by James Hunter
“Okay. Fine. This will impress, I think. But, uh, come this way just a bit.” He waved me over to his side before removing one of the balls, this one a blue so deep it was nearly black. “Watch and be amazed.” Across from us, near the door, stood a wooden mannequin equipped with heavy steel armor.
Vlad squared up his shoulders like he was preparing to shoot some hoops on the court, then gently lobbed the orb. It sailed through the air in a perfect arc, smacked into the dummy, exploding on impact, and released a cloud of swirling snow and a frigid wave of arctic air. After a second, the impromptu blizzard subsided, the snow settling on the floor around the dummy in a half circle. The mannequin, however, was riddled with chunks of sharpened ice shrapnel and coated with a thin layer of hoarfrost. Wow.
“Impressive, yes?” he said with a devilish grin. “After careful research and examination of Huntress tech, I fashioned these orbs. And now, with the Explosive Catalyst ability, I can upgrade them. Each orb is costly—they require Raw Darkshard Ore, Refined Blasting Powder, and Foxfen Essence for the base formula—but they can be altered in numerous ways. This”—he pulled out a deep orange orb—“replicates Flame-Burst. And they are not limited to offense.”
He slid the orb away and pulled another, this one bright yellow. “This produces a cloud which increases Attack Damage, Spell Strength, and Spell Regeneration by 22% over two minutes. And I’ve got more. Many more. Orbs to flash-fry enemies. Orbs with group healing capabilities. Orbs to boost movement rate or lower elemental resistances. I’m even tinkering with an orb capable of dispelling magical shields. There are many, many permutations to discover, but this could be a powerful trump card. Just think, really think”—he tapped a finger against his temple—“of the possibilities.”
And I did think. The potential left my head spinning.
Sure, a Firebrand could conjure Flame-Burst, an Ice-Lancer could flash-freeze enemies, and a Cleric could cast AOE healings or group buffs, but these trinkets allowed a well-equipped player the ability to mimic almost any class. Even better, these things weren’t tied to Spirit levels, which meant they’d offer a lot of backup versatility for spellcasters.
“Da,” Vlad said with a grin, “you see. It is written all over your face.”
There was a light knock at the door, followed by Cutter’s voice. “Abby’s downstairs,” the thief said. “Amara, too,” he added sullenly.
“Okay, one minute,” I shouted back, rounding on Vlad. “This is unbelievable, Vlad. Seriously. The bee’s knees as my dad used to say, but I’m here for another reason.”
“The bee’s knees?” he replied, his lips dropped in a confused frown. “Bees do not have knees, I think. But never mind”—he waved his confusion away—“if you are not here for inventions, then what?”
“I’d like you to go on a quest with me. An important one.”
All the humor drained from his face in a flash as he stowed the yellow orb and slipped the bandolier back into his inventory. “I am flattered, truly. But no. I think not. This is where I belong,” he said, sweeping an arm around the disorganized lab. “I do not care for questing or adventure. I am an engineer. This is where I want to be.” He slowly ambled over to his worktable and picked up another of the orbs, this one filled with a swirling gray gas. “There are breakthroughs to be made,” he said, glancing at me over one shoulder before setting the orb down on the tabletop.
“Bloody hell, you lot are taking a long time,” Cutter said, pushing the door open with a heave. “We’ve got places to go—do I need to haul him out, eh?” he asked, swaggering into the room as the door swung inward, slapping against the wall with a thud. I sighed and turned back to Vlad, but froze as my eyes landed on the orb Vlad had set on the table a moment before—
The glass ball had rolled right up to the edge of the table, and teetered there, deciding whether or not to tumble. Vlad, oblivious, turned, lightly bumping the table with his hip in the process. And that was it. The orb toppled, crashing to the floor. Before I could do anything—scream out, warn Vlad, dive for cover—there was a tinkle of shattering glass and a brilliant explosion of light, accompanied by a sweeping wave of gray gas. The explosion hit me in the face like a giant pillow, hurling me back toward the door. I slammed into Cutter, and we both went to the ground in a tangle of limbs as a combat notification popped up:
∞∞∞
Debuffs Added
Alchemist’s Toxic Cloud: You have been poisoned: 2 HP/sec; duration, 2 minutes or until cured.
∞∞∞
The room spun and pinpricks of light exploded on the edges of my vision, but I fought my way upright, surveying the room, which was now covered in toxic fumes like a morning ground fog. Cutter was behind me, looking shaken and a bit confused, but otherwise fine. Vlad, though, was sprawled against the far wall; black scorch marks adorned his leather lab smock, and the left side of his face was covered in nasty red burns. He was alive, but his breathing was sporadic and his HP bar was dropping by the second: the toxic cloud debuff extracting its pound of flesh, no doubt.
The guy needed help, ASAP, or he was going to die. I scrambled to my feet, took a deep breath, and rushed over to him, dropping to a knee as I fished an HP Regen potion from my inventory. I pried Vlad’s lips open, unstoppered the glowing red potion, and forced the unconscious man to drink. He sputtered and fought against me weakly, disoriented from the blast, but he did drink, even if begrudgingly. With that done, I tossed the empty bottle aside, scooped Vlad’s limp body onto my shoulder, and beat a hasty retreat for the door.
Cutter was up and waiting for me in the hallway, his nose scrunched up, eyes squinted against the acrid, burning smoke. Without a word, he slung an arm around my shoulder, helping me down the winding stairs. The second we reached ground level, I collapsed from both the physical strain of carrying Vlad and the noxious poison sprinting through my veins. I lay on the wooden floorboards, pulling free another Health Regen potion and downing the thing in a single go, restoring most of my HP, though the toxic poison continued to eat away at my life.
“Bloody hell,” Cutter said, bent double, hands planted on his knees as he wheezed. “You okay, friend?” he asked between wheezes, eyeing me as though I might be contagious with the plague.
“Fine,” I gasped, lying there, staring up at the ceiling.
Cutter edged near the mad alchemist and nudged him with the toe of a boot. “I think he might be de—”
Before he could finish the sentence, however, Vlad shot up coughing and gasping as he frantically scanned the room, eyes wild. A bit of the tension melted out of Vlad’s shoulders when he saw Cutter and me. “Unexpected,” he mumbled, “very unexpected.”
“Unexpected?” I pushed myself up onto my elbows, finally able to breathe normally again. “Vlad, that stuff almost killed us. You never mentioned any toxic cloud.”
He sniffed and shrugged. “New formula,” he replied dismissively. “Untested. Too much zinc, apparently.” He reached into a satchel tied around his leg and pulled out another orb, identical to the one that’d smashed to the floor and almost killed us all. “This, it is supposed to replicate Plague Burst,” he said. “Almost right, I think. But the mixture? Too volatile.” He paused and stared morosely at the little glass orb. “Next time,” he said with a sigh, before disappearing the orb back into his inventory.
“You’re out of your mind, you know that?” I said, letting Cutter pull me back to my feet as Abby and Amara hustled into the room, weapons drawn and ready for a fight.
“Calm down,” Cutter called out. “Nothin’ to see here. Just an overzealous moron with more curiosity than common sense.”
“Thank you,” Vlad finally said with a sigh. “I have killed myself once already, and the Death debuffs are most unpleasant.”
“No problem,” I said with a grin, “and I know just how you could repay me.” I launched into my spiel, giving him a brief rundown of the upcoming mission and how important it was. He listened stoically, nodding in all the right places, a
nd when I finally finished, he simply glanced back at the spiral staircase as lingering fingers of smoke drifted toward us.
“Perhaps it would be good for me to get away from the lab,” he conceded. “Besides, it will give me a chance to try out my new field alchemy abilities.”
“Well then,” Cutter said with a grin, “let’s get our gear and stop draggin’ our bloody feet. Ankara—the Jewel of the West—is waiting, and I can guarantee you’ve never seen anything like it.”
SIXTEEN:
Ankara
“Oh. My. God,” Abby said, her disembodied voice drifting to me through the opalescent portal suspended in the air before me. “Hurry up, Jack. This place is fantastic.”
The mage on duty at the Mystica Ordo, a willowy Dawn Elf boasting brown robes and a bored expression, waved me through before slumping back in her chair. I pressed my eyes shut, steeling myself against the inevitable wave of vertigo, and stepped through. The breath caught in my chest as power—cold as arctic ice—washed over me like a downpour of frigid water. The chill filled my body, invaded my lungs, and stabbed at my clenched eyes, but the sensation was fleeting, quickly replaced by a combination of blistering heat, gritty sand, and arid wind, all slapping against me.
“This way,” Abby said, slipping an arm around my waist and pulling me over to the side, clearing the way for the rest of the team to come through. The dizziness only lasted for another heartbeat before passing away. Just an uncomfortable memory as my feet steadied beneath me. Finally, I cracked my eyes, letting in a trickle of harsh, garish desert light. We were on the outskirts of a modest and unimpressive village called Hoppa, which bordered Ankara.
Square buildings, two or three stories high, sported rough sandstone foundations and walls built from red bricks of mud and straw; wooden trusses, supporting the upper floors, poked out from the sides of the building like nubby fingers. Yellow hardpan roads—dusty, dry, and badly cracked from the oppressive heat—darted haphazardly through the sprawl of buildings, snaking this way and that. Shops and stalls of every sort and variety lined those streets, hiding from the sun’s rays beneath brightly colored cloth awnings propped up by wooden struts.
Fruit sellers and seamstresses, jewelers, goldsmiths, and apothecaries. Men and women, all bronze-skinned and winged, hawked their wares at the trickle of foot traffic winding through the streets.
Far to the east, a jagged mountain range tore across the horizon, jutting up like a set of shark teeth biting into the sky. White dunes stretched across the land like turbulent waves for as far as I could see. More dunes lay to the south and west, just an endless stretch of shifting sand and swirling dust devils whipped up by an unrelenting wind. The landscape looked bleak, desolate, and inhospitable—apparently, this section of Eldgard was called the Barren Sands for a good reason.
Directly to the north, though, nestled in a craterous valley, was a verdant oasis with a broad lake surrounded by lush wild grasses, thickets of swaying palms, and broad-leafed trees loaded down with a hundred different types of fruit, some natural, most not. More impressive than the oasis, though, was the city. Not some dirt-speck village or Podunk town. No, a sprawling metropolis with high sandstone walls, situated on an island in the heart of the lake.
Ankara, the capital city of the Barren Sands, and home to the bird-winged Accipiter.
Abby was staring wide-eyed at the city like some country kid, come to San Diego for the first time. In her defense, I stared, too. It was impossible not to, and I was from San Diego. Behind the domineering wall, a forest of elegant crystal spires jabbed up at the sky, glittering in the sun like diamonds partially buried in the ground. Intermixed among the glass towers were white sandstone buildings with fluted columns, delicate golden minarets, and graceful bridges arcing from everywhere to everywhere else. A swarm of birds, little bigger than sparrows from where we stood, swooped and darted over the city.
After staring for a few seconds, I realized those weren’t birds, but the Accipiter who called this place home.
“Holy crapballs,” Forge said, stumbling from the portal, blinking against the flood of light. He staggered for a moment and held one hand up against his forehead, shielding his eyes. “It’s drier than a popcorn fart, and hot too. Them Storme Marshes are hot, but not like this. This is Death Valley in July hot …” His words fell short as he finally caught sight of the crystal city marring the skyline like a beautiful, shimmering dream. He whistled softly, one hand going to his hip, while the other propped his battle-axe up against the meat of his shoulder—he’d come ready for a fight. “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day.”
Cutter and Vlad came next, staggering through almost side by side, followed shortly by Amara. Cutter reeled for a moment, hands outheld to steady himself, while Amara seemed completely unfazed. Vlad, on the other hand, immediately dropped to his ass, pulling his knees into his chest and wrapping his arms tight around them as he bowed forward, looking mighty green around the gills. “That is the worst,” he muttered. “I have port skipped several times, yet that is the worst. This? This is a thing I do not understand. Why, sometimes good, other times bad? It makes no sense.”
“There’s a bunch of factors that go into it,” Abby replied absently, still gazing at the city. “Distance plays a big role, and Ankara is far—twice the distance as Yunnam to Rowanheath. Plus, the level of the caster factors in too. More experienced Porters create more stable rifts, which makes the trip a lot easier. That girl”—she hooked a thumb toward the portal, which snapped shut a second later—“is a new hire. Cindy, I think. She just made apprentice.”
“Next project,” Vlad said more to himself than anyone else, “create more efficient, less nausea inducing transport.”
“Hey cheer up, friend,” Cutter said in an almost uncharacteristically good mood. “Set your eyes on the prize”—he swept a hand toward the city—“and you’ll perk right up.”
Vlad reluctantly looked up; his eyes bulged a bit. “Yobaniy nasos,” he muttered softly under his breath.
“You have been here before?” Amara asked, giving Cutter a sidelong glance. She stood with her arms folded across her chest, clearly trying not to look impressed with Ankara and failing. It was in the way she stood, the cast of her mouth, the way her eyes kept darting to the twisting glass spires.
“Phft. Naturally,” Cutter replied with an eyeroll. “Unlike the rest of you, I’m quite well traveled. A man of the world, one might say. Hells, I’ve pulled jobs in just about every major city in Eldgard, barring those mud pits you’ve got down in the Marshes and Glome Corrie—bloody Risi are too serious and don’t have anything worth stealing, anyway. But Ankara? One of my favorite places. The Jewel of the West, the Accipiter call it.”
“I don’t get it,” I said, genuinely stumped. “You seem to hate any place that isn’t Rowanheath—so what’s so great about Ankara? The only time I think I’ve ever seen you this happy is when we stumbled upon a giant pile of easy loot.”
“Oh, that’s the beauty, Jack. This place is all about loot.”
I arched a questioning eyebrow at him.
“Gambling, Jack. Gambling. I mean sure, every city has a few parlors of chance—the Rusty Spoon in Rowanheath, the Golden Pick in Harrowick, the Brass Ring over in Wyrdtide—but not like Ankara. Chance halls galore, and best of all? No. Bloody. Imperials. See, the Empire frowns on gambling, but they let it slide, assuming you’re willing to fork over forty percent of your earnings like a good little sucker fish. Taxes,” he growled, “I hate bloody taxes. But here?” He grinned. “Here you keep what you earn, and someone skilled at sleight of hand”—a playing card appeared in his hand, then disappeared without a trace just as quickly—“can make an absolute killing.”
“Impressive architecture,” Vlad said, climbing to his feet and brushing off the seat of his pants, kicking up a little cloud of yellow dirt. “Perhaps coming here will be worthwhile after all. This place has a thing or two to teach me, I think. Though the climate”—he paused, frownin
g, searching for the right word—“I hate it,” he finally finished. “Too dry. Maybe with a good mug of kvas, it would be manageable. For now, though, I feel like a mummy.”
Forge snorted, came over, and slapped Vlad on the shoulder. “You’ll get used to it, partner. Now, let’s get moving.” He paused and glanced up at the sky. “We’re burning daylight and that city looks like a helluva walk.”
We stepped out, forming a rough column with Cutter and Amara leading the way, me and Abby in the middle, and Vlad and Forge bringing up the rear, chitchatting idly as we scanned the shops and stalls. It took us a solid hour to trek through Hoppa and make it to the graceful glass bridge arching up and over the lake, connecting to Ankara’s main gate. Before we even made it onto the bridge, though, a pair of winged guards, [Janissaries]—wearing light brown armor studded with gold rivets, and carrying bronzed short swords—stopped us for questioning.
Cutter—doing what he did best—ambled up and traded a few quick words, some shady smiles, and what was almost certainly a bribe, and before I knew it the guards were waving us through, eyes looking past us. Through us. Ignoring us as though we were shadows passing in the night.
We set off across the lake, crossing a delicate bridge of cloudy glass—a hundred yards long and looking impossibly fragile—which connected to the island proper. But even then, we weren’t into the city proper, not really. The bridge ended at a covered gatehouse with thick wooden doors at the front end, a retractable metal portcullis at the far end, and circular murder holes lining the ceiling. As far as I could tell, the bridge was the only way to access the city, at least by land, and boy did they have it locked up tighter than a bank vault.
“This, now, is a well-fortified city,” Vlad said, almost reading my mind, admiration in his voice. “Truly, the defenses are flawless. Flawless. Only the most powerful siege weapons would be capable of even reaching the walls from the shore. So, an assault by ship or air would be necessary, and that? That would be a formidable feat, indeed.”