“No, tell me now!” he whined, tugging at my arm. I had to laugh. It had been a while since I’d been around Baltos, and as much as he sometimes got on my nerves, it was great to see him.
“Okay, the long and short of it is this,” I explained. “The Ripper was Norman, a psycho who was basically stalking me and in love with me—”
“Seriously!?”
“Don’t interrupt. After you all died, Jack and I fought him, but Jack sacrificed himself to give me his levels so I could defeat him. I killed him and freed Carrethen, but when I got home, an artificial intelligence named Wintermute contacted me and told me he’d created a backup of Carrethen where he had sent the dead to save them and that only I could go back in and pull them out. Now I’m here.”
Baltos blinked a couple of times as he did his best to process the information overload I’d just spewed at him.
“Right.” He finally nodded. “And so you’re going around sending everyone out of the world?”
“Well, not exactly,” I replied. “Things aren’t exactly working the way they were supposed to. Listen, I’ll have to catch you up on all of this later. Right now, we have to get the Hell out of here and find you some clothes.”
Baltos, like Curafin had been when I restored him, was naked except for a loincloth. He looked for a moment as though he was going to be embarrassed, but then quickly remembered he was still in his character’s body and was okay. He glanced down at Anwi’s corpse where it lay a few feet from us.
“Was she one of your friends?” he asked.
“In a way,” I replied sadly.
“It wasn’t me,” he said quickly. I looked at him. “That killed her. It wasn’t me, it was the fall.”
“It’s okay, Baltos,” I told him. “Even if it was, it wouldn’t have been your fault.”
He smiled and I reached out and patted him on the shoulder.
“Is she…dead?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “The Dark World is more complicated.”
“The Dark World?”
“That’s what we’re calling it,” I explained. “It’s not quite Carrethen. Again, this is a long story. I will explain later. Now, how do we get out of here?”
“You ask me that like I should know,” he said, shrugging. “I woke up here after…after I died.”
“Look around,” I said, changing the subject. “There’s got to be a way out of here for players who were actually able to beat this boss.”
I glanced down at the floor, looking for something that might help us escape, when I realized I hadn’t even checked the Befallen Grub’s loot pile. As a level 250 Elite, I couldn’t even imagine the kind of things it would drop. But when I checked the ground, there was nothing I even remotely understood.
Pearl of Jahannan—Use unknown.
“Well, that’s helpful…”
Befallen Carapace—Used in blacksmithing.
Eye of the Befallen Grub—Use unknown.
“Anything good?” Baltos asked excitedly.
“No idea,” I replied. “Two of them say ‘use unknown,’ but the other is a smithing item. Gehman will be glad to see it.”
“Gehman…” Baltos replied. “He was a friend of yours right?”
“He was closer with Jack than he was with me,” I replied. “But yes. From old Carrethen.”
Kicking aside a pile of shattered eggs, I spied a square stone in the floor at the center of the room where Baltos—the Grub—had been standing. I stepped on it and heard a series of gears and levers churning underneath and all around us. A hidden door in the ceiling of the chamber opened, letting in a single shaft of silver light. Underneath us, the ground shifted and rose several inches and a thick stone pillar emerged, a wooden handle on its top.
“Hey, you found it!” Baltos cried out, hopping onto the raised platform beside me. “Nice job!”
“Thanks, Baltos.” I smiled as I tugged the wooden lever. The lift shuddered, rose a few feet and stopped, then continued to rise. When I looked up, I was truly able to appreciate how deep we really were. The tiny dot of light above us seemed impossibly far away and didn’t seem to be getting any bigger.
“So, where are we?” Baltos asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I chuckled. Uhm, it’s this crazy city called Jahannan. It’s pretty wild, filled with all kinds of crap. We’ve been here for a while. Longer than I intended.”
As I finished, I quickly inspected Baltos. My jaw dropped when I saw his level.
Baltos—Level 125.
“Dude…”
“What?”
“Did you—see what level you are?”
“No…” he said slowly, opening his character sheet. “Oh my God! How is this possible!?”
I had to laugh. Back in Carrethen Baltos was 69. Now he was almost twice that.
“Things are really weird here in the Dark World,” I told him.
“Yeah…” he said slowly. I’m starting to see that.”
“What are you going to make your character?”
“Oh, you know me.” Baltos grinned. “Unarmed combat all the way.”
“Now we just got to find you some Cestuses.”
58
The Stilt Hamlet
I took advantage of our long ride to the surface to explain the rest of the Dark World’s details to Baltos. He had been so excited by his level, then quickly disappointed to learn he was no longer max, but was in fact only half way there.
It took forever to explain to him what was going on, and even then I was sure there was stuff I’d left out, but it could wait. We had a long way to travel yet and plenty of time to chat.
The lift came to a halt beneath a ramshackle wooden structure like you’d see above a well. The ash still fell, but less heavily, and I looked around to see we had emerged below the main city of Jahannan in a village of sorts where all the houses were raised on stilts to keep them above the dark blue, cold looking waters of what must have been a marsh.
Enormous pale barnacles stuck to everything, spilling out of the water onto the thick posts of the houses and creeping up onto the undersides of the decking. A cool mist sat just above the water and in the distance, I could make out the shadows of long rowboats with nets dragging the water behind them.
“What is this place?” Baltos asked, clearly not a fan of what he saw. But then again, neither was I.
“No idea,” I told him honestly. “My first guide, Kodiak, died in the city. Anwi took over, but she’s gone now too.”
Baltos was barely listening. He’d turned around to look up at Jahannan, which loomed over us like a shadowy predator, its spires and raised bridges cutting a terrifying silhouette through the sky. Night had fallen, making the whole scene much more sinister.
“The sky…” Baltos remarked as he gazed upon the ever present clouds that rolled above us like a great storm. “What a crazy place.”
“It’s always like that,” I told him as a thunder clap rang out. Baltos held his hand out, catching bits of ash that fell around us. “No matter what time of day, no matter where you go, that’s the sky. Always.”
“That’s depressing,” he said sadly.
“Don’t be a pussy here, Baltos,” I said quickly, patting him on the back. “This is no time for weakness, okay? I’ve lost my entire group. You’re the only one I have right now, and we’ve got to keep pushing forward if we’re going to get to Vayde.”
“Vayde!?” he asked excitedly, turning back to me. “You didn’t say we were going to see Vayde! How is he?”
“Oh, I must have forgotten to mention it,” I replied. “Yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since I got here. He’s part of a guild called Fallen God. They’ve taken it upon themselves to cleanse the world of the Sunken.”
“Cleanse,” he repeated. “Like…”
“Kill. Yes.”
“But, you said you could restore them,” he asked, confused. “Like you did with me.”
“I can,” I told him. “But they don’t know that, and that’s
why we have to find him before he ends up cleansing any more people.”
“And I thought Carrethen was complicated,” he mused.
“Yeah, well buck up,” I told him, stepping off the lift towards the tiny village. “We’ve got work to do.”
I could feel the old D steadily returning, and I didn’t know whether it was seeing Baltos again and being reminded of my time in Carrethen, or if I was just getting fed up. Fed up of how long it was taking to find my friends, losing more friends along the way, or just falling for the countless traps and surprises the Dark World had in store. I was a ship without a rudder or even a compass, for that matter. All I had was a vague idea of a destination given to me by Kodiak and nothing else. The village was foreboding, like everything else in Jahannan, but with the city on the hill behind us, I couldn’t help but feel like I was finally making some progress.
“Let’s go,” I told Baltos, starting forward.
“Uhm, Jane,” he said sheepishly. “I don’t have any weapons…or armor.”
“Shit,” I cursed, turning back to him.
“You don’t have anything on you, do you?”
“I’ve been running really light, Baltos,” I told him, shaking my head and kicking a clump of barnacles at my feet. “Can you at least attack with your fists if you have to? You are Unarmed Combat, right?”
“I can,” he said. “But I can’t promise how much damage I’ll be able to do.”
“Well, I don’t know, dude,” I sighed. “Just…stay behind me I guess, and we’ll do the best we can.”
I could see he didn’t like that idea, but there was really no other option, so he nodded and we pressed on. The stone ground of Jahannan eventually was replaced by rows and rows of waterlogged wooden docks that stretched out on either side of us like a manmade coastline.
Every step was precarious, as the wood seemed to be coated in some kind of slime from the marsh, and rot had permeated the planks, which felt ready to give way at every step.
“This way,” I said, stepping up a ramp that took us up to the level of the stilt huts. It was like a floating village, with ramps and bridges tacked on here and there with no rhyme or reason. Soft glows came from the windows of the shacks, but I wasn’t interested in doing any exploring. Better to get in and get out and move on, make our way to the Targanic and try to get our bearings. I’d had enough of Jahannan.
As we crept along the cramped streets of the village, something moved in the water beneath us. I stepped in the opposite direction and looked down to see a thick green tentacle roll above the waves and then disappear below.
“Yuck,” Baltos said. I nodded in agreement.
“Come on.”
The village was quiet, almost too quiet. But then, as we passed two small shacks built so tightly together that they seemed to share a wall, something leapt out at us.
“Look out!” Baltos cried out as a serrated sword came chattering through the air towards me. I tried to dodge but the blow caught me in the shoulder, dealing considerable damage to my HP.
I looked up to see an impossibly skinny man raising his sword to strike. His body was pale blue, almost grey, and covered in patches of algae and barnacles that hung from his upper back like a tumor, and his clothing was nothing more than fraying rags.
I ducked, avoiding a wild thrusting attack as he buried his sword into the wall behind me.
Baltos rushed into battle, activating some kind of skill that reminded me of my Rush ability, and began to pummel the enemy with his fists. I swapped to my daggers and inspected it.
Rotted Fisherman—Level 98.
Baltos was blindingly fast and I realized he must have dumped most of his points into Quickness. He and Curafin actually both had an advantage over other players, as they were able to allocate their experience at a high level, rather than having to choose a build to level up with. When most players would have to focus on survivability at low levels, Baltos and Curafin found themselves at high level with a massive pool of unassigned experience. Baltos had apparently done everything he could to maximize his speed.
I circled the Fisherman as he struck out, slicing Baltos across the stomach. Baltos cried out and leapt back, terrified, and I realized I hadn’t warned him about the fact that we could feel pain now.
“What the Hell!?” he squealed, throwing himself out of the way of the Fisherman’s downward attack.
“Sorry!” I cried out, leaping into combat. “I meant to warn you about that!”
Using Rush, I unloaded on the Fisherman with a series of attacks, activated Mutilate and Eviscerate and tore the Fisherman apart. A sliver of health remained as he raised his rusted blade to strike, but I interrupted his attack with an Eye Gouge and finished him off with a single attack.
He dropped his sword and a few pieces of clothing, but I ignored them, turning back to Baltos and offering him a hand up.
“It…hurt!” he gasped, wide eyed as I pulled him to his feet.
“Carrethen is different,” I told him. “It’s even more real now.”
Baltos didn’t answer. It was a lot to process, and I knew that, but unlike me, he had to take it all in within a matter of minutes.
“He dropped some stuff,” I told him, sifting through the Rotted Fisherman’s loot. “A sword, which is garbage anyway. And some cloth armor with like 15 armor level a piece. So, unless you want it so you’re not naked…”
“I’ll take it.” He shrugged. I handed it over and he equipped the shirt and pants, which looked really terrible on him—so terrible I had to put a hand over my mouth to stop me from laughing.
“Shut up.” He grimaced.
“I’m sorry,” I chuckled. “Come on. Let’s keep moving. These guys aren’t hard.”
“Hey, do you have any extra Health Kits?” he asked.
“Sure.”
I handed him over a couple Peerless Health Kits and he quickly used a charge to restore his health to full. The village was an absolute mess, but I picked what seemed to be the best way through and started walking. The whole place disgusted me, and I had absolutely no interest in finding out what kind of creatures were lurking beneath the water.
Long nets and wooden crates of dead fish lined the wooden streets as we walked. It was some kind of fishing village, but whatever they were catching was just for show and not for player consumption. Not that I’d be interested anyway. The fish looked mutated, diseased, some with too many eyes, some with too many fins.
The street we were on thinned out, causing us to walk in a single file. The walls on either side of us were dripping with green pond scum and clusters of smaller barnacles spattered the wooden planking like a splatter painting.
“What I wouldn’t give for a portal out of here,” Baltos started to say, but I raised a hand to silence him. Ahead of us, at the end of the street, was a glowing green light that seemed to be moving.
“What is that?” Baltos whispered.
“How the Hell should I know?” I snapped, peering ahead, trying to get a glimpse of the source of the light. The way it moved just didn’t seem like a lantern or environmental light source. It moved like it was attached to something living.
The light grew, clearly growing closer. Whatever it was, if it decided to rush us while we were in this alley, we’d have no chance but to fight or run, and given the fact that we had barely scratched the surface of the mobs in this village, I wasn’t too excited to be caught with nowhere to run.
Glancing behind me, I saw a door leading into the building to our left. I opened it, glanced quickly inside. It seemed empty and I quickly grabbed Baltos by the scruff of the neck and pulled him in. I barely had the door closed before a voice rang out from behind us.
“Good day, brave travelers.”
I jumped a little but I could tell by the greeting that we were in no danger. It was an NPC, and I turned around to see a young female knight standing in a corner. I hadn’t noticed her on my first inspection as she was partially hidden behind a large support beam that stood in
the center of the house.
“My name is Solveig,” she announced proudly as we approached. “The Stilt Village is a murderous place. Please, browse my wares and see if there is something that will help you on your journey.”
“A vendor!” Baltos exclaimed excitedly, stepping up and opening up a trade window. “And she’s got good stuff!”
Solveig looked like a Paladin, with a suit of plate mail and a yellow tabard with an image of the sun. Her armor was dull but looked strong, and a large two headed hammer was slung over her shoulder.
“Do you have any money, Jane?” Baltos asked me. “I literally have none.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a bunch,” I told him, giving him a huge stack without bothering to count.
“Wow! Okay, yeah that’ll do,” he said, turning back to Solveig. “Check this out! Tattered Fisherman Fatigues, an entire set, and Salt Encrusted Hand Wraps with 395 to 425 damage!”
He bought all of it and quickly equipped it. It was studded leather of course, but looked more like cloth. The chest piece was a dark blue tunic with slightly flared shoulders, and the legs and boots were like something a pirate might wear. It even had a head piece, a wide brimmed hat with tattered edges. He grinned as he equipped hand wraps that looked like stained elastic bandages with tiny salt crystals clinging to them.
He brandished his fists in the air, dancing about and throwing a series of air punches. I couldn’t help but smile at his excitement. I turned to Solveig and opened a trade window.
She didn’t have any plate mail for sale, which didn’t surprise me. It was hard to find vendors for plate. Usually you were better off finding a drop of having a smith make you something. But she did have some Peerless Health Potions, so I grabbed a stack of twenty. As I closed the trade window, Solveig smiled.
“Glad to be of help,” she said happily, in sharp contrast to the dismal surrounding of the Stilt Village. “Return whenever you need. You will find me here, fighting for the sun against the darkness.”
That’s poetic, I thought as I turned away and headed back for the door.
Lord of the Flame: A LitRPG novel (Call of Carrethen Book 2) Page 27