by Ember Lane
Remember the spider.
Darwanic struck, an exact swipe of his sword, and the beast howled, screaming in pain. Its blood pumped all over me. He struck again, and I began to wonder; maybe we could best it in time.
Damage! Darwanic has dealt the Beast Alastor 412 Damage. Strike enh 46%. All hail the king of Irydia! Alastor’s health is now 557/1999.
My own health was still fading fast. My head became light. 50/500—my protections were just too flimsy.
Remember the spider.
Brodgrat! I opened my mouth and let the beast’s gushing blood in, and felt a surge of power course through me. Dark power, and I felt its anger, and I felt my shadow mana grow.
Health restored! You have drunk the demon’s blood.
Darwanic had fallen, scattered back among the mages and soldiers. The beast lurched forward, reaching over the balcony, grabbing the valiant man. I jumped up, the beast’s own power now coursing through me, and I saw it had focused all its ire on Darwanic, and he was drawing it on. Our eyes met, and he willed me forward, willed me onto the beast, and I understood his intent. He could soak up far more blows than me. I was to strike while he kept the beast distracted. He bellowed again, laughing in Alastor’s face. All the while he chipped away at the beast’s health. It was under 400 now, and plunging fast, but Darwainic was fading too.
Clambering onto its arm, I ran up and sprang onto the thing’s shoulder, raising my sword, but not in a slash, more stabbing it down, plunging it into the beast, Alastor’s, neck.
“Ga farag a’tweeth,” I screamed at the top of my voice as spews of thick blood gushed over me. My shadow mana pool emptied into the beast with fury and vengeance.
Critical strike! Alexa Drey has dealt the Beast Alastor 490 damage. Strike enh 25% 2% Crit Strike. Shadow Mana deployed! Strike enh. All hail Alexa Drey! Alastor’s Health is now 0/1999. Demon Vanquished.
The beast staggered back, its arms reaching around, trying to grab me, and it took me away from the battlements. I saw Darwanic pull himself up, looking hopelessly out of it, saw the mages, saw the soldiers crowd the battlements, and heard their cheers. With all my might, I kept hold of the hilt of my sword, embedding the blade deeper in the beast’s neck.
“By all that I am,” I said, through gritted teeth. “Know this, beast. You are mine. I wear you as a trinket on my ear.” I pulled out the sword, raised it high, and chopped down on its neck. The beast fell, and I fell with it, into black, into oblivion, down we went.
Congratulations! You have killed the beast. Barakdor is a safer place. You are awarded 2500 XP.
Congratulations! You have passed 10,000 XP. You have leveled up. All hail Alexa Drey!
That familiar feeling crashed through me, though I could not tell where I was. I seemed to be in some kind of luminous bubble floating in a soup of dark. The usual exhilaration of leveling up absent as I sank into a void.
I woke in a pool of guts and blood, my sword in my hand, my garb shredded and ruined. Pushing myself to my unsteady feet, I took a breath and looked around. The plaque was gone, the corridor just a dead end.
Not even a ball for my troubles, I thought, but I’d had enough of that dungeon, and accepted I’d failed to master that task. Something inside me made me grin though, and as I headed back out of that place, I looked at my stats. A new attribute, Agility, had opened up, and a new skill level in swordsmanship. I only had level five, but thought it probably what I deserved. After all, one stab, one chop, doesn’t make a master. Touching my second ear stud down, a faint smile glossed my lips. “Gotcha,” I whispered to Alastor, and then I heard that distant cackle again, and it grew closer. I felt a cold wind on the back of my neck, and I picked up my pace.
The door to the outside was firmly shut, but I drew my sword and plunged it through the hole at its side. I felt the palm tip down and the door sprang open. Grog was nowhere to be seen, but I knew which way to go. Turning for the Dungeon Inn, I had a sudden urge to rinse the taste of the beast’s blood from my mouth. I checked my health, somehow half full, I’d settle for that, given what had just happened. Or had it? I wondered. For surely it was all just an illusion. Yet my tunic, pants, cloak and even my boots were shredded and coated in a sticky mess, and I doubted I was a pretty sight.
I ducked under the archway and into the inn, the lofty bubbling of idle chitter chatter was doused instantly, and all eyes fell upon me. That had happened once before, back, all that time ago at the Dragon And Unicorn. I wondered exactly what I had done. Clearly it wasn’t as simple as failing at a level ten dungeon.
Flip howled with laughter. “Cronis is right, what’s not to love? I swear she could find a fight in an empty cell.”
And Zybandian laughed too, as did Grog and Star, except she was also looking at my arm, her mouth agape.
“Where did you get that?” she said, her voice reverent.
A silver band was strapped tight around my upper arm, two dragons' heads biting on a ring, a heavy chain for their tails.
Congratulations! You have been given the Armband of the Warriors of Estorelll. Darwanic favored few, but you are one of his most trusted.
Armband of the Warriors of Darwanic: Strength plus 10, Sword skill plus 28% Item=unique Item=scalable.
Even I knew how precious it was. I slumped on the bench. “I never found the ball,” I muttered, and I swiped Flip’s ale and drained it.
Name: Alexa Drey. Race: Human. Type: Chancer.
Age: 24. Alignment: None. XP: 12,000. Level: 7.
Profession: None. Un/Al pts: 6. Reputation: Known.
Health Points: 250/500 Energy: 60/170 Mana: 40/180 Shadow Mana: 0/180
HP Regen: 50/Min EN Regen: 17/Min MA Regen: 13/Min SMA Regen: NA
Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Vitality: (12, 38), Stamina: (12, 5), Intelligence: (18, 0),
Charisma: (6, 6), Wisdom: (5, 8), Luck: (7, 5),
Humility: (2, 0), Compassion: (3, 0), Strength: (3, 15),
Agility: (1, 0)
Skills: (Level, % to next level, Boosts %, Level Cap)
Running: (5, 16, 25, 12), Perception: (3, 78, 0, 15), Commerce: (1, 0, 0, 6), Magic: (5, 1, 0, ∞), Concealment: (5, 40, 0, 15), Night-vision: (4, 6, 0, 10), Blades: (4, 10, 0, 25), Spell Casting: (2, 5, 0, ∞), Close-Q-fighting: (3, 17, 0, 25), Archery: (4, 56, 0, 28), Swordsmanship: (4, 22, 28, 20), Staff-fighting: (5, 56, 0, 60), Horseriding: (3, 23, 0, 8)
Talents:
Tongues of Time. The Veils of Lamerell.
Quests:
Seek out the Legend of Billy Long Thumb. Status: Incomplete. Reward: Unknown.
The Veils of Lamerell. Status: Incomplete. Reward: Death.
23
A Bridge To Nowhere
It appeared that they no longer trusted me. I couldn’t think why. Apparently, a level ten dungeon merely has a minor demon with a few small bugs to squish, some fairly big ant-like creatures that fire poison darts, and a huge, but usually quite dim beast at the end. That beast can normally be defeated by doing something as daring as chopping off its legs one at a time or finding a way to sneak up behind it. It doesn’t normally entail having your head fake-chopped-off, or fighting with ancient kings against epic demons conjured to the Earth by evil sorcerers using dank banes from another time. Oh well.
And, apparently, it was all my fault—well, according to Marista. I attracted trouble, and that was that. In order to keep me out of trouble, I’d had to stay in my room while my purple tunic was repaired, a bath had been drawn to cleanse me of beast guts, and I was to get some rest before the evening’s feast. I didn’t put up too much of a fuss—it had been a long day.
Trouble was, not twenty minutes after the bath, I was bored. I tried to nap, but either the demon’s blood still ran through my veins, or all the healing potions Marista had forced down my neck had somehow made my brain more alive than it had ever been. I wanted to explore the land, see every crease of the castle. I spied the clothes Zybandian had given me, and thought they would be perfect, thought I could walk
around the castle looking fairly normal—not like a pixie, as Star would say.
Dressed in the top, pants, boots and coat of the good lady of the castle who’d fell off its edge and plunged through the clouds; I pulled on the door to my room, ready to venture out.
Nope, nothing, damn thing didn’t budge. I tried pushing it—nothing. I took a step back, perplexed. Was I actually locked in? I walked up and down the room. It didn’t take me long. Trying the door again, nothing had changed. My temper began to gather.
Jumping on my bed, I looked out of the window, but could see naught but a fading, dusk sky. Did they really mean to lock me in until morning? I mean, it’s not like I got in a whole bunch of trouble—just a bit in the morning, and a little bit more during the afternoon.
I couldn’t see a lot, the rough-stone sill was about three feet thick, so I pulled myself up onto it and crawled in. Just as I got to the end, Grog’s head popped up.
“Arghhh!” he screamed, and fell back.
“Arghhh!” I screamed, and wondered where he’d fallen too.
Oh no…
I inched forward, peering over the window’s edge. The sheer drop made me gasp. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw Grog clinging to the tower wall. His tongue flicked out and wrapped around my wrist, and he pulled himself up. I backed up and into the room. Grog soon made the window and crawled in after me.
“That was a bit touch and go,” he said, patting his behind. “Seem to have gotten away with it.” Grog beamed a smile. “So, they locked you in?”
“On purpose?”
He nodded. “Sure, seems Sakina’s body is drained of evil and they’re ready to ship out tomorrow. Seems this place is a little too heavy on adventure for you to be let loose.”
I slumped onto my bed. “No fair,” I said. “I didn’t choose the dungeon—you did.”
“And that’s why I’m here,” Grog said, taking out one of his cigarillos. “I feel it might be my fault.”
“Well,” I pulled him down onto my bed and made him sit by me. “Couldn’t you just… By way of making it up to me… Perhaps… Climb back down, zip back up, and unlock the door.”
Grog nodded emphatically. “I could do that, yes. Yes, I could do that.” He blew a great plume of smoke in the air.
I clapped my hands with glee.
“Except she’d know.” He delivered his pronouncement with a large degree of finality.
“How?”
“Marista, she put an enchantment on the door.”
I was crestfallen. “Oh,” I dribbled, and my whole body sagged.
“We could go out thataway.” Grog pointed to the window.
“Good plan,” I muttered, tersely. “Except I can’t fly.”
“Me either,” the frog mused, and then his face brightened. “We’ll just climb down.”
“Climb?”
He looked me up and down. I got that stat-board-being-checked feeling. “Right,” he puffed and stood. “First off, we need to open up the skill. He reached out and pulled me up, leading me to a wall. “Now, look at it.”
I looked at the wall.
“See it?” Grog asked.
“What?”
“The way up.”
It looked like a wall.
Grog sighed. “There’s a way up and a way down everything. “Look up,” he barked. Then he dabbed at the wall. “Here, here, here and here,” he said.
Sure enough there were small indents or ridges—like really small.
“Now, get outta the way.” Grog barged me out of the way. He scooted up the wall right to the ceiling. “See,” he said, looking down.
“No fair,” I protested. “You’ve got suckers!”
“Suckers schmuckers, you don’t need them. All you gotta do it channel the energy into the tips of your toes and the ends of your fingers.” Grog jumped down. “Now, take yer boots off and get up there, else it’s going to be a long night for you.”
I managed it on the seventh attempt, though figuring out exactly how it happened, what worked that time, was impossible. Like a lot of things in this land, I just did it right. It was a balance between feeding energy into the wall, feeling at one with it, and leveraging the crack or ledge. I looked down at Grog. “Piece of cake,” I said.
“Eh?”
“Nothing.” I jumped down.
Congratulations! You have a new skill. The skill, Climbing should be respected. Many have tried to master it; many have fallen.
That one actually made me smile.
“Are you ready?” asked Grog, and then he appeared to remember something. He fiddled in his pockets and brought out a small, gray pouch. “Grasping powder,” he said, and untied its top. “Dip your fingers in.”
I half expected something to jump out; something to bite me, but my fingers just plunged into a sticky paste-like substance.
“Should help you stick,” he said, and winked. “I’d pop your swords and boots in your sack—climb light—always remember that.”
I followed Grog onto the windowsill and watched as he vanished over its edge. His face soon popped back up.
“Say, you think you’re a crawl-down type or climb down? Head up or head down?”
Definitely head up I thought. He vanished again. I edged over. I gulped.
It was a sheer drop, just looking at Grog holding onto its side made me feel kind of sick. Taking a deep breath, I edged over, a vision of Billy rowing his boat toward me passed through my mind.
“Hey, I’ve done worse,” I muttered, as my blood rushed to my head.
Who knew? I was a head-down after all. I had no idea what I’d dipped my fingers into, but man, oh man, it worked. I spilled out of the window and skittered right down the side of the tower.
“See,” said Grog. “Easy.”
I wasn’t sure about that, and once things settled I felt a little queasy as I stared along the plane of the plunging stone. As if he was telepathic, Grog set off and forced me to follow. “Don’t look back,” he yelled. “It’ll screw it all up.” I didn’t doubt him.
We scampered down, traversing the tower’s side, passing windows that would have seen us back on sure footing. By then, I was beaming from ear to ear and watching as I eased past level one climbing, level two and up to three. He finally snuck into an opening just above the clouds, his webbed hand reaching out and guiding me in.
“Fun?” he asked, his rubbery lips spreading from earhole to earhole.
“Fun,” I agreed, and looked around.
We were…lets face it, they all looked the same. Gray stone was definitely the in color at Castle Zybond. We were in one of those colored rooms, except this had a lofted, timber ceiling, and row upon row of pews all facing a stone alter upon which a slab of white marble lay.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“This?” Grog said, edging between the seating. “It’s some old temple—never used anymore. I think… Zybandian gets it cleaned up every now and then.” He shrugged. “Who knows, this world’s got so many gods, demons, religions, magics, it all gets confusing. Most places aren’t like it.”
“Most places?” I said, following Grog.
“Yeah, it’s not like it in Trappas Shyl.” Grog pushed the door open and we left the weird room. “Or any of the other lands.”
“Have you traveled to any other lands?” We were in a courtyard; I recognized it as the fourth keep’s, and saw the stone building rising up across the cobbled way. Fingers of mist curled around, making the whole place appear ghostly. A roar went up, filtering around, and Grog put his webbed finger to his lips. “Ssssh!”
“Shouldn’t we be hiding? This is the fourth keep, right? Isn’t this where they drink?” I whispered.
“They? Oh, Shylan and that. No, they all went down to try and figure out the dungeons—they’ll be a while yet.”
He took my hand and we inched along the temple’s edge, soon coming to a door in its side. Brushing away trailing ivy, Grog shoved the door. It opened with an ominous creak. We slipped in
, and he closed it gently behind us. My night vision kicked in.
We were in a ramshackle room of tumbled-over, dusty chairs, and tables, and canopies. “They had markets in the courtyard once,” Grog explained.
“Markets,” I repeated.
“Long ago, as you can tell. You can see alright, can’t you?”
“Fine.” I said. “Good.” I was a little bemused. “Why are we here?”
“You’ll see.”
Grog picked his way around the tumbled-over furniture and into the gloom. The piles of tables and chairs ended, and we came to a small clear area with just an open hatchway and the top of a ladder poking through.
“Where does it lead?” I asked.
Grog looked around at me. “You’ll see,” he said, winked, and hopped onto it, disappearing.
I shrugged and jumped on. Soon, I was scaling down the ladder through the very clouds themselves. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything. It was like it was just me, the ladder, and the clouds. Down I went, down and down, and the last of the sun glowed amber through it, lighting up the water drops around me and keeping me warm.
When the cloud ended, I glanced down, and then straight back up. The ladder carried on for another hundred yards, and Grog was already at its base. Its base, however, was just a narrow strip of black, the ground itself, way, way, below. I gulped.
“Slide!” he shouted up, and I wrestled with the knots in my stomach.
“Feel the fear,” I muttered to myself, “and go for it anyway!” I cried, and let my feet slip off the rungs, sandwiching the ladder between them, and I slid all the way down, whooping at the top of my voice. I jumped the last bit and landed with a jink right next to Grog.