by Adam Elliott
Tower of Babel: Liar King
By Adam Elliott
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.
Tower of Babel: Liar King
Copyright © 2017 Adam Elliott. All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
From the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
For my Dad,
You showed our whole family the meaning of strength and perseverance.
I am still so proud of you.
Prologue
The job had seemed off to him from the start. The broker was offering too much Zeni for such a simple task. It gave Reinhart flashbacks of every Mr. Johnson that had ever back-stabbed him in Shadowrun, and he'd told Dolph as much.
Their brave leader hadn't listened. They were being paid two-thirds in advance, he'd argued, so it wouldn't make sense for the quest broker to pull the rug out from under them. Some Elan just had more Zeni than sense. If they didn't take the quest, someone else would.
From the way Dolph's screams echoed down the hallway, Reinhart was fairly sure Dolph now wished that someone else had.
On its face, it had been a simple task. Visit an out of the way dungeon and use a key provided by their employer to enter a secret chamber. Once there, they could scoop up whatever loot they could find, so long as they located a particular spell component in the process. Jobs like this were their bread and butter, just never for so much money. And never on such a short time-frame.
Why they'd been asked to make the run that very evening was one of the many questions Reinhart planned to ask, preferably at knifepoint, once he found his way out of this hellhole.
If he found his way out.
Reinhart didn't even know what went wrong. One second they were rampaging through the secret chamber, snatching up nearly everything that wasn't nailed down and wishing they'd brought a crowbar for the things that were. The next Dolph was sprinting for the exit and four of the stone statues that ringed the chamber had burst free of the walls, the blades of their weapons gleaming metal as they attacked.
The statues were so ubiquitous in the complex that Reinhart hadn't cast them a second glance when they'd first entered the chamber. They had impassive stone faces with Oriental features, their weapons, and armor derivative of a similar, though slightly more fantastical heritage. Lifelike, but uncanny, everything about them so perfect in its detail that he'd found himself uncomfortable just looking at them.
There was a name fo such statues, but it had proven frustratingly elusive up until the moment Nirvana had shouted it as the stone men advanced on her.
Terracotta Soldiers.
Their cleric hadn't made it out of the room. Dolph was their tank, and without him, they had no way to manage the enemies properly. Reinhart had taken a wicked slash across the right side during the retreat to the door, and Nirvana had drawn Aggro from the entire group by healing him. The last he'd seen of her she'd been stumbling away from the encroaching monsters, crying for help before growing silent as swords and spears pierced her.
All sense of cohesion had vanished as they fled. His two allies had bolted ahead of him, trying to catch up to Dolph. Their haste had led them headlong into another group of soldiers, with predictable results. The level of the soldiers appeared to vary, as low as ten or as high as twenty, but considering that Dolph, at level eight, was their strongest, they didn't stand a chance.
Discretion had been all that kept Reinhart alive. He was a magical trickster, a class that mixed a small amount of spellcasting ability with traditional rogue skills. His Vanish spell had allowed him to bypass wave after wave of the guards as they'd roamed the corridors, while his Sneak skill had muffled his steps and hidden him in the shadows while his MP recharged.
It might not be enough to save him, however. With each passing minute, the number of soldiers marching up and down the corridors continued to increase. Their heavy footsteps had long since replaced the skittering noises of the dungeon's usual low-level inhabitants, and before long he suspected the only things living in the dungeon would be stone. Eventually, one of the soldiers would have a perception skill high enough, or have enough circumstantial modifiers, to finally spot him. Once they did, it wouldn't be much of a fight.
“Where is it?” The words reverberated through Reinhart's body, as though he were standing next to the bass speaker at a rock concert. The sound of them came from everywhere and nowhere, not an echo but an omnipresent noise. It was as if the very walls themselves were speaking.
“I don't have it!” That voice was more natural, and one he recognized. Reinhart had been taking the shortest, safest route to the surface and from the sound of his nearby voice, Dolph had apparently had a similar idea.
It would have been better to double-back, he knew, but even with his common sense screaming at him, Reinhart couldn't fight the feeling of curiosity that filled him. Dolph had taken something before he fled, that much was clear now. It would be nice to leave with the knowledge of what, and why, particularly when he went to have that talk with their employer. So instead of retreating, he advanced, creeping along the wall until he finally slid into the shadowed corner of a small stone room.
The room had six occupants. Dolph was on his knees, each arm pinned up at shoulder level by the steady hands of a stone soldier. Two more had the sharp edges of their polearms pressed along the exposed flesh of the player's neck, prepared to execute him at a moment's notice.
The final stone warrior was different than the others. For one thing, the bearded statue had color to his clothing, stone meant to resemble vibrant purple and red silks was painted as such wherever it was revealed beneath the golden armor. His skin remained the same grey stone, but his hair was black as night, the topknot atop his head held in place by a golden leaf pin that shimmered in the room's dim torchlight.
"I know you do not have it." It replied though its mouth didn't move to form the words. They came from the walls, from his soldiers, from the very ground that they stood on. The booming authority of the soldier's voice filled him, and Reinhart knew in that instant he would tell the construct anything it asked of him. “You gave it to someone. Who?”
“I don't know!” Dolph cried. “It was a man. My employer said to take the relic and to give it to him. That was all!”
Reinhart shook his head. It hadn't been hard to two and two together to figure out that Dolph had been the source of his misery, but it stung hearing the man say it. Dolph had always been more than his fair share of greedy, but this was so far beyond that. Considering how fast he'd run, Dolph must have known something was going to happen, even if he didn't know precisely what. He knew there was a risk and he did it anyway, without telling them.
If the constructs didn't kill him, Reinhart was going to.
“And this man has left the Tomb?”
“Yes! At least, I think! I can help you find him though. I can tell you about his employer. I can tell you everything, just let me-” Dolph's pleading was interrupted by the butt of a polearm struck across his jaw. The one in charge hadn't given an order, but all four had worked in an uncanny unison to allow for the blow, then returned to their original positions just as quickly.
“Yes, you will tell us everything. Before you die.” The leader said bleakly, ignoring Dolph's pleading screams and instead turning its unblinking eyes to the ceiling. It stood in silence, as if collecting its thoughts before it spoke, though Reinhart was certain it was no longer speaking to anyone in the room. “Thief. What you have taken will be your death. And the death of your people. I allow you one hour to return it, or you and all your kind will face oblivion.”
Chapter One
“Left side, many whelps. Handle it!” Cayden shouted with a combination of frustration and resigned bemusement as he absorbed the impact of another of MEKA Dragon's swiping robotic claws on his upraised shield. He'd known from the very beginning that nothing good could come from a pickup group with two random players, or pubbies, as they would be known in a traditional MMO. But he'd hoped against hope that maybe, just maybe, he could trust them to follow simple instructions.
Five minutes into the tenth-floor boss fight, he'd be happy if he could just avoid getting them all killed.
It reminded him of the allegory of the Pubstove:
A hot stove sits in the corner, bearing a brass plate with the brand name “Pubbies” riveted into its frame. Having touched the stove in the past and found it to be hot enough to burn your hand, and having witnessed others touching this stove in the past and also burning their hands, how do you choose to proceed?
Cayden had chosen to slam his face into it.
Not that he'd had too much of a choice. Celia, Shifty and himself had been powering their way through floor after floor in the aftermath of the incident with Immolatus. Their strong combination of classes had made short work of even level quests and monsters, but as a three-man group, they'd been forced to avoid any content, such as dungeons, that had been designed with a full five-man party in mind. Unfortunately, that content included floor bosses.
He'd accounted for them in his original routing for the game, of course. A bookmarked website kept track of which floor bosses were alive or dead on any given day and provided an editable tracking sheet so that groups could avoid squabbling over who had 'next' on any given boss. Ideally, this meant that all Cayden had to do was keep an eye on the list, wait for another group to defeat the boss, then travel through to the next floor before it could respawn.
That was the idea anyway.
The strategy had worked without a hitch for the first nine floors, but a combination of bad timing and bad luck had stymied their efforts on the tenth. A group had been scheduled to fight the boss three days after their arrival, the perfect amount of time for Cayden and company to grind their skills, levels, and quests before progressing to the next floor. Unfortunately, that group had failed in the attempt. Worse yet, for Cayden anyways, was the complete emptiness of the upcoming schedule. They could wait two weeks for a group to clear the boss, or they could do it themselves.
It wasn't a choice. None of them could stomach the idea of sitting around for two weeks waiting for some other group to maybe get it right. Which meant they needed two more party members. Which meant they needed pubbies.
Which gave them the Banes.
"Oh for... Personal Skill Use: Taunt!" Cayden shouted, following his command with a roar that was as much irritation as battle-cry. Thankfully, the game couldn't tell the difference, and the skill went off without a hitch, a half dozen cat-sized dragon-whelps giving up their pursuit of Truebane and Darkbane in favor of rushing Cayden.
The two players continued to sprint away at full speed, somehow utterly oblivious to the fact that their pursuers had found a new target. Cayden did not doubt that the twin brothers had thought that moniker bane made for a cool pseudonym, but he wondered just how many players now thought of it as a curse. They certainly felt like the bane of his existence, at the moment.
"Uh, little help?" He shouted as he shifted a step back and to the side. It was a vain attempt to get both the whelps and their adult sibling into his forward arc where he could hope to block their attacks; an effort made all the harder by Grasp the World locking him within a small area.
“On it!” Shifty shouted from the other side of the blue and silver dragon. It was difficult to hear what he said next over the sudden roar of the dragon as the creature lashed out its tail in his direction, but the effect was obvious as two of the whelps fell away from the onrushing pack. Their feet were pinned to the floor as they thrashed and gave mewling roars of their own.
"...Out of time!" Celia finished. In the confusion of the battle, he hadn't even heard her start casting, but he wondered why he had ever doubted her help. Two more of the whelps suddenly vanished without fanfare save for a comical pop of air. It was Celia's crowd control spell, an ability that sent non-elite or boss enemies up to thirty seconds into the future.
He'd still have to deal with all six eventually, but fighting them two at a time instead of six at once was a hell of a lot more manageable.
"Skill Use: Shield Bash," Cayden yelled a moment after blocking MEKA's most recent lunge for his throat. The flat of his shield struck the metallic beast a solid blow just below the red visor that passed for its eyes. The force of the attack sent the monster stumbling away, its head shaking this way and that as it struggled to throw off the stun effect that Cayden had inflicted.
The momentary reprieve gave Cayden all the time he needed to deal with the remaining two whelps. By themselves, the small winged creatures were only tricky due to the erratic nature of their attack. The first pounced him, managing to find purchase on one shoulder, but the other found only the tip of his sword, piercing its own frame in the wild attempt to strike at him. It let out a squeal of shock and pain, then went silent as Cayden flicked his blade and finished bisecting the small creature.
The one on his shoulder didn't go so quickly. The black and white lizard pecked, scratched and bit at Cayden, staying one step away from the young man's grasping hand as it skittered from shoulder to shoulder, then settled in the middle of his back, raking its claws over and over against his breastplate.
Truebane's Holy Smite hits you for 212 Holy. [Dark Resist Impaired]
“Really?!” Cayden cried incredulously. The whelp on his back had taken similar damage from the Lightcaster's spell, but Cayden couldn't help but think there must have been some way to do it that didn't involve scorching him with divine power.
“S-sorry.” The man replied awkwardly. Both brothers were nineteen, but neither had the maturity or self-confidence to match their age.
“Just deal with the whelps!” Cayden swung back into action, turning on the Mechanical Dragon and ducking behind his shield just as a ray of blue fire shot from its beak. “We've got this thing!”
In truth, Cayden was beginning to wonder if the brothers had done more harm than good. They'd contributed significantly to DPS on the boss, but their inability to follow instructions and stop throwing damage over time spells had triggered its second phase before Celia had managed to heal Cayden back to full health. Their inability to just stand in one place had been what had inundated the party with whelps, and considering how deep he was into the yellow half of his HP bar, Cayden wond
ered if their stupidity would be the death of him yet.
Thankfully, the two brothers proved at least competent at the one thing he'd brought them along for, dealing damage. Alternating dark and holy spells provided the Banes with a steady source of damage, even if they did sometimes stumble over their words or incantations. The mixture of a Lightcaster and a Nightbringer made for a powerful combination, which had been part of why Cayden had picked the pair in the first place. At the time he'd thought they were clever for coming up with a strong build combination.
Now he was reasonably sure that they'd picked it so they could pick cool names and an all black and white color scheme to match.
Either way, the pair of them made short work of the remaining whelps with a somewhat excessive barrage of spells. That left Cayden, Celia and Shifty able to focus on the real threat, their weapons clanking and shrieking off the chrome surfaces of the bipedal dragon as the beast gave ground before them. MEKA had solid stats, but by now its attacks were becoming predictable. It was actually a neat little Easter Egg, a mechanical enemy with a robotic attack pattern. Claw, claw, bite. Swipe with the tail, bite, try a breath attack.
They pounded on the dragon, laying strike after strike across its surface until, at last, it roared in final defiance. Cayden and his comrades backed off from the creature, their weapons lowered, but the Banes continued to attack, launching spell after spell at the dragon as it fell back towards the silver and blue walls of the compound.
“It's dead," Cayden said with a roll of his eyes.
“Doesn't look dead.” The twins replied in unison.
"Did you not even...?" Cayden started, then a smirk caught the corner of his lips, a similar smile coming to the the faces of Celia and Shifty as they made the same realization. The trio began to put distance between themselves and the dragon, slinking back to the edges of the room even as the brothers advanced on the dragon, throwing spell after spell.
“Did we not what?” Asked Darkbane, before a rumble of laughter echoed from the towering dragon. It's metallic head lowered once again; it's mouth opening with blue fire bubbling inside. But instead of the beams that it had thrown their way time after time, a small sprite of blue-white flame emerged, floating in slow, erratic patterns just above the dragon's mouth.