The Time Master

by Dmitry Bilik

  I heard one hell of a crunch. The rachnaid momentarily lost his balance. Still, it lasted but a second. Soon he turned back to me, disregarding my moon steel which he now viewed only as a nuisance.

  Traug tried to attack him from the other side. Without turning, the monster kicked him so hard that Traug flew against the wall and crashed to the ground.

  “Harph, cast Windstorm!” Art shouted as she reached into her sketchbook for something I couldn’t yet see.

  Harph promptly did as he was told, forcing the Alpha to crouch lower against the force of the hurricane. In the meantime, Arts had already found what she’d been looking for and was now laying the sheets of paper on the ground. The item she was about to produce must have been huge, by the looks of it.

  The result didn’t disappoint. Arts stood up, holding what was arguably the second most famous Russian weapon after the AK-47: the Soviet-era handheld anti-tank grenade launcher with a khaki-colored wooden stabilizer and black muzzle. I couldn’t take my eyes off such a powerful weapon in the girl’s delicate hands.

  Arts deftly lifted it to her shoulder, took aim and squeezed the trigger.

  The fiery flashback extended from behind her right shoulder, making everyone squeeze their eyes shut. A loud explosion resounded about twenty feet away from me, just next to the Alpha’s backside.

  When I came round, I was lying on the ground feeling around me for my spear and staring at the thrashing monster. It looked like he was dying. Although the weapon had failed to completely destroy his chitinous armor, it had ripped it apart. Clots of green slime were escaping through the cracks.

  The problem was, the Alpha apparently intended to take as many of us with him as possible.

  I could see that his every movement was an agony for him. Still, he headed confidently for Arts. Harph was trying to bring him back down with his air spells; Arts was spraying him with generous amounts of fire — but the Alpha was intent on avenging himself.

  At this point, I must have completely forgotten my sense of self-preservation. I stumbled back to my feet and, ignoring the pain in my body and the ringing in my head, dashed forward, trying to approach Arts in a roundabout way. Unfortunately, by then there were barely ten feet left between the two. Ignoring all the others, the monster raised his sharpened claws when I rose in front of him.

  In one brief blow, I buried the spear tip under the Alpha’s head.

  You’ve helped a Player who is neutral to you.

  +20 karma points. Current level: +180. You gravitate to the Light Side.

  The monster wailed and jerked his head, trying to lift me off the ground with my spear. It didn’t work: the spear shaft just disintegrated, vanishing into thin air.

  The wretched summoned weapon! My knife was still sticking out of the Alpha’s neck — and he was still alive and kicking... literally.

  Shit. This looked like suicide but I’m afraid I had no other option.

  I sprang from where I stood onto his outstretched leg. The monster froze in disbelief at my insolence. Leaning against his shell, I clambered to my feet and hurried to retrieve my knife — then received an almighty clump around the back of my head for my troubles.

  Not waiting for myself to faint from the agonizing pain, I rewound time.

  [ ∞ ]

  I sprang onto the Alpha’s outstretched leg, waited and feigned a blow, then crouched. His front leg wafted past my hair, leaving only a whiff of fetid air in its wake. I jumped again and grabbed at my knife’s hilt with both hands.

  Your Acrobatics skill has increased to level 5.

  Due to my weight on the knife, its blade ripped through the monster’s body even further, dousing me with cascades of stinky green slime. Finally, my knife stopped halfway through his neck, halted by something hard inside.

  My fingers slipped off the hilt; I fell to the ground. I immediately rolled to the side, afraid of the Alpha collapsing on top of me. It was good timing, too, because the dead creature’s head landed a mere foot away from me.

  I breathed heavily, staring at the fallen monster. It felt like the whole excruciating fight had lasted less than a minute. I still couldn’t believe we’d smoked him. Although initially I’d indeed expected us to overcome him, but when our plan had gone pear-shaped, my confidence had taken a dive.

  Arts crouched next to me. Her face betrayed the same surprise as mine must have done.

  “Killing the Alpha — and during the Red Moon, of all times...” she shook her head.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had an RPG[23]?”

  “I did. You asked me if I had something else in my bag.”

  “You could have taken me out, too.”

  “I didn’t, did I? Don’t worry. It wasn’t my first time.”

  “Too late to shit yourself now,” I climbed back to my feet. “How can we move this bastard? I need to get my knife back.”

  “Not a problem,” Traug walked over to us. “Gosh, man, you stink.”

  He was dead right there. I wasn’t smelling of roses. I was all covered in the green slime and could still feel the bitter quinine-like taste on my lips. Also, I’d ripped my trench coat again. Bumpkin would moan at me, that’s for sure.

  In the meantime, Traug easily lifted the monster’s head. I hurried over and retrieved my knife.

  “Stand over there by the wall,” Harph said as he came over to us. “We’re gonna give you a scrub.”

  Had I known what was going to happen next, I definitely wouldn’t have obeyed him. Still, the sensation of the slime running down my body was too disgusting.

  As soon as I’d stood in the place they’d showed me, I was hit by a powerful jet of water. My breathing seized up. I stood with my arms outstretched in front of me, spluttering and trying to breathe at the same time. It took me almost half a minute to adapt to it; then I even tried to help them, washing off the gunk with my own hands.

  “It’s cold,” I said, my teeth chattering, as soon as the waterboarding procedure was over.

  “In a moment,” Harph said in a meaningful and not exactly unthreatening tone.

  This must have been the Windstorm they’d used on the Alpha. Admittedly, I didn’t like it much, either. My body was pinned to the wall until my vertebrae crunched. True, the water cascaded off me so that in less than a minute, the front of me was already dry.

  “Turn round so I can dry your back.”

  “No way,” I protested, imagining the rocky wall sink into my chest. “It’ll dry just fine on its own. The worst that can happen is I catch a cold.”

  “No such chance,” Arts replied, busy over the Alpha. “Players don’t get sick.”

  The others, too, had already begin taking the monster apart. Traug was holding the creature’s head in his hands, studying its mandibles. Jan was trying to saw one of the Alpha’s legs off with the sword he’d borrowed from Traug. Harph, too, once he’d realized I had no more need of his laundry services, beelined for the monster’s corpse.

  “Interesting,” Traug said. “Only a minute ago he was absolutely immune to any weapon, and now he crumbles apart like dry wood.”

  “The Red Moon only empowers living things,” Arts said, filling a vial with some of the monster’s body fluid.

  “Where’s Litius?” I asked.

  I had a point. Litius was the only one of us who hadn’t taken part in the slaying of the Alpha. And now I couldn’t see him anywhere at all. Having said that, this place didn’t abound with hiding places.

  “Litius!”

  “I’m over here,” his voice came from above.

  I looked up. I couldn’t see a thing in the dark. I stuck my arm out and cast Light.

  Your Illusion skill has increased to level 6.

  Litius’ hairy head was peeking from behind a large ledge in the ceiling about twenty feet up. By the looks of it, there was still plenty of space left between the ledge and the ceiling.

  “There’s a passage here that leads up,” Litius said. “It starts in the back tunnel and circles the
room. That’s how the Alpha got to us.”

  “Come down, will ya?”

  Litius nodded. In one graceful feline leap, he landed next to me. I looked up again. The mind boggles. I might have to ask him about his racial properties. He definitely had some very interesting Agility skills.

  “Are you done taking the deceased apart?” I grinned, feeling the initial shock of defeating the monster dissipate. “Harph, we need to find the Queen.”

  “Got it,” Harph replied, then split again. His doppelganger hurried toward the back tunnel.

  “So, Arts, what else have you got in your magic sketchbook? You don’t happen to have a tank there, by any chance?”

  “No, I don’t,” she replied calmly, studying the vialful of green slime against the light. “In actual fact, I should be given a higher cut. It took me six months and a lot of blood to draw this wretched RPG.”

  “I’m afraid we’ve already discussed everything and signed the paperwork, period. Thanks for the RPG, anyway.”

  She rolled her eyes and smirked, letting me know where I could stick my appreciation.

  I took one last look at the fallen Alpha. He was a sad sight. Gutted, with his head chopped off and half his limbs missing, he no more resembled the awesome insect which only a few minutes ago had instilled the fear of God into everyone.

  “I’ve found her,” the real Harph came back to life. He turned to me and repeated, “I’ve found the Queen.”

  “Just how dangerous is she?” I asked Arts.

  “Without her minions, we could take her with our bare hands.”

  “Nobody else around?”

  Harph shook his head. “Absolutely no one. The problem is, there’s a really weird spot there.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m gonna show you when we get there. I can’t pick up everything my copy perceives. All I can sense is that it’s not good news.”

  “What are we waiting for, then?”

  I only had 4 pt. charge left, but that should be enough considering we weren’t in danger anymore. No good hanging around: the sooner we started, the quicker we’d finish.

  We set off toward the back tunnel. Harph reactivated his modified Light spell. Gradually, as it began to wear off, darkness took over.

  This place didn’t differ much from where we’d just come from. The tunnel made by the insects wended its way down. I second-guessed its descent when my ears got blocked, making everything sound dull and muffled. How strange. We couldn’t have been that far down. I pinched my nose, closed my mouth and breathed out sharply. My ears popped as my eardrums returned to their regular position.

  “Here,” Harph stopped. “Can you feel it?”

  Arts shuddered. “Sure.”

  “Someone forgot to shut the fridge door?” Jan said with an almost imperceptible smile.

  Even Litius’ fur stood on end — apparently, in an attempt to conserve body heat. Traug and I were the only ones who eyed our fellow raiders in surprise. It was slightly colder here, sure. This mountain must have seen much worse drafts than this.

  “Wretched Korls,” Arts shuddered again, noticing our bewildered gazes. “I’m not going any further.”

  “That’s exactly what I was talking about,” Harph said. “It’s weird, don’t you think? There’s something in this tunnel that causes temperature to go up and down. And what’s even more interesting, this effect doesn’t go right until the end of the tunnel. Wait a sec.”

  Once again his copy trotted forward. After a while, the real Harph came back to life and went on,

  “That’s right. There’s a small room over there, about thirty feet in diameter. That’s where the source of the cold is. It must be some artifact. And the room itself... it wasn’t built by the rachnaids.”

  Arts tensed up. “What do you mean?”

  Harph shrugged. “You need to see it. I can’t explain it to you. I couldn’t see it under the layer of ice but it looks like there’s a rock there which had been dressed perfectly square. There’re also some shattered columns at the room’s center. Everything’s covered in ice so I couldn’t really see very much in the dark.”

  “An underground city?” Litius asked, scratching a pointy ear.

  Arts almost jumped with excitement. “It must be really old!”

  “The mines were built about four hundred years ago,” Litius began, losing his cool. “And ev-v-ven then th-th-they didn’t f-f-find it...”

  Harph nodded. “It must be at least a thousand years old.”

  “Sorry to interrupt your archeological discussion,” I began, “but in order to get to the Queen, we need to get past this historical monument.”

  “Easy,” Traug shrugged. “We can go, you and I. The Korls don’t give a damn about cold.”

  Well, thanks a bunch, Mr. Compatriot. I really didn’t feel much like diving down a tunnel affected by some weird artifact. The fact that Traug was going with me made me feel a bit better, of course. Two dead bodies are always better than one. Still, I’d rather I share the experience with all my group members, including Arts with her magic sketchbook.

  “I wonder if it could be disabled?” I said, staring down the pitch-black tunnel.

  “Artifacts lose their properties once destroyed,” Litius pointed out.

  “I see. Arts, can I use your RPG?”

  “What’s wrong with hitting it with a rock, like our ancestors did?” she replied.

  “Very nice of you. Come on, Traug, let’s go. You go in front. I’ll follow. Oh shit, you can’t see anything, can you? Okay, I’ll go first. Just please try to keep up.

  I cast Light and stepped into the gloom, leaving behind a group muttering in low voices.

  After another sixty feet and a couple of twists and turns, my and Traug’s footsteps were the only sounds in the tunnel. The uneven sandy walls felt harder than rock, ice peeking out of an occasional crack. It looked like this place had long suffered in winter’s grip.

  The further we went, the frostier it got. At a certain point, Traug asked me to stop and removed his armor, putting it into his bag. He simply couldn’t proceed any further in it. Our breathing misted, sending clouds of vapor up to the ceiling. Our eyelashes, moist with tears, kept sticking together. It was so cold that my teeth began to chatter.

  I cast Light again and wrapped myself tighter in my trench coat.

  Your Illusion skill has increased to level 7.

  The room in front of us looked like a tiny round closet in an apartment block abandoned by its management. The walls here were covered with a thick transparent layer of ice. Pack snow crunched underfoot.

  Indeed, a broken fragment of a column imprisoned in the ice rose at the room’s center.

  “It seems that there’s a lake overhead,” Traug nodded at the ceiling. “That’s where the water is coming from.”

  “You’d better tell me where to look for the artifact,” I said, using my glowing hand to peek into the gloom.

  “Wait up. I’m looking.”

  Then a strange thing happened. It was as if I was being summoned by something — or someone. They weren’t calling out to me using any known language, no: I heard the call within me. Not a sentient call even but rather like a pulsation that I sensed.

  Obeying the command, I turned round and pointed my glowing hand, illuminating part of the frozen wall.

  And there I saw it, trapped under a seven-inch layer of ice. It looked like a rock of a rare azure hue.

  “Traug! Over there!” I pointed at the object. “You think you could get it out?”

  He shrugged. “Easy.”

  Traug put his sword away and took a small hatchet out of his bag. He took a swing and started hacking off pieces of ice with a fervor worthy of a champion mountaineer. He did a great job of it, removing whole chunks of ice with every blow. By the time I had to recast Light, my fellow Korl had already got down to the rock.

  His greedy little mitt reached out to retrieve it. Then he screamed in agony.

  “What’s up?”


  “I burned myself!”

  I looked at his splayed fingers and shook my head. If anything, it was a frostbite. His hands had turned purple, with two of his fingertips covered in blisters.

  That made no sense. How could you get frostbitten so quickly?

  “Just you wait, you bastard,” with yet another swing, Traug whacked the obstinate rock with the blade of his hatchet.