by Elian Tars
“I have,” I answered, thinking that she was talking in delirium.
“You jump like monkeys in a cage,” she snickered and coughed dryly.
“Shut up, smartass,” I chuckled. “It’s bad for your health to talk.” I tore off a piece of her cape and put it in her mouth. “Endure. This might hurt.”
“Erghh-aghh…” Una wheezed and jerked when I pulled the dagger out of her side. I glanced at the item’s characteristics and put it into my inventory.
“A little bit more… Good girl…” I muttered, grabbing the handle of the other dagger.
“Arghh!!! Phew! Damn you, Bon!!!” she shouted, managing to spit out the makeshift gag. “Is this how you to treat a lady?! Damn you!!”
“Shh-shh-shh,” I whispered, wrapping my arm around her, “we don’t want the enemies to rush in here.”
Getting her off the hook, I carefully put her onto the floor and took out the yellow phial that I got from Liro.
“No… Don’t waste it on me.” Lifting her hand up with some difficulty, Una covered my hand with hers. “Finish me off, Daerk. It’ll be easier that way.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snorted and poured Restoring Potion 3 into her mouth.
Her wounds started to heal in front of my eyes, and her armor and cape began to restore themselves. Casting Tranquility on myself, I materialized a couple of lock picks and got rid of her shackles without much difficulty.
“Thank you, my knight. You’ve saved the princess,” she giggled.
“Don’t make such comparisons, nothing good comes of them,” I chuckled. But still, my heart skipped a beat when I remembered the other girl thought me her knight.
“What? Can’t I be a princess?” Una snorted and, sitting on the stone floor, drew her face close to mine. “Thank you…” she said quietly, putting her hand on my cheek and looking me in the eyes. “No one risked their life for me before.”
She tenderly kissed my cheek and quickly retreated.
“We have no time to waste. Give me a dagger.” She outstretched her hand demandingly. Taking out a regular dagger out of my inventory, I offered it to her. “Do you mind? He owes me something,” the girl asked, nodding at the unconscious Lade.
“He’s yours by right,” I answered coldly, feeling glad that another problem solved itself. I couldn’t finish him off.
Lifting up his bald head, Una cut the monk’s throat with a flick of her wrist.
“Hmm… Not a Gleam,” she said thoughtfully. “Great.”
“You thought he would drop a Fraction of Guer-Shui?” I asked, pretending not to care.
“It doesn’t matter. Do you hear thumping?” she asked. “That’s the Decayed, they’re gonna be here soon. I don’t know was it the noise that attracted them or the use of very powerful potions. Will you cover me?” She smiled and outstretched her arm. Lilac sand rushed from her fingertips, dancing in the air and drawing out the outlines of a portal.
There wasn’t a trace left of the dark-green acid. It corroded the stone for about ten seconds before it just disappeared; nothing prevented the two Spiders from rushing into the prison. Not in a hurry to attack, they halted at the entrance, scanning the room and transmitting the information to one of the Mothers.
Suddenly, they simultaneously ran forward at Una. They were definitely ordered to stop her from opening up a portal.
They didn’t succeed. Level fifteen weaklings were nothing for someone like me.
“Thank you, Daerk. Come back, too,” Una said, disappearing together with the portal.
You’re welcome. Get there safe. As for me… I’m in no hurry to get back home.
Chapter 4
Inventory
I was glad that Una left without much talk. I feared that she might want to make sure that I also returned home. She could’ve started acting all noble, saying things like: “Teleport yourself, I’ll cover you,” because she was very well aware of my ability. Luckily, everything happened the other way round. But on the other hand, she left her savior behind far too easily. Was I being paranoid again? Or was my intuition reminding me once again that I shouldn’t trust this girl, and that her “romantic” gestures were nothing more than means to an end? Though, after everything we’ve been through, maybe I should stop seeing a disguised enemy in her.
Or was she, under her patron’s capable guidance, just trying to lull me into safety?
Anyway, there was no time to think about such things now. I had unfinished business to attend to. My primary reason for coming to Ekheim was to save Una. But now that that was out of the way, I could give one of my old ideas a shot. This city was rich and unguarded, and its new masters were yet to lay their hands on its treasures.
Hearing the flapping of approaching wings, I looked up and saw the Bat.
“There’s… Trouble…” it wheezed. “The people… In the hall… Have… Evacuated… One by one…” It shook its head and fell silent for a few seconds. Longer conversations were more difficult for it than any tough battle. “Through… The escape… Route… But I… Sensed… The energy… Of the Decayed… They are coming… Through… The same route.”
I frowned.
“Just as I thought, the creatures won’t let anyone get out of Ekheim. I suppose the abilities of the Mothers were enough to track the flow of the refugees’ energy and send their children there. Well, all they have to do is clear the tunnel,” I said.
The Bat nodded slowly.
How horrible it was to walk over the corpses! Theoretically, I could save a few dozen people. But I didn’t want to make the Old Man suffer. For me, for all his Followers, and even for our allies, it was of vital importance that the God of Darkness restores his strength as soon as possible. And even though transporting a crowd of people with the help of Elusive Darkness would immediately make new Followers out of them, thus enlarging the Old Man’s congregation, and the size of his tiny “batteries,” too, that would be difficult for him to do now. I couldn’t tell whether the growth of his congregation would cover his current energy expenditure, or if he’d overstrain himself and wouldn’t be able to get back into the divine ranks in the near future.
I also wasn’t sure whether I was really doing the right thing or was just trying to find an excuse for my heartless behavior.
“Are we leaving?” the Bat’s voice interrupted my train of thought.
“Not yet. Let’s go to the staircase. You keep track of the situation. Don’t waste your time on hiding and scouting anymore; our main mission is complete, and we can always get out of here if something goes wrong.”
It was difficult to tell by the Wights’ eyes what they were thinking of, because the cold blue lights that were always dancing in their hollow eye sockets rarely ever revealed much of their emotions. But it seemed to me that Kane was appraising me through his winged mediator, trying to guess what I was up to.
“Okay…” it said a couple of seconds later and headed off to the corridor.
Flying out of the dungeon, the Bat looked around and nodded its little head, inviting me to follow it.
“Aaaa!!!”
“Nooo!!!”
“Help me-e-e-e!!!”
Bloodcurdling screams filled the town hall. The Decayed seemed to have killed everyone who was in the tunnel, as well as those who had crawled through it and got inside the building. Their trap was a success. The last hope of rescue had faded away.
Damn it, what were the Gods thinking? They had Followers and temples in the city! They attacked our small group in Ilyenta so fervently, but didn’t even try to stand together to save the city. Were they cowards or was this not high on their list of priorities? As far as I’ve understood it, the local Olympus had been divided even before, but the divine beings got over their pettiness and united against the Old Man and Rugus. Why were they not fighting the Decay? There were fourteen temples in Ekheim. Even without Rugus, there were enough Gods left to protect the city from the monsters.
So where were they?
“Stop,�
�� the Bat said, making me halt in the middle of the staircase. Hovering right under the ceiling, it saw what was happening on the second floor. “There… Are… Two Bears… Levels forty-five… And fifty…”
I had no idea where to go. I had no one to ask either. I could, perhaps, ask Liro, but I didn’t want to constantly have to rely on Rugus or his Followers. Liro wouldn’t be able to answer my question, so he would have to ask his patron, who would be unable to answer him, considering what state he was in.
One of the major cons of being over-cautious was that I had to do a lot on my own, instead of relying on my allies for help and bonding with them.
“Get into the inventory.” Deciding what to do, I outstretched my hand to the Bat. It landed on my palm and immediately disappeared in my inventory.
Twilight Wanderer.
My most popular skill of the day was no longer on cooldown and could be used again.
I rushed forth and then diagonally, taking a shortcut to the corridor on the second floor. I turned around. Colored in different shades of gray was a massive double door right at the end of the corridor. I rushed to it at full speed. The space around me stretched and, before the effect of the Wanderer had ended, I found myself in the mayor’s office.
Well, someone has definitely been here before me… I highly doubted that the new mayor, Baron Tsunter, was responsible for the mess. He had plenty of time before the attack of the Decayed to take everything he needed. Therefore, someone else must’ve raided the office.
“Damned marauders,” I muttered. Have the vaults suffered the same fate?
Materializing the Bat, I put it on the edge of the huge table that reminded me of a ship the first time I had visited the office while it still belonged to Godwin Elliot. Then I approached the open cabinet doors. One part of the crystal glassware was broken and another part was scattered all over the room. A similar cabinet stood beside it, but it was used as a bar. A puddle of something that definitely smelled like alcohol had soaked the carpet in front of it.
I recalled Elliot’s secretary taking both wine and glasses out of her inventory. Then what were these cabinets standing here for? To impress merchants and diplomats?
“So that’s… What you… Wanted…” The Bat regained consciousness, and Kane could watch me through it again. “And what… Is here… That’s worth… Taking?” Flapping its wings, it flew to an open drawer and looked inside.
We have no time to rummage through everything and look for the most valuable stuff. We better deal with this in a more quiet surrounding.
I took one of the cabinets with both hands. Put in the inventory, I ordered.
The giant, lacquered piece of furniture immediately disappeared without a trace.
“Wow…” I heard the Bat behind me. “Gleams… Are something… Else…”
I looked at the Bat over my shoulder and remembered our talk on the way to Ekheim. The mystery of the inventory bothered me. When I taught the villagers of Ilyenta the basics of inter-dimensional magic, Kane told me that common Followers had only one slot at their beginning levels. I got sad for a little while and took it as it was. But on my way here, thinking about how to use the inventory of my small troops more effectively, I remembered that on my very first day I saw a villager woman, Jonna, I think was her name, take not only drinks, but also food out of her inventory. While I was grinding in the forest and eating Burdock Root, I found out that you could store twenty items of the same kind in one slot. In that case, Jonna needed at least two slots because her items were different.
The answer was obvious. With reluctance and great difficulty, because he had to talk through the dead Bat, Kane told me that I wasn’t quite right. An inventory slot had a limit in volume. “About one to one barrel,” he said. This, of course, told me nothing, so I asked him to be more specific. “A cube long and wide as your calf, plus shin,” he said after a long pause. So, it was about twenty inches. So the volume of one slot, if we go by the metric system, was one eighth of a cubic meter, or one hundred and twenty five liters. But you could also place twenty items of the same kind into one slot, so long as they don’t exceed the volume limit. For example, if nineteen items were enough to meet the volume limit, the twentieth one would be moved to the other slot.
Gear and weapons were not subject to these limitations. For example, a breastplate more than twenty inches long wouldn’t suit the size of the slot, but if it was “rare” and gave at least plus one to any of the stats, then it would be welcomed into the inventory.
But still, how did Jonna, with her single slot, carry both drinks and food for herself and her son? She might’ve used some special artifacts, increasing her inventory, or she might’ve been a Disciple. She had, most likely, used a small bag. I was arguing with Una at that moment and didn’t notice when she took it out and put it back. One bag meant one object, so it took up one slot.
Following the rules of this world’s physics, Jonna hadn’t done anything unusual. But another thing bothered me. She had a ready knapsack in her inventory. And what’s more, she wasn’t at all surprised by our bottomless inventories; both mine and Una’s, who took out a book, a ring, and then food and drinks out of hers. And I put the Encyclopedia and a ring into mine. And those were two different objects…
Open my inventory, I ordered.
I had already tried to put a big thing into my inventory back when I carried that big stone for the tombstones for Ilsa’s parents. I was nervous then, waiting for the return of the Bear, so I wasn’t even thinking about inventory mechanics. Had I been more attentive, I would’ve already known back then that some things could take up more than one slot. The damned cabinet took up ten!
Though, I shouldn’t complain. Kane was right, Gleams were something else. The rest, even the Disciples, were limited by their twenty-inch cubes and were unable to merge slots.
Following an old gamer tradition of “taking everything that’s not nailed to the ground,” I put all of the furniture into my inventory. The question about where to go next answered itself when we found a locked door behind one of the cabinets.
Chapter 5
The Treasury
Considering his level and stats, it definitely wasn’t hard for Mister Elliot to move the cupboard in order to get into the secret room. However, if that was the case, there’d be scratches on the floor, but I couldn’t see any. Apparently, he just lifted up the damn thing and carefully put it somewhere else.
Taking out the Endless Set of Lock Picks out of my inventory, I started fiddling with the lock. I didn’t pick the first of the grooves right away. I went from one lever to another twice, but to no avail. Disappointed, I thought that I would have to wait for the cooldown of Wanderer.
However, I didn’t have to. The lock finally budged, and the door creaked open.
Getting inside, I closed the door shut. I liked being in pitch-black darkness.
“A small… Corridor… The stairs… Down and… Up…” the Bat reported, flying ahead.
“Let’s go,” I ordered.
“Downstairs… Three times… Longer…” It scouted the area pretty fast and came back with the new information.
“The one that goes downstairs probably leads to the emergency exit,” I suggested.
“It looks like… There’s… Some noise… Behind the door…”
If that was true, there was no point in checking it.
Approaching the stairs, I noticed something glimmering down below.
Kane’s capabilities while using a Wight’s body, except, maybe, for the Highest Wight, were limited. And his Eyes in the Dark was less upgraded than mine; that’s why he didn’t see the glimmer.
“Why… There?” the Bat wondered when I began to descend.
“Loot,” I replied, jumping over the steps.
I went downstairs almost all the way to the massive door that divided the stairs from what we decided was the emergency entrance. I stopped and stared at the wall; or rather, that’s probably what Kane thought I was doing at that mom
ent. In fact, I was looking at one of the stones in the masonry. It was at chest level and glowing brightly.
I tried to grab it with my fingertips and pull it out, but to no avail. It didn’t differ from the other stones in the masonry and was an inseparable part of it. I’d have to break the wall to get it.
I decided to use Bon’s old pitchfork to loosen the stone. Taking it out of my inventory, I made a step forward and hit, activating Power Strike.
The shaft broke in two. “Damn it…” I put the remains of it into my inventory. I doubted me leaving the broken shaft would mean anything to the Decayed that were going to capture the city soon, but there was no need to leave a trail behind.
“There’s a… Cache there… Right?” the Bat forced out the words, watching me intently.
“There’s something hidden there, that’s for sure,” I nodded, wondering if I should risk my trishula, too.
“You can’t… Break the wall… This way… You need a hammer… And strength… A lot…”
That was to be expected. But how could I leave this mysterious, highlighted by my marker, place?
“Wait here for a bit,” I said over my shoulder. I breathed out and imagined the streams of energy flowing through my body. I then blurred them…
Twilight Wanderer.
Without hesitation, I jumped right into the wall. I went deep into it, surrounded by total darkness. My night vision was completely useless here; I was inside the masonry after all.
But the marker didn’t go anywhere. It led me forward, until my head emerged into the open space.
A hemisphere the size of a bigger bowl was situated inside the wall, not compromising its integrity in any way. I wondered if that was some sort of an architectural miracle, or magic. I didn’t really have the time to figure it out now. Honestly speaking, I didn’t need to do so, because my goal was right in front of my eyes. It was a beautiful, iron-bound coffer, made of either silver or platinum, or some other similar metal.
I stretched out my hand to get it, but couldn’t grasp it. That had never happened before in the Twilight, where I could usually walk through any object. But now, my hand bumped against some sort of an invisible barrier that was just an inch away from the coffer.