It was now my turn to squint my eyes. "You first," I said as I got closer.
"I'm afraid there are rules-"
"Damn the rules. I gave you the passcodes, but I will not let you stand behind me in an unknown situation. You first."
"Do you want me to call the Blackguards?" His tone had no emotion; as if he had just flipped a switch and turned robot mode on.
I smiled. "Please, go ahead. If I've learned anything about the Blackguard, it is that they don't care what people do unless it's against the Ways. I doubt telling you to get in your room, where you invited me, could be considered illegal."
"I have friends in high places, deathlord."
"Yeah, and I have the Ways on my side. If a Blackguard does something against it and someone finds out, how long do you think it will take for your well placed friends to forget you ever existed?" I bluffed; I had no idea how things actually worked.
He saw right through it. "You place too much faith in old laws you know nothing about." I heard a hint of anger this time. No one can resist my charms.
"Yep. That's pretty much all I've done since coming to Valia. I'm a sucker for magic, mainly; no idea how the stuff works, but it sure is convenient being a darkness mage in Ter'nodril." I created a darkness morb as a veiled threat
We locked eyes. He looked to the air beside me, but I didn't flinch. If there was a Blackguard with his knife on my neck, I doubted I could do anything against him even if he was visible and shining like a Christmas' tree, so no reason to look.
Eventually, the fat drow sighed and entered through the door. I created a death and a fire morb before following.
The door led to a small room. The drow was waiting for me right next to the door. I kept alert, my hand on my sword grip, as I walked to the opposite wall and placed my back to the corner.
"There will be no need for violence, deathlord. I may not like your lack of trust, but you were right: you said the passcodes. If you're to die, I will not be the one to do it." He closed the door and created a purple morb. It was translucent and still, a perfect ball.
"I haven't seen this color before," I said.
He looked dumbfounded at it. "You did say you know nothing about magic. Very well, I'll show you courtesy because you are my guest, but do not offend me again. This is gravity magic," he said as two more morbs appeared. Then he half extended his arm to one of the walls and shooed the wall away – that's the only way I can explain that hand gesture. When he did so, one morb flew to the wall, entering it and disappearing.
"Most people," he continued, "don't see the need to become better controllers, since it's only used at the release phase of some spells, mainly offensive ones. But I never liked having to extend my arm or point my fingers. Soon I won't need to even do this much." He did the same gesture to the opposite wall and another morb flew to it.
"Gravity magic," he kept talking, "is powerful and rare. One of its many strengths is that it's invisible while dormant, and it can lay in such state for a long time. Thousands of years, if used in a seal." Finally, he sent the last morb to the floor.
Putting his hands back on his sides, he nodded at the wall to my side. "Careful now." The walls he had thrown the morbs at shone purple and moved outwards. I stepped to the side and the walls stopped both moving and glowing after moving some fifty centimeters.
Then the room began to move down.
"Elevator," I thought aloud.
"Yes," he replied and said nothing more.
"What are seals?" I asked.
"They're symbols that can retain and preserve magic. Basic seals can be a single rune, a star, or a circle. The most advanced ones, which can stand the test of time, are usually made of all three: circle, star and runes. No one knows why, but they also become invisible after drawn and can only be seen if activated or if special skills or tools are used." As we descended more, the metal walls around us gave way to stone ones.
"Where does magic come from?"
"No one knows."
"But-"
"Enough." He said without anger, but firmly. "You are my guest, not my pupil, and Ter'nodril has firm rules against teaching magic. Even if I am sure there are not Blackguards in here, the priests sometimes use other means for spying on the populace." I shut up. He had been helpful and I didn't want to antagonize him. "We are close."
Soon the wall behind him gave way to a door. He opened it and gestured for me to go in. This time, I did as bid: even if he attacked me in the back, I was in god knows where with no gravity magic to push me back the way I had come.
I found myself in a stone corridor and the door closed behind me without warning. I wanted to try and open it, but it had no handle. I surrendered to my destiny and walked the corridor, noticing it had no torches in the sconces on the walls.
At the end of the corridor there were silver double walls with black runes all over them. Looking from far away it resembled the night sky, only with inverted colors.
Stopping right in front of the doors, I touched them, one hand to each side. When nothing happened, I pushed and they moved.
"Jack Thorn," I heard the moment a small slit appeared between the doors. "What a pleasure."
The voice was raspy, and as the doors kept opening, I found out why: it belonged to a skeleton. Unlike the red skeletons I had seen, this one had white bones and dark gray flames were lit inside its eye sockets. It was in front of more double doors, these ones made of wood.
It was wearing a black and gold robe with so many patterns interlaced that it had no main color. On its long fingers there were multiple rings and on its neck there were three long necklaces – two golden and one silver – all of them carrying big medallions full of runes. On its head laid a silver crown with black symbols all over it, and above its head two death morbs were floating.
"Lich," I said.
"Indeed," it answered without moving its mouth. "I felt the death of an eight-legged acquaintance last evening." I supposed he was talking about the spider queen. Had it already changed days? I confirmed it by checking the clock on the edge of my vision. "And now you appear before me. I don't believe in coincidences."
"Neither do I. So, what's up?"
It looked at me silently, as if deciding what to do with me. "Not telling me anything about it, while acting as if you are my equal. Your arrogance is typical of a deathlord. So is your secrecy. We've had worse recruits in the past."
"Hold there, mister or miss bones. I didn't say I would join anything."
"No; I did. Unless you want to find out how long the bound deathlords will take to track you into Ter'nodril."
I smiled feebly. "So, you are telling me I'm being chased by some bad guys and you are my only salvation. Typical recruiting scam."
"Do you doubt any of it?"
Tharnya could've been lying to me, but the drow had known about me before I got to Ter'nodril. Believing that Shai had been resurrected wasn't hard.
"Quick question before I answer yours: how do you make sure someone doesn't get resurrected?"
Skeletons couldn't really smile, but the way the flames inside its eyelids flickered seemed... Amused. I credited it to some kind of feedback the game was applying directly to my mind.
"By destroying over half the body, over half the brain, or cutting this someone's head off."
That matched how I had left Shai's body. Not only that, a quest I had received also suggested that I should find the Resistance. Although it didn't say the Resistance was my only choice, after interacting with the ghosts and the drow it was clear I wouldn't find help among their xenophobe racist asses.
My already weak smile died completely. "No. No, I don't."
"Good, this means you are not as stupid as the reports said."
"Wait, what?"
He pushed the wooden doors open. "Welcome to the Resistance."
Jack Thorn
Unbound Deathlord
Legendary Spotter, Hedge Wizard, Pioneer, Dark Archmage
Level 10
&nb
sp; Hit Points:235 / 235
Mana Points:550 / 550
Stamina:200 / 200
Attributes:
Strength:7
Agility:7
Dexterity:6
Constitution:7
Intelligence:13
Perception:6 + 10 [Items]
Willpower:9
Charisma:7
Traits:
Adept Mage:11 + 10 [Items]
Adept Controller:11
Energizer:3
Diviner:2
Gold Digger:2
Scavenger:2
Antimage:1
Crafter:1
Healer:1
Meditator:1
Mind Seer:1
Negotiator:1
Nitpicker:1
Shadow:1
Chess
Vampire
Underworld – Corrupted – Undead
Who came first: the vampire or the deathlord? Behold the greatest debate of the Underworld.
No one knows for certain and both species swear the Mother Herself has told them they were the first to become undead. Unfortunately, no priest or priestess of the Mother will confirm or deny the words.
Whatever the truth may be, vampires were among the first to be corrupted by death magic. While the deathlords did it to themselves, the first vampires were humans experimented on by Logan, the God of Blood. From them descended the noble lineage of the pure-blooded in their thirty-three clans, interbreeding and killing each other since time immemorial.
These pure-blooded are but a small faction, albeit the most powerful one, of the vampire species. Any human that has been bitten may either become a vampire or a ghoul, the former being politically ignored and the later physically enslaved.
Pure-blooded or turned, all of them obey the Father, the most powerful vampire alive. All other species agree that no one should dare to take a title similar to the Mother, the Creator Goddess of all Valia. And for that reason, perhaps even more so than for their turning mortals into ghoul salves, the vampires are hated by all.
The danger is this: the vampires know they are hated, and they hate everyone in return.
Hide your blood or forfeit your soul for eternity.
-- Excerpt from "Species of Valia", by Amir, a Karr
12. Under the Underworld
'When an enemy shows you something, that's when you should try harder to discover what he wants to keep hidden.'
- Mother
Quest completed: Find Help
Random attribute point received:
» +1 intelligence
MP: 620 (+70)
The quest was completed as soon as I said I didn't doubt the skeleton. Not bad, although the system responsible for generating random numbers in Valia was clearly broken: the last four points I received had gone both into intelligence and charisma. While I was happy for the extra bit of intelligence, I wasn't sure charisma was that useful.
"Are you coming?" The lich asked.
I snapped out my reverie and looked at what was beyond the doors. More of the same: a huge cave chamber. What was weird was the fact that it was under the drow city and the ceiling was really, really high. A black tower pierced the ceiling far away from us:
The Dark Temple under the Dark Temple.
A wide river came from a wall and flowed around the Temple before moving on, making the tower into an island. All around the place there were pools of water, more mushrooms and... Cows.
Well, whatever they were, they looked like cows, except they had two heads, beaks and were albino white. They were actually disturbing to look at.
"What are they?" I asked as I stepped out of the big stone tower I was inside. The doors closed themselves behind me.
"Beacows." We started walking.
Cows with beaks are named beacows. So very creative, mister developers.
"And where the hell are we? I mean, I know that tower there looks like the Dark Temple, but I got down here too fast. Did I pass through some magic portal or something?"
"No, you only fell."
"Huh?"
"You rode the faller, did you not?"
"You mean the elevator?"
"That's what you choose to call it? Elevator." It tested the word. "Awful choice. It is hard for a novice mage such as yourself, and a Traveler on top of that, to realize the gravity spell used on the floor was not to make the elevator fly but to lessen the effects of the fall on your body. You reached impressive speeds as you plunged towards the ground until you entered the area of influence of the spell below, which made you slow and stop."
"Wait, the elevator was free falling?"
"Yes."
I gulped. This sack of bones was telling me a single spell on the floor of the cave had stood between me and death? These people placed way too much faith in magic.
"What do you mean lessen the effects of the fall? Something, like inertial dampeners?"
"Yes." The lich turned its head to face me in a way that would have broke a human's neck. "I'm surprised you understand Valia's physics so well."
And I was surprised that they could negate inertia with magic. All space scientists would kill to have such an ability back home.
"I'm smart like that." I nodded at the Dark Temple. "How big is that thing?"
"As far as I know, that's the entirety of it. However, half the Temple is only accessible to the Chosen, and they keep their secrets well."
"Yeah, they didn't strike me as very talkative folk. No idea whatsoever about what's in there?"
"The true Ter'nodril."
So very helpful. Well, at least he's answering my questions. "Care to elaborate?"
"Ter'nodril is a word in the gods' language and we will never know all the meaning it has, but part of it would be 'Soul of Nothingness' or 'Black Core' or even 'Nothingness' Fortress'. The 'surface city' is both a ruse for other denizens of the Underworld and a punishment for the drow who displease the Chosen. The true Ter'nodril is inside the Temple."
"So, the Devourer is a true god? It just looks like a big mass of darkness energy to me."
"What you saw over the surface city is but a show of power. The Devourer is real, but also locked in the Temple, his power taken and used by the drow. The Ways are an elegant lie used to more easily control the masses. It all goes back to when the drow were created and their leaders betrayed their god."
I looked at the lich. "You know an awful lot about a secretive people."
"The Resistance has many friends and many ambitions, both bring and require information. Dakar must fall first because the drow mostly stick to themselves and enslave their own, while the vampires and deathlords..." It looked at me. "And the bound deathlords bring misery to a lot of the Underworld and the Surface too. I have been told you saw a very small part of it in the prison you destroyed."
"Wait, you know about that? Who told you?"
"Of course I know; why would I allow an unknown deathlord to live after finding an outpost of the Resistance?"
I noticed it didn't answer my second question. Not that much of a nice skeleton, after all.
"Huh. And what about that show the Blackguard put on at the entrance? Couldn't an army just march in here and destroy the city from below?"
"They could, but why would anyone destroy a city instead of capturing it? That would be an awful waste of resources. Especially since the real drow power would be inside the Temple and they would counter-attack."
"If it's about capturing the city, what about piercing the ceiling here and putting people up there using elevators?"
"There are enchantments to prevent that and the invader would be under observation and attacks from the Dark Temple all the while." I opened my mouth to ask more and the lich lifted its hand to stop me. "As much as I'd like to discuss strategies to overthrow the drow, I'd rather not do that where the Blackguard might be listening."
I took that as sound advice and kept following Bones in the direction of a far wall. It had told me to change the subject, but not to shut up.
I kept my questions going.
"How come the ceiling doesn't fall down?"
"No one knows. Which usually means either the gods willed it that way or some very powerful mage did."
Or incomplete game design.
Thinking about the Resistance and the evil deathlords I began to wonder, was helping the Resistance save the Underworld a mandatory quest? That was stupidly black versus white, good versus evil. Yes, pure evil existed, but I had never seen pure good. People only come in shades of gray.
Wait a second, why the hell was I believing everything a lich whose name and gender I didn't even know was telling me? All of the Underworld until now was about people looking after themselves only and here I was, believing a savior-of-all speech.
"So, any truth in all of it?"
That made the lich stop and I did too. It turned to me and those gray flames stared me until it finally spoke. "I'm not sure if you are being naive, smart or rude with that question. Either way, you have a lot to learn." It resumed its walk.
Again, it had not answered my question, which was an answer by itself: I would have to decide on the truth for myself.
"Who exactly are the Chosen?" I broke the silence which had settled upon us. The priest by the Temple had told me I needed a Chosen to invite me in, and the lich had told me they were in control of the Dark Temple.
"First you call me a liar, then you ask for more information?"
"Even if you lie, I may be able to glean some enlightenment from your words."
It kept silent long enough that I thought it would not answer. "Very well. All over Serharn, this country's name, the Temple take the children from the drow to be schooled by the Faithful. The children start as the Ignorant, forced to walk nude and subject to the most brutal training and education system known in all Valia.
"They have until they are thirty years old to show their worth or they are expelled from the Temple and forced to live in one of the country's cities, forbidden to leave or show the symbol of the Devourer.
Unbound Deathlord: Challenge Page 21