by Hugo Huesca
She stopped him again with a quick hand motion. This time, the trap had been engraved directly in the stone, partially hidden by a fallen skull. Katalyn explained that, thankfully, the cultists couldn’t fully hide the explosive rune without triggering the trap themselves. She disarmed it by producing a purple stick of chalk from one of her pouches and drawing a glyph over the rune.
“You should teach me how to make those,” Ed said. He imagined all the traps he could create with rune making. The potential for rule-bending made his mouth water in anticipation.
“Sure. You're into tzuika? Let’s discuss it over drinks sometime,” Katalyn said. The Thief seemed to have nerves of steel to find their current situation an adequate time for flirting. Perhaps it was just the way she was.
“Deal,” Ed said, although he had no idea what tzuika was.
After a while, they found a third trap that even Ed could see coming. Someone had left a bunch of sharp, metal tacks strewn across a stretch of the floor. Their edges glinted maliciously in the orange light of the torches.
Katalyn’s eyes narrowed, as if recognizing the tacks.
“Poisoned,” she explained. “Paralyzing agent, looks like. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
She withdrew a stained piece of cloth from a pouch and wrapped it over her leather gauntlet—which had her fingers exposed. Then she knelt and carefully swiped away the tacks to create a path for her and Ed.
“We were supposed to see this one,” Katalyn explained as she stood back up and pocketed the cloth. “It’s meant to slow us down.”
Ed reasoned that, if his enemies wanted to slow him down, then it was in his and Katalyn’s best interest to do the opposite.
“We should hurry up,” he said.
Katalyn barked a laugh. “Let’s take on the entire cult by ourselves, eh? You truly are a Dungeon Lord. I had no idea you had those back in your world. Kharon told me your deities had left the place up for the taking a while ago,” Katalyn said.
As for her answer to his suggestion, she moved faster—almost at a jog—but never let her sight wander far from those spots where a trap could be hidden.
Ed calmly filed Kharon’s revelation into his ever-growing list of things to be horrified about late at night, and instead focused on the obvious question: “How do you know I’m from another world?”
Katalyn flashed him a grin. Judging from the smile lines in her face, she did that a lot.
Of course, she also hadn’t been bitten by a fucking zombie, so she had reason to be cheerful.
“Your shoes,” Katalyn explained. “I only visited your world for a couple minutes, but I saw quality shoe-making there unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. Your shoes clearly have seen better days, but anyone with half a mind would know they either belong to a foreign prince or to someone from a different world.”
Ed glanced at his formerly white running shoes. They were almost torn to pieces, he could see the tip of his toe insinuate itself out of a patch with missing fabric, and patches of dried blood had forever changed their layout. He hadn’t replaced them because, like Katalyn had said, so far he hadn’t found anything better.
“Thanks,” he said. “I got them at Wal-Mart. They were on sale.”
“Wallmarth,” Katalyn repeated, nodding gravely. “That’s the court’s name? I’d sell my firstborn for ten minutes in that place with the guards looking the other way.”
“It’s really not that great.” And don’t say such things aloud. We never know what is listening, eager to take you up on the offer.
Katalyn shook her head in disbelief. “Of course you’d try to keep the loot for yourself.”
Their conversation came to an abrupt end when the corridor brought them in front of an old, iron door—wide enough to allow a horse to step through without issue.
Katalyn crouched and did something to her nail, muttered the name of a dessert, and suddenly had a lockpick between her fingers. She fidgeted with the lock for barely a second before giving up.
“It’s barred on the other side,” she explained.
For the first time, Ed saw her steal a worried glance behind his shoulders.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I got it.”
He activated his Evil Eye, and the skulls that adorned the walls flickered with eldritch shadows as green light drowned out the glow of the torches. He took notice of the many ley lines that crossed under and over the catacombs. They seemed to converge in a faraway spot somewhere underneath them.
The ley line concentration beat anything that Ed had seen before, by far. He fell prey to an almost overwhelming urge to establish a dungeon here and build himself a throne out of skulls.
That was the Mantle speaking. He pushed the instinct down and focused on the spot behind the door. He created a group of three drones there and ordered them to unbar whatever blocked the door.
The faint noise of metal hitting the floor reached them a couple seconds afterward.
Ed nodded at Katalyn. “Ready?”
The Thief nodded back. She and Ed each took position at both sides of the door, backs against the wall, and pushed it open with a violent shove as one.
ED BEGAN DROPPING drones before he had even stepped into the room. He and Katalyn rushed inside together, but ran in opposite directions to offer as many targets as possible.
The chamber was a Heiligian chapel, one of many built into the catacomb’s entrances to offer the grieving a place to pray to the Light for respite. It was clearly newer than the interior of the catacombs, and better maintained. There were oil lamps instead of cheap magical torches; the walls and floor were decorated with scarlet and gold rugs, with oleo paintings that depicted Alita and her cohorts, and colored murals instead of windows.
Two guards lay slumped at each side of the exit—all across the chapel—all of them lying in a pool of their own blood. Their weapons were currently in possession of the group of cultists trying their best to open the grated fence that locked them from the outside world. Their attempts to escape were momentarily paused as they stared at Ed and Katalyn’s arrival.
Ed kept running until he reached a pillar near the wooden benches at the sides of the chapel, then took a second to figure out what he was up against.
Three men, one woman; one of the men was an elf. Their cultist garments had been discarded at some point, and they were now dressed like adventurers: armed to the teeth with knives, axes, longswords, shields… probably a couple potions and runes somewhere around, as well. The man Ed guessed to be their leader wore a breastplate with Starevos’ royal symbol engraved in the polished metal and was armed with a blood-stained sword. The elf had been bent over the heavy lock that tied the chain holding the grate closed. Now his eyes darted from Katalyn to Ed, and he cursed in an unknown language.
“It’s the wraith!” the elf exclaimed, an instant after Ed had reached his pillar. An arrow smacked the pillar close enough to Ed’s face for chips of stone to hit his forehead. He ducked out of the elf’s sight and ordered his drones to charge.
“Are you blind, Brondan?” a man said. “His stats sheet clearly say he’s a human!”
Ed’s drones died left and right, faster than he could re-summon them. The drones could surround and overwhelm a single opponent, but a coordinated group made short work of them. Ed glanced toward the pillar opposite his and exchanged a worried look with Katalyn.
“Then he’s a Dungeon Lord, idiot!” snapped back the musical voice of the elf. “Quick, Lyndis, smoke him out!”
Ed risked another look at the rebels, just long enough to take stock of their stats. He focused on the Spirit attribute, since the only spell he had that worked at a distance was minor order. The leader had fifteen points, the elf had eleven, and the rest were in between those two.
He searched for a minor order that could finish the fight for him. The spell was easier to resist the more complex the order was, and it outright failed if Ed ordered something obviously suicidal or against the target’s core values—like stabbing
his friends.
A second arrow hit the pillar inches from Ed’s hand, which had been partially exposed. He fixed that mistake, then wondered if there was a wording he could use to make Brondan swallow his tongue without realizing it until it was too late.
Ed didn’t need to imagine what Lavy would’ve said about his plan. It’d waste his minor order at best, and piss off Objectivity at worst.
There has to be something I can do, Ed thought as desperation began to set in. Kharon wouldn’t have thrown him into an impossible situation… right? The Dark gods didn’t strike Ed as the kind to waste resources, even unwilling ones like him.
“Stop!” Katalyn stepped into the open, hands up, and made her way to the middle of the chapel. Ed’s mind blanked in horror because he was sure he was about to see the Thief die in front of his eyes.
But no one shot her.
“Katalyn you insane bitch,” Brondan snarled. “I lose sight of you for five minutes, and you manage to find yourself a goddamn newly minted Dungeon Lord?”
“Brondan,” Katalyn told the elf. “I’ll deal with you later. Be a dear and shut the fuck up until then.”
“Have you finally lost your mind? You’re in no position—”
The leader of the group, the man in the plate armor, raised an authoritative fist in Brondan’s direction. The elf shut up immediately. “Enough, my friend. Return to that lock. We’ll soon have worse things to worry about than a Dungeon Lord fresh out of the nunnery.”
He was lean and powerful, cords of muscle and tight skin without an ounce of fat to speak of. His face was rough like a broken slab of rock, but attractive in a way, as if the force of his personality shaped it more than the pockmarks and the lines of scars that altered the shape of his lips and nose. His dark hair was kept loosely tied behind his back, and he had a goatee.
“Nicolai, I assume,” Ed said from his position behind the pillar. “Do you remember your friend Ioan?”
“Judging by your tone, I assume he’s dead and you’re related to that,” Nicolai said. “But judging from your experience points, I’d say the final blow was dealt by someone better trained. Return to the catacombs, young Dungeon Lord. Live to improve your stats. Katalyn Locksmith is no longer your concern.”
From this distance, Ed couldn’t summon his drones directly on top of Nicolai and his group. He could summon the drones in front of Nicolai and try to create a tunnel to escape, but the magic of the drones was greatly diminished when trying to eat actual masonry instead of soil and rock. Digging a tunnel would take a long time, and it would be immediately obvious to Nicolai and the others.
“Don’t worry, Ed,” Katalyn said. “These cowards aren’t facing us, they are trying to run away. The creature they released turned out to be too much for them.”
“Let me get her, Nicolai,” said the last man of the group. He looked like he had fallen into a bucket of steroids as a baby.
That guy is their muscle. Nicolai is their boss, Brondan is the Thief… then that woman, Lyndis, must be their spellcaster, Ed thought. He was banking heavily on this assumption, but Lyndis had a Mind score higher than her other attributes—a thirteen. She was watching Ed’s location like a hawk, with one hand hidden inside one of her pouches.
“In a second, Rolim. I’d like a word with our fugitive first, since she’s the reason we’re in this bind in the first place,” said Nicolai. “Katalyn, there’s no fault in having escaped—anyone would’ve done the same in your position. But you also killed two men. They were decent people who didn’t hurt you when they had you in their power. You’re standing unhurt right now thanks to their decency, and you’ve repaid that decency by bashing in their skulls with my silverware. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“What in the Wetlands…?” Katalyn muttered. “You wanted to sacrifice me to a giant fucking ghost!”
“Which gives me no joy,” Nicolai said with a carefully neutral expression. “In the war against tyranny, some sacrifices must be made. I do not fault you for your father’s sins—the war between Heiliges and Starevos wasn’t your fault. But I’ve need of your life to set right what once went wrong. If you’ve any decency in your Thief’s heart, surrender yourself to me—”
Katalyn threw a knife at him. It was an attack that came seemingly out of nowhere, and Ed almost activated his improved reflexes out of sheer surprise. Instead, he watched the gray blur of the knife as it crossed the air in Nicolai’s direction. The man only stood there watching the knife fly, like a man admiring an art piece.
Lyndis screamed a warning, but it was too late. The knife embedded into Nicolai’s left eye with a wet popping sound. His head snapped back like a whip and his knees buckled. Rolim caught him with one arm, stopping his fall, but Nicolai’s body spasmed and stepped away from his friend, like a headless chicken in the seconds before his body realized it was dead and had the common sense to collapse.
Instead of collapsing, though, Nicolai regained his footing. He raised his head to glare at Katalyn with his one remaining eye.
He raised a trembling hand and slowly pulled the knife out—
Ed looked away. There was a metallic clang as the knife fell. Katalyn stood in place, seemingly hypnotized.
“Point taken, Kat,” Nicolai said with trembling voice. Spurts of blood and gore fell from the meaty cavern that remained in place of his left eye and ran freely down his cheek and into the metal of his armor, like red tears. There was something odd about that red. It reminded Ed of something that wasn’t human blood. “Have it your way, then. Rolim, acquire her. Break her legs so she can’t escape again. Brondan, please open that lock already—”
“I’m trying!” said the elf, who seemingly lacked Katalyn’s abilities.
“—and Lyndis, my dear, eliminate the Dungeon Lord. Congratulations in advance for the experience points.”
“Wetlands!” Katalyn cursed. “Ed, get down!”
She had problems of her own: Rolim charged her as she spoke, and he was fast. Katalyn dove for the benches with superhuman agility.
At the same time, Lyndis took a step, which brought her closer to Nicolai and gave her a better angle at Ed’s frame behind the pillar. The Dungeon Lord saw her hand leave her pouch, grasping a rune with an engraving familiar enough that Ed could recognize it even at this distance.
Ed stepped away from the pillar, out into the open, making himself an easy target for the rune. Lyndis beamed at the opportunity. Nicolai’s lone eye widened in confusion at Ed’s movements, but it was far too late.
Lyndis lifted the rune and aimed it at Ed’s feet. “Fire—”
“Hands down!” Ed ordered her, and his will clashed against hers at the speed of thought. For an instant where the world came to a stop, it felt as if a tsunami had hit a castle’s walls, with Ed and Lyndis caught in between. The impact made Ed reel like a physical blow, made him stumble, and caused his eyes to water.
And it made Lyndis’ hands go limp before she had time to realize what was going on. “—ball—”
Nicolai’s roar was drowned by the point-blank explosion that engulfed him and Lyndis and sent Ed sprawling against the benches.
A CONSTANT RINGING assaulted Ed’s overloaded senses for what could’ve been seconds—or minutes. He blinked, coughed what seemed to be his entire lungs’ worth of dust, and stood up with his legs trembling. His nose was bleeding, staining his leather armor with dark, crimson splotches.
The cloud of dust hid everything from sight and stung his eyes. He attempted to clean himself with his shirt, but ended up only smearing dirt across his face. He used a nearby bench to prop himself up.
After what seemed like an eternity, the dust settled enough to reveal a blackened spot in the cracked floor where the explosion had hit. Splattered a few meters away, back against the raised steps of the chapel’s entrance, lay the broken figure of Lyndis. Or what remained of her, to be exact.
A second figure had only now managed to crawl toward her. Nicolai tried to rouse her, softly at first, then
with more intensity, like he was urging her to be whole again by sheer will alone. The third shake was desperate, and by the fourth he gave up.
Somehow he stood, although the explosion’s center had been mere steps away from him. His plate armor was marred and bent. What remained of his face was a burnt mess, and his features had melted like wax under the caress of a candle.
Nicolai’s eye passed over Lyndis one last time, then returned to Ed, almost dispassionately, like he wanted to make sure the Dungeon Lord was still there.
The bulky figure of Rolim approached Nicolai. “Lyndis!” the man said. “Is she—”
“Later,” Nicolai ordered. “We deal with it later. Grab Katalyn.”
Rolim’s thick lips moved silently—words seemed to fail him. Then he threw Ed one terrible look and scanned the chapel with a dark frown full with a terrible promise. He caught sight of Katalyn at the same time Ed did when she raised her head over an overturned bench to try to figure out what had just happened.
“Run, Katalyn!” Ed told her as Rolim kicked a bench with all his might and sent half of it flying toward Katalyn like a cannonball.
The Thief managed to dodge at the last second, but not completely. The explosion had stunned her as much as anyone else—except perhaps Rolim—and the chunk of bench clipped her waist mid-leap and sent her crashing against a pillar.
“You have other concerns, Ed!” Nicolai told him as he strolled down the raised steps toward the Dungeon Lord. He wielded an old, unadorned sword in his right arm and a cruel, curved dagger in his left. “Concerns that deserve your full attention.”
As he spoke, Nicolai’s flesh knit itself back together. The charred flesh advanced in small increments, strand by strand of meat, as if his muscles were made out of tiny worms.
Ed was certain beyond doubt that what he was witnessing went far beyond the limits of the regeneration talents available to humans. He activated his Evil Eye to catch a glimpse of Nicolai’s stats, but besides his name, attributes, and experience points, most was hidden.