‘I guess a good owner sees to her pony first,’ Kana said. ‘What happens next? I mean, what do we do now we’ve made it to Dvartim?’
‘Rest for a bit,’ Mimi said. ‘We’ll take a day to get our act together and then I guess we’ll start south. We could check the job notices here before we go…’
‘Probably a good idea,’ Constance said. ‘We got a good pay-out for this job, but we can’t be sure when the next one will come in.’
‘How come you guys got it?’ Kana asked. ‘I mean, if it was that lucrative, why didn’t someone from Dvartim take it?’
‘Well,’ Mimi said, ‘a lot of adventuring parties are larger than ours and splitting the reward up over more people makes it less lucrative.’
‘And most parties wouldn’t go into the Skygge Forest hunting goblins,’ Constance added.
‘Yeah, we’re just desperate enough to take something like that on.’
‘That is not an encouraging thing to say about your team,’
Aneshti pointed out.
‘No… No, I guess not, but you have to find out sooner or later.
We’re not exactly the most favoured adventurers in the world.’
‘Female mages,’ Constance said, ‘tend to get… the short end of the stick in these parts. It’s generally not so bad with other adventurers, but a lot of people don’t really trust sorceresses.’
‘First time I’ve heard that term,’ Kana said.
‘You’re lucky. You’ll hear it used about you enough in the future.’
‘Sounds like fun, but I can’t imagine that applies to clerics.’
‘It doesn’t,’ Mimi agreed. ‘But I have the purple hair and I follow Soansha. They call me Mimi Half-elven. They don’t really trust me either.’
Aneshti winced. ‘That’s not a particularly nice slur. Humans and elves can’t have children. Calling someone a half-elf isn’t nice in either culture.’
‘Okay,’ Kana said. ‘What’s Rain’s problem?’
‘Well, she’s not the strongest fighter in the world,’ Mimi said.
‘The others kind of look down on her. Don’t get me wrong, she’s really skilled with a sword, but she doesn’t hit as hard as others. And there’s something else, but that’s private. She can tell you if she wants. The three of us hooked up because, well, no one else wanted to join us. We tend to get the scraps as far as jobs go.’ The purple-haired woman brightened. ‘With the two of you on the team, however, we should be able to try more difficult quests. Maybe even some of the dungeons.’
‘It’s always been difficult for us to take enough supplies into a dungeon,’ Constance said. ‘We can’t take Ranulf down those, so it’s what we can carry. With you two, we don’t need to carry food and water, and that could make a lot of difference. And with Aneshti’s research spells, we only need to pack out the best finds. Uh, assuming we can find anything.’
‘Have we scared you off?’
‘No,’ Kana stated flatly. ‘A smaller party is better for us.’
Aneshti nodded at that. ‘I think we’ll learn more from you guys than we would if we were in a larger team. You’ve more flexibility too. A larger party is going to need to keep doing jobs, no matter what, and we have some things we need to do aside from dungeon diving. We’re looking for someone. Call it a quest, if you like. We’ll do some checking around here tomorrow while you guys are resting up. Hey, why does the guild have baths under it anyway? Aren’t their public baths in a city this size?’
Mimi seemed to be happy to allow the change of subject. ‘Oh, yeah, of course there are. The guild has extra-powerful filtration magic in this one and it’s just adventurers, so that’s good.’
‘Extra-powerful filtration?’
‘Uh-huh. It’s to deal with slime, mostly. Believe me, you can come up from a dungeon covered in stuff you don’t even want to know the name of.’
Kana grinned. ‘Now that might have scared me off.’
‘Oh, it’s not all that bad. I’ve only ever had my clothes dissolve once…’
29 th Sokarte.
The undercity of Dvartim was vast and sprawling. The tunnels spread wider than the city’s walls and ran deep into the ground, and they were poorly mapped because various sections had been dug, used, become disused, and been forgotten, sometimes centuries ago. Some areas had been forgotten, found again, been used for several decades, and then forgotten again. Some sections had been deliberately walled up for various reasons. It was a well-known ‘fact’ that there were hidden treasures in parts of the undercity now lost to the current inhabitants of the place.
Sometimes that ‘fact’ even turned out to be true.
What interested Kana more was how they were getting to the until-recently-lost crypt they were interested in. Near the entrance to the undercity they had used, they had stepped onto a platform set into a recess in the wall and, at a command from Constance, it had proceeded to drop down into the depths of the dungeons. It was a lot like an elevator, but silent and lacking in any obvious mechanism to make it work.
‘Okay, so how does this work?’ Kana asked.
‘Elevator spell,’ Aneshti replied. ‘I’ve never actually seen a permanent one before, but they’re not uncommon in deep mines and tall buildings where the owner has a lot of money.’
‘Some form of Levitation enchantment?’
‘It’s based on Levitation, yeah.’
‘Huh. Cool. So, Constance, do we have any more detail on this dungeon? Or are we just working off “there are zombies” and that’s it?’
‘Well, the job posting said that it’s a newly discovered section.
Uh, newly re discovered anyway. They’re not sure of the full extent because as soon as they cracked through the wall that was built to close it off, they started seeing zombies in old armour milling around and waiting to attack. There’s a seal of some sort stopping the undead from leaving the tunnel, but they can’t go deeper without getting rid of the zombies.’
‘How many are we talking?’ Rain asked.
‘They said they saw about a dozen, but there might be more further in. We’re getting paid to clear the whole section, though the request says there’ll be extra if it turns out to be a large dungeon.’
‘I wonder what’s keeping them back,’ Mimi said.
‘I’d guess at a Pentagram spell,’ Aneshti said. ‘Which means we won’t be able to just drop them with spells from outside. We could fire arrows over it, but they’re not that effective against the undead. We’re going to have to cross the barrier to get to them.’
‘And that means they can get to us,’ Rain finished. ‘We’ll have to keep them away for a few seconds before Constance and Kana can drop them.’
‘Constance?’ Kana asked. ‘I didn’t think you had many offensive spells.’
‘I’m better with undead,’ Constance replied. The light in the elevator was coming from the magic lanterns Mimi and Aneshti were carrying and it was not especially bright, but you could still see Constance’s cheeks reddening. ‘Another other reason I’m not exactly popular with other parties is because I… I’m a necromancer.’
‘Oh,’ Kana said. ‘Good for us today then.’ Aneshti did not say anything, which puzzled Kana a little, but whatever the reason, it could wait. ‘So, we go in, destroy some undead, check out the tunnels, and then we get paid. That about sum it up?’
‘That’s the size of it.’
‘Except that we’re not sure how many undead or what the size of the dungeon we’re dealing with is?’
‘That’s also about the size of it. Don’t go overboard on the power expenditure on the first encounter. We might have worse to come.’
‘What’s worse than zombies?’
The elevator came to a stop at another floor and Constance started off into the corridor they had arrived at. ‘Well, the absolutely worst case would be a lich, but that’s pretty unlikely. No self-respecting lich is going to lock itself up in a place like this. It’s probably just going to be zombies, and
tougher zombies.’
‘Swell. Let’s go roast some zombies.’
~~~
It took an hour to reach the tunnel where the zombies were waiting. It had clearly been sealed behind brick-sized stone blocks which had been cemented in place because you could see where people with sledgehammers had broken through the wall and the bricks were lying in two piles on either side of the two-metre-wide corridor.
Maybe ten metres in, something circular glowed faintly on the floor and, behind that, there were zombies. Someone had put light spells on the thoughtfully provided sconces just this side of the circle, so the small horde was quite visible. To Kana, they looked just as she would have expected. Well, she was used to the zombie apocalypse version: dressed in modern clothing and moaning for brains. These were wearing leather breastplates and helmets and carrying short swords. They looked fairly fast too, certainly no slower than a typical human. Aside from those variances, they were obviously walking corpses with dull eyes, greying skin, and vacant expressions. They were not what you would call scary, until you considered that they were real walking corpses .
Good thing this was all a dream. Except… There was that story about dying in real life if you died in a dream. Kana had not considered that particular possibility yet and now she was faced with a genuine fight against genuine undead monsters. Maybe if she died here, she would never wake up. Of course, maybe if she died here, she would immediately wake up in Japan. Which was a possibility but given that there was the death-equals-death option, this was probably not an idea open to experimentation.
Okay, so, defeat the zombies. Do not die.
‘I’m not liking this,’ Rain said. ‘They’re waiting right beyond that circle and the corridor’s too wide for me to push them back while you cast.’
‘Ah,’ Aneshti said, ‘but you can walk into the circle and attack them through it. They can’t attack you if you stay this side of the barrier. The magic won’t let them. They can’t even throw rocks through it.’
‘Okay, so maybe they’ll back out of sword range if I do some damage to them. Then we step through when Constance is ready to cast.’
‘That should work, yes.’
‘I knew you’d be useful to have around.’
‘Okay,’ Constance said, ‘we have a plan, let’s see how it works.’
Just as an experiment, Kana picked up one of the bricks from a pile and carried it down to where the glowing circle was keeping back the zombies. Closer up, it was clear that the circle had more to it than just a circle. Within it was a five-pointed star and there were various runes drawn within the points. It was the
product of a Pentagram spell, just as Aneshti had suggested. Kana stepped over the near edge of it, pulled back her arm, and lobbed the brick with all her might into the wall of zombies. It smacked into a cuir-bouilli breastplate and bounced off. The zombie did not even flinch.
‘So, I throw like a girl, but I can throw a rock at the zombies,’
Kana said.
‘U-huh,’ Aneshti said, ‘but if you tried a spell, that would stop at the edge of the circle.’
‘And they can’t even throw a rock at me?’
‘Nope. A magical creature can’t throw things over the edge, from inside or out.’
‘And that makes sense?’
Aneshti giggled. ‘I suppose that depends on whether you’re using magical logic or not. That’s the way Pentagram works. Uh, it looks like someone took the time to carve the circle into the floor, so we don’t need to worry about breaking it. You should be able to swing away without trouble, Rain.’
‘If she can, I guess I can,’ Kana said, readying her staff.
‘Guess so. Just don’t bother trying to use any spell through the barrier.’
‘Then let’s do this,’ Rain said, and she swung her sword at the nearest zombie to her. There was no room for the thing to dodge, so it tried to block with its sword, but Rain’s massive bastard sword blasted right through to smash into the zombie’s leather helmet, cutting through that without difficulty and then slicing into the skull and brain beneath. The zombie gave a shudder and then collapsed, ending up leaning against the circle as its
‘friends’ pressed in around it.
‘Doesn’t look too hard,’ Kana commented. She brought her own weapon down on the head of another zombie, putting a dent in its helmet. It did not, however, collapse as Rain’s had done. Kana pouted. ‘Mine didn’t die.’
‘Put your back into it more,’ Rain suggested, dropping a second zombie with an overhead chopping blow.
Kana did not get the chance. Almost as one, the zombies backed down the corridor until they were out of reach of Rain’s blade.
The one Kana had hit moved noticeably more slowly than the others and almost seemed to be in pain. Kana doubted they really felt pain, but maybe having a big dent put in your brain could cause enough neurological damage to mimic the effect. The two truly dead ones could now collapse onto the stone properly and wasted no time in doing so.
Constance immediately stepped over the edge of the circle, raising a hand. ‘Control Zombie!’ she said and a circle flashed into existence in front of her palm. It had a dark, purplish, rather unpleasant colour to it, but it lasted only an instant. A similar circle popped into existence around the head of one of the zombies and then vanished again. ‘Kill the other zombies,’
Constance ordered, and then she was stepping back across the circle before any of the undead could respond. Her new minion turned immediately and swung its sword at its nearest ex-colleague. ‘I’m sure it won’t last long, but it will keep them busy for a few seconds.’
It did not really look like the newly friendly zombie was going to do that much damage to its compatriots, but it seemed determined to try, and the others had turned to trying to take it down instead of worrying over the party.
‘Right,’ Constance said. She stepped back over the circle line and raised her hand once more. The circle which formed in front of her was larger this time and it was mirrored by an even bigger one which formed under the zombies. Both were the same nasty purple that her Control spell had generated. This time, it was clear that they were revolving as she focused on an active spell.
Kana stepped up beside her and raised her staff, pointing it toward the zombies. A red-orange circle appeared at the end of her staff, but Kana did nothing with it. She wanted to see what Constance’s spell would do first.
‘Turn Zombie!’ Constance exclaimed and the circle beneath the zombies flared into life. Dark light rose up, flaring against each of the zombies caught in the circle. Two of them more or less immediately turned and rushed away down the corridor. The others jerked as though struck, and some of them turned toward the party again.
‘Fireblast,’ Kana said. A bolt of orange flame shot from her circle and lanced out into the middle of the zombie group. Then it exploded. The heat licked at Kana’s skin, but it did rather more damage to the zombies. The nearest to the impact point were left burned and staggered and there was smoke rising from the ones further away. But they were mostly still standing and that was a problem.
‘Ice Missile!’ Aneshti said. A sphere of ice flew past Kana to hit one of the zombies in the breastplate. The leather caved in, ribs broke under the impact, and the weight of the projectile tossed the creature back a metre and off its feet.
‘Stone Missile!’ That was Mimi, demonstrating that she was not just a support class. A second zombie ended up on its back, but now the others were closing in, even if some were holding back to continue working on Constance’s converted one.
Kana said, ‘Flame Touch.’ A red circle formed at her hands and then swept up the length of her staff. As the zombies closed in, she thrust her staff out at the chest of the nearest. The blow did little damage, but the fire which exploded out from the impact point inside the armour was a lot more effective. But the things were way too tough for comfort. ‘I’m going to need to do something big!’
‘We’ll hold them,’ Rain said.
She punctuated the statement by beheading one of the zombies, which did not seem like ‘holding’
them, but whatever.
‘Water Jet!’ Aneshti shouted and her staff turned into a hose.
Not literally but a jet of pressurised water exploded from the end of it, smacking into a zombie and driving it back. In truth, she was not the best melee fighter in the world and this probably worked better for her.
Constance, it seemed, was not any better with her staff than Aneshti was, but she had an alternative trick to help. ‘Blur.’ It had to be some sort of illusion, but suddenly she was, well, a blur. Swords came at her, but they missed as the zombies struck at images which were not really where the necromancer was. Mimi seemed able to handle her staff well enough in defence, if that was all she did. Rain, of course, had her sword and she concentrated on blocking attacks coming in against her and the others.
Kana focused her will and began charging a Fire Swarm spell. The damn zombies were hard to put down. She was going to have to put a lot of power into it, and that meant it was going to take time to build. That was the thing with Fire Swarm: the more damage you wanted to do, the longer it took to cast.
‘Faster,’ Aneshti suggested. Her water jet knocked down another zombie, but she was not enjoying herself.
‘You can’t rush magic,’ Kana replied.
‘Try!’
‘Yeah, right. Step back!’ The others retreated a step as Kana pushed her staff forward with its broad circle at the end.
‘Right. Fire Swarm!’ A wave of exhaustion swept over Kana and she staggered back from the fighting. The next thing she knew, she was sitting in the Pentagram circle with Mimi leaning over her.
The Girl Who Dreamed of a Different World Page 14