Awaken Online: Precipice

by Travis Bagwell

  What really captivated his attention, however, was the ceiling of the cavern which hovered nearly two hundred feet over the city. Glowing crystals lined the rocky dome, illuminating the ancient buildings below. A single enormous crystal was embedded in the center and hung down over the city like a gargantuan chandelier. As Jason watched, the crystals slowly changed colors, shifting from red, to green, to blue, to yellow, before starting the cycle over again.

  Shaking himself out of his stupor, Jason looked around the ledge he was standing on. Ramps ran along the wall of the cavern on either side, leading down into the city. The ramps were wide enough to fit two carts side-by-side. The twin trails met up again on the floor level of the cavern and formed a wide boulevard that led into the center of the city.

  Jason sighed and looked at Alfred and the zombies who stood silently beside him. Should I keep going? he wondered.

  After hesitating for a moment, he decided to keep moving. I need to save some time. I may as well figure out what we’re up against before Frank and Riley log back in.

  Jason re-activated Sneak and his small group made their way down the right-hand ramp. As they approached the bottom of the slope, the group started working its way down the main boulevard, hugging the side of the street in case they needed to take cover. The structures were two and three-stories tall in some places, casting shadows into the roadway as the multicolored light played off the rooftops. Yet Jason saw no signs of life.

  He kept a watchful eye on his werewolf zombie, who sniffed among the rubble. Suddenly, the wolf’s head perked up, and he looked further down the street. Trusting his zombie’s instincts, Jason darted into one of the vacant buildings and ordered his group to follow him. They huddled in a nearby house. Jason crouched under a window as he tried to still his breathing.

  A rumbling sound and the creak of wood could be heard on the street. Soon Jason could make out two voices bickering. “I told you to load the cart earlier!” a whiny voice rang out. “Now the cows are going to be desperate and hungry. You know how the King can be!”

  “Eh, it wasn’t my fault,” a gruff voice snapped. “The Masters demanded more subjects for their experiments. I needed to bring up some slaves from the pens.”

  The first person spoke up again, “It’s always excuses with you. Every day we’re running late, and it’s because your dumb ass couldn’t get to the stables in time.”

  His gruff colleague snorted before replying, “They’re just a bunch of cows. They can wait a bit to get their load of grain.”

  The whiny man retorted, “You won’t be saying that when those cows gore you. I saw it happen to Jarvis two days ago. Now his body is being dissected by the Masters. I’d rather not end up the same way.”

  After a moment of silence, the whiny voice spoke up again, “By the gods, I hate this job. This is almost worse than feeding those good-for-nothing peasants in the pens.”

  His newest complaint was met with a noncommittal grunt from the other man. Clearly, he had decided silence was his best strategy to stop the endless stream of complaints.

  As Jason heard the wagon pass, he peeked over the windowsill. The two figures were seated at the front of a wagon full of hay. The pair were both wearing black-cowled robes, but Jason didn’t see any obvious weapons. The cart was being pulled by two rather regular looking mules. Jason was disappointed. He had been expecting something more exotic given the demi-human beasts that occupied this dungeon.

  It’s clear that they’re headed back upstairs. I should follow them and cut off their retreat once they encounter my zombies in the throne room. I can’t have them alert the others in the city that we’ve slain the minotaurs. Besides, if I can capture one or both alive, then I might be able to obtain more information regarding the city and these “Masters.”

  A plan in place, Jason followed the pair, maintaining a discrete distance. A few minutes later the two men approached the stone ramp up into the throne room. They slowed at the bottom of the slope and looked around in confusion.

  “Why is the ramp down?” the gruff-voiced man asked, pulling the wagon to a complete stop.

  “How the hell should I know?” his colleague replied. “Maybe the cows bumped one of the levers. None of them were geniuses before, but now they’re plain brain-dead. Except for the King of course, but he isn’t exactly a conversationalist.”

  The whiny-voiced man looked in irritation at his colleague who held the reins. “Well, get on with it. I want to get back to the city in time for dinner. If I don’t get to eat, then it’s on your head!” he said while motioning at the man beside him to move on.

  The gruff-voiced man still seemed reluctant to move forward, but he ultimately capitulated to the whiny man’s pestering. As Jason watched the pair of idiots start up the ramp, he shook his head. These two were playing right into his hands. He sent mental orders to his zombies upstairs to try to take the men alive. He soon heard screams echo down the ramp. One of the men came running frantically back down into the tunnel.

  “I told you we should have fed them on time!” the man screamed in a whiny voice.

  Jason’s werewolf zombie was waiting, and he clotheslined the man with one hairy arm, sending him sprawling onto his back with a heavy thump. The man moaned on the ground as his lungs tried vainly to suck in air. The zombie werewolf grinned, and his burly fist collided with the prone man’s head, knocking him unconscious.

  “Well, that works,” Jason said with a snicker. He then ordered the creature to drag the man upstairs. As he made his way up the ramp, he saw that his minotaur zombies had subdued the other man and he was lying unconscious on the floor of the throne room. From the position of the man on the ground, Jason suspected that his whiny friend had pushed him off the wagon as a decoy and then fled down the ramp.

  No honor among slavers, huh?

  Glancing at the cells that ringed the room, a thought occurred to Jason and he ordered his zombies to place the men in one cell. As his minions moved the pair, Jason noticed a pattern embroidered into their robes with white thread. It was a series of four symbols showing a flame, a lightning bolt, a water droplet, and a mountain. Between the robes and the elemental symbols, Jason decided to order his minions to bind the captives’ hands. If they were mages, that should slow them down. Jason fiddled with the levers once more until he figured out how to close the grates on that side of the room.

  As soon as he had the two men trapped in their cells, a popping sound came from behind him. Jason turned to find Riley and Frank standing in the throne room and looking around in confusion at the milling zombies and the new wagon.

  “Great timing!” Jason called out with a grin. “I just made some new friends.”

  Chapter 19 - Treacherous

  Alex stood on a bridge in Grey Kep. He had been on his way to the market and stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts. Yet he still stood staring into the rushing water below him, lost in his own thoughts.

  He had forced himself to follow through with the desecration of the temple. The hollowness had abandoned him completely in the crypt, and it had taken an immense effort to hold himself together. He couldn’t repress the image of his mother and her funeral. Even now, the despair and crushing sadness threatened to overwhelm him.

  After he had finished at the temple, Alex had logged off and gone in search of his father. He had no one else to turn to, and he felt like he needed to speak to someone. He had been turned away from his father’s office by a polite but no-nonsense secretary. His father was almost certainly in his office, but he was apparently too busy to speak with his son. Mentioning that it was an emergency hadn’t helped either.

  Frustrated and alone, Alex decided to return home. Where else was he going to go?

  Then he had run into Jason in the lobby. His thoughts had been in a jumble, and he hadn’t been able to respond to Jason’s verbal jabs. Yet there could only be one reason why Jason was there.

  “He’s the same Jason that conquered Lux, isn’t he?” Alex asked the ru
shing water below him. He watched ripples swirl and froth across the surface of the river, but only a gentle roar answered him.

  His suspicions had been confirmed when he saw the video of Jason that had been posted only a few hours after he left the Cerillion Entertainment headquarters. Alex assumed Jason must have been visiting Robert to film the video. Yet his macabre speech had just added to Alex’s current confused state of mind. Why had Jason taken credit for defiling the temple?

  When he discovered who Jason was, Alex’s first thought had been revenge. With his father’s influence, Alex could probably have Jason’s parents fired or find dirt on his friends and family. While it was crude, Alex could simply have someone rough Jason up - or worse if that’s what he wanted. These were the strategies Alex would normally employ to crush an enemy.

  Except he hesitated. Without the numbing hollowness, he felt uncertain how to proceed. Why was he even upset? Hadn’t he started the war against the Twilight Throne? Was he mad simply because Jason beat him? For the public embarrassment caused by his failure? A part of him knew that it was his own fault, even if it was painful to admit. His arrogance had caused him to underestimate Jason. He had even ignored the advice of the other players and NPCs.

  He shook his head in a vain attempt to try to clear his jumbled thoughts. If the issue was being publicly beaten in-game, then he couldn’t regain his reputation unless he met Jason on equal footing. Lashing out at his former classmate in the real world wouldn’t accomplish his goal. Alex would still be a public laughingstock. Without the insidious whisper tickling at the back of his mind, he knew this was true. Yet the idea still seemed foreign to him.

  “I need to conquer Grey Keep,” Alex said aloud, his chaotic thoughts focusing on that singular goal like a lifeline. A swirling chaos of thoughts and alien emotions twisted in his mind.

  A chuckle came from beside him. “Well, you certainly cut to the chase. Perhaps I can help you with that goal.”

  Alex glanced up and found a well-muscled man standing a few feet away. He was clothed in pristine white cotton. The seams of his clothing were embroidered with gold thread, and a longsword swung at his hip, its pommel well-worn. The man rubbed his stubbled chin with one hand and smiled.

  “You must be Alexion.” He extended his hand to Alex. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Caerus, and I’m the head of House Auriel. I think we may be able to help each other.”

  ***

  Jason brought Frank and Riley up to speed regarding the conversation he had overheard between the two cultists in the underground city. He also relayed his suspicion that the missing townsfolk were being held as slaves for some type of experiment being conducted by the Masters. Projecting his map into the air in front of them, he outlined the small portion of the city that he had explored and explained what he had seen.

  After he had captured the men, Jason had inspected them and discovered that they were both level 62 and were referred to as “cultists.” Jason suspected that might be a generic title like “wolf” or “thief.” Judging from the way the two were bickering and the menial task they had been assigned, he assumed they were low-ranked members of whatever cult they were part of so their levels were likely unrepresentative.

  Frank motioned to the two bound men that lay in the nearby cell. “What’s the deal with tying these two up? Why didn’t you just kill them?”

  Riley was looking thoughtfully at the incomplete map. “We need more information,” she began, already resigned to the idea. She looked up at Jason’s cowled figure. “He plans to interrogate them.”

  “That sums it up,” Jason agreed. “I’ve never tried questioning an enemy NPC, but why not take a chance at collecting some additional information before we tackle whatever is living in that city?”

  Frank looked at Jason in shock. “Why would they tell us anything?” Realization swept over his face. “Are you suggesting that we torture them?”

  Before Jason could respond, Riley interjected. “So what if we do? These two have already admitted that they helped capture and experiment on villagers.” Her gaze shifted to the two prone men, her eyes filling with dark mana. “They’ve probably done worse themselves, from the sound of it.”

  Jason nodded. “We’ll do what we have to. We need information, and, from what I overheard, these cultists aren’t exactly sympathetic.”

  Frank blanched but didn’t try to argue. Their conversation was interrupted as the two black-robed individuals stirred. The whiny man was the first to regain consciousness. He blinked his eyes blearily while cradling his head. When he caught sight of Jason and his group standing outside the cell, he glared at them. “Of course! This day was just going splendidly for me already, and now I’m captured and sitting in some cow cell. And we’re going to miss dinner! On top of everything else, I guess we’ll die hungry.”

  His gruff colleague grumbled at him. “Keep your mouth shut. We shouldn’t tell this group anything. The Masters would flay us alive if they found out.”

  “I’ll talk if I damn well want to,” the whiny man griped at his colleague. “They’ll probably just kill us anyway. Besides, it’s you that got us into this mess. We should never have gone up that ramp!” The other cultist just stared incredulously at the whiny man for a long moment.

  “You’re right that your lives are forfeit unless we get some information,” Jason interjected in a cold voice, channeling his dark mana. “Your names would be a good start.”

  The whiny man shrugged. “See? I told you. My name is Greg, and this sullen idiot here is named Bert.” He gestured to the burly man beside him.

  “Cultists named Greg and Bert?” Frank muttered under this breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Jason just shook his head and suppressed a grin. He couldn’t show any weakness in front of the two prisoners. Jason directed his attention back to the pair of cultists. “Let me be frank with the two of you. I need to know the layout of the city below, the positions of your band of cultists, their average levels, and the location and contents of those slave pens I heard you mention earlier.”

  He looked at two men with a grim smile before continuing, “The good news for me is that I only need one of you to provide that information.” Jason paused briefly, eyeing each man in turn. “So who’s it going to be?”

  Greg and Bert looked at each other for a moment. Bert immediately spoke. “I’ll do it. Kill Greg.”

  “Wait, what? You just said not to say anything!” Greg cried.

  Jason’s eyes widened in shock. He had expected the whiny one to talk first. He glanced at Riley and shrugged. Her bow hummed and an arrow promptly embedded itself in Greg’s eye, shutting his mouth once and for all. His body slumped to the floor and blood began to pool around his head, staining the dirt floor of the cell red.

  Riley then turned to Bert, her eyes solid obsidian. “You better make this worth our while, or you’re next,” she warned as she fingered another arrow in her quiver.

  Bert ignored Riley’s threat, and he sighed in relief as he gazed at Greg’s body. “Blessed, damn silence,” he muttered. Then he turned to Jason. “What do you want to know?”

  “You’re just going to answer our questions?” Frank asked in surprise, glancing between Bert and the swiftly cooling corpse beside him.

  The cultist shrugged. “Why not? You’ll probably kill me either way, so this at least buys me some time. Plus, it was worth it to watch Greg die before me. I only wish I could have done it myself,” he admitted, kicking Greg’s corpse in frustration.

  Huh, okay. I’m certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth - or a pragmatic, vengeful cultist.

  Bert was a wealth of information. He explained that the city below them was largely empty, having been occupied by an ancient race thousands of years ago. The masters had claimed the dungeon some time ago and had been using it to run their experiments. Bert wasn’t privy to the details, but the gist was that the masters were somehow creating the were-beasts that had been plaguing Peccavi an
d the local area. Bert didn’t understand the Masters’ abilities since lower-ranked cultists weren’t allowed to watch the experiments. He could only explain that they were powerful mages.

  Jason had apparently been scouting the southern, and largely unoccupied, portion of the city when he ran into Bert and Greg. Most of the cultists were located along the northern edge of the cavern and had divided themselves into camps. The masters occupied the northwestern portion of the city and maintained a laboratory there. The northeastern side was where the other cultists lived and worked. It was also located adjacent to the entrance to an abandoned mine shaft that they had been using to store the slaves.

  When Bert made it to this part of his explanation, Riley looked like she was about to murder the man. Jason was forced to ask her to go take a short walk and cool off. They needed to keep the cultist alive and talking - at least for the moment.

  Bert admitted that the masters had been using the were-beasts, most notably the werewolves, to hunt and capture the townspeople of Peccavi. Apparently, human subjects were needed to perform their experiments. As Bert explained this last part, Jason received a quest notification.

  Quest Update: Our Time of Ruin

  Bert has been quite informative. He has explained that the Masters have been capturing the townspeople of Peccavi and using them to perform magical experiments. You have confirmed William’s fears. Now you need to decide what to do.

  Difficulty: A

  Success: Choose how to proceed

  Failure: Unknown

  Reward: Depending on your choices, increased reputation with the townspeople of Peccavi. Other rewards unknown.

  Great. Yet another open-ended question that provides no direction, Jason thought sourly.

  After reviewing the quest prompt, Jason posed a question to Bert. “How many cultists are in the city below?”