me up to see that even such a small wall was able to stop the creature.

  Focusing, I started to create a fireball. Within a minute the flaming sphere reached the size of my fist and I lobbed it at the elemental. The backwash of flame and the explosion of sound was shocking even over the recent noise of blasting wind. The sudden silence with only the light rain was a marked change.

  Moving the rubble I soon found what was left of the elementals monster core, the once glowing white stone now split into five uneven shards. Interesting, but not useful to me at the moment. Scavenging around my now destroyed campsite I was unable to find anything of use. My dry oiled skins and warm blankets now consisted of so much scraps, covered in mud and shredded to strips smaller then the palm of my hand.

  I had expected my trip to devolve into a slow trudge toward the dungeon core, I just didn’t expect that to start this soon. Even with an unimpeded walk the trip to the armies old camp site would take roughly a week, now I couldn’t even predict how slow things could end up going.

  Shivering, naked and wet, I began to walk north.

  Chapter 24

  Dining and Travel in Madness.

  Slowly the King took a sip of the dark red wine before placing the thick crystal glass back on the polished wooden table. Like everything else at court, all things had a double meaning. A crate of the red wine was a gift from Duke Turmin. The red wine was presented to the King as a present, a wine bottled in the same year as the rebellion which came close to unseating the King’s father. A subtle reminder that Duke Turmin was an ally that had served well in previous years.

  The fact that Duke Turmin had made no requests or demands of the King had this as the kindest interpretation of the gift.

  Sweeping his gaze around the room the King worked to stomp down his anger. Six Dukes, eight Barons, fourteen merchant clan heads, the last time so many people of import had gathered at the capital; it had been burning in a rebellion. Each of the Dukes and Barons had traveled to the capital and each had marched with their maximum allowed number of retainers and guards. Every action was precisely in line with tradition and the law.

  The polite smile of Delana Delsar said this was anything but coincidence, not that anyone with even a modicum of intellect could believe it was a coincidence. While Relven was ostensibly the head of the Delsar House, no one could mistake the power that Delana wielded or how often events transpired under her watch to profit her house. The gathered Dukes, Barons, and Houses gathered though were not only allied to Delsar, many were in fact her Houses’ enemy or allied with her enemies.

  Duke Chaman Turmin’s son was killed by the Immortal Wizard, he would know that House Delsar is aligned with the wizard. How could she turn him to her cause? The last the King had heard from the Duke he had been calling for The Immortal Wizard’s head. Even if Delana had told Turmin of the deal between the King and Shawn, even if he knew that the King selected his son for death, even then, he wouldn’t align with Delana but instead against the King.

  Many of the gathered had similar political maneuverings; not a friend to the King, but also neutral to or even antithetical to Delsar’s interests.

  Again he took a slow sip of the sweet dark red wine. This wine had been kept for a week unserved at the great hall while a taste tester had spent each day drinking one glass. After a week, it appeared either the random bottles sampled where safe, or the entire crate was safe. To fail to drink the wine would either be an excuse for Chaman to take offense and so could be used in some further conflict, or would be a sign of cowardice by the King. Still, the King had what was left of the tested bottle and had the unopened bottles served to the others.

  Holding back the grimace of rage the thoughts of such games being played upon his person, the King slowly set the glass back on the polished wooden table. With a dismissive wave the King directed the musicians to return to playing, he needed another moment to gather his unwieldy control over his rage and provide a calm exterior even as he struggled to make small talk with potential traitors and rebels.

  As the soft notes of wind instrument started the King thought again about the southern elves suddenly breaking off all discussions, while notes of messages traveled between the southern dukedom and the elves. Again, possible rebellion and traitors.

  The wood of his chair creaked as his hands tightened on the curved oiled structure. Visions of violence flickered through his mind; flashes of lifting the solid wood seating and beating the man to his left to a pulp. Images of blood, brains, and bone smeared across his enemies wrecked body. With an effort he turned a polite smile towards the man on his left, his diplomat to the Dwarves, recently rejected from the Dwarven lands.

  The letter claiming insult to the Dwarven King over failing to disclose his son’s dishonor to pay for his own whores. The Dwarven King had no issue with his son whoring around. Apparently, he was known for it even in his own lands and the Dwarven King Mul’ger well knew it, he was just ashamed as to his son’s failure to pay his own debts. Offering to pay for his son was apparently an insult of a high order. That, or it was an excuse to reject the Kings diplomat and his spies. Rumors floated that the recently found gold mine crossed underground into the human lands and so that gold would be his by right.

  All around him they sat.

  Rebels.

  Failures.

  Traitors.

  Sycophants.

  They plucked at his pride and pissed on his greatness. The King quickly grasped upon his fraying control and placed the small knife back on the table that he had been unconsciously stabbing into the underside of the wood. Soon the fork of the river of time would pass and The Immortal Wizard could be dealt with again. Soon he would either return the fertile lands to his Kingdom, or he would fail and he would be banished for his breach of trust.

  Every few days these smiling faces gathered and ate the food from his table even as they traded in treason outside his sight. With a carefully controlled gentle smile, the King complimented Delana on her Houses recent upturn in dungeon resources. A reminder that his hand gave to her Houses coffers in the rights to farm the dungeon and his hand could also take it away. This was at the same time a small insult to Relven to imply that Delana was in charge instead of himself. To even address her directly at this
dinner was a breach of etiquette that implied an insult.

  Yes, some plot was afoot, and it rested upon the head of that damn wizard. All the gathered stayed in the capital even as their holdings must have struggled without oversight. Each rested in the capital as if on a summers repose, but the tension was there. Oh yes, tension in every word and smile that never reached the eyes, they waited for the return of the Wizard before the trap was to be sprung.

  ###

  Pottery.

  That was one thing that I hadn’t really expected on this trip.

  When I had envisioned the Monster Wastes, I had imagined burnt fields, dust, and destruction. At first, this was exactly what I had found. But I hadn’t realized that the burned destruction was only the results of runaway fires set from the flames of elementals destroying unchecked.

  The real Monster Waste didn’t start until I had passed beyond the range where only air elementals roamed. Once I started to find fire elementals the real Monster Waste began. The ground was so cooked from the concentrated blasts of fire elementals that the churned dirt and mud became essentially shards of pottery.

  Before finding the fire elementals the land had small bits of grass peaking up, grass that passing elementals would destroy as they traveled. A few small insects dug into the sand and burned ground as I passed, life was small and rare, but it existed.

  A few days of travel north passed with only a smattering notice of air elementals before they became far more common. A few days were spent half in hiding as air elementals repeatedly churned the dirt and I hid behind a quickly constructed barricade of stone.

  On the fifth day heading north I was forced to spend an entire day hunched under a dome of stone as an air elemental bashed itself upon the walls for half an hour before slowly wandering the area. A full day was spent in that dome, slowly baking as the sun shone down and heated the air, only two small holes for airflow. It wasn’t until the elemental had wandered beyond the rise that I realized that I could have spent that time heading north slowly building a tunnel.