Arrival

by William Dickey

  “Talk about insane luck,” said Zelus.

  The others nodded their accent, but stopped complaining, my story may have seemed implausible but my discovery couldn’t be denied.

  “Well, if that’s all then let’s go,” I said before walking up to the metal surface and placing the keycard against it. The door melted away.

  They all seemed a bit stunned at the melting door so I had to snap them out of their daze. “Come on,” I said, waving them inside as I stood in the doorway. I knew the door would close as soon as I stepped through. “Just stay in this first room the next one has monsters.”

  They started shuffling into the empty chamber. It was dark and none of them had the benefits of Mai enhanced super sight, so I pulled out my bag of light cubes, turned a few on and tossed them down the empty hall.

  The light cubes did the trick lighting the place up. My companions, seeing the coast was clear, sped their entry into the room. Once everyone else was inside, I joined them, the door melting back into place behind us.

  Chapter 30: Underground

  Bolevard was sick of it, the endless marching, the constant setting up and taking down of tents, the miserly taste of a soldier’s provisions. This was not what he’d signed up for. He’d joined the army for adventure and advancement. He expected a chance to prove himself. In the nights before their departure from Crystalpeak, Bolevard had dreams of victory in battle, of fame and glory, of being surrounded by throngs of adoring women attempting to curry favor as all other men jealously glared at him.

  That is what Bolevard expected when he gave up his job as a store clerk. That is what the recruiter had sold him on, but rather than fight, Bolevard was given menial tasks. The real fighting was only for experienced men. How could he get any experience if they never gave him a chance? It wasn’t as if they’d seen any large battles yet. So far, they hadn’t seen any beastmen at all. Small groups of men patrolled ahead of the main company’s path, clearing away all of the untamed monsters of the wilderness. Bolevard burned with fury. He wanted his shot, his chance at proving himself. But no, he was relegated to being a go-for and a gopher. Boulevard spent his days handing out rations and digging latrines.

  “Hey Bullytard, stop daydreaming,” hollered the overseer. “I gave you that shovel for a reason boy. Now start digging.”

  Bolevard put aside his regrets and went back to work. He would have abandoned the army and returned home, but then he’d be branded a traitor and there were far worse things in this world than a stint of poorly paid hard labor.

  I passed a few of the light cubes to each of my companions in case they needed them then handed the bag to Albert. Most of the time he was just going to hide in the back, the least he could do was set up the lights as well.

  “Titania straight ahead,” I said indicating the door in front of us. “The next room has large stairway and doors leading all over the place. There are vine monsters so be careful not to get too tied up.”

  “Rose, Zelus prepare your fire magic.”

  “Albert, make sure we can all see what we are doing and use this to seal the doors as we walk by. We will focus on clearing this room before entering any others and I don’t want monsters attacking us from behind.”

  I passed Albert another sack, this one full of an extremely powerful adhesive I’d picked up in the artificer’s shop. It was meant for repairing damaged artifacts, but I’d bought out the store’s supply just to block doors because it only took a simple sigil to absolve the goo of its adhesive properties.

  ‘Remember what I told you before,’ said Mai. ‘The upper floors will mostly be storage, offices, bedrooms, and the like, nothing interesting. But the ground floor may have something more. Since the plants feed off of mana, you can expect the more powerful ones on the lower floors, closer to the ley lines.’

  “Titania, go ahead,” I said. We entered the massive cylindrical seven story main hall. Like before, I could see bits of the vine monsters hanging off the railings and stairways doing down all the way to the ground floor. Unlike before, the vines shifted to attack the moment we entered. Apparently, two days away wasn’t enough to calm them down after I killed one of their kin.

  “This isn’t so bad,” remarked Titania as she pushed forward at a frightening pace.

  “Wow,” was all I could say. Titania’s sword danced back and forth rapidly slashing down all the vines in her path as if her massive blade were weightless.

  ‘You shouldn’t be that surprised,’ said Mai. ‘She is level 63, which means she way outclasses you.’

  According to Mai’s readout, Titania was the most powerful in the group. Rose and Zelus both were in the mid-forties. I was at level 34. And Albert was level 12 but that was only because he never did much fighting, preferring the comforting aromas of the kitchen to the metallic smell of the battlefield. This disparity wasn’t surprising. The people of this world grew up in a harsh, kill or be killed environment and accordingly the average person had a level in the forties.

  As Titania approached the vine monster’s central eye bulb, the vines grew thicker. Soon she couldn’t cut through the vines with a single slash. She would need two, sometimes three, cuts to get through and with the vast number of vines even Titania’s blurrily swift strikes weren’t enough to keep up.

  “Could use some help here,” said Titania.

  “Got it,” said Rose as she cast a wall of flame between Titania and the eye-bud. The fire didn’t last long, Rose was still relatively inexperienced, but it did the job. Many of the vines burned down allowing Titania’s hacking to keep up.

  ‘We have a bit of a problem,’ said Mai, pointing downstairs towards the other vine bulbs. They were slowly making their way up towards us and at that rate would make it to us before we could finish off the first.

  “Hey, guys, we’d better speed this up,” I said, pointing out the other plant monsters.

  “Albert, could we get more light downstairs? I think I have an idea,” said Zelus.

  “I vould do anything for such a pretty boy,” Albert chuckled as he lobbed down a few more light cubes, turning the lower region from hazy silhouettes to compete clarity.

  ‘Anything? Now that’s something I’d pay to see,’ said Mai. ‘Zelbert all the way.’

  Zelus concentrated his power, creating dozens of illusionary rabbits bouncing up and down the stairs along several floors. They were so realistic I doubt I would have been able to tell they were an illusion if he hadn’t made them a particularly exotic shade of violet.

  The eye-vines however were fooled. Rather than come to the aid of the one we were focused on, they busily swatted at the illusionary bunnies.

  “Rose, another fire wall,” I said not wanting to miss this chance.

  Rose cast another flame wall. This time I charged through it. The flames cooked my skin, searing nerves across my body even through my heavy leather trench coat and armor but it was necessary to force back the vines, allowing me to get close enough the stab it with my spear. After half a dozen sharp thrusts to its eye, the creature collapsed its limp vines strewn every which way.

  “One down, six more to go.”

  Over the next hour, the rest of the vine monsters died much like the first. Rose and Titania dealt with the vines while I handled the eye-bulbs with my spear. Zelus kept the other monsters distracted so we only had to face one at a time and Albert slapped the artifact goop on the various doors we passed so no surprises came from behind.

  You gained 17337 EXP

  You gained a level

  “Whew, that’s the last one,” I said.

  “I enjoyed that,” said Rose.

  “Speak for yourself,” said Zelus, collapsing to the ground. I couldn’t blame him. Unlike the rest of us, he didn’t get to rest between opponents; he had to maintain his illusions the whole time.

  “Could you get that last door?” I asked Albert. “I think we’re all going to take a break for a while.”

  “Zure,” said Albert. “Den I’ll vip up zomethin
g to help you guys recharge dose dynamos.”

  “That’d be great,” said Zelus.

  “And what do we have here?” said Rose. She was staring towards a collage of life sized golden statues placed at the center of the ground floor. All were humanoid but few were entirely human. Some possessed unusually fine, pointed features. Others had a human upper body but their lower body was of a horse or serpent. Others still had stranger forms that were not as easily defined.

  ‘They are the races of Tautellus, all of them,’ answered Mai, which I repeated for Rose.

  She took a closer look at the figures. “I recognize the elves, dwarves and centaurs from stories. I guess the armored wolf could be a beastman, but what about the others. This insectoid creature looks quite frightening.”

  ‘The insectoid came from the continent south of here. They are surprisingly intelligent creatures which is a shame since they are also carnivorous,’ said Mai, which I again repeated for Rose.

  “Continent?” she said.

  “Other lands far away. This statue… This entire ruin comes from a past far more developed than at least Xebrya is in the present, a time when people collaborated with each other across the world,” I said.

  “Interesting,” she said but her tone indicated otherwise. She seemed far more interested in what Albert was cooking and sure enough after a moment, she left to take a closer look.

  “I wonder what that one is,” I murmured. I was talking to myself but Mai still answered.

  ‘That is a Traveler,’ she said, much to my surprise. The Travelers were the race that created the game-esque interdimensional travel system.

  I took a good look at him. He looked decidedly more human than many of the figures, but at the same time was different from the rest. The others were so vividly expressive that they looked alive, while the Traveler was strangely stony. His eyes were cold and lips set in the slightest of frowns. He looked like a person who’d seen too much, suffered too much.

  “What’s that over his eye?” I asked. On the left side of the Traveler’s head was a slate grey device that looked like a half-visor. The device covered his ear before extending out and in front of his left eye. The part of the device over his eye was semi-transparent so you could still see the eye behind it. The device was especially noticeable because it was the only part of the whole series of statues, that wasn’t gold. It almost looked like the real deal.

  ‘The Travelers wore them. They allowed them to, among other things, analyze local energy signatures and communicate long distances with both each other and the AI’s under their command. The Travelers looked so human the only things that distinguished them were their devices.’

  “So they always used them,” I said.

  ‘They relied on many devices until they were more machine than man. Although I suppose,’ she said in her normal voice before shifting to a decidedly deeper one. ‘They’re more man now than machine.’

  “Huh?”

  ‘Now that they’re dead. Only the living die,’ she explained.

  “Izaac, dinner is ready,” Albert announced. “Get dose seshty buns offer here before it gets cold.”

  “Coming,” I replied as I left the Traveler statue behind and joined the others.

  “Albert this is delicious,” said Rose taking another big bite of jambalaya.

  “This is nothing. You should try his astaroth steak in lemon vodka sauce,” said Zelus.

  “You know Albert’s restaurant?” I asked.

  “Of course. It’s all the rage in the outer city. Albert could double his prices and still have a line out the door,” said Zelus. “People in the inner city would be raving about it too, if they ever bothered going outside.”

  “Really?” I said. I had noticed Albert’s place had always been busy but I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.

  “Must agree,” said Titania. “Enjoy the Jiminori Sashimi."

  “Dank you. You are all fery sveet. I chust hope dis goes ein long vay in helping you recoffer your fikorous energies,” said Albert.

  We all gratefully downed Albert’s food. Its effect on our stamina was amazing. Everyone had seconds. Zelus had thirds. But after a good rest it was time to get back to work.

  “You ko ahead,” said Albert. “I’ll sday here and finish zedting up camp. From the look of dings ve are koing to haffe to spend the night.”

  “What? Are you sure?” asked Rose. “It's going to be a lot of fun.”

  “I am zure. I am not like you guys, vanding to sdir up trouble,” said Albert. “Bezites I am more help here.”

  With that, the four of us started clearing out the rest of the site. We started from the top floor and worked our way down, clearing the rooms one at a time. Most of the rooms held monsters we had to fight but none were as bad as the main lobby. The enemies varied, everything from hallucinogen spouting teapot mushrooms to clawing crab grass, but all were plant themed and were easy work for fire. For the rest of the day we fought, gradually growing closer as we got used to each other’s fighting styles. And by the end, I unexpectedly realized I was enjoying myself.

  “One of the jumpers is coming on my left,” Zelus warned.

  “I got it,” I said as I charged to his side and set the jumping bush on fire with the backside of my rocket spear. The way the bushes leapt all over the place, ramming through whatever crossed their path, was quite annoying. They couldn’t do much damage but for an illusionist like Zelus who required consistent focus, they were problematic.

  Once it was on fire, I stabbed it a few times with my spear just to be sure. They had a habit of playing possum.

  You gained 1312 EXP

  That left only one enemy left, a large tomato tree. I call it a tomato tree because of the multitude of bright red ellipsoidal fruits filling its branches, but I could only wish they were tomatoes.

  The plant fought by throwing its fruit at any attackers. The fruit would explode on contact, spewing sticky juices that formed instant bonds like rubber cement.

  Titania charged in to finish it off.

  “No, let me get it,” Rose shouted, but it was too late.

  Titania swung her blade vertically in a long over the head swing. Her blade hit its target perfectly, the weight of the seven-foot sword more than enough to spit the trunk of the tomato plant right down the middle. The plant’s body fell to either side of the blade, rattling all the remaining tomatoes and causing them all to explode violently, saturating the area and its occupants with their sticky juices.

  “I tried to tell you to not to do that. If you let me burn it we wouldn’t have to put up with this gunk,” said Rose as she struggled to free her feet from the sticky liquids only to lose her balance and get her butt stick in it as well.

  “Hmm,” mumbled Titania as she easily pulled herself free. “Don’t know what the big deal is.” Fully covered in her armor, not a single drop of the stuff touched Titania directly. Rose on the other hand wasn’t so fortunate. Originally, she had been far enough back that the stuff only got on her legs and feet. After she fell over, the ends of her long red hair were stuck to the stuff as well.

  “Let me help you,” offered Zelus.

  “Get away from me. Who knows where those hands have been?” Rose huffed. “Isaac could you give me a hand.”

  “I assure you I’m not contagious, princess,” said Zelus, holding out a hand.

  To which Rose could only grumble, “Isaac, over here.”

  I went over and helped Rose out.

  “Thanks,” said Rose as I helped her to her feet.

  “Let’s call it a night,” I announced much to everyone’s relief. We had spent the whole day clearing out rooms and only had the lowest floor left. I know it might have seemed like a good idea to press on and finish, but Mai said the most substantial rooms would be on the lowest level. All the other rooms we had cleared seemed to be empty bedrooms and office space, no kitchen, no infirmary, no command center, nor any other specialized area you’d expect in a facility of this size. T
he absence of anything of significance in any of the rooms had started to worry me. I had spent my precious reward on the key in the hopes of finding something useful inside, but so far there had been only the plants, much of which I had already promised to Albert. So far, it seemed like the Travelers had cleaned the place out before vacating it.

  “Hey, hov did it ko?” said Albert when we got back to the main lobby. Several beds had been set up and Albert had something stewing over the fire that smelled heavenly.

  “Everything went smoothly. I thought you might want these,” I said passing him a couple sacks full of plant remains. “How about you?”

  “Zetting up camp vent fine and cooking…” Albert trailed off, but we both knew the cooking went well. “But zomething strange happened vile you vere kone.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Dere vas dis avful banging coming from dat door.” Albert pointed to one of the doors on the lowest level. “It vorried me zo I tripled up the glue. The banging sdopped afder ein few minudes and I haffen’t heard anything for the last hour.”

  “You think it was more monsters?” I said.

  “Yes. And I dink zomeone should sday avake tonight chust in caze,” said Albert.

  “I was going to recommend we sleep in shifts anyway,” I agreed.

  “Guut.”

  We all sat down and had dinner. After dinner, we shared some stories over the fire. Somehow, this ragtag group of misfits seemed to work. When we went to bed, we slept in shifts to make sure no surprises came from any of the as of yet unexamined portions of the facility. I took the middle shift because it was the least desirable since sleep was disturbed in the middle. While Albert took the last shift so he could get started on breakfast. This was a mixed blessing though. The smell of fatty bacon is a good way to be awoken; I only wished I had been able to get some more sleep first.