Beyond All Expectations (Emerilia Book 8)

by Michael Chatfield

  She let out a breath. She could see and sense everything within three hundred meters of her. This kind of information overload, the power that she felt at seeing this all, was similar to when she tapped into her true magical power.

  It was almost god-like.

  She looked into the sewers, unable to find anything significant.

  “Let’s go around the city so that I can build up a map of this place,” Deia said. Right now their map only consisted of the maps that they had combined. By using Deia’s own findings from her Touch of the Land, they’d be able to get a clear picture of not only the city but everything underneath it.

  Night descended by the time they had completed mapping out the city.

  “Looks like there are a number of ways in and out of the city through the sewers. Maybe the people who work in the sewers can help us out,” Deia said.

  “Just so happens that they’re all in taverns for the most part,” Gurren said, as if a wise sage passing on priceless knowledge.

  “Indeed, it does seem that way,” Lox said. A split seemed to appear in the back of his Devastator armor as he stepped out and onto the ground. With a wave of his hand, his armor disappeared into a spatial ring he wore.

  Deia didn’t say anything as Lox and Gurren, now out of their armor, followed them toward where the sewer workers were hanging out in the taverns. They entered the tavern Deia was supposed to meet with the sewer workers at.

  “They’re haunted, I tell you—flickering lights, whispering voices. Place gives me the chills. Need to get a different job,” one of the sewer workers confided to Deia. She filed it away as they moved to another tavern with more sewer workers.

  “Ah, I can show you the sewers if you want, lass, but I know there’s something else you want.” One of them grabbed between his legs and shook his hips at Deia.

  He didn’t see Induca’s punch that hit him in the face like a freight train. His teeth flew out as he fell to the ground.

  People cheered around the room. Seemed they didn’t like a braggart trying to pull one over on a lady either.

  The rest, cowed by Induca’s actions, said that they’d heard odd things, whispers and the like, or thought that there were others down there, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  They left the taverns, Lox and Gurren singing songs. Induca and Deia moved to the residential areas. They went to four different homes where the workers lived; two were asleep while the others said things similar to the ones in the tavern.

  “One last sewer worker to go,” Induca said.

  “Why the hell is he so far away from everyone else?” Gurren complained as they moved through the streets.

  Deia frowned as they reached their destination.

  “You’re saying that our sewer dude is in there?” Lox said as they looked at a stone warehouse. They didn’t pause to look at it, instead following Deia, who continue to walk past.

  “With the Touch of the Land spell, I can see a crude entrance to the sewers. I think there’s a bit more going on here,” Deia said.

  “Lox, Gurren—you get into one of the other buildings and keep a watch. Induca and I will use stealth to try to check out the inside of this place and see what’s going on,” Deia said.

  “Can do.” Lox and Gurren headed off to find a perch around the warehouse.

  Deia and Induca activated stealth and their stealth spells, and moved back toward the warehouse where the sewer worker was.

  “What do you think, boss?” a thin man asked, his face and body covered in scars, as he looked at the man with a hovering way point above him.

  “Good,” the sewer worker who had been called boss said.

  There were twenty or so others, all of them looking excitedly at the boss, who was looking over small vials of purple liquid.

  He tossed one of the vials to the thin man, who eagerly caught it, a look of happiness on his face. Immediately the man opened the vial and drank deeply from it. He finished the vial in one go as the boss closed the case of vials.

  The thin man shook from his head to his toes, a look of ecstasy on his face.

  “Make sure that this gets to Iudarai. Everything that goes through Terra is checked by those damn Stone Raiders.” The boss man looked to the others within the room.

  “Yes, boss!” the others replied. Within the warehouse were three trader’s carts with various items of holding adorning them.

  “So, what’s our play?” Induca asked, using their party chat so no one else could hear them.

  “Well, seems that this is illegal in some kind of way. I say that we get our hands on that sewer worker, ask him a few questions and figure out what the hell is going on here,” Deia said.

  “What’s up?” Lox asked through the party chat, unable to see what they were seeing.

  “The sewer worker seems to be in charge of a gang of some kind that is moving what looks like to be illegal potions from here to Iudarai,” Induca said.

  They waited above the warehouse. The gang members moved more crates from the hole that was in the corner of the warehouse that led down to the sewers. These were loaded onto the carts that were attached to horses. It took a few hours. As this was going on, the sewer worker left the warehouse, leaving the final preparations to the others.

  He had two bodyguards following him. They wore simple clothes and could be thought of as his friends for anyone who wasn’t watching them carefully.

  “Lox, Gurren—make sure that those two don’t escape and warn the others.” Deia and Induca moved along the rooftops, while Lox and Gurren, in their armor, moved up an adjacent street.

  “Got it,” Lox said.

  “Okay, let’s do this.” Deia launched herself into the air. Induca followed her as Lox and Gurren ran through an alleyway.

  One of the guards looked upward and saw Deia. He let out a warning yell as he tried to pull a weapon from inside his cloak.

  A fireball exploded, the pressure from the explosion directed at the guard, sending them flying backward. As Deia landed, she blocked the leader’s punch with her forearm. Her other hand moved so fast that the man didn’t have any time to react as it smashed into his face, making him take a dazed step backward. She pivoted on her foot; her leg swept up and hit the man in the ribs with a crunch.

  Lox backhanded the guard who Deia’s fireball had propelled sideways while Induca created an explosion behind the other guard, throwing them forward and at her. Her fist jabbed outward and hit the man in the head. He dropped to the ground, rolling a bit, knocked out cold from her hit.

  Lox and Gurren quickly bound the guards and gagged them. Deia did the same to their boss. They collected up their prisoners and headed to an empty warehouse a few blocks away.

  It was a few minutes after they had secured the guards and their boss in the warehouse before they started to show signs of coming around.

  The “sewer worker” looked at them with anger and smug confidence in his eyes.

  Induca pulled the rag from his mouth.

  He laughed at seeing them all. “You don’t know what you’ve all done. Once my master learns of this, you’ll all die!” the man said with complete confidence, an ugly look upon his face.

  “Who is your master?” Deia asked.

  “Not who, but what.” The man sneered.

  “What are they?” Induca asked.

  “You will see soon enough!” the man said, a crazed light in his eyes.

  Deia looked to Induca. She put the gag back into the man’s mouth none too gently.

  “We need to find out what’s in those carts,” Deia said in party chat.

  “Nothing to do but steal one of them. We need more proof of what’s going on before we can take this to the mayor,” Lox said.

  “Fine,” Deia said. “Lox, Induca—stay here. Gurren, you’re with me.”

  They returned to the warehouse only to find that the carts were gone.

  “Crap, the sun is coming up. They must have moved toward the city gates. Use the Touch of the Land spell!�
� Gurren said.

  Deia cast the spell but she couldn’t find the carts. “I can’t find them. Let’s move toward the gate that leads to Iudarai.” She and Gurren ran toward the gate.

  “I found them!” Deia yelled excitedly, finding the cart after her third Touch of the Land she had cast.

  The carts were just a few of a multi-cart procession that was moving from Ecora to Iudarai.

  “Okay, I’ll get in and see if I can steal a bag of holding with the vials in it,” Deia said.

  “I’ll wait in an alley if you need help,” Gurren said. The two of them split up.

  Deia quickly made her way to the courtyard where the caravan was getting ready to move out from. All of the various traders were checking their goods and making sure that they were secured for the ride.

  Deia slowed her pace. Her heart beat fiercely as she moved through the carts and started toward one of the ones she had seen in the warehouse. She checked no one was looking as she moved through the caravan, easily slipping between people, horses, and different items. She reached the cart and touched one of the hidden items of holding that carried the vials.

  She quickly accessed the bag of holding, stealing the vials from the item of holding. She only barely paused before continuing on her way. Her heart beat rapidly the entire time as she exited the courtyard, expecting for someone to call out to her at any moment.

  No one called out and she left the courtyard quickly.

  “Okay, I’ve got it. Let’s head back to the warehouse and find out just what this stuff is,” Deia said.

  All of them were looking at the box; the guards and the leader were all off to the side, watching them.

  Deia opened the box. Inside there were nearly a hundred vials, each of them made from a purple-looking elixir.

  “Looks like purple drank to me,” Gurren said.

  Everyone looked to him with frowns.

  “Sorry, too much time around Steve.” Gurren’s armor shrugged.

  Induca picked up one of the vials and tilted it around, looking at the contents. “Is that a worm?” She looked closer as she shook the vial, trying to see what was inside better.

  “It looks like it.” Deia grabbed another one of the vials. “There’s a worm in here too. What are worms doing in drugs?”

  No one seemed to have any answers.

  “Okay, well, let’s see if Jung Lee can help us out.” Deia pulled out a small Mirror of Communication. She used it to make a video link to Jung Lee’s Mirror of Communication and linked him into the party chat.

  A few moments later, he appeared on the other side. “Deia, is there something that I can help you with?” He’d been using the time to learn about what had happened to Emerilia, work on alchemy and do the things that he had wanted to do in the hundreds of years he’d been captured for.

  “We’ve broken up a drug ring of some kind, but they’re peddling this.” Deia showed the vial. “It seems that there is a worm inside it.”

  “A worm? Has anyone ingested it?” Jung Lee’s normally calm voice became panicky.

  “One of the thugs. Why?”

  “Because when I was dealing with the Elsoom spores, I looked up all kinds of diseases or other affiliations that were similar to the Elsoom spores. One of them being worm’s control,” Jung Lee said. “The worms spread through water systems and entered people and creatures. They would lay dormant for a time before they were activated. The worms would take over people’s bodies, leaving them conscious. They could only watch as their bodies were controlled for the purpose of killing or infecting others.”

  “Well, this idiot was trying to get them to Iudarai,” Induca said.

  “Do you have something that could examine him, maybe a spell of some kind? Look at his brain stem, along the back of his neck. He might already be controlled by the worm. There are two stages to the worms: one where they can suggest things to people by releasing chemicals, or the second where they burrow into the spinal cord and take over the host’s nervous system. There are also multiple kinds of infected, from those who are simply controlled to the ones who have been infected with multiple worms and turn into mobile breeding farms for the worms,” Jung Lee said.

  “Well, none of that sounds good,” Lox said.

  “No, but that’s not the worst part,” Jung Lee said, his face grim. “The worms are only used to control other people—they are just following the commands of their queen. Their queen is also smart.”

  “So this queen commands the worms that are spread out across a large area, takes over the creatures or people in the area and lives it up,” Gurren said.

  “Pretty much. However, this one seems smarter than average as she’s taken over this sewer worker and seen that her worms could be hidden in drugs and smuggled into larger cities. She is looking to create an empire, not just simple control of her surrounding territory,” Jung Lee said.

  Deia cast her Touch of the Land spell to study the leader and his two guards. They all had worms coiled around their spinal cords where it became the brain stem. “Okay, it looks like all of these people have been infected by the worms.” A screen popped up into her view.

  Quest Completed: Sightings and Disappearances

  You have found out the reason that people and creatures have been disappearing; they were controlled by worms.

  Objectives:

  Go to the Mayor’s office to collect your rewards

  Rewards: 15,000 Gold

  Experience

  Strabon Kingdom’s Favor

  Quest: A Worm’s Power (Of Myths and Legends sub-quest)

  A Worm Queen that was banned from Emerilia has returned and is starting her domination with the city of Ecora; however, you have learned about the plot before she has had time to carry out her plan.

  Kill her to stop her from taking over the people of Ecora.

  Failure:

  All of the party dies without completing the quest

  Allow the city Ecora to fall under the control of the Worm Queen

  Rewards: Experience

  Unknown

  Deia dismissed the screens.

  “So it’s hunting time?” A big axe appeared in Gurren’s hands as he held it over his shoulder.

  “Of course.” Deia smiled. Controlling queens, a plot to take over the Strabon kingdom, and a creature that was part of the Myths and Legends Quest group: Deia’s blood boiled with excitement.

  They checked the bonds on the three and then headed out through the city. The gates were still closed but it was easy for the four to slip out over the city walls.

  If they were to attack the carts, it would warn the others and they might escape. However, if they could get the leaders and then cut down the carts, then they could destroy the whole operation.

  Jung Lee sent them all the information he had on the worm queen and they set off. Deia had been a ranger for decades; as soon as she stepped into the forest surrounding Ecora, she felt at home.

  The other three followed as she moved through the forest, using the skills she had built up through her life to look for signs of the queen.

  ***

  It took a number of hours before Deia was able to pick up a trail but Lox had every confidence in her.

  Nothing escapes ranger Deia’s eyes. He proudly remembered the times that Deia and his warband had worked together in the Kufo’tel forest and the forest that surrounded the Mithsia Mountains. It felt as if it had been a lifetime ago, so many things had changed since then.

  Deia suddenly stopped and looked over the ground. She cast Touch of the Land; moments later, a way point appeared on the party’s map.

  “Looks like we found her lair. It’s kind of set up like an ants’ nest. There are multiple entrances all over the place—some of them connecting to the surface, others going deep into the ground and connected to the sewers of Ecora.

  “There’s all kinds of creatures that are expanding the nest. The tunnels are confusing as hell too,” Deia said, a frustrated note to her voice.

/>   Lox brought up his map and looked at the section of the nest that the Touch of the Land had been able to penetrate. “Looks like a mess,” Lox said disdainfully. As a dwarf, he liked clean lines and things to be laid out in a straightforward manner. The crazed way that the nest seemed to have holes all the way through it made him frown in annoyance. Fighting in such an area was going to be difficult.

  “That’s what I was thinking, but, who says that we have to follow their plan?” A blue flame appeared in Deia’s hand.

  “What’s the plan, boss?” Gurren asked, excitement in his voice.

  Lox also grinned inside his armor. It had been some time since he had been out on his own, completing a quest with no backup—enticing rewards that he wanted to get as well as a powerful enemy that could defeat him and his if he wasn’t careful. It was dangerous, crazy, and it made Lox feel alive in a way he didn’t feel doing other things.

  “I will burn us a tunnel through the ground, right into the heart of the nest where the queen should be. While we’re tunneling, Induca, I want you to pour every Fire spell you know into the nest’s entrances. Don’t get stuck in any fights. That way, when we reach the nest then they’ll all be up on the surface trying to fight you instead of running around in the chaotic underground,” Deia said. “Lox, you’re with Induca, and Gurren with me.”

  “Simple, just the way I like it,” Induca said with approval.

  “Okay, then let’s go kill us a queen,” Lox said.

  It was only a few minutes later that Lox and Induca had crept up to one of the larger entrances into the nest that seemed to go deep into the heart of the worm’s home. Deia had used Touch of the Land a few more times so that now they had a clear picture of the nest. The queen also had a way point on her as she rested in the middle of the nest.

  “Well, looks like it’s time for a barbecue,” Induca said.