by Ramy Vance
If you get nothing else out of this Author Notes, ignore the other two authors and get yourself over to Cheesecake Factory.
It’s good.
Oh, I suppose I should exhort you to enjoy reading and buy more books. If you don’t know what books to buy, look for the name Michael Anderle on the cover.
Now I’m done.
Diary June 14 – 20, 2020
So, Las Vegas is a little weird right now. You have pockets of people who are very Covid-19-aware around the valley area, and then you have the casinos. Some of the casinos are very Covid aware and more stringent, and others aren’t.
No casino (that I’ve been to) mandates wearing a mask.
The Station Casinos shoot that temperature gauge at you when you enter their establishment but are pretty open after that.
Caesar’s Hotel and Casino (for this latest weekend) was packed with people, and they try to encourage social distancing, but occasionally people get a little close together—and by occasionally, I mean all of Friday night.
I can’t speak to Saturday or Saturday night since I didn’t get to continue playing. My budget was used up, so I worked and slept most of Saturday, catching up from some mixed up sleep during the week.
I’m at the Green Valley Hotel and Casino. Sitting in the food court, I can see at least twelve people playing on the casino floor. The mask to no-mask ratio seems to be about even, except for the person who has a mask, but is smoking, so the mask is pulled down.
I’m going to count that as a no-mask.
Here in the food court, the mask ratio is about one person with a mask to twenty without one.
We are fifteen feet from the slot machines.
I get why those of us in the food court have no masks (and there is no difference when I go to regular restaurants. Once a person sits down at a table, the masks come off almost immediately.)
I think I will be about done with these updates starting next week. Enough of my diary entries have dealt with Covid-19 and Las Vegas, it’s time to just…talk about other stuff.
Like books, maybe?
Sometimes, it’s hard to remember what readers want to hear about in our (author and publisher) lives. I eat, sleep, and breathe publishing and stories at this point in my career, and what’s normal to me (and seems like would be boring to you) is probably not.
As always, THANK YOU for reading our stories. We would not be able to create the wonderful stories without readers like you supporting us!
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
End of Beginnings
Dark Gate Angels Book Seven
Prologue
Somewhere else, sometime else…
This is a place between realms and dimensions. Imagine an immaculate gold sidewalk. As you are walking, you notice a crack, but wonder how a crack could be in a place such as this? It is that kind of place, a place of non-existence, yet existence. A paradox.
There is a castle, but it is not built from stone. Instead, it is molded from flesh, but not that of any mortal creature. The hollowed-out body of Lord Hahmoroth, an elder god worshipped before the elves learned to take their first steps.
His body stretches for an eternity, decaying and living, dead yet dreaming, and these dreams occasionally touch on the realms around, unaware of the crack.
Within this dead god, there is something worse.
A creature abhorred by all mortals. Her curse is mentioned in stories and legends—always a cautionary tale, for she gained knowledge not meant for mortals.
Knowledge that once acquired begins to rot and twist, to distort and destroy.
Rasputina the lich wanders down the narrow halls of the dead god, silently, deep in her own thoughts, which span the course of thousands of years. If a mortal were to investigate her mind, they might be driven insane. The same could be said of an old god. Even the mad can only take so much.
She has been here for some time, but time means nothing in a place such as this. The home of her studies, profane knowledge that not even the gods are supposed to possess. Her insides, if you could call them that, are lined with eyes that perceive that which has no physical or psychic existence.
And it is here that she rages.
Her study is a depiction of suffering. The walls are lined with corpses that alternate between having skin and being pulled inside-out.
Their screams became white noise to Rasputina a long time ago.
The only screams she ever hears anymore are her own.
Rasputina was screaming and ranting, unaware of where she is, her mind fractured in ways she cannot comprehend. There were voices, many of which she could not understand, speaking languages she had never heard. Always new languages. It is as if her mind were full of existence being born and dying at the same time.
Rasputina casts a spell to remember, and in the glimmer before her, she sees something she has forgotten.
Herself.
Who she was.
It is here, in both the past and present, that Rasputina finds herself. It is here, in both the past and present, that Rasputina remembers her purpose: to conquer Death once and for all.
Chapter One
There is a forest in Middang3ard that is known for its wild honey. Deep within it, there is a cave, and within that cave, a dungeon. This dungeon could be found past a massive elm tree attended to by swarms of bees.
The Dark Gate Angels have been walking through this dungeon for nearly an hour, because their boss, the most powerful wizard in the Nine Realms, told them to do so in a dream.
If Myrddin didn’t have powers beyond comprehension, Anabelle might have dismissed this dream quest and stayed home. But she’d seen him do incredible things, so here they were.
Why Myrddin needed them to dungeon-delve in Middang3ard was unclear. The wizard had chosen to go all Yoda on them, saying cryptic shit rather than spelling it out.
He did spell out one thing, though: this quest might be the key to finally, once and for all, defeating the Dark One.
Anabelle led the disparate group of friends, special agents in Myrddin’s task force. Their main focus was tracking and destroying Dark Gates, transportation portals the Dark One had grown exceptionally good at implanting for the slow siege of Earth.
The elf was tragically beautiful, even by elvish standards. If she were to stand still, it would be impossible to tell her apart from one of the ancient elvish statues of their gods.
Terra followed her, crouching to avoid hitting her head, which was freshly shaven. Her axes hung loose across her back. She tried to keep an eye out for creatures scurrying across the walls. The more legs, the worse. Furry wasn’t too bad, though.
Abby brought up the rear. She was the youngest of the three, not even out of high school yet...although from the way she carried herself, you’d never know.
She was just as battle-hardened as the rest of them.
As Abby walked, her eyes searched the slick walls of the dungeon, looking for anything of importance.
So far, the dungeon had been straightforward. They had gotten the door open and were following an invisible route.
Terra stumbled in the dark and fell forward, bumping Anabelle, who yelped as she fell forward. “Terra, I’m not going to tell you again; take smaller steps. I’m not a giant like you,” Anabelle growled.
“Maybe if it was possible to see two feet in front of me, I wouldn’t trip,” Terra shot back. “I wonder what this would be like if someone could, I don’t know, magically light our path for us.”
Anabelle raised her hand, causing it to glow faintly, not nearly enough to light their path. “I already told you, I can’t. Ever since that fight with Grok, I’ve had to conserve my mana. It’s not like before. There’s like a wall or something, keeping me from accessing all my power.”
Abby, who had pushed to the front of the queue, cleared her throat. “It’s called PTSD, Belle. Maybe you should see one of the counselors?”
Anabelle flicked her fingers, sending spark
s flying. “I know what it’s called, Abby. That doesn’t mean a shrink can help me with it. Besides, we only have human therapists now. How am I going to unload hundreds of years of baggage on a human? It might break their mind.”
Terra’s stomach grumbled and she looked down at it, embarrassed. “You’d be surprised what a good therapist can do. Before I got abducted for the arena, I used to go to one all the time. Helps to have someone to talk to sometimes.”
“What’s there to talk about? I got tortured for a week, didn’t kill the person who tortured me, and now I having trouble accessing my powers, which is strange because the Path of the Travelers is obtained through great stress, effort, and pain. In theory, at least, the torture should have made me stronger, not cut me off from my power, but it did. It’s basically gone.” Anabelle took a deep breath before continuing. “Power that, might I add, is linked to my emotional and spiritual health? You know, now that I said it out loud, it sounds like some basic character flaw from a two-bit writer.”
Abby laughed as she crouched and stared at the stalactites hanging over her. “Maybe you need a writer to handle your character growth. We feel like you’d be a good fit for a tragic, ironic hero.”
Terra raised her hand to cut off the conversation. “Okay, nerds, some of us didn’t take AP literature and might end up dozing off from your riveting literary analysis. If you two are going to geek out, how about we do it over food?”
Anabelle’s stomach growled as if it were trying to take part in the conversation. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. Who’s got fire duty this time?”
Abby raised her hand. She looked around the area of the dungeon they were in, scooping up as much wood as she could find. Then she got to building a fire, which was crackling in a few minutes.
The three gathered around it. Terra pulled a few chunks of goat meat out of her knapsack and handed them to Anabelle. “Please don’t char them this time.”
Anabelle snatched the meat and skewered a piece on her knife. “Like I told you last time, if you want it cooked a certain way, you can do it.”
Terra glared at Anabelle as she leaned back against a rock. “If you have the indecency to think that a burned steak is edible, I will tolerate it. An orc chieftain is used to a certain kind of culinary—”
“By the fucking gods, Terra, I won’t burn your steak!”
Abby snickered from across the fire. “You don’t have to worry about ours, Belle. We don’t have a need for taste, only nutrients.”
Anabelle’s eyes widened and she gasped. “No, not you too, Abby! You can’t turn on me.”
Abby raised her hands as she shrugged. “We’re neutral. The steak will be what decides.”
Anabelle grumbled as Abby and Terra snickered. She didn’t crack a smile until Terra shoved her playfully, almost knocking her over.
Terra pulled a jug of mead from her knapsack and passed it around. “You know it’s not just you, Anabelle. I’ve been having trouble too. I don’t feel like I’m as strong as I used to be. Doesn’t matter what I do. It’s like…I don’t know, nothing’s exciting enough. Can’t seem to get my blood pumping, and if the blood’s not pumping, these guns ain’t working.”
Anabelle handed Terra one of the goat steaks. “Looks like Abby’s the only one who still has any juice.”
Abby took a steak from Anabelle and looked it over. “That is not true. Our powers are greatly reduced as well. We placed this body under a lot of stress over the last few weeks. Pushing it any further could be detrimental. Martin has placed a cap on the number of nanobots we can generate and control.”
Anabelle drank from the mead jug. “And Roy has us exploring dungeons instead of out there fighting. Dungeons! What am I, a MERC recruit?”
After they finished eating, Terra stood and stared down the dungeon’s dark tunnel. “We should probably get going unless you guys want to be in here all day.”
The rest of the DGA got to their feet, and each grabbed a flaming piece of wood to use as a torch. “You should think of it as a team-building exercise. Like playing D&D or something,” Abby said.
They turned a corner, and Terra used her torch to burn away a giant spider web. “Why the hell would we have to play D&D? Let me roll for…uh…whatever the hell you use the dice for. It’s like gambling, right? You have to place bets or something.”
Anabelle pretended to push up a pair of glasses and spoke in a nasal voice. “Uh, I think the dragon is about to pounce on us, guys!”
Terra and Anabelle laughed as Abby blushed. “You guys haven’t even played D&D. You’re just spouting nerd clichés.”
Terra pounded her chest with her torch hand. “Dude, my life is D&D. I’m an orc chief, and Anabelle’s an elf wizard monk or something. Granted, not as cool as a…”
“Class,” Abby answered. “They’re called classes.”
“Yeah, orc chief is definitely cooler than elf monk.”
Anabelle’s mana flashed brightly for a second as she turned around. “Do you not know how to say anything other than the most aggravating statements?”
Terra grabbed Anabelle and pulled her in for a crushing side hug. “If I weren’t annoying you, how would you know that I love you?”
Anabelle clawed away from Terra and bumped into the wall. “I don’t know. Gifts, maybe? Compliments? Or perhaps, heaping praise on me?”
Terra shook her head as she breezed past the elf. “Nah, that sounds pretty boring.”
Abby had stopped walking. She pointed at the wall that Anabelle had fallen against. “Uh, we think you guys might want to check that out.”
Anabelle and Terra came over to look at the wall. There was a circular panel carved into the stone that had been touched.
“Looks like a trap,” Terra said. “Damn, Anabelle, going around setting off traps and shit? Is this your first dungeon?”
Anabelle’s eyes narrowed. “This is your first dungeon too, and you were the one who pushed me into the wall. It doesn’t matter, though. If it were a trap, something would have happened by—”
The ground beneath the DGA agents opened, sending the three of them tumbling into darkness. They hit the ground with a muted thud.
Terra was the first to get up, staring up at the hole they had fallen through. “Is D&D usually this fucking annoying?”
Abby’s nanobots flowed over her hand, quickly converting it to a flashlight. She shone it around to get a feel for the dimensions of the room. “Usually there are sections where it seems the DM is padding to fill time.”
A whistle came from behind Terra, who froze. “You guys heard that, right?”
Abby spun, shining her flashlight in Terra’s direction. “Oh. You shouldn’t make any sudden moves, Terra,” she whispered.
Behind Terra was a creature with large bat-like ears and leathery skin. It had no eyes. Instead, a sloping forehead took up most of its face, which was covered in something like barnacles. The creature stood a head taller than Terra, and it bared its yellowed and sharp teeth as it clicked its tongue.
Abby held her finger to her lips as she pointed to her ear with the other hand.
Terra nodded as she slowly turned around, careful not to make a sound. She backed away from the creature to Abby and Anabelle. When she was close enough, she leaned over to the elf and whispered, “Can I take it?”
Anabelle looked up at the hole they’d fallen through. “Might be easier to get up there without wondering if something is going to pull us down. You think you got it?”
“I’m going to be pretty bummed if I can’t even handle a mole-man.”
Abby leaned forward. “That’s not a mole-man. Mole-men are a combination between a mole and a—”
“Abby, I know it’s not a—”
The blind creature let out a screech.
Terra sighed. “Maybe we should’ve talked about this after we killed it.”
The creature darted at Terra, moving extremely fast for something that lived in a hole, waiting for prey to fall in. It hit the human an
d knocked her into the wall as its jaws gnashed, trying to tear out her throat.
Terra hit the creature in the face, causing it to stumble back.
Anabelle grabbed the bat-creature and flipped it over her shoulder as Terra leapt into the air, bringing down her elbow on it after it hit the ground.
Terra reached over her shoulder and drew her axe as the thing scuttled about on all fours. “Are you guys going to help me?”
Abby and Anabelle exchanged glances. “Uh, we have to watch our power reserves in case we come across anything more dangerous.”
Anabelle crossed her arms as she leaned against the wall. “You are the superior class,” she mockingly mused. “This shouldn’t be hard for you to handle. I don’t even know if I would be of any help, being such a weak monk wizard.”
Terra grumbled as she looked around for the creature, which had fled into the dark. “Fine, I’ll take care of it.” She returned her attention to the blind monster, drew her other axe, and clanged the two together.
The creature leapt out of the dark at her, and she jumped to the side and brought one of the axes down on its neck. It wasn’t enough to cut through, but the monster hit the ground.
Terra stomped on its back, then swung her axe at its neck, cleanly severing its head from its body. “You see, that’s what I’m talking about! I take’em down with a slice.”
Abby looked at the opening above her and pressed her hand to the wall, her nanobots flowing out and building a ladder. “Whatever. Strong as you are, we should take the rest of this slowly.”
Chapter Two
