by Phil Tucker
“Hmm,” said Lotharia. “Sounds like you needed to get out more.” Then she laughed and leaned forward to touch my arm, “I’m kidding! I’m kidding. I understand what you mean. At least, I think I do. Adventure. Excitement. Exploring the unknown. That’s been an allure to our species since we first came down from the trees, right?”
“Now you’re calling me a monkey.” I grinned ruefully and took another sip. “It’s more than that. It’s…. Look. When I was around ten or eleven my family went on a vacation to Australia. I don’t even remember where this happened, but we’d driven out of the major cities to avoid the rioting and were visiting a friend in a small town somewhere, and they recommended this lake to go picnic at.”
“Uh-huh,” said Lotharia, curling a strand of hair behind her ear. I was struck by how wonderful it felt to have a mild buzz and be having a serious conversation with a wildly attractive girl who was giving me her undivided attention.
I pulled it back together. “Yeah, so we got there and started to unpack the picnic stuff and my parents weren’t talking to each other, they were doing that icy cold thing, and my brother must have been six and was focused on his comic books, so I decided to swim in the lake. There was this tree extending right out of the middle of it. Rising out of the water, this huge oak, and I decided to swim out to it.”
The memory was clear-cut in my mind, as if etched in acid. The scrubby, dry grass around the lake’s shore that extended below the water. The lake had flooded its banks, risen up. Walking into the water had been the weirdest sensation, wet, silty grass beneath my feet. The lake lukewarm. When I was thigh deep, I’d plunged forward and begun swimming toward the distant tree. Everything had been going great till my foot kicked down a little deeper and pushed through into a zone of icy cold water.
The shock had been intense. I’d snatched up my foot as if something had tried to grab it and pedaled in place. I dipped my foot again and once more felt that bitter coldness, as clearly separated from the warm upper layer as if demarcated by a razor. I’d dipped my head underwater to look, and seen nothing but blackness beneath me. Gone was the ground. It felt like I was staring into an abyss.
“I swam back to shore as if I’d seen the Loch Ness monster,” I said. “Came thrashing up onto the shore, gasping and all freaked out. Nobody noticed. I grabbed a towel and sat behind the car.”
Lotharia finished her drink. “And you’ve loved adventure ever since?” She sounded mystified.
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes, but it’s because of what I thought I saw in the darkness below me. It felt like I’d discovered this impossible, magical realm. Felt like something should have been looking up at me, from the depths of that lake with its strange tree. It made me so aware of the hidden, the mystery of the world.” I finished my drink in turn. “But in our world, the real world, all the lakes are empty. The caves hold nothing more than blind fish. The deepest forests are secondary growth. That moment of magic, of terror? I can’t find that in the real world. Which is why Euphoria makes me feel like that ten-year-old version of myself. What we’ve been experiencing? Living through? The impossible odds, the magic, the danger, the excitement? It’s what I longed for when I was a kid and never found again. And now here it is, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
We sat in silence. I wanted to turn away, to avoid meeting her gaze. To get up, even, and pretend to be interested in the books behind their glass panes.
Lotharia reached out again and touched my shoulder. “Despite the draugr and ogres and goblin soup, I’ve been having a good time, too.”
We shared a smile, and then the lights dimmed and turned a deep rose and a disco ball descended from the center of the orrery. A million motes of light began to twirl around the room, and a sultry song began to play.
Lotharia sat up straight. “Worthington?”
The butler appeared. “Did I misread your interaction? Jeramy always asked for this configuration when about to engage in the song of sliding leather.”
“The song of— what?”
Lotharia cracked up and covered her face.
“Ah,” said Worthington. “My apologies.” The lighting once more became a neutral luminescence, the disco ball retracted, and the music faded away. “Please resume your courtship.”
“Courtship?” I looked wildly at Lotharia. “I— We’re—”
“It’s OK,” said Lotharia, rising to her feet and wiping at her eyes. “Thank you, Worthington. You’ve been a most gracious host. Come, dear. Let’s move our courtship upstairs to the black fire mud barrels.”
“You are most welcome, ma’am.”
Lotharia took my hand and pulled me toward the steps that curled along the inside of the wall. Not knowing what to say, trying not to act flustered, I instead activated Detect Magic once more and allowed my gaze to drift. The more powerful an object, I guessed, the brighter the glow; It was surprising to see what lit up the brightest. A single marble wedged between two heavy books glowed like a miniature sun; a boot under one of the couches was nearly as bright. The alligator was clearly an object of some power, as were a dozen other random objects secreted about the room.
I stopped at the sight of an unexpected glow. It limned a trapdoor at the base of the steps. I switched off Detect Magic. Hidden from the normal eye. “Lotharia. You see this?”
“Mm-hmm,” she said. “It’s Arcane Locked, however. No way we could open it.”
“Interesting. Given what we’ve heard about the levels underground and all.” I walked carefully over the trapdoor and onto the first steps. “I wonder what Jeramy was up to.”
“Hard to imagine him doing anything serious,” said Lotharia, climbing toward the second floor. “All I remember him doing was pulling elaborate gags and throwing impossibly creative parties.”
“Well, he reached archmagus, didn’t he? You don’t do that just by having fun.”
“Having a whale of a time,” she absently corrected, and then we reached the second floor. It was a bedroom, complete with a king-sized bed, two massive walnut wardrobes, a floor-to-ceiling mirror and countless thick carpets laid over the stone floor. A full-sized portrait of Jeramy hung on the wall.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It showed Jeramy, shirtless, flexing before a waterfall, one foot atop a knocked-out grizzly’s head.
“Now,” said Lotharia. “Do we resume our courtship, or head up to the third floor?”
My face burned and my stomach did a flip. “Excuse me?”
She laughed and gave my shoulder a push. “Are you really this innocent? Your face! Oh, come on. Onto the third floor. And remember: don’t touch the summoning circle.”
I ran my hand through my hair, desperately trying to keep my head above water. “Oh, don’t you worry,” I said. “That’s one of my life’s greatest maxims, right up there with the Golden Rule and ‘don’t feed the Mogwai after midnight’.”
She snorted and drew her scepter from under her cloak with her right hand, her spider staff with her left. “Good.”
I paused. “Expecting trouble?”
She looked down at me over her shoulder. “Nothing I can handle.”
“You got that expression wrong. It goes: ‘nothing you can’t handle’.”
“Nope, I said exactly what I meant to the first time. Think of these as my comfort blankets. Now come on. Let’s see what Jeramy’s left sitting in his circle these past few years. I’m sure it’s in a very good mood.”
We rounded the last of the steps and emerged onto the third floor. It was dominated by an incredibly complex summoning circle, complete with endless squiggly runes in crimson and white chalk, candles that were somehow still burning, golden chalices filled with suitably ominous dark liquids, and a haze of smoke that appeared in a perfect cylinder above the summoning circle itself like you might see illuminated by lasers at a nightclub.
Inside, Jeramy sat on a rec
lining armchair, wearing a bathrobe and with a full-length golden beard reaching down to his sternum. He’d been staring out one of the many windows that circled the interior of the tower, each of which looked out over an impossible landscape. A quick glance showed me their variety: a view over a medieval metropolis inside a ravine; a harsh moonscape on which spindly-legged albino spider-crabs danced; a treetop village where elves made their way across rope bridges; an underwater realm shot through by beams of glittering light amongst which mermen swam in an intricate dance; and more.
“Jeramy?” Lotharia stumbled to a stop.
“Hmm?” Jeramy turned to us, eyebrow raised. “Oh. Hello, Lotharia! You’re a sight for sore eyes! Thank goodness someone’s finally arrived. I was going insane from boredom in here.” He leapt to his feet, suddenly energized. “Be a dear and let me out?”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, putting a hand on Lotharia’s shoulder. “What are you doing in there?”
Jeramy grimaced. “Silly mistake, really. That’s what you get for doing these things in a rush. Over here, see? The uribundos rune. I got the third crossing wrong, allowing the power I summoned to swap places with me. A novice mistake! But I’ve had ages to kick myself over it. Now. Give it a quick smudge with your boot?”
Lotharia frowned. “Worthington told us you were on the fourth floor.”
Jeramy nodded patiently. “I am. This circle on the third traps me on the fourth. You’re speaking with me across space. But really, I’ll invite you both upstairs as soon as you release me.”
“Sure,” I said. “As soon as you tell us what the passcode to the tower is.”
Jeramy raised an eyebrow. “I approve of your caution. I love having a whale of a time. Now, can we hurry?”
Lotharia hesitated, and then went to step forward.
“No, wait.” I’d been gaming for far too long to accede this quickly. “Lotharia. Ask him something only he could know and that he couldn’t have heard us talking about downstairs.”
Jeramy’s patient smile turned into a hard line. “You test my patience, boy. Hurry and let me out of here. I’ve wasted too much time already to waste more playing at trivia.”
“On my last night here, you gave me a gift,” said Lotharia. “What was it?”
“You expect me to recall every gift I’ve ever given? That was ages ago. I’m sure it was some precious trifle.” He waved his hand. “Now. Smudge the circle and I’ll reward you more handsomely than you can imagine.”
We both stepped back.
“Wow,” said Lotharia. “I can’t believe how close that was. Thanks, Chris.”
Jeramy’s eyes narrowed. “I see that your life is inextricably intertwined with your body, boy. Yet you are so weak. Free me, and I shall raise you in power such that none of the threats you face can menace you again.”
I paused. Wait a sec. Did he know I was in Death March mode? Wasn’t he an NPC? How—
“No, thank you,” said Lotharia. “We’ll be making no bargains with you.”
I forced myself to nod. That one moment of temptation slipped away. What was I thinking? Accept power from something like him? Never.
Jeramy gave us both a predatory smile. “Last chance, buckeroos.”
“Yeah,” I said. The flat, inhuman anger now filling Jeramy’s eyes was making me nervous. “Let’s head on up.”
Jeramy threw himself at the edge of the circle, his form exploding as he did so into a torrent of blood and viscera so that he hit the curling wall of smoke with a horrendous scream. We both leapt back, clutching at each other, and stared wide-eyed as the gore slid down the summoning circle’s wall to reveal a hunched goatman. His knees were reversed, his feet become hooves, and his shoulders and spine were covered in thick, bristly fur. His head was all goat, his mouth filled with fangs, and twin curling ram’s horns of ebon made his head appear massive and horrific.
With a shriek, he tore a strip of flesh from his side and hurled it at us. The strip become a hissing black snake midair, only to evaporate in a flash of smoke upon hitting the summoning circle wall. Furious, the goat demon threw back its head and shrieked with such volume that we both clapped our hands over our ears.
Stumbling, we ran up the stairs, our panic preventing us from noticing the flat stone roof that blocked the stairwell. I ran hunched over, hauling myself up the steps, my hand accidentally closing on a marble as I went. I flinched before colliding with the flat roof only to emerge onto the fourth floor, Lotharia hard on my heels.
Gasping, we fell to the ground, then turned and kicked our way back to the tower wall to stare at the smooth ground we’d emerged from. There was no sign of the way down.
“My god,” said Lotharia, pressing her hand to her chest. “That was insane. What was that thing?”
“And why the hell did Jeramy summon it?” I tried to force my breath to slow. I’d not been panicked like that since arriving here. I’d not even thought about Shadow Stepping or summoning my Death Dagger. My only thought had been the most primal and basic: escape.
“Wow.” Lotharia took a deep breath and held it. “I’m going to repeat that for effect: wow.”
“Yeah.” I climbed to my feet and pulled her up after me. “No kidding. And I thought the ogres were trouble.”
“Oh, no. If that thing ever got free, we’d all be done. Or worse than done.” She combed her black hair from her face and composed herself. “I vote we never visit that third floor again.”
“I second your motion.” I realized I was holding something in my left hand and opened my fist. A small, clear marble, much like a children’s toy, sat in my palm. “Huh. What’s this?” I activated Detect Magic and immediately closed my fist over the bright glow.
“Where did you get that?” asked Lotharia.
“On the steps. It was just lying there.” I opened my hand carefully again, feeling a spike of excitement. “What is it?”
“Looks like a mana stone,” she said. “Like the one embedded in the pommel of Falkon’s sword. Can I see?”
She held it up to the light and turned it this way and that. “Yep. A very minor one. I bet Jeramy dropped it and never noticed. It stores mana you can draw on in times of need. I think this one probably holds about four or five mana points. Negligible for someone like Jeramy.”
I grinned as I took it back. “But it doubles my own store. Awesome. How do I use it?”
“Just having it in your possession will increase your mana pool. You can keep it in a pouch or whatever. When you meditate, you can keep going until you refill your mana stone. It’s pretty basic at this level.”
“Mana marble,” I corrected her, and pulled open my character sheet. I’d not earned any XP, to my disappointment, but a quick check proved Lotharia right: my mana had risen to nine. “Sweet!”
“Now,” said Lotharia. “Let’s get to work on these barrels. You check them while I weaken the boulders. Then we can time it right and roll them across the wall to the goblin tower.”
“Sure thing,” I said. “And maybe you can Imbue them to make them a little lighter?”
“You’re getting lazy,” laughed Lotharia. “No. You need to up your strength. And there’s only one way to do that.”
“Great,” I said, turning to the large barrels with a sigh. “Great.”
Still, I couldn’t claim to be too upset. I slipped my new mana marble into my pocket, rolled my shoulders to loosen them up, and walked on over to the closest barrel as Lotharia got to work.
16
We waited till dawn the next day to tackle the plague corpse mission. Nobody wanted to head down to Feldgrau with evening drawing on, so instead we rested in the goblin tent village, something that was only made possible by Barfo’s cooking his ‘bad food’ outside the curtain wall.
Falkon nudged me awake with the toe of his boot, and I sat up to the remarkably pleasing aroma of candied apples and o
atmeal. Pale morning light was filtering in through the massive hole in the side of the chamber, and Barfo was casually stirring his secondary pot while Kreekit knitted some kind of bone cardigan. Lotharia was sipping from a clay cup, blanket around her shoulders, and Falkon gave me a smile before returning to cleaning his armor.
The goblins’ den was actually surprisingly homey. I sat up, stretched, and gave thanks for Euphoria’s lack of emphasis on the need to brush one’s teeth or shower. I scarfed down a bowl of what Barfo called ‘brown grass and knobby fruit’ – and which he kindly explained he’d kept rat bits out of – and then stepped outside to survey the land that stretched out below Castle Winter.
The sun had barely cleared the high peaks to the east, and long shadows still stretched across the forested vale. When was the last time I’d actually stopped to appreciate the stunning beauty of Euphoria? While there might be a broad valley somewhere in the European Alps that rivaled this in terms of sheer beauty, even the most gorgeous Alpine valley would lack the mystery and magical potential of what lay before me. For in those dark woods, fairies and dark secrets really did lurk, while at any moment a dragon or griffon might fly forth from the peaks into the morning light.
I thought of my brother Justin, of how perilous my quest was, of the enormity of the odds stacked against my success and how reckless this whole endeavor was, and still I smiled. The sun was warm on my bare arms, I was just starting to get a taste of power, and Euphoria was a fantasy land like I’d always dreamed of exploring. Ever since I was a kid and read my first Fighting Fantasy ‘choose your own adventure’ novel I’d wanted to be thrust into the midst of a thrilling, impossible world.
And here I was.
Falkon and Lotharia stepped out to join me, and for a moment we simply stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing down at Feldgrau. The village was a dark stain upon the grassy sward, hedged in by dense forest and looking out of place in this pristine wilderness. From this vantage point I could make out the fields that had clearly fallen fallow since the village’s neglect, and parts of the town I’d not visited when I’d first arrived: the broken tower in which the Dread Lord resided, squat and vicious like the lower half of a shattered blade; the yawning charnel pit before it whose depths were shrouded in darkness, its banks made of raw earth as if the very grass refused to come close; the many collapsed and broken buildings that testified to the horrific attack that had laid the township low.