by Vic Connor
“Just charge at them, then?” she offered. “The pirate’s and the samurai’s weapons should be sharp enough to chop them to pieces.” She analyzed the position of our seven foes in the bird’s-eye view. “The three mummies blocking the cavern’s entrance will need time to reach you, so chop these four first, then engage the others?”
“Worth a try,” I said.
“Miyu, cut the swarmed one!” I shout. “Abe, attack the nearest one! Charge!”
Juanita’s swarm pulls back while Miyu sprints forward; she yells as she hurls herself toward the shambling mummy…
“Kutabare!!”
…although her feral warcry makes the walls tremble, it has as little effect on her ghastly target as Juanita’s swarm or my pistol’s shot. Her foe continues advancing. Running at full speed, Miyu thrusts her spear upward…
…the naginata’s blade sinks deep inside the mummy’s chest with a soft, thick thud, making it recoil perhaps half a step…
…the mummy raises an arm as long as Miyu is tall and savagely claws downward.
Rotten Claw:
Miss!
The samurai avoids the slash by throwing herself to the ground, shoulder-first, and rolling like a ball made of silk. Her polearm remains stuck in the mummy’s chest. Miyu hisses as she slides back to her feet and, reaching into her sleeve, pulls out a dagger. Her struggle has attracted another mummy, and the samurai circles her two sluggish foes, doing her best to stay out of reach.
“Blast yarr deadlights!” I hear Abe yell. The pirate’s blow sees no different result, and his cutlass sticks in the mummy’s collarbone. “Bone-rot ya!”
The pirate, however, lacks the samurai’s evasive skills: the mummy’s Rotten Claw has bitten deep into Abe’s left shoulder, sending the pirate reeling backward.
A soft, soothing warmth climbs up my left arm as Uitzli, hugging me, whispers, “Tetsoliui…” Her pearly teeth flash as she grits them in pain, while black smoking tendrils twirl and rise from the pirate’s wound.
The mummies’ circle tightens as they draw closer.
Shit.
I don’t like the look of this.
“I can’t even flee,” I complained. “The rest of the crew may make a run for the exit, maybe… But these things, slow as they are, seem faster than me if they block my escape. Damn it.”
“Could you climb the pyramid?” Sveta asked.
“Uitzli has been tugging on my arm the whole time, wanting to go upward. But it’d take me ages to climb with my crutches, and those steps are the perfect size for these frigging mummies. Look how tall they are; they’d catch up with me in no time.”
“Maybe Juanita has some witchery up her sleeve?”
“She’d have used it by now. I doubt her Snake Form will help us here. I’m certain these mummies will be immune to poison.”
Sveta looked at me helplessly. “Then I have nothing, boss.”
I sighed. “I suppose you don’t happen to have another one of those resurrection coins you gave me earlier, do you?”
“That was the only one we had in stock, I’m afraid…”
“Yeah, thought so.” I zoomed out the bird’s-eye view. The pyramid’s top had something like concentric circles of glyphs painted on it. “Juanita said she felt power there, though, and Uitzli keeps urging us to climb…”
I could see nothing of tactical use from my top-down view. Two mummies on the left, one with Miyu’s naginata still stuck in its chest, gave chase to the samurai as she tried to run circles around them. Another two were closing in on Abe from the right. Three mummies were coming from the cavern’s entrance, and would be upon us soon. The pyramid loomed at our backs, our foes cornering us against it.
“Please be a dear, Svetty, and prepare one of your extraordinary espressos, will you?” I tightened my silk tie and straightened my shirt’s cuffs. “If this next meeting will be my last, at least I can enjoy one last cup of coffee before evil forces drive me to step down and retire.”
The mummy, the pirate’s cutlass still stuck in its collarbone, roars at Abe.
It’s almost as if…?
“Bloody end to ya!” the pirate roars back. “Flog off, ya bilge-licking blowfish!”
“Abe, no!” I yell. “It’s taunting you!”
He doesn’t listen. “Nobody takes Ol’ Abe’s cutlass!” he shouts and charges forward, his balled fists his only weapon.
Miyu, dagger in hand, continues dancing from a distance with the two mummies on our left; at least she has the good sense of not confronting them.
Abe screams like a whale in pain. The mummy has struck him down again, now slashing his right shoulder.
Damn it…!
Uitzli releases my arm. “Tiachkautli!” she yelps, running to Abe with a faint white glow surrounding her hands.
Bees buzz by my side as Juanita’s poncho grows from the ground. “We are in trouble, young Jake…”
“You think I can’t see that!?” I shout in frustration. The mummies will turn Abe into minced meat if we don’t do something.
Uitzli helps the pirate get back on his feet, enshrouding him with black smoke-like tendrils, and they both retreat toward where Juanita and I stand.
“Abe!” I shout, “climb the pyramid with Uitzli!”
Our little sister looks scared, but when she hears me, she smiles and nods eagerly, like a little child given permission to go to the fridge for chocolate ice-cream. She pulls Abe’s hand, who follows her to the first step of the pyramid.
“Young Jake…”
“You go, too, Juanita. Go.”
“But how about you, my child?”
“You said there’s power in this pyramid. You can climb faster than me.” I grab my second pistol and aim at the mummy with Abe’s cutlass stuck in it. “Go!” I order.
Careful Aim
My shot passes straight through the mummy’s heart. I’m certain of that. Yet it does nothing, except to catch the monstrosity’s attention. It shifts its cavernous eyes from Abe to me, and shambles in my direction.
On our left, as she dodges another swing from the rotting claws, Miyu lunges forward to grab her spear, pulls with all her might, and frees her weapon before the monster can launch another blow. The samurai dances backward and retreats to my side. The onyx beads take me in; I think I see a glint of respect in them.
I draw my third pistol. “All right, Jake,” I whisper, “let’s go down fighting.” I raise my gun at the mummy with Abe’s cutlass…
Crippling Shot:
Hit!
…the mummy’s right knee receives the impact, and the undead abomination staggers backward…
…but the frigging thing still keeps moving, even though I’ve ruined its leg and it has to limp savagely.
I only have two shots left.
“Mussst climb, young Jake,” whispers Juanita inside my head. “Mussst climb…”
“Go up the pyramid, Miyu,” I tell the samurai. “Go.”
The mask swivels left and right. She holds her ground by my side.
The closest mummies are fewer than fifteen paces away.
“You musssst climb, my child!” hisses Juanita inside my head. “Asssk the sssunset woman for help!”
I feel strength seep into my arms as a warm green glow surrounds them. I look behind me. Seven steps above, Uitzli’s hands glow brightly as a green light bathes both Abe and me. Juanita’s eyes are red as she beckons me to climb. “Come!” she calls. “Come!” she gestures, and as she says so…
Snake Form
…her face morphs as her poncho crumbles; her body shifts, wriggles, and turns into a huge, red-eyed anaconda that descends the pyramid’s steps and slithers left toward the mummies.
“Miyu,” I say, “help me climb. Please.”
Fully recovered by Uitzli’s healing magic, Abe shouts to the mummies approaching from the right…
…he yells in some language that isn’t English and doesn’t sound like any language I’ve ever heard…
Sailor’s
Curses…
Success!
…but somehow, the pirate’s taunt works: The mummy with Abe’s cutlass in its collarbone roars in his direction and loses interest in me.
Miyu’s arm encircles my waist and she drags me up the pyramid, using the naginata in her other hand as a staff.
The green aura around my arms make them stronger and stronger: Uitzli is casting a buff on me, helping me climb.
Amid all the chaos, I can’t help wondering what the hell is going on…
The huge anaconda was wrestling with a mummy on our left, the snake’s muscular body constricting the undead abomination while the mummy clawed viciously at it. With time frozen, I couldn’t guess who was winning, but at least the snake didn’t seem to be getting the worst of it.
The pirate was charging at the mummies with nothing but his fists.
“How did Abe’s taunt work on them?” I asked Sveta. “I mean, did he suddenly learn the mummies’ language or something?”
“All their skills got buffed, boss,” she said, showing me their Stat screens. “Look at your little sister.”
Uitzli stood on the pyramid’s tenth step, her arms raised and her hands engulfed in an iridescent white light, as if moonlight-colored flame was burning inside them.
“Juanita was right,” I said. “The pyramid is some kind of a skill shrine. The anaconda, Uitzli’s aura, and whatever taunt Abe just pulled off must be the upgraded versions of their abilities.”
Of the seven mummies, though, only the one wrestling with the anaconda seemed slowed down.
My avatar, leaning on his left crutch and Miyu’s arm, struggled against the pyramid’s third step. “Do you think I’ll get a boost too?” I asked.
“Only one way to find out, boss.”
I can easily translate the hiss from behind the Noh mask as “Move your lazy ass, Jake!”
And though I know I shouldn’t be able to feel my legs, I can sense the pyramid’s power surging upward as the samurai shoves my butt up the fifth step…
Skill Buff
Gunslinger:
Seasoned Expert
(1:00 minutes)
…this had better work, or we’re screwed.
The second mummy from the left keeps advancing at us, ignoring her friend wrestling with the anaconda.
The two mummies on the right focus on Abe, who keeps taunting them in an obscure language from the third step of the pyramid…
Expert Appraisal:
Detect Weakness
…the mummies’ knees seem one of their weak spots, but there’s another tiny dot that now flashes in bright white right in the middle of their foreheads.
Heh. Makes sense…
I grab my fourth gun and aim at the mummy with Abe’s cutlass in its collarbone…
Careful Aim
…these assholes are dead, right? Like zombies. So what if we treat them as run-of-the-mill zombies, and aim to that bright white spot in their foreheads…
Headshot:
Critical Hit!
…no blood comes out, but the mummy’s huge skull caves in, becoming a smoking maw above its dark eyes.
It falls to the ground.
“Abe! Miyu!” I yell excitedly, “hit them in the forehead! It’s their weak spot, the head!”
The samurai howls as she dives forward, the pyramid’s skill boost turning her into a tsunami of silk and steel. Miyu’s kiai kicks against the cavern’s walls as she leaps from the pyramid and into the fray. She lands silently and thrusts the naginata’s blade exactly between a mummy’s dark eyes; the monster twitches, raises its claws…
…the samurai sinks her weapon deeper, and with a savage twist of her wrists makes the blade turn inside the wound…
…the mummy’s arms and legs go limp, and it collapses to the floor. Stomping a foot on the monster’s chest, Miyu yanks out the polearm.
Abe has recovered his cutlass from the mummy I shot, and delivers a slash that would split a mountain to another mummy’s head. The undead’s skull offers little resistance, and its lifeless body crumbles to the ground. The pirate snarls in a blood-lusted frenzy and charges head-on at the three remaining mummies, now at the pyramid’s foot.
Uitzli’s giggle reverberates across the cave as her hands, engulfed in bright-green flames, weave a shield of green light around Abe. Two mummies launch their poisonous attacks at the pirate…
Rotten Claw:
Deflected!
…but it’s as though Abe has been encased in the strongest armor, and the claws bounce harmlessly against it.
“Hurry!” I bark. “The buff will last for only half a minute more!”
The pirate doesn’t give our foes a second chance. The cutlass crushes into the side of a mummy’s head as if it were an egg’s shell.
The sickening noise of crunching bones tells me the anaconda has also overcome the monster it was fighting. It tackles another mummy that, now ensnared, becomes an easy target for Miyu’s blade. Striking from behind, the samurai’s naginata pierces the mummy’s nape and protrudes from its forehead like a steel horn.
I draw the pistolón from my back and aim at the only remaining mummy…
Point Blank:
Critical Hit!
…the kickback from the weapon is both brutal and reassuring; the bullet beheads my target in a mist of dust and bone.
Abe snarls at his fallen foes, like an angry bear daring anybody to mess with him.
The Noh mask scans our surroundings, weapon ready. I do the same. Nothing seems to stir.
Above and behind me, I can hear Uitzli giggling and clapping.
Gazing into the shadows, I reload the pistolón still smoking in my hand. The anaconda slithers past me; a few moments later, I hear the rustle of fabric as Juanita returns to her poncho.
“Send your bees,” I tell her. “Make sure we’re alone.”
She commands a copious swarm to search across the cave again. A complete silence descends, broken only by the buzz of the tiny black dots as they dash around and return.
“We are alone, young Jake.”
Defeated:
Ancient Mummies
+2VPs
I feel her calloused hand press warmly on my shoulder.
The Noh mask swivels to look at me. It nods, once.
“That was a close one,” I said. “Way too close.”
“But it doesn’t look like this is your last cup of coffee, boss!”
“No one is as glad as myself, believe you me.” I took a second sip, relishing the dark chocolate and caramel notes: It tasted like sweet victory. “And sure glad we can treat the mummies like zombies with bandages on. Alien zombies, even.” Abe, Juanita, and I had searched the corpses, with two results: Our vanquished enemies had nothing we could use and, while humanoid, the bodies definitely weren’t human. “But good to know they’re nothing that a shot to the head can’t fix.”
“Do you think your father knew this pyramid, or these mummies, would wait for you here?”
“I don’t think so. The pyramid, maybe. But I doubt alien zombie mummies were at the top of the list of things he was expecting to discover here.” I finished the coffee. “Let’s find out what’s at the top.”
Our buffs have expired, and the aura Uitzli generated that made my arms extra strong is gone. Covered in sweat and panting from the effort of dragging myself upward with Miyu’s help, I finally reach the pyramid’s apex. It’s a perfect square, smooth and flat, about nine or ten paces to each side.
The rest of my crew is already there. Our little sister looks up at the sky—the sawed-off top of the hill is less than twenty feet above our heads, and the darkening sky hangs peacefully above us—while Juanita studies the carvings on the stones beneath our feet.
Five concentric circles.
Eight Aztec glyphs are etched along the circumference of the innermost one. The outermost has one hundred and twenty-eight glyphs, and between all five rings, the total number of inscriptions is two hundred and forty-four. Juanita does a
patient tally to confirm the exact number.
“These are words of power,” she explains. “Some sacred to Tlaloc, Lord of Thunder and Rain; some sacred to She of the Jade Skirt; some to the Lord of Here and Now; some to the other Lords and Ladies the Aztecs pray to, and a few I do not recognize.” She studies each of the five circles. “But I can discern no order to them, my child.”
“Do you have any idea what this pyramid would be doing here?”
“All I can tell you, young Jake, is what I have told you earlier. These stones were old before the Aztec erected their ancient cities.” She points to the ground below us, where the remains of the mummies lay. “Those are not Aztecs, as you can see. And we all felt the same thing during our fight as our powers increased tenfold. There is an ancient, eager power in this place.”
I tap a glyph with my crutch. “Yet this writing is Aztec. How so?”
“I do not know, my child.”
Abe chuckles. “Maybe thems walkin’ corpses teached ‘em pagans how t’ write?” He laughs at his own joke.
To my surprise, Juanita chuckles, too. “If that is the truth, I hope I am there when the Great Priests of Tenochtitlán learn of it, so I can see their faces as they find out about their own lineage…”
I look up to the darkening sky. It’ll be dusk soon.
“I would avoid spending the night here,” says Juanita, reading my gesture. “And there does not seem to be any reason for us to linger here until we learn more about these Words of Power.”
The book.
Father’s book; that has to be one clue to this riddle. Or, with luck, the solution.