by Ember Lane
His senses felt their way through the grass and topsoil. He expected rock, but the earth plunged on. He hit the first skeletons a few feet down, they were randomly piled bodies, surrounded by rotting pieces of hide, and buckles, and buttons. It was like a load of dead bodies had been piled up on top of the structure underneath. He pulled his skill back and gasped, looking up to the blue sky. The troll had set up home in some kind of burial mound, that was clear, but why the entrance?
Taking a breath, he plunged his senses back under the soil. Feeling past the layer of bones, he came to a skin of fashioned stone. Lincoln burst through into air—the tunnel. At the edge of his ability to use the skill, Lincoln tried to picture the tunnel. He saw the massive, slumbering form of the troll in the tunnel’s center.
Now clear in his mind, he could see the troll, but no more than a few yards beyond. The tunnel ended in a thick wall. Against the wall, he sensed a stone altar. Yet Lincoln could also see beyond the wall, and there lay a chamber, hemmed in on all sides by rock. In its center, a set of steps descended, but he could see no farther.
Congratulations! You divine creature, you. You have increased you divination skill. Increased levels mean you can see farther, deeper and in more detail. Divination rocks! You are now level 3.
For now, he had one entrance to play with, and that was that. One entrance and a sleeping fifteen-foot troll. Lincoln walked to the edge of the hillock and peered down. He reckoned he was about five feet above the cave entrance. Far enough away to regroup, he decided, and set his respawn point there. He took Alexa’s copper dagger out of his sack and stabbed it into the grass beside it. Next, he took her ax out and set it down on the respawn point’s other side. He had absolutely no doubt in his mind that he’d be reappearing there in the near future and wanted some weapons, no matter how useless, available to his new, reborn, self.
He walked back down the slope and into the foliage. Taking his own dagger and ax out of his sack, he took off his coat, bundled into the sack and hid it deep in a tree trunk’s cleft. Soon, he was back with Crags.
“Got a plan?” The gnome ranger asked.
“Nope,” said Lincoln, and he trotted up the path, kicking the littered bones out of his way.
He entered the bell-shaped clearing, thankful that Alexa’s sack still covered his nose and mouth. Trailing the ax’s head on the ground, he stopped a few feet shy of the tomb’s entrance. He wondered if it would be as easy as walking up to the slumbering troll and cleaving its head, but his hopes were soon extinguished, along with his chances of survival. An explosive bellow burst out from the tomb’s inside. Lincoln felt the full force of its ensuing, fetid wind.
He heard stomping. He heard more bellowing. More fetid breath billowed around him. If possible, it was even more repulsive. Lincoln planted his feet, tucked his dagger into his belt and raised his ax. The troll looked out from the tomb’s entrance. Lincoln used his perception.
Cave Troll...Name: Esmerelda. Level = 8 Status = Hostile.
Esmerelda’s cornflower-colored head was much smaller than Lincoln had envisaged, dotted with spurts of mud-caked hair. Her lower jaw protruded out, fangs pointing up, nearly hitting her bulbous, festering nose, and gormless eyes looking out through folds of skin. She was fat; her bare breasts rested on a huge potbelly. All in all, she was uglier than anything Lincoln had witnessed in his long life. Yet fascinating. Her arms were huge, with shovels for hands, hands which were clasped around a hammer, the like of which Lincoln had never seen either. Its handle was as thick as a tree trunk, and its head was as big as Ozmic’s cart—well nearly. Lincoln watched the great hammer rise. It was like he was stupefied, frozen to his spot. The troll hammer reached its apex, silhouetted by the bright, blue sky, and then began to fall as Esmerelda bellowed again.
He received the first notifications as the hammer crashed onto his head, and by the time his eyes were level with his boots, a flurry of them filled his rather squashed mind’s eye. Fortunately for Lincoln, he didn’t have the time to register the pain of being turned into a human pizza.
Oops! You have died.
His last recollection was peering out from his boots; his current view was entirely different. He was lying on a slab, completely naked, a lit candle between his feet, and he was looking up at a bright vein of luminous, golden rock that was sandwiched between dull, brown, layered rock. Feeling around, he realized that the stone he was lying on was smooth and warm. He sat up and saw that he was in one of many underground catacombs all edged into two opposing rock faces that were separated by a beautiful, luminous, milky-blue river. Then he remembered the troll.
Swinging his legs off the slab, he looked around quickly. The little hollow his slab was in had a single exit. He sprang off the slab and ran to it. As he did, he noticed his clothes had started to form around his naked body. The exit was no more than a short chiseled tunnel. It led to a circular cave, where the gold-and-brown layered rock rose forming a small dome. A pool took up most of the cave’s pool, a deep-blue, tranquil pool. Without any other option, he dove into it.
The water was crystal clear, cool against his skin. A single fracture in its dull sides bled bright light, and Lincoln swam toward it. Squeezing through, he saw a circle of light above him and swam for that. As he closed on the pool’s surface, the drag from his clothes started pulling him back, but as he broke the surface, so he appeared at his respawn point above the tomb.
He looked down to see Esmeralda picking at his remains. Without thinking, Lincoln picked up Alexa’s ax and jumped, swinging the ax down on the unsuspecting troll’s neck. He cleaved her head straight from her neck, crimson blood spewed out like an open fire hose. Lincoln ducked back into the tomb while the headless troll staggered around before it finally collapsed to the ground with a mighty thud.
Congratulations! You employed stealth. Sneaking up on the troll was a master stroke! You now have level 2 stealth.
Congratulations! May your ax be sharp and your enemies' heads a tumble. You have leveled up. You now have level 4 blades.
Congratulations! You severed Esmeralda’s head clean off in a vicious critical strike. You killed a foe of the land five levels higher than you. May the bards sing your name. You are now named as somebody. The land awards you 1500 XP.
Esmeralda’s torso shimmered and began to fade. Lincoln burst forth to claim his loot. Reaching down, he scooped up five gold coins and a strange looking T-shaped piece of silver metal, which had a blunted end that was bent around so an inch of metal stuck out at right angles from it.
“Curious,” he said, as her body gave off a final burst of light and vanished, leaving just her bones and hammer behind. On top of her skeleton was a bright, steel pickax with a bound leather handle.
Dwarven pick ax. Name = Stonecrumbler. Durability = 65/80 Item = Common.
“An odd combination,” Lincoln muttered to himself. He ran down the trail, saw Crags, and he shouted, “Troll’s dead.” He dove into the undergrowth, forging through and only stopped once he’d gotten his deadman’s coat back on and had his sack of holding back in his pocket. He unwound Alexa’s sack from his face and shoved his troll loot in. Then, he marched back up to the top of the burial mound and retrieved Alexa’s copper dagger. Finally slumping onto the grass atop the tomb, he began to shake uncontrollably, the magnitude of dying finally getting to him.
Crags was looking around. Esmeralda’s head had rolled away from her corpse and was looking up at him, still intact. Lincoln could only assume that was because he'd cleaved it clean off. Crags reached into his tunic and brought out a sack of holding. A spear appeared in his hand and he stuck Esmeralda’s head on it, and then planted it in the mud with a powerful stab.
“Ho Lincoln!” he cried.
“Ho Crags!” Lincoln replied wearily.
Crags looked up at him. “Is that you?” he asked, pointing at a large patch of blood and guts on the mud.
“Was once,” Lincoln called down.
Crags looked up and down. “Nice work,
” he said. “I like your style. Have you looted the cave?”
“Nope. Got a steel pick from the troll and a bent metal thing, and a couple of coins.” Lincoln shrugged. “Not worth the effort really.”
Crags spun around, looking back up the path.
Lincoln craned his neck to try and spy what the ranger was searching out. First Lincoln heard the buzzing of a swarm of harpie wings, then he heard the trample and grumble of Digberts' gang of gnomes. They both appeared in the bell-shaped clearing at the same time. Digberts was at the front of his gang. Marngs flew ahead of her harpies, spotting Lincoln and flying straight toward him.
“My hero,” she swooned, and settled on his knee.
Lincoln sighed.
“Okay you lot,” shouted Digberts. “Strip the tomb bare. Loot! Loot! Loot! The dwarves’ll wake soon, an I wanna be kickin’ the horizon when they do.”
“Eh?” thought Lincoln. Why were they worried about the dwarves? He watched as the whole tribe of gnomes and fairies, except Digberts, surged around the troll hammer into the cave. Lincoln heard shouting. He heard swearing, lots of swearing. He heard fighting, and then the rumble of a couple dozen pairs of tiny boots, and the hum of a couple dozen tiny, fluttering wings. Digberts was waiting at the edge of the bell-shaped clearing. A single gnome was pushed toward him, and the rest of the hoard backing away.
“Well?” Digberts asked sternly.
“It’s, it’s, it’s empty,” the nervous gnome stuttered.
“Empty,” Digberts repeated, and the crowd in front of him parted. He strode down its middle and into the tomb.
For a moment, there was silence. Then, the most fearful wailing Lincoln had ever heard rang out. Digberts cried, Digberts wailed, and Digberts sobbed. Eventually emerging from the cave, his head down, his feet scraping along the mud. “Nothing, not a darn thing fer all our effort.”
“Eh?” said Lincoln.
Marngs slapped him with one of her wings. “Sssh! Can’t you see what a state he’s in?”
Just as Lincoln was about to point out that it was actually him that had confronted the troll, that he’d died and then vanquished it, a speck of white light appeared at the bell’s end. It grew from the ground into a column about three feet high and then the middle split and an oval gateway appeared.
“Chaos portal,” Marngs shouted, and she flew away, then closed on the portal and peered inside. “It’s a fair and bright land!” she proclaimed.
A shrill cry erupted from the mob, and Digberts dashed through the crowd and leapt right into the portal’s hole. The throng of harpies and gnomes surged forward, spilling into the portal, two, three at a time, until the last one was left. Crags Trollhunter turned around and gave Lincoln a thumbs-up, and he too stepped through. The portal then closed like a zipper, shrank, and vanished with a pop.
Lincoln was left scratching his head, sitting atop the tomb.
7
The Beginnings Of A Guild
Lincoln took the end of his engagement to Marngs in his stride. He highly doubted, if he was truthful with himself, that things would have worked out with her anyway. It would have been a logistic…a difficult marriage. He also couldn’t shake the unerring feeling that his life would be a little less exciting with Digberts, Crags, and Marngs now gone, even though his flirtation with them had been brief. He slapped himself a number of times, fully expecting to wake up by Grimble’s cart, next to the bubbling brook, and under the shade of the broad-leafed copse. When that didn’t work, he wished he’d had a pipe and some tobacco so that he could enjoy a puff while he mulled his next move. He decided it would be his next purchase, if he ever saw a shop again.
“Ho, Lincoln!”
Lincoln heard the words, but couldn’t place the voice for a second. It was full throated and not in the slightest bit squeaky like the gnome’s voices had been. He scanned the little clearing and saw Aezal standing at its edge. He was looking up at Lincoln.
“I saw the light from you leveling up but your stats say different, and yet not… Did you?” He pointed down at Crag’s little spear with Esmeralda’s head spiked on it, then across her vast skeleton, and toward her great hammer. “I see you’ve gained reputation. Did you kill the troll?”
“Yup.”
“On your own?”
“Yup.”
Aezal scratched his head. “I take it the gnomes helped.”
“What gnomes?” Lincoln said, and jumped down, landing on the hammer’s head. He sat there, and Aezal walked over and sat on the hammer’s handle.
“The gnomes that drugged us. The gnomes that have left a trail of ruin through the forest. Those gnomes.”
“Digberts' crew,” Lincoln affirmed. “No, they didn’t help.”
“So…” said Aezal, but he took out a bone pipe, filled its pot and lit it with his tinderbox before speaking. “So, do tell.”
“For a puff on your pipe. I’ve a mind to make it an occasional habit, it seems to…agree with this land.”
Aezal fiddled in his white robes and came out with another pipe. He passed the smoking one to Lincoln, then primed his spare. “Keep it,” he muttered. “It’ll be worth it for the story alone.”
Lincoln told his tale, and Aezal laughed until his tears dried up. Just as Lincoln was finishing, Grimble and Ozmic came along the trail, cursing and kicking all the bones out of the cart’s way, to squeeze it down the narrow path. Once they’d battled their way through, they poured four mugs of ale, and made a fire right where Lincoln had been flattened to a pizza. Sitting around the fire, they made Lincoln tell the story again.
“We thought something had happened,” Ozmic said, as Lincoln rested back against the troll hammer.
“We saw the light in the sky,” Grimble added.
“Gnomes aside,” Aezal muttered. “What’s in that tomb? Did the gnomes loot it? Trolls don’t take up residence in a cave, a dungeon, or a tomb unless there’s treasure.”
“The gnomes didn’t find anything,” said Lincoln.
Ozmic scoffed. “Gnomes have the attention span of a fish. If there wasn’t a door to be kicked down, a cask to be smashed, or a coffin to be jimmied, then they’d get bored and give up. Nope, the gnomes wouldn’t have looked beyond their fat noses.”
“There is a secret chamber,” Lincoln said, absently.
Aezal grinned from ear to ear, his eyes wide, and chest puffed out. “What did I say? What did I tell Pete? All the way back in Brokenford, in that warehouse, what did I say? I said: ‘I don’t want your gold.’ I said that, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“I want the man who makes the gold.” Aezal beamed and looked at the two dwarves.
“As a friend,” Grimble pointed out.
“Of course,” Aezal said, trying to look offended, and he patted Lincoln’s leg. “So, the secret chamber, do spill.”
Lincoln looked from one companion to the other, a warm glow filling his heart. He couldn’t help but feel the camaraderie of his little group was quite real, though he wished Pete and Allaise were there too. Apart from Finequill, they were his first real companions. And, if Aezal was using him, so what? Lincoln was using the big man for protection in turn. Then again, he thought, I didn’t do a bad job on my own, and he cast his satisfied eye over Esmeralda’s skeleton.
“An altar rests against the end wall of the tomb. Beyond that wall is an empty chamber, empty barring a set of downward, stone steps. That is all I could see.”
“Altar,” muttered Grimble.
“Empty chamber,” said Ozmic.
“Stone steps,” Aezal repeated.
“So, how do we get in?” Lincoln asked.
They all shrugged and then Aezal stood up. “We look for the lock. Unlike the gnomes, we’ve got a deal of patience. Let’s clear the tomb and begin the hunt.”
“After we finish our ale,” said Ozmic.
“Yes, after that,” agreed Grimble.
Lincoln had to tell them his tale again. This time, they were most insistent he gave t
hem all the gory details of his death. A thing that was still a little raw with him.
“Endings River,” Ozmic said. “The milky-blue river that winds its way through the catacombs. It’s called the Endings River.”
Grimble leaned in. “They say the milky color is all the dead souls trapped in the river, waiting for the boatmen to come.”
“But I ended up on a slab,” Lincoln told them.
“Slabs are fer players,” Ozmic said. “When we die, we end up in the river, and the boatmen fish us out and send us up to the stars or down to the fires. Waitin’, that’s what the milk is, the dead waiting.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lincoln.
“What fer?” Ozmic asked. “It’s natural to die. What ain’t natural is to get turned into a puddle of innards and then just spring up and take yer opponent by surprise. Unfair, that’s what it is.”
“He’ll only be able to do that trick a couple of times,” Aezal said, with a conviction that told Lincoln the Atreman knew what he was talking about.
“Aye,” said Grimble. “That Clepsydra gets longer, so I’ve been told.”
“Clepsydra?” Lincoln asked.
Ozmic took over the conversation’s reins. “The pool you dived in stays the same. The little tunnel you swam through gets longer and tighter every time you die, and the surface, farther away. Each time you die, it takes longer to come back, and it’s harder to do.”
Grimble downed his mug of ale and jumped up. “Heard the water gets thicker too.”
It made complete sense to Lincoln. When he’d set his respawn point, he hadn’t expected to take Esmeralda by surprise; he hadn’t expected to return that fast, and clearly, nor had the troll. He’d got lucky, simple as that. It was only right that you couldn’t just die and pop up without a price. In fact, he was surprised his stats hadn’t been adversely affected. He decided to use his immortality very carefully from now on in. The thought of swimming through some thick goo didn’t particularly appeal to him.