by N H Paxton
“Sorry for inconvenience,” I muttered as the world shifted and twisted in my vision. It was hard to believe I was in an incredible world of magic and mystery and still had to deal with migraines.
“You’re fine. We’re almost there. We’ll get a good rest and take out the Collector tomorrow morning.” Garret’s words were sure and sound, as though he had all the confidence in the world that we would easily win a fight against a corrupted Emissary.
It was at once concerning and inspiring.
“Has good sound to it.” I struggled to keep my feet for the last few meters.
Garret had to stop several times to keep me from falling.
It felt as though only a mere second had passed between seeing the open doorway, gently lit from behind, and the sudden and intense grating of something heavy scraping against stone. I had been laid down on the stone floor, a bedroll underneath me. I sat up, my senses going into survival mode. The room was brightly lit, the light flickering.
“Shto!?” I shouted, unexpectedly loud. It echoed through the room.
Ken was sitting on a table nearby, with his chest and shoulder armor off, lounging as though nothing could bother him. A large bundle of grapes hung from his hand, gently swaying as he kicked his legs. There was a small fire burning in a firepit carved into the stone in the middle of the room. A thin trail of smoke wisped its way up to the absurdly high ceiling.
“Awake?” Garret turned from his work of closing an enormous wood-and-steel door. He dusted his hands off. “Looks like we’re safe here, and not a bad place at that. The floor is solid stone, so we’re not likely to get attacked from below, and these doors are crazy heavy. I could barely move them, and my Strength is over one hundred.” He hooked a finger over his shoulder at the massive bulwark that stood in the stone gap.
It appeared to be built to withstand a siege, though who would siege a catacomb, I had no idea.
“Is to be thanked.” I nodded , the pain in my head still throbbing like a monster trying to escape from a cage that was too small.
“No problem, man. Do you want to eat something? It might help.” Ken hopped down from the table, his arms loaded with random fruit and a large hunk of bread.
“Ah, no. Eating will not help. Simply throw back up. At least was problem on Earth.” I closed my eyes hard, my head continuing to throb with every word. I pushed my hands against the temples of my head, trying to force some kind of comfort. It didn’t help.
“Just get some rest. I’ll keep watch for a while.” Garret sat down in a small wooden chair against a wall, facing the rest of the room. He kicked the chair back onto its rear legs and leaned against the wall.
“There we go.” He smiled as he leaned his head back, staring at the slight smoke cloud that was beginning to form at the ceiling.
“I’m gonna get some rest. Thanks for taking first shift, bro.” Ken nodded to Garret, who nodded back.
Ken unrolled another bedroll on the floor near the firepit. It took him a while to get it organized as he fussed with it, shifting it back and forth and pulling the blankets here and there. It reminded me of how a cat or small dog kneads their bedding, spins around in a thousand circles, then finally lies down, only to be disrupted an instant later by nothing.
“You gonna work it into the stone or sleep on it? Jesus, Ken. Get it together.” Garret sighed as he shook his head.
“It’s gotta be just right, dude. Can’t sleep on a lumpy bed. It makes my back hurt.” Ken’s face was a strange mix of pride and irritation.
“Because back aches happen here, in Eldgard, where every bed we’ve ever used has been like a fuckin’ cloud.” Garret leaned his head back and laughed gently, the sound echoing softly off the walls.
“Has point.” I lay back down, closing my eyes tightly.
I wanted my migraine to fade, but I also wanted very much for this entire dungeon delve to be over. I wanted to succeed in creating the crafter’s guild back at the Keep, and finally get back to making new and impressive things. There were so many interesting items and ingredients I wanted to experiment with.
Gone in Darkness
I DIDN’T REMEMBER FALLING asleep, but the blaring of my alarm I had set for sunrise woke me from an intense and empty sleep. I expected there to still be pain in my head, but that was mercifully gone.
I sat up slightly, the complete darkness of the room taking over my vision. There was no movement that I could hear, no breathing or snoring. I smelled something on the air, behind the smoke of the woodfire that had burned out while we slept. I couldn’t quite figure the scent out.
“Ken, Garret, are here?” My voice sounded weak and pathetic in the complete darkness.
The emptiness of the room echoed back my own voice in reply. I felt around for something, anything, that would allow me to see. My hand bumped into something that felt like parchment. I continued searching the ground around it and felt glass. That glass then toppled over, tinking against the ground.
“What in hell?” I gripped the parchment, wrinkling it in the process, and pulled it to my face.
I still couldn’t see it. I wracked my brain, trying to come up with a solution. I hadn’t brought a torch to the dungeon.
I smacked myself in the forehead with the palm of my hand. My cowl allowed me to see in the dark.
I pulled it down over my face, and the world was awash in grays and reds, everything shifting as though I were staring through the shadows of the world. I held the parchment in front of my face so I could read it. The words glowed red in the darkness.
Keeper Vlad,
I have taken your companions. You have six hours to find them before I send them to their graves. I imagine you will find this at sunrise. I will be waiting.
-The Dark Collector
<<<>>>
Secret Quest Alert: Salvation for Those Who Deserve It
The Dark Collector has kidnapped your comrades and is holding them hostage. He’s given you six hours to rescue them, or he will kill them without mercy.
Quest Class: Unique, Secret
Quest Difficulty: Infernal
Success: Arrive at the Dark Collector’s hovel and rescue your friends.
Failure: Ken, Garret, or you die before completing the mission.
Reward: 5,000 XP; Unique Item
Accept: This quest cannot be denied.
<<<>>>
“B’lyad!” I swore so loud that I heard it echo ten times over.
I looked to the table where all of the food had been gathered. It was gone. The glass objects I had knocked over were small vials, filled with a translucent liquid of some kind. I couldn’t see the color, but a tag popped up when I looked at them intently: [Antivenin].
The name sounded familiar, but I wanted to know more about it. I studied the product for a moment, willing the information to reveal itself to me.
<<<>>>
Antivenin
Potion Type: Antidote/Panacea
Potion Class/Level: Rare/Level 45
Potion Toxicity: 7
Basic Recipe: Unknown
Primary Effects: Removes the negative effects of any poisons or venoms currently applied to the imbiber.
Secondary Effects: Restores 5% + (0.5% x character level) of maximum HP over 30 seconds.
It’s not every day that a chemical is introduced into the blood through a hollow bone-like structure, immediately flows to the heart, and is promptly pumped to the rest of the body, where it begins its destructive impact in earnest.
<<<>>>
“Incredibly efficient.” I tucked the three vials of the [Antivenin] into my inventory, then stood.
I wanted to make sure my balance was still solid. Occasionally, when I had a migraine on Earth, I would be negatively impacted for days. It appeared as though I were fine.
I took a quick look around the room, checking to make sure that Garret and Ken hadn’t left any of their equipment. Everything was gone, even Ken’s bedroll.
I breathed deeply, closing my eyes for
a quick focusing breath. Somehow, despite the incredibly heavy doors, Garret being on watch, the solid stone walls, and the light that was burning in the center of the room, the Dark Collector was able to get into and out of the room without alerting anyone. Something wasn’t adding up.
“How to vanish in middle of night without sound?” I thought about the situation as I rolled up Garret’s bedroll and tucked it into my inventory. Garret had given it to me, and I wanted to make sure I could give it back to him when we were together again.
I checked the doors, both of which were entirely too heavy for me to open. One door itself had to weigh as much as a thousand kilos. There was simply no way I was going out through the main entrances and no way someone would have come in through them.
“Think, Vlad. Is impossible to vanish without teleport. Unless Collector is Rogue.” I wrinkled my brow at the thought. I didn’t like that idea.
“Room still smells.” I sniffed hard. The smell of chemical substances was heavy in the damp and stagnant air.
“Perhaps could trace source?” I wanted to light a cigarette to use the buff from the Elves’ Thread, but I was worried that if I lit it, the smell from the cigarette would mar the chemical trail.
I breathed out hard, clearing my lungs as much as possible, then waited three seconds. I slowly breathed in through my nose, absorbing every single smell I could, running through the memories of working with chemicals and explosives for so many years.
I took a few steps closer to the wall where Garret was seated while he was on watch. I repeated the process: clearing my lungs, then breathing in through my nose.
The chemicals were stronger now, almost twice as potent. It smelled like ether. I opened my eyes and found myself nearly touching the wall with my nose. Interesting.
I ran my hands along the wall, not sure what I was looking for, if anything at all. The stone was smoothly carved, nearly flawless in the way it had been chiseled. My fingers revealed nothing, as I had expected. Ken would have been much better at this.
“There is answer in wall. But where?” I looked at the floor, hanging my head in irritation. There was a slight disturbance in the stone.
“Stone is scraped.” I knelt down, rubbing my fingers across the surface. There were grooves carved into it, almost unnoticeable. There had to be a secret passageway.
“Okay, wall opens. Where is trigger?” I was placing all of my bets on this wall being a hidden passage, and now I just needed to know how to get into the passage beyond.
I scouted the wall all around where I expected the door to be. The stone was completely smooth. The trigger had to be elsewhere in the room, but where?
“Not many objects in room, nothing fixed to walls. How can trigger door without trigger?” I stared at the room for more than a minute before I chuckled to myself.
I was an Engineer, an Alchemic Weaponeer, and a Keeper. I had so many tools at my disposal, and I was looking at this in the most mundane possible way. Not to mention that I had experienced much the same stymying in the beginning of my time in Eldgard.
“Blow door off hinges.” I turned quickly, narrowing my eyes at the door that had to lead to my friends.
I placed my hand, palm flat, against the surface of the door and triggered Dismantle. At level 3, Dismantle allowed me to break down rather complex mechanical items, including those that were built into walls.
There was a click, followed by the sound of groaning. Metal snapped somewhere inside the wall, and the twang of a spring losing its tension echoed for a moment. I stepped back right as the door shifted, falling toward me.
“Derr’mo,” I said as I barely sidestepped the enormous, falling stone door.
It smashed into the ground with an intense thud, blowing up dust and debris into a thick cloud. I waved my hands in the air, trying to clear the obscuring cloud of mess.
“Eh, worked out okay.” I poked my head into the newly exposed passageway, my vision augmented by the cowl attached to my Keeper’s robe.
It extended in both directions for what appeared to be an eternity.
“No time like present,” I said as I took a step inside.
Thankfully, finding the path inside the tunnel was the easy part. There were scuff marks on the stone that led deeper into the catacombs, likely from Ken and Garret being dragged farther in. Whatever the Dark Collector was, it was strong enough to drag two large humanoids deep into a dense collection of complicated tunnels. I felt a pang of fear in my chest.
“Could always turn back, get help. They will resurrect after death.” I drummed my fingers against the stone wall as I leaned on it, the cold of the stone helping me to focus my thoughts.
“Is that really what you should do, though?” A child stood before me, his clothes old and tattered. He felt familiar.
“What do you mean?” I was speaking Russian, not the broken English. Was this another version of myself?
“Do you remember when you left your friends on the playground with Kirill, the school bully?” The child crouched down and drew in the dust of the hallway, his fingers tracing lazy little swirls.
“They were beaten terribly. Two went to the nurse’s office, the third went to the hospital. He didn’t survive the weekend.” I frowned. The memory was buried so deeply in my heart that it physically hurt to dig it up.
“All because you went to get help.” The child version of me stood up, his face a scowl. “You were a coward, always wanting someone else’s help instead of helping on your own.”
“There was little to nothing I could do. The statistics in that situation showed a no-win scenario.” My voice rose of its own accord. I was almost yelling at child me.
“So you say. Always hiding behind your stupid statistics. You know what matters, Vlad? Action. Action matters.” He crossed his little arms over his chest and stood, defiant.
“Action matters.” I let the words sit in the air for a moment, tasting them.
They felt true, important. If I had acted back then, perhaps Nero would still be alive today. I shook my head, the emotions of his death sitting heavy in my chest. “Action matters.”
“Damn straight.” The child version of me turned his back and threw a hand up over his shoulder. “Get it right this time, da?” The world crashed back to reality.
The child was gone, and the passageway stood empty. On the floor, I could see the little swirls he had drawn. It wasn’t entirely in my mind, then. I nodded at the thought, knowing that this world, Eldgard, a digital creation meant for the continuity of mankind, was evolving with me.
“Is time to take action.” I punched my fists together, then regretted it because it hurt.
I cautiously walked down the hallway, my eyes focused on the scuffs and drag marks that were likely the only clue I had leading to my friends. If action was what I needed to take, then I was going to take it. My eyes were flitting across the floor of the narrow pass when the scuffs changed.
They went from full-on dragging to steps. Boot prints became visible in the dirt and dust. Then the passageway opened up, expanding into a small, perfectly square room. I was taken aback as I raised my head and looked around.
The room was furnished with a small square table and a chair. On the table sat a pair of books, a couple jars filled with hideous looking items, including a still-beating heart and a fractioned distillate that appeared to be half liquid half solid, and a candle. It had recently been snuffed out, leaving the smell of burned wax heavy in the stale air.
“Had stopped, but why?” I scratched the side of my head, curious as to what could have happened here.
The paths diverged out of this room, heading farther into the catacombs. I would explore that situation later, after I checked the items on the table.
“Books, ingredients, candle.” I raised an eyebrow as I sat in the chair, heavily.
It groaned a bit as I shifted to try to get comfortable. The books were titled On Eldgard as It Is in Aetherius and The Broken, The Exiled, The Forgotten, The Forsaken, an
d Their Links. I put them aside for the time being and inspected the jars of ingredients. Interestingly enough, they weren’t completely ruined. The products inside them were just darkened from dust on the outside.
I found three jars on the table, each with an incredibly rare ingredient inside. The first one took my breath away.
<<<>>>
Broken Heart of Antioch
Item Type: Ingredient/Alchemy
Item Class: Artifact
The still-beating heart of a once-powerful warrior, the Broken Heart of Antioch is a unique ingredient that can be made into an incredibly powerful potion or an infinitely deadly poison. It beats only in counts of three. Not four or five, but only three.
Effect 1: Soul-Shatter Poison
Effect 2: Antioch’s Protection
Effect 3: ?????
Effect 4: ?????
Effect 5: ?????
Effect 6: ?????
Effect 7: ?????
Effect 8: ?????
<<<>>>
The other two were less impressive, though still amazing.
<<<>>>
Fractured Soul Essence
Item Type: Ingredient/Alchemy
Item Class: Epic
The shattered essence of a very powerful Wight, condensed into a liquid and cracked through meticulous Alchemical technique.
Effect 1: Obliterate Living
Effect 2: Incense Undead
Effect 3: ?????
Effect 4: ?????
<<<>>>
Desiccated Spice of Shy Halood
Item Type: Ingredient/Alchemy
Item Class: Legendary
This spice, though ancient and now little more than dust, was once a very powerful stimulant for the mind, allowing space travel and the folding of planes. It perhaps could do that very thing once again, if it were a flowing liquid.
Effect 1: Time Dilation
Effect 2: Space-Time Manipulation
Effect 3: ?????
Effect 4: ?????
Effect 5: ?????
Effect 6: ?????
<<<>>>
I was drawn to the spice, as it seemed to be the most immediately useful of the ingredients. How could I create a potion that would allow me to dilate time or even manipulate space-time itself? I had so many questions and so few answers.