Alexa Drey- the Veils of Lamerell

by Ember Lane

  That night, I slept in the wagon with Marista. Cronis begged and pleaded for a spot inside, but there was no persuading her. None of them said much more about the folk who were coming for me; didn’t tell me who they were, though I could make a fair stab at it. I wondered what this evil was that seemed to blight the land, whether it was a vast force, and we were the last outposts of good, and I wondered how the game had already progressed so far. Not for the first time, I questioned how ShadowDancer could be hundreds of levels above me, until it dawned on me that he was probably a non-player character—a true inhabitant of Barakdor.

  The Mandrake thing took a bit of thought as well, but I guessed that they had continents, countries, or even states like we used to have. As far as I could tell, we were in the country of Irydia, part of Mandrake that was on the planet Barakdor. It helped a bit; at least I could visualize it all.

  Though in danger, I was so lucky to be in with this crowd—with Greman, Petroo, the two wizards and Marista. What of Pog? Or Lincoln? I wondered how they were doing. Were they just having a normal game, or had they been fortunate too? I hoped Pog was safe, and not for the first time, vowed to seek him out.

  Though erratic, my companions seemed to know what they were doing, at least, they knew infinitely more than me. They had elected to each teach me certain things. Greman was to instruct me in the ways of the land—fishing, trapping, making shelters and the like. Petroo was to continue teaching me how to run, also how to track, to scout and to navigate the land. He’d told me that he’d squeeze in archery too—once he’d made me a bow. Cronis had the task of teaching me about Scholl’s magic—the color magic—and the history of Barakdor, and Shylan was to guide me in the ways of a different magic—that of a woman called Poleyna. That just left Marista, who when asked, merely offered to teach me how to survive. I found that oddly disturbing.

  In the morning, I woke, stretched, jumped down from the wagon, and heard a small pop behind me. Looking around, the wagon had vanished. I scratched my head. Marista threw me my mauve stuff.

  “You can wash by the waterfall. Change back into these, we need you fully…enhanced for the trip through the caves.”

  “Caves?”

  “How else are we going to get to Merrivale?”

  “What happened to the wagon?”

  Confusion crossed her expression, but she feigned a withering smile. “We can’t possibly take a wagon through the caves, it just won’t fit.” And then she sighed. “Try to keep up.”

  I huffed and marched off outside. Sometimes, I just wanted to scream. It was like they couldn’t remember from one minute to the next how little I knew. To be honest, I was also getting a bit sick of being treated like a kid—like I couldn’t handle all the truth.

  I followed the narrow trail out, erred upstream from the waterfall and I’d soon searched out a small piece of the riverbank all to myself. It was while I was washing and changing, that my anger grew. I was finally fed up with being meek. Yesterday, back up the valley, I’d been fearful of what? Prying eyes? Hobgoblins? I wanted the old Alexa Drey back. The one who’d venture anywhere and do anything. I think I had been overawed by this land, by the game, and had flowed along without much fight.

  But how could I be my old self? My old self knew her old surroundings, understood her own life. My eyes narrowed. I would fight my corner, that’s what I would do, and one day, when I understood enough, Barakdor would know me.

  I marched back to the cave. Whatever the day brought, I would face it, head high. Then a thought struck me.

  Stopping, I said: “I need to learn, Petroo.”

  Nothing.

  “I said, ‘I need to learn.’”

  There was a rustling in the undergrowth, but something else had struck me as odd by then, so I turned around and walked back up the trail, right to its end, where it just vanished.

  “Because it didn’t exist,” I whispered. “It couldn’t exist because there wouldn’t be enough traffic to make it exist…” Therefore, I surmised, we’d just spent a day traveling through some form of magical camouflage that protected their vale. I wondered if the caves where the real door from the vale, or just another illusion.

  “How did you know I was there?” Petroo asked.

  “Because they wouldn’t trust me on my own,” I said. “Petroo, are the caves the real Barakdor?”

  “Real Barakdor?”

  “The land surrounding the vale—it isn’t real, is it?”

  “Real? It’s real, yes, but a bit…muddled. They alter things. But the feeling you had yesterday, that was real. No matter how much they mess with stuff to keep you safe, something will always find you.”

  “Good,” I said. “An illusion—but not—I can deal with that. As for the bogeyman spying on me, at least we all know it. I need to learn how to fight, to protect myself, and I need to start today.”

  Petroo slouched a little, appearing deep in thought. “The bow—now that I can teach you. Knives, them too. Sword, not so much—too cumbersome—for me anyway. Then there’s hand-to-hand fighting, the mace, the crossbow, the axe, the staff—I could go on. What do you have in mind?”

  “All of them,” I said.

  “All of them…” He creased his face in thought. “The thing is, you don’t quite understand how things work around here. Everyone has a specialty. I, for instance, am a scout—in essence. I’m okay with a sword, not bad with a spear, but I can track a man to Quislaine’s jaw and back by just getting a sniff of him. It’s just the way it is.” He grinned a beaming smile. “Dead shot with a bow—but that’s just a fluke.” He winked at me.

  “So no one can teach me everything?”

  “Hmmm,” Petroo said. “There is one man...”

  “One man.”

  “One man.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  Petroo shrugged. “You don’t. You can’t. But…”

  “But what?”

  “I get the feeling he’ll find you. Now, are you scared of dwarves?”

  “Not today,” I said with resolve flooding through me and a steely look in my eyes. We headed back to the cave.

  It took a while for my vision to adjust to the gloom. The horses had vanished—I hoped not in the same way as the wagon. Greman, Marista and Shylan were all sitting in a circle smoking pipes, and Cronis was chatting to a dwarf.

  He was short-ish, about Greman’s height, and almost half as wide as he was tall. A hooded, blue cloak covered most of his head and shoulders, trailing to just above the cave’s stone floor. A bushy, black beard flowed out and down his front. He stood posed like he was about to have a fight with the old wizard, and that revealed his heavy tunic of emerald and gold. The gold matched the broad bracers enclosing his trunk-like forearms and vanished into a pair of heavy-looking gauntlets. Thick, sheepskin boots were tied with cord thick enough to be rope. Yeah, he was a dwarf alright.

  “I thought you were joking,” I whispered to Petroo.

  “Apachalant eh?” A growl came from the dwarf. “And a prince no less. It is truly an honor for such a humble miner as myself to escort someone with such rich blood coursing through their veins. Humph, and through my humble home too.”

  “Last I heard, Gromolor, your home ran from Zybond all the way to the dragon’s head of Quislaine.”

  The dwarf pushed his hood back, squinting in the half light of the cave. “What can I say, I have a big family.” He left Cronis’s side and approached us. “And you must be Alexa Drey. Your name has been spoken a lot for someone with no reputation. Trust that I will guide you through these underground ways and back out near Merrivale. The Bassilisk are hunting the Croxen, and long gone from the caves at this time of year, and the gravellings rarely stray this close to enchantments such as Shylan’s abominations. So,” he said, “it should make for a safe trip.”

  He winked at Petroo, then marched off, picked up the largest mallet I’d ever seen, and disappeared into the back of the cave. “Give me a few dozen yards,” he called over his shoulders
. “Your light hurts my eyes.”

  Marista beckoned me over, looked me up and down, and then gave me a small sack.

  “Put your stuff in there.”

  I looked at my spare boots and pants, and then the size of the sack. I looked at Marista, and then back at the sack. “Trust me,” she said. “They’ll fit.” And they did.

  Even though the bag was only a bit bigger than a pillow sack, it was swallowed up everything as soon as I put it in. Curiously, it didn’t bulge or get any heavier. I opened up its neck, looked in, looked back up at Marista, and then back into the sack. Tipping the sack upside down, I wasn’t in the slightest bit surprised when absolutely nothing fell out—like nothing at all, no boots, and no tunic.

  Marista Fenwalker has given you a boon. See, she’s not so bad.

  Shoulder Sack of the guild of thieves, 20 slot max, Item= Common

  “Thank you,” I said, feeling somehow awkward. I wanted to stand on my own two feet, but every time I felt like they were mollycoddling me, they proved they were just looking after me.

  “You’re very welcome. The sack has twenty spots. An inventory should pop up under the sack in your items list.” She huffed. “You do have an items menu, don’t you? It’s so hard for us to remember what its like to be so feeb—, so new, yes, that’s the word.”

  I stood up straight, and rather than just accept what she’d said and feel pathetic, I looked her in the eye. “Don’t worry. I’m gonna work it all out quickly. I won’t be a burden to you.”

  She made to say something, but appeared to think better of it. Instead, she gave the slightest of nods and walked away. Petroo nudged me. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen her lost for words,” he whispered, and that made me feel ten feet tall. Speaking of which, I knew I had to ask him something.

  “Petroo?”

  “What?”

  “That first day, the day when you ran to Shylan’s tower.” I hesitated, not quite knowing if what I was about to say was the dumbest thing in the whole world. “I swear you were shrinking.”

  “Shrinking?”

  “Yeah, like getting smaller.”

  “I know what shrinking is.” He tapped his chin. “Let me explain. Running, as fast as I run, it…it stretches your back.” Grabbing my shoulder, he walked after the others. I hadn’t even noticed they’d followed Gromolor. “When you run for so long at such a speed, if you’re not careful, your legs go faster than your body and your head falls behind a bit—that’s how it happens.” He hugged me close and then let me go. “It’s a strangely comfortable way to run.”

  I tried to imagine it, legs in front, back horizontal, head pointing up, and attempted to imagine running like it. I blurted a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Try it some time. Come on, we should catch up with the rest.”

  I hadn’t even noticed we’d walked to the back of the cave. It was murky ahead, our bodies masking the light from outside. What I could see was a ruddy-brown, roughly arched rocky way with a smooth stone floor. It narrowed and narrowed until we could barely walk together in places. Only a few yards farther, it was nearly pitch-black.

  “I can’t see a thing,” I muttered.

  “Shall I light a torch?”

  “Can you see?”

  “I have level fifty two night vision—helps a lot with the scouting, and running in the dark, helps with that too.”

  “Well, I haven’t even got any carrots.”

  “Carrots?” he said, and I sensed he was looking at me strangely.

  “How do I get the skill?” I asked. By this time I had my hands out front, and I was walking like a zombie. I decided to trail one hand along the wall, my gauntlets dulling the rock’s rough edges. That helped a bit, but every time the rock disappeared, I imagined I was walking along a precipice, some kind of rock bridge over a vast cavern.

  “Try and relax your eyes, let them get used to the dark.”

  His words echoed around, like they would in a cavern. Like they would if we were on a narrow ledge walking across a rock bridge. “Petroo…” I said, nervously.

  “Try looking down at the bridge,” he said.

  My heart stopped. My legs froze, and I said: “The what?”

  “Look at your feet,” he said. “Try and relax your gaze—the opposite of what you do in the light. Don’t ever force a skill, let it be one with you.”

  I imagined the scene. A vast cavern, a crumbling narrow bridge, monsters and beasts under, waiting, lurking, mouths open. My boots became vaguely clear, hazy, then they came into focus, became sharper, and I could see the ruddy red path we were on

  Either side, there was no vast drop, nothing more than a foot or two down, and a hollow in the passage’s side with a stony bottom and a few bales of branches and twigs.

  “The dwarves,” Petroo said. “They stash all the kindling this far back where normal folk can’t find it. It’s a good thing to learn, might save you if you’re ever stuck up a snowy mountain and seek shelter.”

  “And am I liable to be…stuck up a mountain? Is that going to happen any time soon?”

  Now I could make him out. He just looked a little hazy was all, and the tunnel, I could see that too, it just looked plain eerie.

  Congratulations! You can see in the dark. May you never stub your toe again. You have opened the skill, Night Vision. Now you can see the monsters that lurk in the bowels of the earth waiting to bite your head off.

  “Petroo?”

  “Yes, Alexa.”

  “Are there monsters down here?”

  When he didn’t answer, my stomach churned with fear. Then, a peculiar thing happened. It was almost like someone turning up the light gradually until I could see all around as if it was just very late evening.

  “There,” said Petroo. “The skill just kicked in.”

  “Okay,” I said, and hung back a bit. “Time to level up fast.” If he nodded, I couldn’t tell, he was instantly a vague haze. Everything closed in on me. Bad idea, Alexa, I thought. I grabbed his hand and we walked on. I’d level up in time…

  The tunnel continued for about fifty yards before it curled around and opened up to a small chamber. The path we were on was raised like before except on either side was a small, black pool.

  “It’ll get stranger,” said Petroo. “Remember, this is a dwarven trail—it’s not natural. To live underground they need kindling, water, shelter from the weeping rocks, and food, so don’t be surprised to see a little bit of everything if we stray close to one of their villages.”

  “They actually live underground?”

  “Dwarves?” said Petroo with more than a measure of surprise. “Where else would they live? Very, very few deep-down dwarves can venture up top. Learning day vision is not like learning night vision. If you’re used to the night, and you go out into the day, well, you can melt your eyes. That’s why dwarves have large, overhanging hoods and you can rarely see their faces.”

  “Oh,” was all I could think of to say, and we passed through the cavern.

  I relaxed my eyes again and focused on the rocks, though I didn’t look at my stat board, I knew I was piling on the night vision skill points, and it wasn’t long before I leveled up.

  Congratulations! You’re a natural. May the monsters be ever clearer to you. You now have level 2 night vision. At least you won’t go bump in the night.

  “Less of the jokes,” I muttered, wondering why the game itself had to keep mocking me. Petroo patted my back.

  “It is a test to learn the skill here—most people would just practice in a dark room.”

  We walked on and on, down and down, around and around, twisting, turning, passing other tunnels, diving down some. We climbed curling steps, jumped down the same. Once, we walked over a great, rope bridge above a fast and furious subterranean river. It was breathtaking, though a bit murky. Every now and then, Shylan and the rest came in to view, but Petroo seemed in no hurry to catch up to them.

  “It is a strange and complicated way the dwarf
takes to get to Merrivale,” he muttered, not once but a few times.

  How I wished for the glow of some Gilden veins, and strangely, how I wished for Billy Long Thumb. I missed the old bag of bones, and hoped he’d escaped the Choosers.

  A strange green glow appeared at the end of the tunnel we were in, and then I heard what I could only describe as a soft din, and I could smell a thin smell, like the whiff of something a long way off, but what it was, I couldn’t tell. As we got closer, I realized the glow was coming from the walls themselves. Touching them, a powder-like dry moss came off and stuck to my fingertips. The smells and the sounds grew stronger, and they gave me the distinct feeling that we were near a city.

  Petroo muttered something under his breath, but I didn’t quite hear it.

  Yet again, the tunnel bent away, and the glow became more intense until the walls, the floor, the arched ceiling all glimmered green, and then the tunnel opened up into a gigantic cavern. Shylan, Greman, Marista and Cronis were all standing and gawking down. We drew aside them, and I noticed Gromolor a little farther ahead in deep conversation with what looked like two dwarven guards, both holding double-bladed axes.

  As I stood and waited, I began to notice a few things about the cavern. It was much larger than I’d first thought, the cavern’s floor actually being the flattened tops of countless enormous stalagmites. I could see down between them, they looked like gigantic towers but made of glowing, wet rock, some pale yellow, others ruby red, some coated in the luminous green.

  Congratulations! You have gazed upon the dwarven city of Craggneargoh. A rare sight for any human. You have reached Level 3 night vision. Pay heed to the dwarves, much sense lies within a thick skull.

  Petroo gave me a strange look. “Showing off?” he asked.

  “What’s Craggneargoh?”

  “A place that is rarely seen by any other than dwarves. I wonder what Gromolor is up to.”

  “Up to?”

  “Well, this is hardly the way to Merrivale—plus look.” He pointed behind the dwarven guards.