● Istvan Arshak
● Zlazlo ul’Tiranozavir
● Lazar Skaliz
● Lord Franz Zediwitz
Recruited: 10
Total Available: 5
Unavailable
● Suri Ba’Hadir (In absentia)
● Taethawn the Bleak (Traveling)
● Ur Robert Gehlan (Assigned to Quest: The Wolves of Fall)
● Commander Timofey Lostra (Assigned to Quest: Border Crossing)
● Count Lorenzo Soma (In absentia)
● Vash Dorha (Critically Injured; 48% HP)
Things were looking grim, but now I was Voivode, I could also call in NPC heroes from other counties. When I checked the rosters available in the KMS rather than my Combat Management System, it seemed a little better. Calling on outside help required me to pay for a messenger and wait a few days for the message to be delivered and the hero dispatched to the quest. The quality of the NPCs the county lords would send depended on my level of Renown, and there was a chance they would reply to me by asking for a favor, or by issuing me a quest of their own. Given that my Renown with Myszno’s nobles was at the low end of ‘okay’ and – according to my sheet – other nobles would act competitively toward me, them calling in favors was likely.
[You are assigning the following quests: ‘Triage at the Border’, ‘Manticores – In MY Swamp?’; ‘The Whispering Marsh’; ‘Whatever a Man Soweth’, ‘Capture the Fort’, and ‘Where Children Toil’ for a projected cost of 3000 olbia. Is that correct?]
“Yes.”
[Quest dispatches confirmed!]
The money was deducted from our coffers, putting us to about 7000 olbia. The last thing I had to do was assign Engineers to survey Karhad’s water system in preparation for The World Beneath. That quest, along with a few others, carried hefty Renown and Build Point rewards. I needed as much of both as I could get. Gold was about to become an issue, but money could wait.
I reequipped my armor and sat on the edge of the bed with the Spear across my lap for a while, watching the faint traceries of black and red mana pulsing through the metal like embers. The Spear now had a sense of… gravity. A presence. Rationally, I knew it was just a fancy magic weapon, but I could swear that, as I looked down at it, that it was somehow looking back at me.
Rutha’s decision to give me the Spear had brought me and her both a lot of hardship. That one action had already changed the world in ways no one could have predicted two months before. It was one thing to play a bunch of games and stories about people getting drawn into world-shattering plots, and quite another to be at the center of one. But as I said to my friend all those years ago, “It is what it is, man.”
I opened my personal quests menu, and pulled up The Second Drachan War.
“Accept quest.”
Chapter 7
The Bashir Desert, Dakhdir
Suri had described Al-Asad as being mostly underground. Maybe the prison part was, but the horking huge fortress on top of it was definitely not. It was stuck on top of the only hill for miles around in this vast, dune-swept plain, looming over the desert like a giant stone wedding cake. Two concentric walls of white stone surrounded a steep, paved slope that encircled the keep, which was also walled. There was a steep zig-zag road leading up from a single gate at the base of the outer curtain wall, barely big enough to fit two hookwings shoulder to shoulder.
“Yikes,” I remarked to Lahvan, dismissing the Kingdom Management System. Since we’d left Myszno, every spare moment had been spent studying the damn thing, along with the Mass Combat menus. “Other than just flying in and dropping down into the middle of their shit, I don’t know how we’re getting in there.”
“Through the Sultir’s soldiers.” The shadow crouched on the saddle to my left. Its soft, hissing voice was somehow audible over the wind. “But it is pointless. The sorcery used to raise Bakhat Khasir cursed this fertile land to become desert. Al-Asad is a place of death. It is known.”
“I’m going to venture that being dead makes you kind of pessimistic.” From the air, I could see the faint outline of the river that had once wound across this place, the straight irrigation channels that led from it, and the impression of squared lots under the sand. It hadn't been abandoned for long - maybe twenty, thirty years. Long enough for the desert to crawl over everything and bury it. “Just as well we don't have to assault this place from the ground.”
I bent down over Karalti's shoulder, flaring my eyes to focus in on the castle. As I did, a flight overlay appeared, superimposing my view of the terrain. As it did, I got an alert.
New Quest: The Lion of the Desert
You have arrived at Bakhat Khasir, the fortress which guards the subterranean prison of Al-Asad. To learn more about the fortress, focus on it and label the different castle features. The more thorough you are, the better knowledge you will gain.
Reward: EXP, Skill EXP, Knowledge (Grade varies)
Special: This is a timed quest. You must complete it within seven minutes.
A seven-minute timer? That odd number of minutes was strange, but it was a welcome distraction. The augmented reality interface used for these mini-quests was almost exactly like the JADE-IV holomaps I'd relied on for five years while marching through the jungles of Indonesia, except they were less technical and more fun.
I got to labeling, eyes darting from place to place. Some of the elements of Bakhat Khasir were familiar from previous roleplaying games and late-night informative video binges. Most of them were from my on-the-fly experience of defending the province of Myszno from a horde of undead. Some of it was from... reading. If you'd asked me six months ago if I, Hector Park, would ever pick up an actual book on castles and read it from cover to cover, I would have laughed my dyslexic ass off. But each time I battled my brain weasels and successfully read a word, a sentence, a page, my Intelligence stat climbed and my ability to understand the contents improved. Characters didn’t just level up physically in this game. Slowly but surely, I was getting smarter.
“Okay. Curtain wall, gatehouse, crenulations, machicolations - that's how you pronounce that, right?” I asked Karalti. “Also, don't you think Khasir sounds like a kind of cheese?”
“Yeah, machicolations: that's how I heard Istvan say it. And... what about cheese? That was kind of random.”
“Sorry, had a squirrel moment. Let's see: oh, man. You see that big sloped wall-ramp-looking thing?” I pointed at the steeply bricked hill surrounding the keep. “I know what that is now. That's called a talus!”
“Talus sounds like a bull dragon's name. I’d totally have a boyfriend named Talus.”
Just the suggestion of Karalti having a boyfriend made the corner of my eye twitch. “Yeah, it does. And look - there's a moat around the base of that talus. That's an open cistern, I think.”
“Do they drink from there, or poop in there?”
“I dunno. Probably both.”
“Ugh. Humans are so gross.”
I checked off other points mentally: battlements, arrow-slits - this place had a lot of those - bastions, where the cannons were mounted. As we got closer, it became apparent that as intimidating as it was, the place was actually pretty run down. There was grass growing in the seams between bricks.
[You have completed Quest: The Lion of the Desert]
[You gain 150 Exp! +1 Skill EXP (Research), C-Grade Knowledge (Bakhat Khasir)]
“Woo, six and a half minutes!” I pumped a fist. “Who’s good? I’m good.”
Karalti rumbled underneath me, a sound I felt through my legs instead of hearing with my ears. “So how do we break in? It looks pretty secure to me.”
That was a very good question. “I know it will involve what will probably be the worst swim of our lives, but I'm going to guess... the cistern?”
As I said that, there was a deep, rumbling THUMP from deep underground. And then nearly of a quarter of this huge, almost unassailable structure sheared off like a collapsing sand castle, a cloud of dust blooming into the air
as one side of the keep bounced down the disintegrating talus and collided with the water below.
“Umm.” I blinked rapidly as the carnage unfolded. “Are you... seeing this?”
“Uh-huh.” The dragon pulled up to hover, watching in mute disbelief as the entire north-western flank just simply caved in, sucked down into a sinkhole that expanded until it reached the edge of the cistern. Water exploded into the newly formed cavern, and for a stunned moment, I thought that I had somehow caused this. But then, there was another THUMP followed by an ear-drum-rattling, tooth-shaking monstrous screech from the bowels of the earth. Cutthroat, hanging from her harness underneath Karalti's chest, began to kick and squeal and lash her head.
“Well, that explains the timer.” All the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “Holy shit, Karalti. Whatever that thing is, Cutthroat is scared of it. And she ain't scared of shit.”
“I know. I don't think I can land.” Karalti's telepathic voice was unusually nervous. “The ground could give way under my weight.”
“You can, Tidbit. Just Polymorph as soon as you touch dirt.”
“Okay. But I only have one more of those spells for today... if I put my human suit on and take it off an hour later, that's all I can do for the next 24 hours.”
“Roger that. If you can't get into Vulkan Keep, I'll sleep outside with you.”
“Promise?” she asked coyly.
“Pinky claw promise. Now let's clear the ground.”
The dragon angled her body out of the thermal current and into colder air. We began to gain speed: the cue for me to assume The Position. Sweat poured down my face and into my collar as I bent my knees, backed my butt up into the air and got my head down. Diving with your head above your feet was a fast way to pass out and fall out of the sky in the gloriously realistic VR fantasy world of Archemi Online: The Land of Merciless Physics.
Troops were dashing around madly, so preoccupied with earthworks that they didn't notice the incoming dragon until it was too late. Karalti flared her wings and barreled out of the dive, drawing a deep breath. “PHWHOOOOOOORRRR!”
A thin line of blazing, white liquid fire tore from Karalti's long throat, striking a couple of scurrying soldiers with enough force to send them flying. Others yelled and pointed, scattering as Karalti backwinged and dropped the last ten feet to the stone. She stalked forward, hissing and weaving her neck, white fire drooling from her jaws. The troops - only five or six men - were more sensible than the bandits. They scattered and ran for their lives.
Karalti shifted back down into her human form: nude, for a moment, before she equipped her combat gear. As she did, the rope and leather strap harness we'd rigged so that she could carry Cutthroat slumped to the ground, and dropped the dinosaur to her feet. She croaked, drawing her limbs in and hunching down into a puffy ball of feathers.
“Come on, girl.” I crouched down next to the anxious dinosaur. “Show us where Suri is.”
At the sound of Suri's name, Cutthroat's dead yellow eyes kindled with life. After staring at me blankly for a couple seconds, she lumbered to her feet and shook herself out. Then, she pawed at her iron muzzle with the stubby finger nub on her wrists and looked at me pointedly.
“Sure. Just try not to eat anyone we like, okay?” I unequipped it, and once it was off, she straightened up. After taking a moment to preen under her hook-arm, she put her nose down, sniffing deeply. Then, she growled, wheeled around, and stalked purposefully toward the east.
We followed her through a half-hidden gate, pausing only as another explosive concussion went off under us and the ground rolled beneath our feet. Bricks and sand tumbled down, and as we ran through it all, it became apparent that this upper fortress was actually little more than a gutted shell. The building I'd mistaken for a secondary Keep was actually a massive gatehouse, which housed a double portcullis blocking the entrance to a sloped tunnel plunging down into the earth beneath the fortress - the entry to Al-Asad. That tunnel was currently plugged up by a knot of shouting, violently terrified men and women trapped on the other side. Guards and prisoners beat on the steel gateway with fists, truncheons, rocks, shivs, anything and everything that came to hand. They were crawling over each other like drowning rats in a bucket, heedless of the building crush behind them.
“AMNI BAHAR DU!” a guard shrieked in Dakhari through the gate as we drew up in front of it. “Mai minata karadi!”
He nearly sobbed the last phrase as cries of 'Amni bahar du!' rang out from fifty desperate mouths. I didn't need to speak Dakhari to get the gist.
“Fuck. Tidbit, grab Cutthroat and get to the side.” I searched the gateway, looking for some way to open it. The crush built to a fever pitch as I ranged back and forth.
“Nara!” The guard's teeth and eyes flashed as he jabbed up toward the ceiling.
I looked up. There were arrow slits above the gate - which meant there was a space behind it. “Okay, hang on!”
The overwhelming majority of portcullises weren't meant to be opened from the outside, but this one wasn't made to keep invaders out - it was made to keep prisoners in. I ran up a narrow flight of stairs and found a hatch into the winch room. My HUD automatically highlighted the wheels to turn each of the portcullises, holographic arrows twisting to the left and pulsing to indicate the required tempo.
I opened the outer gate first, which was fairly easy. The inner gate was much harder, the arrow flashing randomly as the crowd surged and retreated against the barrier. I screwed up a couple of times, and the weight of the people clawing at the iron dragged the door back down to howls of protest. I wasn't even halfway done when the stampede began. Once it was up, I sprinted outside to see people pouring out and fleeing in every direction. Karalti and Cutthroat had shrunk back toward the stairwell, where the hookwing snapped and snarled at anyone who passed by too close.
[You’re a life-saver! You gain 300 EXP!]
“Hold her!” I ducked around Cutthroat, looking for anyone who might share a language with me. It was wall-to-wall Dakhari, many of them with the same red hair, dark skin, and golden eyes as Suri. Frustrated, I grabbed a tall, skinny guardsman as he ran by me. “Hey! Do you speak Common? Vlachian? Can you understand me?”
He snarled something in his own language, and tried to shove me away. I kept a hold of him, wracking my brains for how to communicate, when I remembered. My eyes narrowed. “Lahvan! Come here and grill this guy! What the hell is going on down there?”
One of the shadows pulled away from the wall, and he froze, bug-eyed and uncomprehending. Then it spoke to him in Dakhari. The guard turned an interesting green-brown color, sagging in my grip. Lahvan repeated what he said, and the man gibbered something back as the shade listened.
“He sayssss...” the undead whispered, “that the Wardens are barricaded in the administrative wing of the prison. That there was a riot, and the Wardens detonated magical explosives to try and destroy the armed prisoners. He says the explosives summoned something terrible.”
“The Wardens? They have to be the admins who uploaded Suri to Archemi.” I glanced back at Karalti, who was watching us intently from beside Cutthroat. “Did the explosives pull down the castle?”
“No. They caught the attention of the Queen of the Sands,” Lahvan hissed. “The elder sandworm who created this desert.”
I scowled down at the guard, who was almost paralyzed with terror. “Okay, shorty - I'm looking for a woman. Her name is Suri. Have you seen her?”
The guardsman didn't understand what I said, but he recognized Suri's name. Before Lahvan could even translate, the guy began babbling again. The shadow hovered patiently, and when he was done, Lahvan asked my question. “He says this is her fault. The woman named Suri sought revenge on the Wardens and the guards. It is she he fears… she led the prisoners in rebellion after being pulled from her cell in the Dregs.”
Pulled from her cell? I swallowed a small spike of panic. “Where is the Admin Wing?”
“You must go down to the second floor
, then pass through the guard station on the left,” Lahvan translated.
“Which means it’s under the fucking cistern. Of course.” I shoved the guard away from me, and he stumbled before running off into the thinning crowd of evacuees. “Come on, Karalti! Let's move!”
“Get on Cutthroat!” Karalti vaulted up onto the hookwing's back, taking the reins. “I'll drive - you need to have both hands free for the Spear in case we need to fight!”
Chapter 8
The tunnel down to Al-Asad was wide enough for a wagon to pass through, and tall enough that I could stand on Cutthroat's back. I crouched on her hindquarters with the Spear held low, knees loose, gripping Karalti's shoulder for balance. The hookwing charged down into the depths of the prison, dodging the people fleeing toward the light.
We seemed to go down forever, well beyond the boundary of the fortress walls. Somehow, Cutthroat knew where she was headed: with her head down and her tail held rigidly behind her, she sprinted, weaving and dodging around escaped prisoners fleeing toward the distant exit. At the end of the tunnel, we passed through a broken iron-barred gate and burst out into an underground loading station-turned-Battle Royale. Prisoners and guards brawled in violent knots, swords clashing against broken bottles, lead pipes, wooden clubs and shivs. Cutthroat screeched and shied back as a prisoner lurched out of the semi-darkness with a stolen scimitar, then screeched again, louder, as the ground bucked underneath our feet and sent our attacker and many others sprawling. Injured and desperate people broke away, running for the exit.
“Yah!” Karalti kicked Cutthroat in the ribs, spurring the hookwing forward.
“She does NOT like whatever's going on under here.” I held on as Cutthroat trampled the prisoner and lurched toward the entry gate at the other end of the unloading area.
“Nope. Me either.” Karalti shuddered beneath my hand. “This place is gonna collapse. I just hope we can get Suri out in time.”
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