“Cut lock?” Wicum asked.
“Aye good friend, one way around the trap is that I can just move a pick in the lock to trigger it, then I don’t have to worry about the thing anymore, and I can focus on opening the device. This lock was built to snap closed and cut the end of my pick off along with triggering the trap, so I’ll need to either get it right the first time or break open the wood of the chest afterward to get the loot.”
“But if you make a mistake, won’t the needles poison you?” I asked.
“Oh yes, but this just got exciting!” The green-skinned man wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Whatever is in this chest must be valuable. I shall open it promptly.” He reached for a few of his picking tools and then leaned closer to the lock.
“Shouldn’t you wear some thick gloves?” Wicum asked.
“I’d lose some of the touch. Don’t worry, dearest family. I’ve done this a few times.” Cornalic smiled as he inserted the pick into the lock. He used another small bar to kind of pull sideways at the hole, and then he hummed a little song to himself while he began to jiggle the pick. The rest of us studied his movements with a nervous fascination, and I realized that I was holding my breath.
There was a click sound from the chest, and we all gasped, but the half-orc’s grin only widened, and he completed his push of the small tension bar. The lock spun with a series of more clicks, and then he pulled his tools out of the hole.
“I do not believe there is a trap on the inside of a chest this small, but it is sometimes best to open them with caution.” He picked up a “t” shaped tool with a long wire tied around the bottom portion of the end. He inserted the device into the lock and then cautiously rose to his feet. “Give a bit of space dear ones,” he said as he walked behind the chest. He unrolled the wire until he stood a good ten feet behind the small box. The rest of us backed away a bit, and then the man pulled on the wire. The lid pulled open smoothly, and there was no trap effect once it was opened.
“Ahh. Good. Looks like the needles were the end of it. Let us see what we have acquired.”
The five of us circled around to the open face of the chest and looked inside. There was a rich red velvet cloth on the inside of the box, and lying on top of a contoured slot was a dark piece of wood about a foot in length. It looked like it might have been a slightly twisted branch of an oak tree, and I realized that the darkness of the wood was actually burn marks.
“Ahh. Tis a wand,” Cornalic said.
“I don’t need to wait to see what it does. Pass,” Wicum said as he looked at his sister.
“Pass,” Mirea said as she looked to Bylem.
“I’ll take it!” the fenia purred as he pulled the wand out of its case. “Too bad I have to take it to get examined. I’m sure it would be useful in here.”
“Why do you have to take it to get examined?” I asked.
“I can’t just use it without knowing what it does. Some of these things are tricky to use. Don’t want a fireball going off in my hand.”
“I can figure out what it does,” I said.
“Huh? How?” the fenia asked. “Do you have identification or lore abilities?”
“Yep,” I said. “Let me hold it for a few seconds, and I can tell you what it does.”
The fenia looked at Wicum and Mirea, but the two humans just shrugged at him. Then the cat-man held out the wand to me, and I carefully took it from his paw. I twisted it in my wrist the way I did with my other weapons and then read off what the orange UI interface displayed. It was a blue lettered wand, and had a bunch of text underneath the name:
“Wand of Longer Chain Lightning- Every eight hours, wand may be used to cast a single blast of chain lightning. The initial bolt will do damage equal to either the user’s Light or Mind rating, whichever is higher. After initial impact, the bolt will travel to other hostile targets one at a time. Maximum targets reached will be user’s Light rating divided by 4 (14), but each new target will sustain a reduced percentage of the damage equal to their order in the chain multiplied by 3. Therefore, the (14) hostile target will only receive (58%) of the damage received the initial target. Wand can be used twice in an eight hour period, but then will need a full twenty-four hours before it can be used again.”
“You got all that from holding the wand in your hand for a few seconds?” Bylem’s voice couldn’t hide his amazement.
“Uhh. Yeah,” I said as I handed the burnt magical item back to the fenia.
“I don’t really understand all the numbers you said. What does it mean?” Wicum asked.
“Ha. Numbers aren’t your skill set, brother,” Mirea chuckled as she elbowed her sibling in the ribs. “It only matters if Bylem understands.”
“I do, but my overall Light attribute is 60. Leo, were you telling me the target reach based off of your attribute?” the fenia asked.
“Yeah. Mine is 56. So you’ll reach more targets.”
“Ahhh,” the fenia purred as he raised the wand in his hand. “This would have been rather useful earlier when we fought all those skeletons, but I’m guessing that we will have more of them ahead of us.”
“I’m going to do a quick walk around this room,” Cornalic said.
“Leo, why don’t you go with him?” Mirea asked.
“Ahhh,” I began to object, but something in the warrior woman’s eyes made me think that her recommendation was really an order. “Okay.”
I walked with the half-orc to the wall on the opposite side of the statue room. I didn’t really want to spend any time with the man, especially alone, but I had to admit that he had proven more valuable than I had first thought. Bylem’s new wand was going to be an asset to the party, and we probably wouldn’t have found it without the half-orc. Even if we had found it, one of us could have died if we tried to open it.
“They are speaking about you,” Cornalic whispered, and I turned my head to glance back at my other companions. The fenia and two humans were standing shoulder to shoulder with their faces close together, and I could see Wicum glance in our direction. “You need to take care, dear friend. You are too trusting.” Cornalic’s voice was just a whisper, and he bent down with his back to the group so that he could examine a stone in the wall.
“This is like a fox that just killed all my chickens telling me that I need to watch out for other foxes,” I growled at the man. Just when I was starting to think that the half-orc wasn’t a complete asshole, he comes up with this bullshit. What was with this guy?
“They are good people, but some adventurers aren’t. It is always best to hide your true potential. I trust the three of them, but there is no telling who is listening in the Adventurers Guild hall every night. Bylem and Mirea like to boast when they’ve gotten a few drinks in them.”
“Is that what you do? Hide your true potential? Swindler and thief during the day, but then—”
“Oh no, dear Leo. I am but a simple half-orc, trying to make my way in a scary and dangerous world. I happen to have a skill for opening locks, but that is about it.” The muscular man gave me his usual asshole-ish smile, and I tried not to roll my eyes at him.
“I don’t need your help. You’ve just stolen from me so far.”
“I understand,” the man sighed, and then stood from the stone he was examining. “What you did with the wand was impressive; some might think you had an item that did it. They might try to take it from you,” the man said with a shrug.
“Someone like you? Is that what you mean?” I growled my question at the man as he walked sideways with his fingers over part of the wall.
“No, dear friend. You are my esteemed brother now, and I shall never steal from you again, the first times were just pure accidents, of course. But if you are using an item to understand how other magical items work, perhaps you could tell me what it is so that I can help protect you from anyone stealing it?”
“Ha. You are a fucking riot. I’m not telling you shit.”
Whatever good will the man had just built with me by killing
the skeleton and opening the box was now gone. Cornalic was just a thief, and he was trying to con me again.
“Ahh,” he sighed. “Very well. I shall do my best to protect you sans education. It will make my job difficult, but have no fear; I am committed to the task.”
“How about you stop talking to me and just finish searching the walls?”
The man shrugged and then turned to continue back toward the statutes. I followed him around the edges of the room, and then we moved across the room to the same side where the axe had broken through the stone.
“Dearest Leo, you seem tense,” he whispered as we moved by the statue of the king.
“I’m not tense. I just don’t like you.”
“And angry. I know what you should do.”
“Oh, what is that?” I asked, but then I realized that I shouldn’t even be talking to this dick.
“There is this place in the north quarter. They play soothing music; have all sorts of cheeses, and wine, and women that will bathe you. Afterward, they rub oil on your body and whisper sweet words in your ear. They even feed you while you lounge. I’ll take you once we are done with this exploration.”
“I’m not going with you anywhere after this, especially not a whorehouse. Was that where you spent the money you stole from me?”
“My dear Leo! These are not whores. They are respectable women trying to earn a decent living by treating men kindly. There should be more places like this throughout Ohlavar. We all need a little bit more love in our life.”
“No thanks. I’m fine with the amount of love in my life.”
The man had not answered my question about where he had spent the gold, so I figured that I was correct about him blowing it all on prostitutes. I really needed to talk to Zarra about the mature rating of this game. It was just going to offend too many potential players.
“Ahhh yes. I do recall your beautiful elf girl. Allurie was her name? She was quite wonderful.” The half-orc man gave me a wink.
“We aren’t like that. Not that it is any of your business. I thought I asked you to stop talking to me?”
“Everyone needs someone to talk to. Or at least, that is what my therapist says.”
“Therapist?” I asked with shock.
“Yes, dearest Leo, it is someone you visit once a week to talk about your personal challenges and struggles. I have to speak to one because of all my issues around being a poor half-orc orphan. Of course, my therapist doesn’t want to call them ‘issues,’ she said they are just ‘past conflicts I need to work beyond’.” The man sighed heavily “We all do the best we can with what we have been given.”
“I don’t believe for a second you talk to a therapist,” I said.
“Perhaps I could be your therapist, your man, your shining beacon of light in this dreary world? I promise to listen to all of your woes, and build your confidence so that you can meet the challenge of each day vigorously. I feel as if we are two peas in the same pod, and our friendship shall know no bounds.”
“You are like one of those dogs that keep coming back after they get kicked,” I moaned as I covered my face.
“Leo!” the man gasped “You would never kick a dog. I know you too well. Your heart is too kind for such a deed.”
“Did you find anything?” Mirea asked as we came back to the hole in the wall.
“Nay, fair lady, except for a re-kindling of my respect for our good friend here.” Cornalic gestured to me with his thumb.
“Let’s continue onward. We’ve only been down here for half an hour, but it feels as if we’ve been here for days,” Wicum said as he gestured to the piles of bones beyond the double doors.
The five of us took our positions again with the siblings in front, Bylem behind them, me behind the fenia, and Cornalic at the rear. We scooted past the piles of skeleton warriors, and I glanced down at their discarded weapons. All of them carried a good deal of rust on their blades, so I reasoned that none of them were magical.
This room was laid out a bit differently than the others we had walked through. There was still a raised platform in the center with stairs on each side that descended to hallways of crypts, but some of those structures bore their own sets of stairs and had tall summits of crypt shelving that rose higher than our walkway. I guessed that it had been one of these places where the javelin skeleton had stood, and I was glad there weren’t any other skeletons with missile type attacks. We didn’t really have any ranged members of the party beside Bylem.
The room had a strange alien feel to it, and I guessed that it would have been terrifying to walk across the raised platform with hordes of skeletons still milling about. Perhaps Bylem’s initial pull that gathered the entire room’s worth of bad guys had actually been beneficial. The five of us still advanced slowly through the chamber; despite Cornalic telling us several times that he didn’t hear any more skeletons.
“How do we know the path we need to take isn’t below us somewhere?” I said as I pointed down to the valley of crypts below us. The previous rooms had emberbrands hanging on some of the walls, and it gave me an idea of how large the rooms were. This place was just complete darkness beyond our lights, and I started to imagine we were in the endless belly of some undead beast.
“We don’t know, but we can always circle back if we hit a dead end. Most crypts tend to be rather linear in their direction. They are built with the living community in mind,” Bylem whispered to me over the sound of the party’s boot steps.
“Community in mind?” I asked to clarify.
“Grrr. Of course. These burial chambers aren’t made for the dead. The idea is that the living can come here to visit their ancestors. It wouldn’t make sense for them to design it so that people got lost quickly.”
“The areas down below looked like a maze.”
“They are more labyrinthine, dearest Leo. There are few places to enter, but all paths go the same way, and it is easy to see the exit because it is raised above.” Cornalic gestured to our walkway as he spoke.
“Ahhh. That makes sense.”
“Another set of stairs,” Mirea warned us, and we turned away from our conversation to look at the edges of our emberbrand glow.
The staircase was wide again, but instead of plain stone blocks around the sides and ceiling of the stairs, the opening for the descent looked as if someone had carved a howling skull into the stone. It made the staircase appear as it if was descending into the maw of an even larger skeleton than what we had just battled before.
“That is rather intimidating,” Cornalic said what I imagined everyone else was feeling.
“It is just a design. I doubt that we are literally climbing inside of an enormous skeleton,” Mirea whispered.
“But you don’t know for sure, do you? Grrr, cause that is exactly what it looks like we are doing,” Bylem asked his question with a slightly sarcastic laugh at the end.
“Keep moving,” Wicum said, and the siblings took their first step upon the staircase. I half expected the jagged teeth of the giant skeleton to suddenly snap closed on top of them, but it didn’t happen, and the rest of the party followed the sibling warriors down the steps.
“These are kind of long,” Bylem said after we’d continued down the steps for what felt like five minutes.
“Agreed.” Mirea’s comment actually surprised me, and I wondered if the endless darkness was starting to get to the stoic warrior woman.
“I hear—” Cornalic began, but Bylem finished.
“Water! I can smell it!”
The pace of the party increased, and we reached the bottom of the long staircase a few moments later. The glow of our lights revealed a large archway, and I saw that the left section of the arch was etched to look like a grieving skeleton king. The right part looked like the queen, and I saw text carved footers at the bottom of each one’s feet. The room beyond the archway looked to be a bridge that hung over a glowing green light. I didn’t see any skeletons lurking on the walkway, so I walked over to the left s
ide of the arch.
“I’ll read the king’s first: Despite his warmongering past, King Belmor was a kind and benevolent leader of his new people. His love for his Queen only deepened during the first two years of their union, and his love grew exponentially more when Queen Dorni gave him their first child. The people of Unia all believed that their rulers lived a perfect life, but they had no idea of the evils about to be released upon their fair country.”
“This is really cool!” I said as I walked over to the other archway.
“The inscription is cold? You don’t seem to be shivering,” Mirea commented.
“Ahh. I meant that it is really interesting. You all have never heard of this legend before?” I asked the four of them, and they each shook their heads.
“Okay. I’ll read the Queen’s inscription: Queen Dorni had loved her kingdom since she was a child. When her parents died of the fever, she vowed to combat any future death, and ensure the safety of her people. She was just a girl at the time, but she was as headstrong as she was beautiful, and she was soon well vested in the Shadow. The magic itself is not committed to evil, but the Queen was driven to learn all of the secrets of the darkness, and her research didn’t stop after she was married.”
“Considering we are standing in an ancient crypt filled with undead skeletons, I’m going to guess that Queen Dorni discovered necromancy, and it took hold of her soul.” The fenia mage growled as he nodded his head.
“Is Necromancy Shadow magic?”
“Yes, but it is quite rare today, and not very powerful. Things could have been different before the Time of Heliotrope. There are plenty of ancient dungeons that are filled with all sorts of undead.” The cat man shrugged.
“Let’s find out what this glow is,” Mirea said as she gestured to the open area of the archway. The rest of the group nodded, and we followed the woman out onto the bridge.
The walkway was about twenty feet wide, and it hung in the air as if suspended by invisible cables. There was a bit of a bend in the lay of the path, and the green glow from below us was bright, so I was able to see that all the support came from beneath the walkway. It was a rocky arch bridge like formation, and the distant ground was some hundred feet below us. I saw hundreds of clusters of fungi attached to rock formations, and these formations jutted out of a slow flowing river of water that extended as far as I could see on either side of the bridge.
Lion's Quest: Dual Wield: A LitRPG Saga Page 20