War Aeternus: The Beginning

by Charles Dean

  With two of the insects down, it was only a matter of time before they were able to finish off the last one. Miller eventually pierced it through with his spear, eliciting a flurry of wings and a strange hissing sound from the creature before it died. All in all, what could have been a terrifying fight was relatively easy. The bugs’ inability to escape through the doorway and into the larger tunnel outside, or into the dark where they would have the element of surprise, probably played into their quick defeat a good deal.

  You have killed a swarm of Drill Mites. Your party has been awarded 4 silver and 180 Experience. Your share of this is 2 silver and 90 Experience.

  Due to consistently being drunk, Appreciative Drunk has been promoted to Initiate Level 8.

  Due to improving Appreciative Drunk, you have received +1 Intelligence. Current Intelligence: 46.

  “You know, after killing the Krobken, a swarm of flying bugs just really doesn’t seem that scary,” Ling commented. “Not scary at all.”

  “That’s because bugs are naturally evil and loathsome creatures that don’t taste good when eaten. Anything that doesn’t taste good when eaten should never exist.” Miller spoke as if it was a gospel from his bible.

  Well, it might be part of the book of Augustus. I have no idea what that monkey could have put in there while he was hammered. “Agreed, but if it wasn’t scary, then why did you shriek like that?” Lee asked.

  “I didn’t,” Ling responded, pointing at David, who was three shades lighter than he had been before and was hidden behind an unbroken boulder. “He did.”

  “How dare you mock Augustus with such incompetence!” Miller apparently took offense to the cowardly behavior because he hurled his spear at the rock David was hiding behind. “I offered you a position in the Order of Lee, and you return that favor by cowering before an enemy? Do you think he would ever shrink away from noble battle?!”

  I am almost always trying to avoid fights. What are you talking about? Lee shook his head.

  “Sorry, sir,” David said in an oddly-polite tone. “It’s just . . . bugs are terrifying. I once woke up to having part of my leg being chewed on by a two-foot-long, hard-shelled critter whose name I never bothered to learn. I kinda freak out when I see them.”

  “What a preposterous notion! If one did you an injustice, then why cower from another?” Miller lost his anger and just let out a heavy-throated laugh as he walked forward and picked up his spear. “You just need to kill the creatures until you become hardened against any fear that might be in your heart. If you kill a thousand men, how can one possibly scare you?”

  Lee moved over and stood next to Ling. “Is it bad that it makes sense to me?” he asked quietly so that only she would hear.

  “No, I had the same thought,” she answered, shaking her head.

  “Good. I was beginning to wonder if I was spending too much time with Miller,” Lee answered, scratching the back of his head.

  “The map?” Ling replied, shifting the subject.

  “Ah, yeah.” Lee nodded, having briefly forgotten why he was there in the midst of free insect EXP. Truthfully, he didn’t have much hope of actually finding it. The corpses inside the small building had been picked dry, and the room was covered in dirt, dust, and stains from something Lee didn’t want to guess at. Tucked away beneath one of the flimsy straw-filled mattresses, however, he did uncover a worn satchel with several intact letters inside.

  “That’s the carrier bag,” David said from the doorway as soon as he saw it. Those bags are about as waterproof as you can get since they have to send messages out through storms. Those are likely a collection of the copies the messenger is supposed to keep.”

  “Copies?” Lee asked as he started rifling through them.

  “Yeah. For some reason, this Herald insists on two copies of each letter: one that stays with the messenger until he drops off the pouch and the other that’s sent back and forth. Their Herald apparently likes to keep notes of everything. When they took me, they drew a full damn body inspection twice for the bastard.”

  “Their Herald . . .” The words struck Lee. I’m going to have to kill another person like me, but he’s got a huge head start on me. He had time to set up this entire mine, time to abandon it, time to capture villagers . . . What level is he? How long has he been working on all of this?

  The thoughts echoed through Lee’s head as he looked at the state of the room. It was in total disarray, as if it had been infested for weeks. He had only just arrived in this world the other day, but this other Herald had already built up a base that looked as if it had been abandoned for weeks.

  How am I supposed to kill someone who has that much of a head start on me? Someone who is that higher a level? I've been trying to get to him as quickly as possible, but maybe that's the wrong approach. Doubt filled Lee’s mind as he thumbed through the letters.

  “Find anything useful?” Ling asked after a few minutes when Lee didn’t say anything. She watched her step as she carefully came up beside him.

  “I think so,” he said, handing her one of the letters. “There are four in here that mention their agent in town, refer to him as ‘the barkeep.’ He's apparently in charge of scouting out potential victims, setting up the timing, contracting the mercenaries to do the work and also bringing converts directly to the Herald’s temple if they're willing.”

  “So, he would actually have a map, wouldn't he? Or, at the very least, he would know where the Herald’s palace is.” Ling’s excitement at the discovery was obvious from her tone. “This means we can finally make the bastard pay!”

  If I can figure out a way to do that. Lee masked his scowl as best he could with a smile so that his insecurity wouldn't show. “There's one more thing here,” he said, handing her another one of the notes. “It says that they are positive that they found the object that had them digging down here in the first place. It says the iron and ruby has been helpful, but they're going to redouble their efforts because they can fulfill their end of the contract with this object and secure the help of Nekofelis in Anitopia.”

  “Object? You think there is a mysterious object somewhere down here? What type of object would be at the bottom of a tiny mountain?”

  “Well, if the note is to be believed, then it’s a stone. It’s apparently a fragment of the World Stone, whatever that is,” Lee said, still looking through the letter for more details. “Yeah, I don’t know what it is, but I do know that they were very convinced it was not only real, but they were just about to discover it.”

  “So then, that thing we killed earlier probably attacked them when they got close. That means that we’ve probably already killed the gate guard, right?” David shouted over to them, not coming any closer to the room than he had to.

  “What type of guard would leave his post? That thing can’t be the beast guarding the fragment, it wouldn’t have left it if it were,” Miller said, joining the conversation too and disagreeing immediately with David.

  “There’s no point in arguing when we can just go find out ourselves,” Lee said, only to notice Little Ethan glowering at him. What? This could give us the upper edge against this Herald, he thought at the golem, but the rodent just harrumphed and took off to start scouting ahead.

  “That’s the spirit!” Miller exclaimed, throwing his support behind Lee’s decision before Ling or David could start protesting.

  “But—” David looked back in the direction they had come from.

  “No ‘buts’ about it. There’s glory, victory, and guaranteed treasures waiting ahead of us! Let’s go!” Miller said. “Not to mention, the great Lee has spoken, so we must adhere to his request and trample upon the indignant fiends that bar our path.”

  Yeah, of course he would say that. Lee chortled at David’s shocked expression. Don’t worry, buddy. I was just as dismayed as you were when I first started partying with Miller. He couldn’t stop laughing at David’s ‘what have I gotten myself into?’ face. Part of him wanted to call the man a coward,
but he hadn’t shrunk from the fight with the Krobken, and he had volunteered to go down with them. He wasn’t a coward: he just didn’t like insects and hated the idea of unnecessary risks.

  “Well, you don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to, David, but I’m going to press on if you don’t mind. I don’t know what that fragment is, but if it’s still down there, then I want it. I want whatever power it has,” Lee said, pulling out his best sword and one of the shields out of the small brown satchel that functioned as his inventory. He had grown so accustomed to quickly swapping out items and weapons that he didn’t even think about it at this point. The outlandish blue squares that denoted the available amount of space he had left had come and gone in an otherwise thoughtless blue blur. Two swords had worked for him fine so far, but if the obstacle they encountered was any tougher than the Krobken, he definitely wanted a little protection so he didn’t get squashed in one hit. He had received a tower shield as loot from the guards he and Miller had lit on fire earlier, and he figured that this was about as good a time as any to test it out.

  “I’ll come too,” Ling said, drawing a frown out of Lee. He had serious reservations about taking her into a real fight again with her having almost died because of his ambitions just moments ago.

  “If you must,” he replied. No matter how he felt, it wasn’t his place to tell people not to act stupid when he was the biggest idiot in the group.

  With that said, the group continued their trek through the dungeon toward the end. They didn’t know what hole or cavern they were looking for, but they figured that, given its size, the Krobken had probably come from a rather large, hard-to-miss hole.

  Chapter 9

  Name: Lee

  Race: Human

  Class: Herald – None

  Level: 9

  Health: 190/190

  EXP: 1333/2000

  Primary Stats:

  Power 19

  Toughness 19

  Spirit 19

  Secondary Stats:

  Charisma 5

  Courage 20

  Deceit 2

  Intelligence 46

  Honor 1

  Faith 26

  Personal Faith 21

  Skills:

  Unarmed Combat: Initiate Level 2

  Swordplay: Initiate Level 3

  Sneak: Initiate Level 3

  Cooking: Initiate Level 1

  Divine Skills:

  Golem Sculpting: Initiate Level 5

  Appreciative Drunk: Initiate Level 8

  Faith Healing

  Finally, they found themselves at the end of their trek and in a cavernous room. Unlike the rest of the tunnels that they had transversed so far, the area had a noticeably different feel to it. Both the ground and the walls had been worked until they were clean-cut and smooth as if they belonged in a building rather than at the bottom of a filthy mine, and there was a small structure directly in the center of the room. Constructed from white stone that glowed so brightly it illuminated the entire place perfectly, its simple elegance stood out in stark contrast to the dank and dreary warren they had navigated to get there. Lastly and most strangely, the air had a peculiar sweetness about it—a nectar-filled aroma that penetrated Lee’s nose the moment he stepped into the area and that seemed to alleviate the hunger that had started to build as the day went on.

  Ethan refused to follow him when he stepped into the room. Instead, he hung back at the edge of the invisible barrier where the wall had just been broken. Come on, Lee urged the little mouse. He was far too used to having eyes on the back of his head at all times, and it made him uncomfortable to think about the little mouse not being around. It was almost like he was being forced to walk around with one eye closed.

  Miller and David stepped into the room, and a penetrating yellow ray shot across the hall to highlight them. Lee followed the light back to its source and found that there was a statue situated in the center of the white structure. Although he was too far away to make out the details, he could tell that it was holding a yellow stone at chest level that was the source of the light. The statue itself looked like it was staring directly at them.

  “They may not enter,” a deep voice said, and as it spoke, three Krobken’s rose from the floor on either side of it.

  “But I may?” Lee asked. He was hesitant to walk any further into the room with the three beasts standing guard. The last fight hadn’t gone smoothly, and their victory hadn’t come without a price. Ling had almost died, and Lee had lost several chunks of his health.

  “You, the qualified bearer of his will and the blood of his chosen who has entered into the Temple of the Creator, may not leave until your first gift is tested,” the statue answered.

  “My first gift?” Lee asked. The way in which the statue spoke to him and the titles by which it called him answered even fewer questions than they created. Am I supposed to even trust this thing? Does it have a reason for deceiving me? But then why would it lie?

  “You must answer three questions, and then you must ask three questions. No more and no less. Should your questions prove as lacking as your answers, you will have failed, and I will have to remove the stain on your patron’s name.”

  So, you’ll kill me if I don’t measure up. Lee understood the simple meaning behind the statue’s words.

  Between the shinning yellow stone that it held in its palms and its glowing yellow eyes, it was hard to look directly at the statue. The combination of white light being emitted by the structure and the yellow radiance was almost too much. Now that his eyes had started to adjust to the brightness of the room, however, he could tell now that it was a completely-nude, six-foot-tall Amazonian.

  “So, I have to ask riddles or something?” Lee needed to understand what type of questions he was supposed to ask.

  “You must answer three questions, and then you must ask three questions,” the monotone voice repeated.

  “Fine, bring it on.” Lee readied himself for what he expected to be a Sphinxian examination. He had taken his fair share of stupid questionnaires on the Internet over the years, so he was fairly confident that he could handle himself.

  “The first question is such: It has one eye but cannot see. Its best work is seen by nobody. If it fails, one cannot stitch the tear that rips at dignity.”

  Lee had braced himself for one of the toughest possible riddles he might encounter, so he was fairly surprised to hear such an easy one. He wasn’t sure about the second half of it, but the first sentence he had seen several times from knitting-enthusiast pun lovers on Blueit. Wait a minute. If I remember correctly, wasn't I prompted with the information that I was the first English speaker to take part in this game? How did they manage to script puns and riddles that work with my language if no one else speaks it?

  “A needle,” Lee answered. He was fairly confident that it was the correct answer, but he definitely wasn’t certain. He stared at the Krobkens surrounding the statue to see if they moved.

  The needle did have an eye, where one looped the thread, and if the stitching was good, no one would ever see the fix. He could only guess that the last part of the riddle referred to the fact that, if the stitchwork failed, the shame of ripped and torn clothes in public places couldn’t be undone—especially if the tear happened to be somewhere sensitive like the seat of one’s pants. That would definitely tarnish someone’s dignity and couldn’t be taken back.

  The statue’s yellow eyes glowed brighter, and Lee stiffened up, afraid that the language barrier may have caused him to answer incorrectly.

  “The second question is such: I measure out the life of men, a ruler by their side. My visage on a faceless face, hands holding what I hide, a makeshift chain that only serves to anchor in my endless tide.”

  With this new riddle, Lee froze. He instantly had an idea of what the answer could be—either time or a watch—but the two were so closely linked that it was also slightly confusing. The second part of the riddle said, ‘my visage on a faceless face,’ which c
ould reference that the watch was where time was visible, not that the watch is what’s seen. The fact that it said ‘my endless tide’ had Lee leaning toward time, not a watch or pocket watch. After all, time was endless, and he had never seen a watch or any other device that would last past a decade. There was also the fact that most riddles like this always had some silly, hard-to-fit, abstract answer that was rarely based on a tangible answer. But that may have been just an exception to the rule.

  “Time,” he answered after thinking for a minute.

  The statue’s eyes lit up even brighter, drowning out the remaining white and painting the entire room in a solid yellow hue. “The final question: A blade I am, handled with care. Not deadly for those that can bear. I’m held by all, and everywhere—I am a form of past warfare—where mothers run their daughters through, a word, a thought, and then a glare—a child left in disrepair. A yearning, wish, I’ll carve into. My blade weighed by what is due, so hold me tight, and cut what’s fair.”

  Before he could even try to piece together the puzzle, creeping doubt seized ahold of his heart and thoughts. That makes no sense whatsoever. Is this the end of the line? The doubt weaseled into his mind as he looked back and forth between the statue and his friends. Ling was watching him with curiosity and confusion as if her struggle to process the riddle had spilled out of her head and across her face. No help from you guys either? I guess I’m on my own then. There has to be some sort of wordplay . . . some sort of trickery. It’s the third and final question, so it can’t be as easy as the previous two.

  Lee mulled over the riddle in his head. Past warfare . . . That’s the wordplay. If everyone still has the weapon, present tense, and holds the weapon, present tense, then why is the warfare labeled as past warfare? He suddenly smiled, having finally come to a conclusion much quicker than he would have guessed.