Liar King

by Adam Elliott

  “Maybe we should split the…” Celia started, only to trail off as the absurdity behind her own words struck her.

  “You were going to say ‘split the party,’ weren’t you.” Michael teased.

  “No.” She replied unconvincingly. “Even still, it might not be the worst idea. We’re stuck going single file anyways, so it isn’t like-”

  “What is the number one rule of tabletop gaming,” Michael asked.

  “This isn’t-” Celia cut herself off with a frown as Michael’s body language shifted. “It’s ‘don’t split the party,’ but that doesn’t necessarily apply here.”

  “I thought the number one rule was ‘Thou shalt not lose caster levels.’” Silver smirked.

  “She’s right,” Cayden said.

  “Thank you, Cayden.” Silver smiled sweetly. “I remember because the second was ‘Thou shalt not lose caster levels. Verily this rule is unto like the first, but is of such import-;”

  “I meant Celia.” He snorted. “This place is way too huge for us to be able to find anything before it rolls over to the Warden’s turn.”

  Silver’s face darkened. “So we let the Elan take a bit of a bigger hit and make sure we do this properly.”

  A pause hung in the air before Shifty spoke. “What would we do for party splits?”

  “You can’t really be considering-”

  “Celia would go with me, and you three could go together,” Cayden said. “Michael can tank decently against anything we expect to find, and the two of you do so much damage that he won’t have to do so for long.”

  To Cayden’s surprise, Michael nodded at the suggestion. “All the Wardens outside were at or around level ten. We can handle that, and we can retreat if we stumble on anything bigger.”

  “Works for me.” Celia nodded.

  “I’m being outvoted again, aren’t I?” Silver asked icily.

  “You’re the one who wanted to tag along in the first place.” Cayden reminded her.

  “To keep you from doing anything stupid.” She scowled. “Can we at least try and keep close to one another?”

  “Yeah. That we can manage.”

  ***

  They managed it for all of fifteen minutes.

  The convoluted nature of the tomb had made any attempt at keeping one group close to the other an exercise in frustration. Even attempts to run parallel to one another through the series of right angle passageways were frustrated by subtle changes in depth that left one party passing under the other rather than meeting up as expected.

  A running map was kept, of course, which meant they were only separated from one another in a practical sense, too far away to help in a hurry if something were to go wrong. Neither group was truly lost, not with mapping software that would supply helpful directions to either the exit or to their companions at a moment’s notice.

  “At the next stack of dubiously humanoid bones, turn left,” Cayden muttered.

  “What?” Celia said, her steps picking up slightly as she realized she was lingering too far behind him.

  “Nothing.” He assured her, a smile cast over his shoulder. “Just being smarmy.”

  “What else is new?” The girl inquired.

  “Hey, I resemble that-” Cayden paused mid-sentence as the scrape of a stone footstep alerted him to danger ahead.

  The two of them waited together in silence, but they didn’t have to wait long.

  Just ahead of them, a Warden rounded the corner with shortsword in hand. Its face was stern, but it was an unmoving expression, one crafted onto its very features.

  The more he watched it, the more difficult it became to shake the discomfort that washed over Cayden. It was his first time seeing one of the stone men up close, and he didn’t like it. The way it moved felt as though it were violating the very laws of nature, like watching the skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts. The movements were wrong, not quite choppy but not fluid either. Stone moved in a way it was not meant to move, then solidified with each step, as if the statue were being crafted and recreated with each movement.

  Only one thing stood out from the drab, cracked stone warrior, and that was the steel in its hands. The blade of the shortsword was metal, steel that gleamed in the fire lit hallway as the warrior advanced.

  “At least we’re probably going the right way,” Cayden remarked wryly.

  If Celia gave any reply to his quip, it was smothered by the clatter of body against shield as the stone man picked up speed, the crunch of its footsteps resounding down the short distance between them as fast as the warrior himself. For a man made of stone, the Terracotta warrior was fast.

  Warden Soldier hits you for 92 Physical (Blocked)

  He hit hard as well. Too hard for a mere level ten. “Skill Use: Observe.”

  Warden Skirmisher

  Level 12(Elite)

  HP: 1800/1800

  MP: 0/0

  TP: 1150/1150

  Skills: Unknown

  Resistances: Earth 50%

  Weaknesses: Water 100%

  Special: Construct Traits

  An elite, that explained it. Elite monsters were one step removed from boss monsters, a Starscream to the more frightful Megatron. At equal levels and numbers, they posed a substantial, but not necessarily life-threatening concern. When they were outleveled and outnumbered, not so much.

  Cayden grunted as he pushed back with his shield, shoving the Warden soldier back far enough to open distance to attack. “Skill Use: Southern Cross.”

  A sensation of warmth flooded his limbs as he felt the usual loss of control take hold, bringing him through the motions of the skill and inflicting significant damage to the stone soldier in a quick one-two of downward and horizontal strikes.

  “Pain of the past, return to the present! Old wounds!” Celia incanted only a few steps behind him. A glow of light accompanied the words, a small ring of magical energy pulsing from beneath the Chronomagi’s feet as she directed her arcane energies at the already stumbling Warden. The effect was immediate, a half dozen new cracks appearing in their opponent’s stone facade.

  Cayden knew they didn’t need healing for a fight like this, and it was always satisfying to work alongside a party member who was smart enough to make the same sort of deductions.

  “For once, it might be nice if the right way didn’t involve things that wanted to kill us,” Celia replied, at last, a brief sigh falling from her lips as she started to cast a new spell.

  In the end, they made incredibly short work of the Warden. Elite or no, a level 12 enemy wasn’t going to stand up to players of their caliber for long.

  “Crazy suggestion. What do you think about going this way?” Celia said, indicating the right-hand corridor that the Warden had come from.

  “You had me at crazy suggestion,” Cayden replied to a giggle from Celia.

  The passage ahead of them sloped down, and unlike most of those they’d come across so far, there didn’t appear to be any offshoots. It ran straight for a distance, then curved sharply for a few dozen feet, before going straight once again. After the third such curve, the design became clear, a corkscrew pattern leading them deeper and deeper into the depths of the dungeon.

  “Guys. I think I’ve we’ve got something here.” Cayden said after toggling the party chat feature on his display. Then, after a few seconds without a reply, he repeated. “Silver? Shifty? Celia can you-”

  The girl held up a finger in reply, apparently already on it. “Helloooo? Shifty, you there?” A few seconds passed, before she turned her attention fully in Cayden’s direction, shrugging with a combination of confusion and worry. “Maybe we’re too deep?”

  “It isn’t like these things use Cell towers,” Cayden said dubiously. Even so, he was struggling for a better answer. To his knowledge, there was no skill, monster or environment in all of Babel, save for the chamber of an unbeaten floor boss, that should disable voice comms.
Party chat was so secure that they hadn’t even bothered to test it before splitting up. “Maybe something in the area though? Let’s go back up.”

  Cayden edged past Celia in the narrow hallway and took the lead once more. It was a harder walk back up the slope than it had been down it, but he didn’t murmur a single complaint. At least, not until they’d rounded their fourth curve.

  “Okay, something is very wrong.” He murmured. “Command: Map.”

  “Oh,” Celia said softly, after trying, and likewise failing to open her own map. “That isn’t good, is it?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “We must have passed through an instance barrier,” Cayden said with a frown. His hands worked fruitlessly through the air, manipulating the AR display in an attempt to force open his map. Instead, he was greeted with the same reply as before, a grumpy sounding audio cue that told him he’d selected an invalid option.

  “The hallway?” Celia asked, though she already knew the answer.

  “Considering we can’t go back up? Yeah, I’d say so.” He agreed. That hadn’t stopped them from trying, but after traveling twice the distance upwards as they had descended, it seemed a fair assumption. “I’ve never really heard of a gate like this though, one that traps you without warning.”

  “It is probably just that then, a trap.”

  Cayden bit back the desire to swear. Celia was probably right. If they’d been with Shifty, his Trap Sense ability probably would have alerted him in some fashion before they’d started on their way down.

  “So this is why you don’t split the party,” Celia said with an infectious giggle, one that soon had Cayden chuckling alongside her despite himself. “Could be worse, I suppose. I could have been trapped down here with Silver instead of you.”

  She had a point, Cayden could certainly think of worse people to be stuck with. Michael, for one.

  “Well, we don’t know that we’re trapped,” Cayden said, tipping his head towards the downslope. “We can’t go up, but it is still possible there is something besides an infinite tunnel if we keep going down.”

  “It is also possible that something is a boss with a ceremonial weapon who will wreck our faces,” Celia noted.

  “Do you have a better plan?” Cayden asked.

  “I… do not.”

  “Well, that settles that then.” It was possible that someone from the other half of their party would notice they were missing sooner rather than later, that they might even track Cayden and Celia back to where they’d disappeared, but it wasn’t one he planned to hold his breath for. Instead, the pair returned their attention to the downward slope and began walking.

  Soon enough, just as they were beginning to think that the loop went both ways, their boldness was rewarded by the sight of a pair of crackling braziers at the foot of the slope. It was the first new thing they’d seen in several minutes, their faces lighting up in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

  “So do we-” Celia started, before she found Cayden’s gloved fingertip pressed mere inches from her lips, hushing her. He said nothing in reply but instead sunk lower into his stance, adopting a half crouch as he sheathed his sword. His next steps forward were slow and measured, each well prepared for as he shifted his weight from one foot to the next in an attempt to minimize the clank and scrape of his metal armor.

  “Teri Antha,” Cayden whispered the runic words and extended his free hand. Under other circumstances, Celia couldn’t begin to hazard a guess as to the sword of magic that radiated from Cayden’s outstretched fingertips to form a glittering, transparent barrier. But given the context, she had her suspicions.

  “An illusion?” She asked, just barely above a breath. When he nodded, she smiled. The magical shield Cayden held in front of him was enough to cover them both. All she had to do was keep quiet.

  Slowly, carefully, the pair advanced until they reached the bottom of the slope, where at last the inside of the room was visible.

  It was smaller than either had suspected, a stone-walled room just barely larger than the strategy room where Cayden had been spending so much time as of late. It was a particularly apt comparison, considering the large, ornate table that dominated the room, and the Warden who stood studying paper maps laid out atop it, his side to the doorway, oblivious to the players watching him.

  That would probably be their guy.

  “Skill Use: Observe,” Cayden said, just barely loud enough for his mirror to register the words.

  Warden Officer

  Level 15 (Boss)

  HP: ????/????

  MP: ????/????

  TP: ????/????

  Skills: Unknown

  Resistances: Earth 50%

  Weaknesses: Water 100%

  Special: Construct Traits, Defensive

  Cayden turned his head in Celia’s direction, and caught the gaze of the young time mage. It was too dangerous to talk, but that meeting of the minds spoke for them. She saw the same stats he did, and she knew the danger. The boss was five levels lower than them, but it was still a boss, still a very significant threat when there were only two of them to fight it.

  They had thirty minutes before the roll-over to the Warden turn. Once that happened the boss’ behavior might change. It might leave, or others might awaken and join it. It was a certainty that its troops would launch an attack against his, with his full Warmaster bonus, if the officer were still alive.

  Shifty, Michael, and Silver could arrive at any time, but counting on their arrival within the next few minutes was a bad gamble. Even finding their way to where Celia and Cayden had disappeared would probably take longer than they had.

  Still, if it were any other player, they’d have shaken their head. Shifty had to think about more than himself, Michael only thought about himself, and Silver didn’t care about the Elan enough to risk her neck. Cayden wasn’t actually sure that Celia did either, but she cared about what Cayden thought, which was enough to draw a slow smile and an eventual nod.

  Just the two of them against a boss monster? What could go wrong?

  Cayden returned her smile and turned his shield arm until she could see his fingers. He waited for another sign, then, once Celia was ready, he began to count on his fingers. Five, four, three, two…

  The two burst from the doorway as Cayden’s illusionary barrier scattered away from his sword hand like glittering leaves. Cayden did not attempt to disguise the noise of his approach, the Albieth steel of his Mage Blade singing as it cleared his scabbard, then cracking sharply as it crashed against the stone neck of the Terracotta warrior.

  No scream of alarm or cry of pain accompanied the blow, only the clatter of papers and books as the sheer force of Cayden’s advance drove the half-turned officer against the table. The creature’s left arm was pinned to the frame by the weight of its own body as the Warden reached for the blade sheathed at his hip.

  They couldn’t give him a moment to breathe, Cayden knew. Humanoid Boss monsters were among the most easily exploited category of Boss enemies, in large part because they mimicked something that existed in reality. A manticore or an ogre didn’t have to obey laws of physics, the way a humanoid enemy might, their strength and unnatural weapons precluding the sort of rush tactics that worked on real-world humans. He couldn’t grapple with a dragon, but he could prevent a Warden from drawing his sword, at least for a time.

  “Personal skill Use: Shield Bash.” Cayden intoned a moment before he drove the curved edge of his shield into the head of his opponent, a critical damage notification appearing along with the stun indicator on the Warden officer’s callout.

  Despite their main weakness, humanoid enemies were often amongst the most dangerous of Babel’s opponents, ironically for a very similar reason. An enormous beast like, say, the MEKA, typically kept to predictable patterns once engaged in combat, while a humanoid type fought more naturally, with feints, parries, and adaptations.

  “… embrace the moment, accept your fate. Slow Time!” Celia finished chanting b
ehind him, and not a moment too soon. His stun effect had been short-lived, as it always was on a Boss type enemy, and once free of it the Warden had finally managed to draw the short sword at its side clear of the sheath.

  Under the effects of Celia’s magical slowness, that wasn’t so much of a threat.

  “Skill Use: Southern Cross,” Cayden said as he slipped to the side of the Warden’s first thrust. It would barely last longer than the stun, he knew, but while it lasted the Officer was of little threat to them. It was like fighting an opponent covered in molasses, only quite a bit less sticky.

  His own moves, however, were crisp and clean as always. The skill took over control of his body, drawing him through the same two-cut motion he had performed hundreds of times, each cut shaving off an appreciable amount of the officer’s HP. It was a relief, to see his sword do that much damage. The boss wasn’t invincible; it wasn’t even particularly durable. They could win this.

  The Warden’s sudden increase in speed caught Cayden off guard as he gloated, a surprise backhand catching him cleanly across the jaw as Celia shouted in alarm. It stung, though the HP loss stung quite a bit more, a bit of instant Karma as the Warden took the opportunity to put some space between them.

  “I’m fine. Just cocky.” Cayden grumbled, the damage already fading as Celia’s Future Theft drastically increased his healing speed at the cost of some of his future regeneration.

  If the Warden could talk, it chose to say nothing as it finished it’s backpedaling, fifteen feet of distance separating the two swordsmen. Its gaze occasionally flickered in Celia’s direction, but Cayden had done it far more damage, and thus garnered more threat than Celia’s heals had provoked so far. She was safe, at least, for the time being.

  Curiously, the Warden spun it’s short sword with an unnatural flourish as it reversed its grip on the blade, holding it point downward, the business side of the single-edged shortsword towards Cayden, while the flat of the weapon rested back against its forearm. A defensive stance, Cayden recognized, but behavior quite unusual for a boss fight. They didn’t usually let their enemy take a breather.