Phantasmal Party

by Trey Myr

  "Is it just me, or have we fallen into a cliché?" Ed asked as soon as the door was closed.

  "Before he managed to become a titan and went insane," Ingrid answered, "Dr. Markopoulos theorized that the Labyrinth takes its form from humanity's collective subconsciousness. We've all seen countless movies and read countless books about medieval castles, so this place being a cliché is to be expected."

  "Beginning of sentence is wrong on so many different levels," Katya shuddered. "Then again, so is Dr. Markopoulos, according to Babushka."

  "Still, I would have expected to see something out of the thousand and one nights, if we're on the Luck of Sindbad trials. Not a generic European castle."

  "The Labyrinth isn't nearly consistent enough for that," Ingrid shook her head. "When Erik was still trying for the Thor Questshard, he was moving from nude Greek wrestling contests to an all you can eat sushi restaurant between one trial and the next. It follows the shape of the tale, but the details are always random."

  "This is an interesting theoretical debate," Lucy interjected, "but we're going to be introduced to the king in two hours, and we should probably make the effort to look respectable. Especially if Katya is right and he's going to reward us."

  "Is probably good idea," Katya agreed. "I will go take bath first, and then three of you can take turns."

  A few minutes after Katya entered the bath, a knock on the door was quickly followed by a young maid pushing a food trolley. She quickly placed three covered trays of food on the table, followed by a carafe of a pale blue wine and another of dark gray beer, bowed silently towards the party, and left the room.

  Ingrid took the lid of one of the trays, revealing a collection of strange fruits and tasted a piece of something that looked like a blue orange. "Tastes like an orange, but with a bit of chilli oil mixed in."

  The other two trays turned out to hold sliced bread, a selection of cheeses and some smoked meats, all of which tasted like their mundane counterparts, but with a hint of spiciness thrown in, and by the time Katya came out of the shower dressed in a pale blue gown provided by their hosts, the party was enjoying a tasty, if a bit spicier than usual, light meal.

  Two hours later, a much refreshed party followed a butler through the corridors of the keep, heading towards the great hall to meet the king.

  "We follow butler into hall and approach," Katya spoke rapidly to Lucy and Ed. "He will stop away from king and bow, and you will bow or curtsy with him. He should have our names and will introduce us to king. You remember proper addresses to nobles?"

  "We should," Lucy answered. "You and Ing drilled it into our heads enough over the past two hours."

  "Is important. Kings can be quick to anger, and we are in center of his power here."

  "We all agreed that it's important," Ed tried to mollify her. "And we remember it as well as we possibly can for a two hour crash course."

  Further conversation was impossible, as the double doors to the great hall appeared before them, flanked by two halberd wielding guards. "Please leave your weapons here," The guard on the left asked when the party approached the door. "Only nobles and members of the guard may carry weapons in the royal presence."

  Ed handed his quarterstaff and crossbow to the guard, and then had to wait for Katya to divest herself from a truly impressive collection of blades. She had throwing knives in her sleeves, a long dirk hidden in the small of her back and a dagger in each boot, in addition to the set of throwing knives worn openly on her belt. The guards' eyes rose higher and higher with the appearance of each new weapon, but were too polite to comment on the display. Ingrid and Lucy, being unarmed, just shrugged helplessly at the butler's bulging eyes.

  After Katya finally declared herself disarmed, the butler opened the double doors and into the great hall itself. The hall spread for ten meters to either side of the door, and was at least fifty meters long. Tall columns made of cloudstone supported the high ceiling above, and a deep blue carpet covered the entire floor. Tapestries depicting knights mounted on winged horses fighting gryphons, dragons and rocs stretched between the columns on the left side, and a giant fireplace filled with the ubiquitous standing lightning filled the entirety of the hall's right wall.

  The butler led the party into the hall, and approached a tall platform set against the back wall. A large ornate throne topped the platform, made of a single piece of dark gray cloudstone carved to resemble a wingless dragon with purple gems for eyes.

  Sitting on the throne was a stern middle aged man clad in blue and gray finery, a crown made of white metal and inlaid with sapphires resting on his head. Next to the throne, the princess that met the party earlier sat on a smaller, but no less decorated chair. Tall and slender, the princess had a heart shaped face with high cheekbones, full, pale blue lips, light gray eyes, and white hair that looked like a summer cloud.

  Two steps below the throne stood the stable master, dressed in the same riding cloths he wore when he left the party, and on the floor of the chamber two burly guards stood to either side of a young, scruffy looking man wearing a cheaper version of the same uniform as the stable master.

  The butler stopped five meters away from the platform and bowed to the king, followed closely by the delvers.

  "Your Majesty, May I present the delvers who saved Aella from the gryphons?" The butler asked, still bowing, and at the king's assent repeated the names of the party members.

  "Rise, all of you," the king ordered. "And tell me of the battle with the gryphons."

  Ed stepped forward and told the king how they came upon the tied winged horse threatened by the family of gryphons, and of fighting the flying beasts to a stalemate, only for Ingrid to break it by riding Aella and charging the gryphons from the air.

  "And Aella was alone when you got there?" The king asked when the story was finished.

  "Yes, Your Majesty. We didn't see anyone until the stable master showed up after the gryphons were defeated."

  "Thank you for your bravery, delvers. Aella is more precious to us than you, as outsiders, can possibly know. And what do you have to say for yourself?" The last aimed at the youth standing between the two guards.

  "I'm s-s-s-sorry, Your Majesty! I n-n-n-never meant to leave her for l-l-l-long, but there is a patch of s-s-s-stormberries near the meadow, and b-b-b-baker Lewis is always complaining that she c-c-c-can't get them fresh enough from the market and…"

  "And you wanted to get in young mistral's good graces," the stable master growled angrily. "I've told you before that your duty has to come before that trollop, Charlie."

  The king's raised hand stopped the stable master's tirade before it could start, and he gazed down at the stable boy. "Aella is the Ideal, boy. She is the source of our horses' magic, and without her they would lose the ability to fly. And you risked her life for some berries?"

  "I'm s-s-s-sorry, Your M-m-m-majesty!"

  "You are dismissed from the stables, and sentenced to a week in the stocks. And you should thank Latobius for bringing these delvers here in time to save Aella, for if anything had happened to her you would be losing your own head right now!"

  The guards half pulled and half carried the sobbing youth out of the hall, and the king turned stood from his throne and descended the stairs towards Ed. "You have my thanks for your brave deed, delvers. Aella isn't just the Ideal from which our horses' draw their magic, she is also a precious companion to my daughter, Neféli. Kneel before me, Eduard Fergusson. For your bravery in battle and saving Aella, I will bestow upon you the title of knight of the cloud kingdom."

  "We are honored, Your Majesty," Ingrid said, "but I must tell you that my companion is already an armsman for my own House outside the Labyrinth, and cannot stay here in the cloudscape."

  "I am familiar with your House and family, Lady Bjørnson, and I know that delvers cannot remain with us here. The title will be honorary more than anything, and will convey the friendship of myself and my kingdom."

  Ingrid bowed to the king, and nodded
to Ed, who kneeled before the gray monarch. The king drew his sword, and as the blade touched his shoulder, a message screen appeared before Ed.

  Congratulations! The first trial of Sindbad has been completed!

  Luck of Sindbad level 1 Rewards:

  +1 Intelligence

  Title 'Knight of the Cloud Kingdom'

  Summon one cloud horse per level for 10 mana per horse

  Chapter

  16: Snakes and Leaders

  There were more rewards, of course.

  Ingrid was gifted a lightning spear from the king's own arsenal. The weapon had an electric blue shaft, and a blade shaped like two mirrored lightning bolts touching at the point. It would only do a little more damage than her phantasmal spear, but could be thrown and would fly true to a distance of up to a hundred meters and reappear back in her hand ten seconds later.

  Lucy's gift was a dark gray staff topped by a clear orb that seemed to contain a thunderstorm that greatly increases the range of any lightning magic channeled through it.

  Katya got a set of four sheaths for throwing knives made of pale blue leather and embroidered with lightning bolts in a dark blue metallic thread. Any knife placed in the sheaths would deal lightning damage and stun the target for one to three seconds.

  Last but not least, Ed was given a ring made of deep blue metal and inlaid with cloudy gray gemstones which would double the wearer's mana capacity.

  After the four delvers thanked the king for his generosity, they were led to a door back into the bazaar.

  Katya left the party as soon as they left the Labyrinth, promising to meet them in the morning, and the remaining three made their way towards the Arctology.

  "This was a lot more intense than I expected," Ed told his companions on the way. "We got far too close to disaster with those gryphons."

  "We did," Ingrid agreed, "and the trials are only going to get tougher as the Shard levels. It's why I was so against buying it to begin with."

  "You have to agree that the rewards, even from just this first part, are worth the danger," Lucy argued.

  "They always are. Erik was very happy with his first three rewards. It was only when the fourth killed his companions that he started regretting it. But it's not worth dwelling on right now. We've started the Questshard, and we can't stop the trials now unless Ed never enters the Labyrinth again."

  "I think we can endure this," Ed said confidently. "We're much better equipped now than we were before this first trial."

  "It's still not good enough. Our main problem against the gryphons was range, since you and the archer are the only long ranged attackers we had. It's a little better now with Lucy's staff and my spear, but we can still make it better."

  "What did you have in mind?"

  "We need to switch your crossbow out for something more modern. Can you shoot a gun?"

  "A gun? Sure, Dad's been teaching me since I was old enough to hold one properly. But guns aren't reliable in the Labyrinth. It's why nobody uses them."

  "That's not precisely true. There are two main problems with firearms in the Labyrinth. The first is that there just aren't any Shards that work well with them. An Arcane Archer using a Greater Barrage Skillshard will always outperform even the best rifleman in the world. But since you aren't going to have a ranged weapon class, and I doubt that you'll have the free slots for ranged specific Shards…"

  "I might as well use a gun. That does make sense, but if that was the case than almost anyone would take at least a sidearm as backup, which leads us to the main issue, which is that the higher you go the more like it is for firearms to misfire, explode or just plain fall apart. And even if they shoot properly, they do very little damage to any Labyrinth dweller."

  "True enough, and Granddad figured the reason out a couple of weeks after the Labyrinth first opened. See, the Labyrinth is all about personal effort. You swing a sword at an orc and hit it, you deal damage. You've used your skill and your strength. The Shards help, of course, but they won't do the job for you. But guns don't work like that. It takes some skill to shoot straight, of course, but nowhere near the level needed to fire a longbow or swing a sword. And the Labyrinth doesn't like that."

  "That makes no sense. The same reasoning applies to my crossbow, and it works fine."

  "Because it's still a product of individual effort. Somebody built that crossbow by hand. They carved and sanded the stock, forged the limbs and flight groove and fashioned bolts for it. But go to a gun store and buy a gun, and you got a mass produced weapon and a box of mass produced bullets for it. And the Labyrinth absolutely hates that. Any industrially produced item will fall apart in the Labyirnth. It's why people use steel plate armor that was forged by a blacksmith and not ceramic plates made by machines."

  "So your solution is to use a hand crafted gun with manually loaded bullets?"

  "Yeah. This gets fairly expensive, since making a gun by hand takes much more precision than making a crossbow, and you need a lot more ammunition since guns shoot a lot faster than bows and crossbows. But we happen to have access to the best tinkerers in New Minos, and if we're going to be facing Questshard trials, the cost might be worth it."

  "That sounds like an incredibly convoluted reason and workaround," Lucy noted.

  "Yeah, I have to admit that I'm not quite a hundred percent bought on the reasoning. But I can't argue with the empirical evidence. Hand crafted guns with manually loaded ammunition work."

  "I'm willing to try if you think it'll work," Ed shrugged. "The crossbow definitely seemed lackluster in the last couple of delves."

  "Good. I'll go talk to Granddad about getting you a gun and ammunition. The quartermaster has a press and makes ammunition for the few people in the House that need them, and we can probably add you to the list. It'll cost us, but a lot less than buying them outside."

  After that, the conversation turned to more mundane things, and Ed took the time to rank up his buff Shards now that he had the mana to actually use the higher ranked versions.

  Eduard Fergusson

  Race

  Human

  Class

  Phantasmal Spinner

  Shards

  2/2 (3)

  Strength

  6

  Dexterity

  7

  Wisdom

  4 + 2

  Constitution

  7

  Agility

  8

  Intelligence

  11 + 2

  HP

  20/20

  Mana

  68/68 (128)

  HP regen

  0.7/hour

  Mana regen

  26/hour

  Shard

  Level

  Essence

  The Luck of Sindbad

  1

  NA

  Summoner (0)

  Chromatic Field (1)

  5

  1

  Sealed

  0/1000

  Phantasmal Spinner (1)

  Barrier (1)

  3

  1

  7865/9000

  0/1000

  Manaflow (1)

  5

  Locked

  Stoneskin (1)

  3

  2125/3000

  Conjure Phantasm (0)

  5

  Sealed

  Back in the Arctology, the party split up. Ingrid went to talk to her Grandfather about acquiring a gun for Ed, Lucy went to Ingrid's suite intending to order dinner for the three of them and then download a copy of the One Thousand and One nights and read about the voyages of Sindbad, and Ed went to the quartermaster to sell the loot the party gained in their latest delve.

  Everyone in the party who had a use for a Sharpness Shard already had one, so for the first time since they entered the Labyirnth, the party would be selling a Shard. This would probably become a common thing in the future, since tier zero and one Shards would start dropping in large amounts after the tenth floor, and the party already had most of the common
lower tiers Shards that they would need.

  The quartermaster, Heinrich Stein, was a grizzled old earth wyrm. A long brown scaled tail was coiled around a short pillar in the middle of his office, leaving his torso above the wide flat top of the pillar that served as his desk. It was impossible for Ed to estimate its length, but he guessed that it was at least four meters long, and half a meter in diameter where it met the torso. Short and thick arms rested on the desktop, each finger tipped with a claw as long as Ed's entire hand. The wyrm's head was entirely draconic, leaving no remnant of the human he must have started his life as, and a flat reptilian gaze met Ed when he walked into the room.

  "And who might you be?" hissed the great serpent.

  "Ed Fergusson. I’m a relatively new armsman."

  "Ah yesss, Mssss. Ingrid'ssss new boytoy."

  "That's a bit offens… Ok yeah, that's pretty accurate. I can live with that," Ed smiled.

  "So how'ssss the ssssn…"

  "Don't. Just don't. You finish that thought and I'll have to tell her about it, and none of us wants that."

  "Heh. I like you, kid. What bringssss you to my lair?"

  "I've got some loot from today's delve. Gryphon pinions, essence crystals, elemental crystals from raijū, and a Sharpness Shard."

  "Niccce haul," the wyrm whistled in appreciation. "Where did you find gryphonssss though? Lasssst I heard you lot just passsssed the sssseventh, and gryphonssss shouldn't appear before the eleventh."

  "The labyrinth does its own thing," Ed shrugged. "We got gryphons on the seventh."

  "Truer wordssss have never been ssspoken. OK, sssso thatsss one Sharpnesss Shard, fifty gryphon pinionssss, twenty raijū crysssstalsss, and ten essssence cryssstalssss, which comessss down to one thousssand and five hundred creditssss."