The Cursed Princedom (Realm of Arkon #2)

by G. Akella

  After feeding Lucy some apples, of which I had about forty five pounds remaining, I handed her over to the stable boy. Then I went into the dining hall and took a seat next to the captain; all this time he hadn't tried talking to me once, only shooting me the occasional contemplative glance. I struck up a conversation, but, alas, wasn't able to learn anything new about the Order. Like most legionnaires, Adurant had entered into the service of the warrior god early in his youth, with the ceremony taking place in some temple up north. Roughly twenty years ago, following a battle with some creatures he referred to as "rilcate" that only he and one other squadmate had survived, they watched a beautiful blonde Valkyrie emerge out of a bolt of lightning. (As he described the Valkyrie, I couldn't help noting strong similarities with this one countess I knew.) Upon their return, the prince honored the young warrior by inducting him into the Order and giving him command over his own squad of getare—the elite units of the prince's legion.

  Irstad came into view when the road brought us atop a flat hill covered in yellowed grass. Behind the sloping stone enclosure sprawled a truly enormous cemetery, and extremely old by the look of it. If the map was accurate, the cemetery spanned two zones, with one section in the Ashtar Dominion, and the other in the Cursed Princedom. Rows of slanted gravestones stretched as far as the eye could see amid bizarrely twisted trees, crumbling crypts, and eerie statues of granite and marble. Looking out on this vista, I realized that it actually didn't impress me much—in the two months spent roaming the vault I'd seen way too many similar places, and always at night to boot. In the daylight, the sight of the deserted cemetery evoked not fear but rather melancholy.

  The map was leading me to the ruins of a square tower of gray stone, situated inside the cemetery roughly thirty yards past and to the right of the crumbling brick gates. Scaring off a ghastly-looking flock of birds perched atop the crooked fence, the flying abominations took to the air with indignant screams resembling that of seagulls. The squad came to a stop and dismounted as per their commander's order.

  "We are here, dar," removing his helm, Adurant gazed at the local denizens promenading amid the gravestones.

  "Thank you," I nodded my gratitude. "Good luck to you and your squad."

  "Dar," holding the reins of his lizard, the tifling turned toward me. "The prince bid me to play it by ear once we arrived. If you're in need of our help, we are willing to stay and—"

  "No, Adurant," I shook my head, and hopped off my mare as she shifted in place. "I'll take it from here. Thank you."

  "As you say," the captain said glumly, casting another glance at the burial ground. "If you need to cross Irstad and come out the other side in Krajde, stick to the main road. It twists and winds, but it's the safest route."

  "I will," I assured him. "Farewell, Adurant." And, with a wave goodbye, I set out in the direction of the gates, leading Lucy by her bridle.

  "Good luck, sir," I heard the captain's voice from behind.

  Why build a tower at the entrance to a cemetery? I presumed that only the zone's artist knew the answer. Perhaps it had been a funeral home at one time? Presently, however, little more than a story remained of the ancient structure. The still-standing sections of wall were covered with vines and moss; stone debris littered the soft grass, carpeting the ground. Behind the ruins grew tall bushes of lilac, exuding a delicate aroma.

  Now, where am I supposed to look for this X'Tahr fellow? I thought, rounding the tower and taking in my surroundings. There was nothing inside the building save for putrid planks covered in yellowy mold.

  Rectangular in shape, engraved with bas-reliefs and decorated with statues depicting flying gray creatures, the sepulcher was the only large structure in the tower's vicinity. Its gray granite still retained its nobility, despite being badly eroded by time and the elements. The nearest packs of zombies and skeletons were visible some two hundred yards from the entrance—far enough for me not to worry about drawing their attention. Their levels ranged in the early 160s, which matched the 160-180 range for this zone—certainly way above my paygrade, but I didn't intend on having any physical altercations.

  The door to the sepulcher—a heavy, unadorned granite slab on rusty hinges—was half opened, with pieces of rusty chains and a enormous corroded lock that had once blocked the way rotting on the ground to the side. The sign right of the door announced that I was looking at a crypt of the Relig Clan. Something glinted along the stone floor at the entrance, and I jumped back at once. Some lessons are hard to forget, and that flying monkey from before had taught me not to pounce on shiny objects in an unknown setting like a brainless magpie. The hell with this thing! The map is clear that the quest should be turned in either in the tower or close to it. I'll just go there and wait—let some other idiot deal with the damned crypt! I spat on the ground and, with a wary glance at the headless sculpture of a female humanoid with wings rising over the sepulcher's entrance, headed back toward the tower.

  I returned to Lucy, her reins thrown over some lilac branches in the vein of every Thomas Mayne Reid adventure novel I'd read a kid, giving her a chance to take off in case of danger. She met me with an alarmed look of her huge brown eyes, and a gentle neigh. When I patted her on the withers, she gave me the usual poke in the shoulder with her muzzle, demanding a treat. Oh, you're a girl, no doubt about it, I whispered, feeding her apples. Girls always eat a lot when they're nervous.

  The sun had already set, and dusk had descended on Irstad, slowly cloaking the cemetery structures. I was sitting on a felled trunk of a tree that once stood alongside the ruined tower, having a smoke and dwelling on what to do next. In the real world, any normal person who found himself at a cemetery at night would feel ill at ease. We all fear the unknown, and many of us still carry with us the scary stories about ghosts or the living dead; tucked away though they may be in the back of our consciousness, those memories serve as an excellent catalyst for fear. Shining lights, ominous figures in white, mysterious strangers—there's no limit to what our otherwise intelligent species has come up with just to scare our own. Thankfully, by now I was fully devoid of irrational fear. There they were, the living dead, roaming amid the graves just a tad ahead. I had seen their kind before, had fought and killed too many of them to fear them still. I only regretted not being able to ask the undead where to find X'Tahr, or at least who he was. Some kind of necromancer, I presumed—no one else would be caught dead (pardon the pun) in a place like this.

  A young woman... Deep in thought, I'd completely missed her appearance. Clad in black leather armor, her footsteps perfectly soundless on the soft cemetery soil, the flaps of her long black cloak stirring in the breeze. Long raven-black hair, pale skin, unnaturally red lips—it was clear now why I'd had to wait till sundown for her to show up. Sunlight was extremely dangerous to vampires, considerably lowering their stats. These creatures therefore only crawled out of their lairs at night, or in very crappy weather. At level 200, the vampire chick floating my way exceeded the zone's level by twenty. Her attitude to me was unfriendly, ostensibly thanks to the courier's badge given me by the provident prince. The vampire's name was Yaina—70,000 HP, twin blades hanging from her waist, her features sharp but not entirely unpleasant.

  Knocking the tobacco from my pipe in one motion, I jumped to my feet and put a hand on the hilt of my sword, eyeing the uninvited guest warily.

  "Food..." the vampire declared in a raspy voice, baring her fangs in scowl. "Didn't your mother teach you to avoid cemeteries at night?"

  The way she was ogling me, it was probably how a cat might regard a cornered mouse.

  "I say it's none of your business what my mother taught me," I replied, matching her tone. Sparks of anger flashed in Yaina's eyes.

  "Are you really so brave?" floating around me, she slipped her hand around my waist, purring into my ear. "And what, pray tell, is food doing on our territory?"

  How I loathed creatures like her—smug bastards overconfident in their abilities. The loathing could be trace
d back to an incident in my youth, when a bunch of hoods tried to rob me of my walkman right there on the street. Fully aware of my slim-to-none chances, I smashed the player against the ground rather than give it up, and rushed the scumbags, fuming over the loss of my father's present. Only the first punch I threw landed—but what else could I do against three cocky bullies? I caught a real bad beating back then, and now this self-satisfied bitch was behaving just like they had been. It took all of my willpower to suppress the storm raging inside me. I have business here! I snapped at myself, trying to keep calm.

  Vampire literature frequently goes through periods of resurgence when it's all the rage. Which kind of makes sense, what with the romantic image of a mysterious stranger in the night, their inhuman beauty, Gothic style, and kiss promising immortality. Protagonists left and right fall in love with vampires, sleep with them, even have kids with them. And the authors don't seem to care one bit that a vampire is nothing but a walking, bloodsucking corpse with a body temperate much lower than any human. I never read these books, which are typically written for women, by women. And I would recommend authors of such masterpieces to put down their favorite, ahem, "toy"—better yet, let it cool in the freezer for a while—and try themselves some real vampire love. I bet there'd be far fewer fans of the vampire fad as a result.

  Yaina oozed rot and death, and I wouldn't sleep with her for even a bucketful of my grandma's pancakes in a year of famine. Hart be praised, necrophilia just wasn't one of my kinks.

  "I'm looking for Master X'Tahr," I spat back in the bloodsucker's face, twisting out of her embrace and taking an extra step back for good measure. "Either take me to him or take a hike."

  "What did you say, pup?" the woman hissed, closing in on me in a single motion and trying to grab me by the throat. "Trying" being the operative word.

  I Jumped back, my shield raised, my sword sliding out of my sheath with a swoosh.

  "You want to play, bitch? Come at me!" I gave an inviting hand gesture, my mouth curling into a scornful grin. I wasn't afraid of her level 200 and 70k HP! With Shaartakh's Venom and an Essence of Light up my sleeve, I'd need only a few hits to take her out.

  Your reputation has decreased. Yaina, a fighter of the Asyrat Clan, relates to you with hatred.

  "You think that trinket around your neck will save you, light one?" Those twin blades flashed in the vampire's hands. Having assumed a crouching combat stance, Yaina was moving toward me, slowly and inexorably. "I'm going to rip you to shreds..."

  "How about you kiss my ass instead?" I mocked her, gazing at those scowling two inch fangs. "Actually, I take that back. Not with those ugly-ass teeth."

  The vampire's eyes flared a mad hatred. She rushed at me, quick as lightning, and... Froze midway, as if paralyzed by some higher power.

  "Leave us," uttered a voice, its owner materializing out of thin air fifteen feet away. An ancient vampire, balding, in a long black mantle that cascaded all the way to the ground.

  "But..." Yaina tried to object, but piped down at once under his cool gaze. She spun around and, gracing me with one last glance full of bestial fury, strode away in the direction of the sepulcher, her chin held high.

  Master X'Tahr turned out to be a level 410 vampire boss. Two hundred million HP! I struggled to imagine the raid group it would take to vanquish this withered asshole.

  "You're insolent for a lightning lord's lapdog," X'Tahr sized me up casually, shaking his head. "Insolence ought to be fortified by strength, which means you're also foolish," he surmised, looking at me with the dullest expression. The monster's voice sounded like sand falling on glass. Standing before me was a six-foot-tall corpse with a hooked nose, baby-smooth face, and the colorless eyes of a fish. The vampire wielded a black carved staff, its tip shaped like a bat with ruby-red eyes.

  "Where do see you a lapdog, bloodsucker? You must be blind if you can't tell a dog from a wolf." The fury inside me wasn't close to subsiding. I didn't give a damn about his level—he could kill me at any moment, but only after accepting the quest from me. Not even gods could break that rule.

  "Check yourself, human," the ancient vampire's colorless eyes flashed a promise of my imminent death. "What brings you to my estate?"

  "Here, for you," I handed him the scroll received from the succubus. My, what interesting contacts were kept by Lord Astarot's second wife!

  Accepting the scroll from my hands, the vampire broke the seal and started reading. I felt relief for having released the getare, since they would've had no chance against him. You'd need a raid of at least one hundred skilled, high-level, well-equipped players to challenge the monster. I tried to imagine what surprises may lie for killing such an NPC. Were I to lead the raid, I'd place half the ranged dps up on the tower... Then again, I was no freaking raid leader!

  When the scroll turned to dust in X'tahr's hands and crumbled to the ground, the vampire raised his fish-like eyes at me. I tensed up inside.

  You've completed the quest: Fragment One of the Celestial Seal I.

  This moment would decide my fate: was I going to live, or return express to Laketa? Were this asshat to decide for one reason or another that retrieving the jewelry case that Janam wanted was beyond my means, my death was all but certain, and likely to be rather unpleasant.

  "You have the mark of the Nameless on you, human." If this vampire existed in real life, he would be winning poker championships left and right—his crusty face didn't betray an ounce of emotion. "Where did you get it? You have been to the Primordial Paths?"

  "I don't know what you mean," I sighed with relief. My return ticket to Laketa appeared to have been postponed.

  "Very well, light one. I will walk with you to the Derelict Temple, but you had better stop trying Asyrat's patience."

  "It wasn't I who started it. If you muzzle your goons and keep them from harassing others, then maybe—"

  "Don't try my patience either, human. You will not come to harm, so just be quiet. We leave in an hour, and we'll be traveling nights. Wait here."

  You've accessed the quest: Fragment One of the Celestial Seal II».

  Quest type: epic, chain.

  Recover a truesilver jewelry case from the Derelict Temple, and hand it in to Master X'Tahr, the patriarch of the Asyrat Clan.

  Reward: experience, information about the location of the first key fragment to the Celestial Seal.

  Our party reached the Cursed Princedom border in the middle of the night. Two squads of level 200+ vampires had been sweeping up the packs of undead encountered along the way with the ease and swiftness of a bowling ball smashing into pins at high speed. Feeling like an extra in some unreal production, I kept to the center as we rode, and wondered about the contents of the sought-after jewelry case. I couldn't even begin to imagine the gold equivalent that might possess a vampire of his level and stature to get off his ass and hit the road. Then again, I doubted that he never left his lair—after all, both he and his clan needed to feed on a regular basis. Likewise strange was the fact that he didn't simply open a portal to the dungeon. I could only guess as to the reason, or why he didn't bother to invite me to the raid.

  The vampires glided over the earth, the flaps of their cloaks fluttering behind like tattered wings. Lucy remained in a kind of horrified stupor—it had taken me quite an effort to force her to move. Are there psyche wards for mounts in Arkon? Because my mare is well underway to developing a severe case of PTSD.

  But one thing worried me above all else—what was going to happen after I learned the coveted information about the key? A rollback to level 105 was well within the realm of possibilities—I very much doubted that the patriarch was going to just forget my insults. Oh well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there, I decided just as the road dipped into a deep ditch, its bottom bare save for a few sickly saplings. This marked the dominion's border. It's too late to go back anyway.

  Krajde Princedom, Southern Irstad, zone level 150-160.

  The moment I crossed into the new zone, the
re was a triumphant music in my ears, and the system log literally blew up with information.

  Attention all clans and players in Demon Grounds! The continental event known as The Cursed Princedom has started!

  Objective: capture and maintain control of the Krajde Citadel, the main stronghold of the undead invaders.

  Reward: control of the Krajde Princedom.

  Duration: 2 months.

  Conditions

  For the duration of the event, the princedom's two provinces, Antarra and Gilthor, are subject to the rule of permanent death. Resurrection in the princedom will be prohibited. Upon death, players will be given the choice of resurrecting at any previously visited bind point, their gravestone will be moved there, and they will be unable to reenter the princedom before the event is completed. Capturing cities or castles before seizing control of the Krajde Citadel is prohibited. Portal use is permissible only within the princedom. For the duration of the event, all experience earned by the players will be increased by 20%.

  On behalf of the Realm of Arkon's administration, best of luck to all the players and clans!

  Daaaaaamn! I was floored. My crossing the border into the princedom had triggered a continental event? But that didn't make any sense! More likely, it was my having a quest for the first fragment of the key that had triggered it. The event had to have been designed to set off before the unlocking of the higher plane—this also explained the relatively low level of the neighboring zones. The Azure Dragons or some other clan of their caliber would probably need no more than a month to clear the whole princedom of the undead, especially if allied with other clans. After breezing through level 190-200 zones, they would capture the citadel itself and defend it against an army of level 150-200 NPCs. And if any of the local demons survived the invasion, they wouldn't attack their own stronghold anyway. Just the opposite, the operation would earn their respect and admiration.