Collecting The Goddess (Chronicles Of KieraFreya Book 1)

by Michael Anderle

  Chloe pulled a bracer up to her face, panting slightly. “A friend of yours?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” KieraFreya croaked back.

  Feeling like now might be a good time to hold back on teasing KieraFreya and respect her wishes, Chloe acknowledged her notifications and saw a pop-up that made her eyebrows raise.

  “Huh?”

  Map updated: Click to open

  Chloe opened the map. She had expected to see the Oakston village appear in all its glory but instead found that she was staring at a large expanse of land primarily shaded in black. Thin gold detailing defined various different regions and lands, and in the lower west quadrant was a tiny area that was available for viewing.

  Chloe focused on that area and the map zoomed in, revealing the Oakston village. She focused again and the map zoomed out.

  Chloe gasped. “Sweet! This is the entire map of Obsidian from corner to corner.”

  She inspected the map slowly, able to view only the most basic information. She could see the small pyramid-like structures that detailed mountain ranges. There were thin strips that looked like they might be rivers or roads. Dotted around the map were little symbols of hands in prayer.

  Chloe zoomed in on one such symbol, seeing the legend QUEST: A FALLEN GODDESS written in tiny letters above it.

  Chloe brought a hand to her mouth, realization finally dawning on her. Considering she hadn’t had a chance to finish her request to whatever god they had just spoken to, he had been spot-on in providing exactly what Chloe had been after.

  “You realize what this means, right?” she said, clapping her hands excitedly.

  Even KieraFreya seemed gratified. “We’ve got a starting point.”

  It was then that the earth began to shake and the rocks began to crumble.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Oh, why can’t we go just one journey without encountering any danger?” Chloe whined, searching all around for an escape route. Already the tunnel back to the outside had caved in.

  “There!” KieraFreya pointed, indicating a small dark indentation where some rocks had come loose.

  Chloe sprinted toward the hole, hands above her head for protection. She spat out dust, the particles stinging her eyes as she heard KieraFreya cry out above her.

  Chloe stepped aside as a huge boulder fell, almost squashing her flat. She picked up her speed, then crouched and skidded across the floor, sliding smoothly into the hole just as the entrance was blocked, leaving them in complete darkness.

  Rocks continued to tumble in the original room. They waited for a good while in the darkness before the last rock fell and all went still.

  “Great plan, genius,” KieraFreya quipped. “Now what?”

  Chloe squinted with her Dark Vision but could hardly make out anything other than a tiny tunnel ahead of them. It was small enough that a person would have to crawl on their stomach to have any chance of making it through.

  Chloe tested the rock blocking the entrance, but it didn’t budge.

  “Guess we go this way.”

  KieraFreya protested but Chloe ignored her, managing to get down on her stomach. She began crawling along the floor earthworm-style.

  The tunnel stretched on for what seemed like miles. At some point, Chloe managed to tune KieraFreya out, continuing her painfully slow progress. Her stamina began to decline as she crawled, but she figured the tunnel must lead somewhere. Otherwise, what was the point of its existence?

  Time stretched. The darkness cloaked them. The idea came into Chloe’s head to try her Purple Blaze spell, but with her arms pinned by her sides, she found that there was no way to cast the spell so that she could see. She wasn’t sure what the consequences would be for failing a cast, but she sure as hell didn’t want to find out while she was shinnying through a tiny tunnel.

  At one point along the way, a little while after KieraFreya finally seemed to grow tired of talking, Chloe hit a fork in the path. She paused and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. A gentle stream of air was coming from somewhere, and, holding her face to the tunnels, she felt it kiss her right cheek.

  Right it is!

  As she manipulated her body, Chloe saw the notification blink. She pulled up the menu and saw a message from Gideon.

  Hey, Chloe! How’s it going? I bet you’re out there kicking ass right now!

  Me and the guys found the sickest dungeon. We managed to take down a small army of skeletons between us and got massive gains from it. Right now we’re taking a quick break in the main chamber. I’m sitting on the skeleton overlord! Lol.

  Anyway, thought I’d check in. Missing having you with us.

  Do what you gotta do.

  Gid

  Chloe’s heart warmed. She clicked Reply and stared for a good few minutes at the display, wondering how the hell typing worked in this game. She thought about a keyboard, but nothing came up. Then she got another message from Gideon.

  Oh! And in case you were wondering, just talk to type. There are no instructions about that. Might be a bug that Praxis will iron out later.

  Chloe rolled her eyes, making a mental note to mention that to Mia the next time she got a chance.

  Hey Gid! Great to hear from you. This message function is pretty sweet. Can’t believe I didn’t discover this sooner, not that I had any friends to add. LOL!

  Can’t believe you’re already conquering dungeons. You should check that book of spells for possession or resurrection spells and make the skellies fight for you. That’d be SA-WEET!

  My journey is going well. Y’know, found a shrine, spoke to a god, yadda-yadda, now stuck in the world’s smallest crawl space in the pitch-black.

  Just another day in the life, eh?

  Hit me back when you’re out of the dungeon and keep me posted on your progress. If we ever end up nearby and you don’t tell me and I find out, I will murder you.

  (In real life, not the game. I know where you live.)

  (Or do I?)

  Chloe

  Chloe blinked away the messaging screen and took a breather, allowing her stamina to regenerate some. She closed her eyes and let sleep take her, waking up a short while later, pleased to see that her stamina had worked its way back up to around 80%.

  With a deep sigh, Chloe continued crawling.

  It felt like the tunnel would never end. With each shuffle down the tunnel, she felt like she was being forced into the belly of the mountain. Her muscles ached, and her skin was getting sore. But eventually, feeling like the great poop of some forgotten beast, she slid out of the tunnel and plopped onto a cold stone floor.

  Chloe groaned. “They should really work on making the rocks a lot softer in this game since they’ve got real players who feel everything.”

  “Soft rock.” KieraFreya chuckled. “Good one.”

  Chloe rose to her feet, stretching and dusting herself off. It felt great to stand again. Several bones popped and cracked as she straightened herself out.

  “Now to work out where the hell we are.”

  “What is this ‘hell’ place you keep talking about?” KieraFreya asked. “I’m assuming it’s something bad?”

  Chloe shook her head. She’d forgotten that idioms and places from her own world might not necessarily translate into Obsidian. She cast Purple Blaze, containing the spell in her hand as she lit up the cave and began walking.

  “It’s a bad place. Basically, many of my people believe that when you die, you can go one of two ways, depending on whether you’ve lived a good or a bad life. If you’ve been good, you go to live with God in heaven. If you’ve been bad, you spend your life with the Devil in hell.”

  “Only two gods? Life must be super simple for you.”

  “Kind of,” Chloe replied, hissing as she watched her MP quickly fall as she maintained the spell. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

  “Do tell.”

  Chloe made a note of where she was heading and extinguished her purple ball, choosing to rely on
her Dark Vision for the most part as she continued.

  She explained to KieraFreya that there was more than one belief system in her world. She talked about Christianity and Buddhism, Judaism and Islam. She spoke mostly of her own experience with her Christian friends, and about how many in her world chose to determine their own morality and the basis of repentance. That there were some who lived evil lives with moral intentions, and others who lived with no morals but were actually kind of good.

  When asked how many gods there were across all of the belief systems, Chloe shrugged.

  “Dozens. Hundreds. I don’t know.”

  KieraFreya laughed darkly. “Your world sounds stupid.”

  “Well, how many gods are there here?”

  “You think I don’t have better things to do than to keep count of the gods? There are a lot of us, but we vary in our strengths. We have gods of peace, love, music, war, retribution—of course, I had to get myself in there—and so on. Then there are those who serve the darker purposes. Death, ghosts, mischief, disease etc. Our dark ones serve in the realm of the Dark, and the former live in the realm of the Light.”

  “Sounds fascinating,” Chloe said absentmindedly, spotting shafts of light up ahead. She jogged onward, careful not to go too fast over the damp floor for fear of slipping.

  “Always nice to talk to you,” KieraFreya grumbled.

  “I’m sorry, but look…”

  They were in an enormous cavern, the walls of which were so far apart that Chloe couldn’t see them. The ceiling was high, only detectable by tracing the eye up one of the many stray beams of sunlight that stretched all the way to the floor, illuminating motes of dust and making them dance as though they were fireflies.

  Chloe ran forward, pausing under a thick beam of light. She felt the warmth on her skin, only now realizing how far into her bones the cold and damp had sunk.

  “What is this place?” Chloe brought up the map.

  She found her tiny avatar on the map a short distance from where the map highlighted her last travel point. She considered traveling back for just a moment before shaking her head, wondering whether it was a real possibility now that the rocks had crumbled and blocked the room. What if she went there and found she was trapped forever in that room?

  To her dismay, although she had felt as though she had been shinnying through that tunnel for ages, the cursor was not that far away. She had barely moved at all. And, of course, the map didn’t show depth, so she had no idea just how far under the mountain she was.

  Well, aside from the sunlight above. But even then, she couldn’t be sure.

  Chloe looked around the cave, not wanting to leave what little warmth there was. She saw the next column of light around 20 yards away and jogged over, pausing there to scan for anything else other than stalactites and stalagmites stretching and clawing to reach each other.

  Another hop, skip, and jump to the next beam of light. Nothing.

  After a few more of these, Chloe stopped, cocking her ear. Something was rumbling coming somewhere deep in the cave.

  She made toward the sound, driven onward by her insatiable curiosity.

  “Oh, sure,” KieraFreya piped up. “Go straight toward the strange sounds you find in the middle of a mountain. Why would you consider going the other way if possible danger presented itself?”

  “Shut up,” Chloe hissed, ignoring the goddess’ words, wanting to find out more.

  Eventually, she reached the cave wall, finding a small passageway lined with cobwebs, seemingly undisturbed for years. Using her sword, she quietly slashed at the webbing, trying not to groan in disgust as the sticky threads tangled around her blade. A few times, she had to use her hands to shift some of the stray threads that would otherwise have found their way into her hair.

  “Eww…” she whispered. The rumbling was louder now, and some of the webbing was sticking to her hair. “Man, how am I going to get this out without shampoo?”

  “We have that here,” KieraFreya quietly informed Chloe.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Schampu, the Goddess of Beauty.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m fucking with you. Keep your head in the game. We’re almost there.”

  Chloe blinked open her messaging app.

  “What are you doing?” KieraFreya hissed.

  Chloe ignored her.

  Yo! Gid!

  Small note. Well, kind of a request. If you manage to find cleaning products on your travels, let me know. Got sticky white stuff all over my hair and I’m not sure how I’m going to manage to get this all out.

  Peace!

  Chloe re-read the message, suddenly realizing the mistake she’d made by sending that particular wording to a boy.

  Spiderwebs! I meant to add that the sticky white stuff is…oh, never mind.

  KieraFreya tsked. “Real smooth.”

  “Armpit?”

  A sigh. “No.”

  When Chloe reached the end of the spiderweb-infested tunnel, she cautiously poked her head around the corner. She was glad to see that there were several more shafts of light, but her heart fell when she saw that the walls of the tunnel ahead were lined from top to bottom in coffins both open and closed.

  Some had their lids half-open, others had cracked after years of decay. There were a number of skeletons on display, laid to rest with hands on their chest and gold coins over their eyes. The rumbling was louder, and Chloe now recognized the tones and rhythm of snoring.

  “What do you think it is?” she asked her bracers. “What kind of creature makes noise that loud when they snore?”

  “Have you heard yourself when you sleep?”

  “Not helpful.”

  “Not trying to be.”

  Chloe stepped out of the tunnel, aware that each footstep, despite her level 3 Sneak skill, made enough noise to reverberate down the passageway and back to her. She trod as lightly as possible, a sinking feeling in her stomach that she was now being watched. When she was in line with the first set of coffins, she was sure she heard cracking around her, but when she looked, all of the dead lay still.

  Another few steps and she was in line with the second set of coffins. These ones were mainly open, with a pair of skeletons on either side. The gold of the coins glinted as she passed.

  KieraFreya, can you hear me?

  That question seems a bit redundant. You know we’ve spoken like this before, right?

  Just checking. What’s the value of a gold coin?

  KieraFreya thought for a moment. One gold piece is worth more than your life.

  Chloe stared at the two coins winking at her from the skeleton’s eyes. That valuable, huh?

  Chloe chewed her lip, fighting an inner battle. She wanted to find her way out of this stinking cave, but if she could make a couple of bucks along the way, surely that would help her later in the game. She thought about arriving in the first city she’d reach with several dozen gold coins, able to instantly buy housing, purchase the greatest weapons, and have great influence over the development of the city.

  Perhaps she could deposit some of the coins in the local bank, or find a series of small businesses to fund and earn her interest so that she could further develop the city for good. Surely she had enough knowledge from her life in the real world to be able to work with the medieval attitudes of Obsidian?

  Chloe shook her head, once again realizing that she had fallen into Lagarde mode. It was a strange feeling, really. Not once in the real world had she ever considered using her money wisely, investing and becoming a venture capitalist. What was it about this game that made her start to care?

  Well, in for a penny, in for a—

  Chloe reached out and nabbed the two coins. The skeleton’s skull was dry. Flaky. A trail of dust was interrupted where her fingers had touched.

  “Ew, ew, ew,” Chloe muttered, rubbing the skeleton dust on her cuirass. She hesitated for a moment longer, studying the skeleton for any signs of movement.

  When none c
ame, Chloe breathed a sigh of relief.

  Turning quickly on the spot, she tried to let out a small scream but found that her windpipe was restricted as she stared into the necrotic face of another skeleton.

  Chloe’s heart dropped as she watched several more skeletons rising from their beds, bones cracking and popping as they started toward her.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chloe learned very quickly that against the dead, fire was better than electricity.

  “That… That!” Another fireball leaped from her hand, finding its mark on the rib cage of a skeleton.

  All around her, she saw purple. The first few fireballs had helped Chloe escape the clutches of the dead that held her. Her sore neck throbbed as she rubbed the painful area, only to find that the hand was still attached.

  “That wasn’t what I meant when I said I needed a hand,” Chloe muttered, summoning another ball and setting another skeleton ablaze.

  The real shocker had come when Chloe had gone to cast a fireball, only to find another skeleton behind her. The arms had reached out from behind, grabbing her body and twisting her around at the same time she had thrown the ball.

  The fireball had missed its target but found a great knot of webs on the higher reaches of the wall. Within seconds the flames had traveled up and down the passageway, meeting several ancient torches and finding a home as the torches lit. The fire continued to travel onward to a depth unknown.

  Chloe ducked under another set of arms, her breath coming in short bursts, her face streaked with grime. She sprinted to the far wall, trying to perform a quick count. She made it to seven before she had to act again and found herself running up the passageway, following the trail of torches.

  “All of this for a couple of gold coins. Now I know how Aladdin felt.”

  “An ex-boyfriend of yours?” KieraFreya asked.

  “Forget it.”

  The passageway was long, the walls lined with even more of the coffins. Skeletons awoke as she passed, and the farther she ran, the more certain she was sure that she was hearing voices. Or, more specifically, a voice that echoed several times around the tunnel. It wasn’t until she rounded a corner that she saw the source of the sound.