by Brian Simons
Then, as if moving in reverse, the interior wall segments moved back into position and the tiles rose from the pit and fitted themselves back into their starting pattern. The floor was complete; the tiles that Sal had let loose had returned to their original places.
“So the walls are obstacles,” Coral said. “You have to plan ahead to make sure you don’t get stuck.”
“And we can only go one at a time, I assume,” Daniel said.
“I’ll go first,” Sal volunteered, “and then we can reset it and I can guide you across with my voice.”
“If you fall,” Coral said, not sure she wanted to finish that thought out loud.
Sal smiled at Coral, then took a step onto the tiles. Two other tiles fell away. He stood there for some time, staring at the floor and the walls that would block his path. Then he took another step.
This was going to take a while. Coral sat on the stone floor and took the qualia out of her inventory bag. She rolled a piece of it in her palm.
“What is that?” Sybil asked.
“Qualia,” Coral said.
“Just how high is your Mining level?” Sybil asked.
“Way too low,” Coral said. “I traded everything I mined for this stuff. Seemed like a good trade at the time, but it turns out I can’t exactly craft with it.”
“Not without elf magic,” Sybil said, “or drow. I don’t know of any songs that would help though.”
Coral was more determined now than ever to figure out how to mold something useful with this clay. She refused to believe only elves could manipulate it. She had spent the skill points on opening up her Earthenwear skill, now she needed to make it worth it.
She flattened out a piece of the clay against the stone floor. The clay was thick, but malleable. She tried to press another piece into the clay pancake she had made, but it wouldn’t sink in. It formed another flat layer on top of the first one.
She peeled the two layers apart and looked at them. There were no seams, no pits or cracks. No surface features whatsoever.
There were a few small pellets of clay that she had torn off from a larger piece the last time she tried to craft the qualia. They lacked any surface features too. What she knew about normal clay was that it was supposed to mix with water first. Coral spit into the palm of her hand and rubbed saliva onto the clay, then tried to press another small piece onto the wet surface.
The clay was no more cooperative than before. She wiped her palms off onto her pants.
What she wanted was a gauntlet. She ignored the qualia’s inability to fuse along seams and went about preparing the pieces in the shape of a gauntlet anyway. She took half of the clay and set it aside. She took the other half and flattened out a piece into a large sheet on the floor, then made five smaller sheets for fingers. She wrapped the first piece around her forearm and smoothed it over her palm and the back of her hand.
The next step was awkward to do with only one free hand, but Coral had time to work slowly as Sal contemplated a path across the trap floor. She wrapped pieces around each finger, even though she couldn’t get the pieces to connect into one larger piece.
As she worked, Coral felt the clay warm to her body temperature. She also felt it change. She couldn’t exactly understand how, but the clay felt stronger the more she worked with it, sturdier. Maybe it was just drying out or losing its flexibility, but she thought it was more than that. The dwarf she spoke with in the mines said that qualia items retained special properties depending on the personality of their creator.
She wondered what properties a gauntlet made in her own image would have.
When she was finished shaping it, she had clay all over her arm, but it still wasn’t a gauntlet.
“You look like you’re having a tough time of it,” Sybil said.
“I don’t know what to do next. It’s still not complete,” Coral said.
When she was in the mines, she made tons of gauntlets from basic clay. She had to mix it with water first, but the qualia didn’t respond to moisture. Then she had to bake it in the kiln, but that was only after shaping it up. She had put some qualia in the kiln in the mountain to no effect. She hadn’t, however, tried to bake it after it was fully formed.
She couldn’t exactly thrust her arm into a kiln with the qualia stretched out over her. But maybe she could cook it another way. It would use up some MP to try it, and possibly char the qualia into oblivion if it didn’t work. Then again, it wasn’t exactly doing her any good as it was.
Coral took an arrow from her quiver and activated Hot Shot. The arrowhead burned red, then white. She pressed the arrow against the qualia on her arm, half expecting the scalding heat to sear her skin.
It didn’t. Instead, the qualia baked to a golden brown. She pressed another spot, and baked an arrowhead sized piece of the gauntlet into place. She moved incrementally toward her wrist, then down toward her thumb. Now for the moment of truth.
Coral pressed the hot arrow against the seam between the clay on her hand and the piece that wrapped around her thumb. It melted the clay together. It was as if it had always been one continuous sheet of qualia. She kept pressing, slowly burning her MP as she kept the arrow’s heat up. When she was finished, she removed the gauntlet from her hand. She had done it.
The floor ahead was pocked with missing tiles, but Sal was nowhere to be seen. He was beyond the walls that littered the room, blocking him from view. He hadn’t screamed though, which meant he hadn’t fallen through.
Coral set to work on the second gauntlet, using up the rest of her qualia in the process. She held up the finished product.
>> Dauntless Gauntlets. Steady hands make right work. Strength +5, Spirit +5. Durability: 75/75. Special property: varies.
>> Congratulations! You have improved your Earthenwear ability to 9. +12% additional crafting speed when crafting Earthenwear.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead, relieved she could let the arrow cool down. She had run through 10 MP for a Hot Shot arrow per gauntlet.
“Well done,” Daniel said. Coral nodded to acknowledge the compliment.
“There’s another lever!” Sal yelled. His voice was muffled by the several layers of granite wall that separated him from the group. Coral got to her feet.
“Pull it!” Daniel yelled.
The sound of grinding metal echoed out again, and the interior walls repositioned themselves as they had before. This time, however, the floor arranged itself into a new pattern. Most of the tiles fell away, but the few that remained created a direct path across the room.
Coral set one foot on the first tile. No other tiles disappeared this time. She walked across the room and stepped onto the landing next to Sal. “Sal, you did it!” she said.
“Neat,” he said, as Sybil and Daniel crossed the tile bridge.
Coral pushed open the next door.
33
Peering over Coral’s shoulder, Daniel first saw a small treasure box on a stone pedestal. A broken lock hung from its open lid.
As the door crept open further, Daniel saw a woman. Her long black hair fell in curls down her back. Her young face was beautiful, her figure full and curvaceous. She wore a tight black dress and tall stiletto heels.
Coral stepped into the room and raised her bow. Daniel put his hand on her shoulder to stop her. He may not be a Knight anymore, but he still thought diplomacy was the right way to start off.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“You poor dear,” the woman said, taking one quick step up to Daniel and ignoring Coral. “You’re classless.”
Daniel turned his head away. He wished it weren’t so obvious to anyone that looked at him that he had lost his class.
“You could work for me, sweetheart,” she said in her dulcet, sultry voice. “Sagma could use a strong young Crusader at his disposal. It’s a class that comes with quite a few perks. After the initiation ceremony, of course.”
“You work here?” he asked.
“I’ve had a bit of a makeover
since we last met,” she said, placing her thumb under Daniel’s chin and lowering her eyes to his lips. “We feed on knowledge here in the Sagman temple. Some of that knowledge is a bit more carnal than others.”
The woman leaned toward him and opened her mouth, thrusting the forked end of a serpentine tongue out. Daniel ducked backward in time to avoid any contact.
“Vernagi?” he asked.
“In the flesh,” she said. “And I’ve got what I came here for. The resurrection of his temple restored the location of the Timescryer Scroll. With it, I will help Sagma defeat Podonos for good.”
Daniel took his hand off Coral’s shoulder as she raised her bow again. He brought his hand down to the hilt of his sword.
“Where is Marco?” he asked.
“Recovering, perhaps,” she said. “I require him to fulfill certain priestly duties. It saps the life right out of him.”
Sybil whipped her spear up toward Vernagi and pressed the spearhead against her neck. “If you hurt him,” she said.
“What,” Vernagi said, dropping her seductress act and letting her voice dip into raspy anger. “You’ll punish me, little elf? Hardly. My master is coming, and after today, you’ll serve him with pleasure. Unless, of course, I kill you all first.”
Vernagi grabbed Sybil’s spear and spun the point toward the floor while Sybil held on. She landed on the stone floor with a hard crack. A Stunned debuff appeared over her after the impact.
Sal charged toward Vernagi like a linebacker and slammed her against the wall. She reached out her arms and grabbed him by the back of the head, wrapping her legs around his considerable waist.
Daniel didn’t want to stab at her and hit Sal by mistake. Coral hadn’t shot an arrow yet. Things moved too quickly to permit careful aim.
Vernagi spread massive black wings from her back and took to the air with Sal in her clutches. In one quick motion, she dove toward Daniel and Coral, and dropped Sal like a bomb.
Coral rolled to the side in one deft motion, but Daniel wasn’t so quick. Sal landed on him like an ogre that had eaten a bag of bricks.
Sal and Daniel got to their feet as Coral’s arrows flew from her bow. They stuck in Vernagi’s side and tore her tight dress. The snake woman barely registered any pain from it. Daniel peered at her.
“You think you can come into my home,” Vernagi hissed, “kill my children, and ruin my life’s work?”
“You mean the wyverns?” Daniel said. He needed to keep her talking so he could Surveil her.
“You monsters,” she said, “you skinned them for clothing. You ate them for meals!” She lunged toward Coral while Daniel kept his eyes locked on Vernagi.
>> You have Surveilled Vernagi: Level 54 Devotee, 2940 HP.
She had leveled up quite a bit since their last encounter. Daniel wondered how many players she had sucked dry of XP in order to get so strong.
Coral pushed back against Vernagi as the monster had her mouth agape, fangs ready to sink into Coral’s neck.
Daniel stabbed his sword into Vernagi’s side, eliciting a howl of pain and diverting her attention from Coral.
>> Vernagi takes 371 Damage.
Vernagi pushed Coral to the floor and walked toward Daniel. He stabbed her in the chest with his sword, but she walked closer, letting the blade sink into her body like a sheath.
>> Vernagi takes 591 Damage.
He couldn’t pull the sword out of her. He should have let go of it and dodged out of her way, but he hadn’t thought quickly enough. She put both arms under the arm Daniel had outstretched holding his sword and she wrapped both legs around his other side. She contorted and writhed with inhuman flexibility and gripped him tighter and tighter as she constricted.
He tried to push her off of his body, but he couldn’t. She was too strong. As he exhaled, her grasp tightened. The weight and force of her against his chest prevented him from taking in another breath.
Sal jumped into the fray, knocking Daniel down to the floor, sandwiching Vernagi between them. Daniel looked up and saw Sal sink his teeth into Vernagi’s back.
She shrieked and writhed away from them both, releasing Daniel from her grasp.
“Two can play at that game!” Sal said. The two squared off in the small room, each eying the other’s neck. Sybil finally got back up to her feet and braced herself for an attack. It was just a matter of waiting for an opening.
When Vernagi turned her back on the stone pedestal in the middle of the room, Coral jumped up from behind it and lifted the empty treasure box high. She slammed it down on the snake monster’s head.
A Dizzy debuff popped up over Vernagi and she wobbled where she stood. Sybil thrust her spear at the creature, and stabbed into her arm. Coral raised her bow. Sal was still ready to devour this monster, and rightly so. If wyverns provided 1,000 XP per meal, it reasoned that Vernagi was worth a lot more.
“Fine,” Vernagi said, standing unsteadily. She stood straight and smoothed out her torn dress. “I’ll tell you.”
Daniel held his sword at the ready. “Tell us what?” he asked.
“Where all the money is,” she said. “That’s what you’re really after, isn’t it? It’s at the top of the tower, in the treasury. It’s clear I’m no match for you. I could take you there if you spare me.”
Daniel and the others would be rich if they got their hands on that gold. Still, other players had been swindled out of their life savings by this woman and her scammy sect. He’d have to find some way to return the money to its rightful owners.
Which meant he’d have to win this fight and stop Sagma first. The money came second.
“But Sagma needs that money,” Sal said. He seemed genuinely offended that Vernagi would give it all away to save her own hide.
“Sagma needs you, my dear,” she said, putting a hand on Sal’s cheek. “Come.” She took a step closer to the door, leading Sal with her as she walked backward. Once she stood in the doorframe she adjusted her dress before walking out of the room. Daniel saw that she had a small scroll tucked between her breasts. “The scroll first,” he said.
“I think not,” she said, and ran.
Daniel pushed past Sal to get into the large room with the movable stone walls and the narrow tile bridge to the other side. If Vernagi got there first, she could easily reset the whole maze on them.
Daniel sprinted while Vernagi ran unevenly, slowed down by her lack of balance. Running on narrow heels with a Dizzy debuff was a bold move, but not a smart one. Sagma would be disappointed. Daniel caught up to Vernagi on the middle of the bridge. He grabbed onto one of her large black wings and pulled.
She landed on her back, her wings draping over the edge of the bridge into the abyss below. “The scroll!” he yelled.
“Come and get it, love,” she hissed at him, lying on her back.
He towered over her and pointed his sword at her forehead. “It’s over, Vernagi. Give it up.”
She reached into her bosom and took the scroll out of its hiding spot. She lifted it toward him.
He reached down to take the item from her hand, but she grabbed his wrist with her other hand.
Daniel let her hold on. He brought a leg around and kicked her from the bridge. She dangled from his hand, scrambling to climb back up. Daniel reached over with his free hand and took the scroll before Vernagi could clamber up toward it. Then he unequipped his iron gauntlet.
The armor slid off of his hand while Vernagi still clutched it. Now it was just a useless piece of metal, disconnected from his person. She fell onto the spikes and screamed in pain.
>> Vernagi takes 2,000 Damage. Vernagi dies. You receive 14,600 XP.
>> Congratulations! You have reached Level 22. To apply your 10 skill points now, open your Skills and Attributes screen.
>> Congratulations! You have reached Level 23. To apply your 11 skill points now, open your Skills and Attributes screen.
Daniel fell to his knees, panting. His friends approached behind him.
“Looks l
ike Coral didn’t get the kill shot for once,” Sybil said, clapping a hand on Coral’s shoulder and smiling.
On their way out of the maze, Coral pulled the lever by the front door, resetting the traps and burying Vernagi’s corpse under the trick tiles.
34
“Your gauntlet is gone,” Coral said.
“A small price to pay,” Daniel replied. “But the Regent would be sooo disappointed in me.”