Shade's First Rule

by A F Kay

  “Fabric? What in Uru’s name could this keep out?” Ruwen asked.

  Sift closed the door behind them. “Smell it.”

  He stared at Sift for a few seconds, but the young man seemed serious. Ruwen leaned close to the door and used his hand to waft the scent to him instead of just sticking his nose onto the door. A heartbeat later, Ruwen wrinkled his nose and stood up straight.

  Sift noticed how Ruwen had smelled the door. “You’ve had laboratory training?”

  “Some. Just the basics. Nothing fancy like a Merchant or Observer might learn.”

  “That’s good. We make many of our own supplies. So, what did you smell?”

  “Pickling acid,” Ruwen said.

  “Excellent. Any idea why cloth soaked in acid might act as a barrier?”

  Ruwen thought for a few seconds and then shook his head. “Nothing comes to mind. Rogue cucumbers?”

  Sift smiled. “Misties.”

  “I’ve never heard of them.”

  “They’re like a cross between fog and vomit.”

  “Fog vomit?”

  “Yes, but if their fluids become acidic, they quickly break down.”

  Ruwen thought about that. “So, you use cloth because they’ll absorb and mix with the acid quickly, as opposed to wood or some other hard substance.”

  “Exactly. You’re smarter than you look.”

  Once again, Ruwen cursed himself for not adding another point to Charisma. But Sift’s praise made him feel better.

  “Thanks,” Ruwen said. “So, each of these doors is to keep a specific type of monster out?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why don’t they just organize themselves to help each other through the doors?”

  Sift chuckled. “Well, if she made them that smart, we’d be in trouble. Half the time they are fighting each other down there, and all I have to do is watch.”

  Ruwen had noticed none of the doors had locks. Most just had a latch or a slider on both sides. Anything remotely intelligent would be able to pass through all these doors.

  “It doesn’t seem the safest,” Ruwen said.

  “Anything that gets through the doors will still have to pass through a tunnel of traps and then the guard room. There are always at least two guards in there, although today I saw four.”

  “We passed four guards?”

  Sift nodded and winced. “You didn’t see any of them?”

  Ruwen shook his head. “Crap.”

  They crossed through a couple more doors and then stopped at the top of a wide staircase leading down into darkness. A notification flashed, and Ruwen opened it.

  Ting!

  You have received the Black Pyramid quest…

  Taking out the Trash (Level 1)

  Clear the central room and at least two antechambers on the first floor of all vermin.

  Reward: 5 Black Pyramid tokens

  Reward: 1,000 experience

  Accept or Decline

  “Do you have both quests?” Sift asked.

  “I got the Trash one.”

  “There should be another subquest available. It probably didn’t automatically activate because we aren’t close enough to the wall of scales to trigger.”

  Ruwen opened the master quest The Black Pyramid (Novice to Initiate) he’d received from Ky. There were multiple requirements to complete it, one of which was Clear 10 Levels of the Black Pyramid. He opened the next requirement, which was Complete 100 Alchemical Recipes. A subquest under that was no longer greyed out, and he focused on it.

  Ting!

  You have received the quest…

  Killer Recipes for the Busy Shade

  Not every task requires a dagger. A healthy Shade relies on the proper proportions of the Pyramid, with results to die for. Use your mind to discover the appropriate balance.

  Restriction: One attempt per day.

  Reward: Black Pyramid cipher (Level 1)

  Reward: Five-Minute Fare to Die For, Volume 1

  Reward: 500 experience

  Accept or Decline

  Ruwen accepted the quest. He loved working in the lab at school and had briefly thought about the Merchant Class. But his heart had always belonged to being a Mage. While he could still level up many of the skills associated with Merchants and Crafters, his creations would never be as good and would take longer to make than those with the proper Class. He didn’t care, though. Mixing ingredients to create new things excited him, and learning a cipher would be interesting, too. He wondered if this would allow him to read the ciphered parchment from the Blood Gate.

  He looked to see if any other quests were available under the requirements, but everything remained greyed out. Well, at least he had two quests. Both had added a black triangle on his map almost directly on top of his current location. It must mean they were below him. Closing the quest window, he nodded at Sift.

  “Okay, get ready. Sometimes things make it to the stairs.”

  Ruwen pulled the staff from the harness on his back. “Is there any light down there?”

  “I can trigger some lights, but it will warn them. It makes it a little harder.”

  In the dungeon, there would be no ambient light for the Jaga Wedding Band to amplify. It would be useless.

  “Well, that sucks. But I don’t think we have a choice. I can’t see much without light. I’ll be helpless in the dark.”

  “Limuno!” Sift said.

  The walls began glowing, and the stairwell came into view. Ruwen relaxed a little. He hated the dark.

  “Aren’t you taking a weapon?” Ruwen asked.

  “I am the weapon.”

  Ruwen raised his eyebrows.

  Sift smiled and patted the dagger in the small of his back. “Plus, I have Io for emergencies.”

  Ruwen moved the staff from one hand to the other, not sure what to do with it. Sift narrowed his eyes and held out a hand. Ruwen gave him the weapon.

  “I’ll show you some basics, so you’re more comfortable.”

  Ruwen took a few steps backward, and Sift did the same.

  “When you attack, step into it, and swing the staff diagonally like this,” Sift said.

  Sift stepped forward and swung the staff downward, slashing the air. The faint sound of wind chimes filled the room.

  “When you block, hold it with both hands and step to the side. Like all fighting, avoidance is better than redirection, which is better than deflection, which is better than absorption.”

  Sift stepped forward in a lunge and stabbed the staff outward. “Attacking like this is safer, as less of your body is exposed. Look at my feet and stance. You must always keep your balance. Balance is the solution to every problem. Now you try.”

  Sift handed the staff back to Ruwen and then stepped away.

  Ruwen’s hands were sweaty. He hated physical activities. But in a few minutes, he would be fighting things that wanted to kill him, and he needed to be as ready as possible. He stepped forward and slashed downward. The staff’s weight and momentum made it hard to slow, which Ruwen realized a little too late.

  The staff struck the stone floor with a crack, and the vibration of the impact caused the weapon to slip out of his sweaty hands. With a loud clang, the staff fell to the floor, and Ruwen shook his hands to remove the sting of the vibration. His cheeks burned as he knelt to pick up his weapon.

  “Well, you get points for enthusiasm,” Sift said. “You might want to tell Blapy you’re sorry, though. If you get on her bad side, your life here will be a nightmare.”

  “Blapy?”

  “Black Pyramid. I just call her Blapy.”

  “Wait, are you saying this place is sentient?”

  “Yes, aren’t all dungeons?”

  “No. Out of the thousands of dungeons on my world, there are less than ten that are sentient. They are really, really, really dangerous.”

  “Well, I’ve only been in this one.”

  Sift obviously didn’t know what sentient meant. He had spoken earlier about his da
d and the feelings a pile of rocks experienced. Ruwen guessed Sift, like his dad, was probably a little crazy. He needed the young man, though, so he played along.

  Kneeling again, Ruwen rubbed the small divot he’d caused in the stone. “I’m sorry, Blapy. I’m new to this and still learning. I’ll try and be more careful.”

  Sift nodded with approval. “Try again, but without as much force. You don’t have the strength yet to stop your swing or the skills to redirect a blow.”

  Feeling a little embarrassed, Ruwen swung the staff again, but this time with far less force.

  “Better. Now, do another twenty,” Sift said.

  Sometime after the tenth swing, Ruwen heard chimes, and he smiled. It meant the staff believed it was being wielded and not just swung around. He practiced the lunge for a couple of minutes until Sift nodded. A minimized notification pulsed in the bottom of his vision and he opened it.

  Shing!

  You have learned a new skill!

  Skill: Staff

  Level: 1

  Effect: Increase damage by 0.5%.

  His first weapon skill! It made him feel proud. He’d never planned to use his physical skills to protect himself, but a new path had been forced on him, and he was anxious to make up for all the time he’d wasted.

  “I’m ready,” Ruwen said.

  They started down the stairs, which soon curved to the right. A minute later, they stopped at the end of a large rectangular room. It looked similar to the bar he’d walked through above, but this area looked like a war zone. The chairs and couches were mostly broken or destroyed. About every thirty feet along each wall, there were double doors or the remnants of them. In the distance, on the far wall, Ruwen could make out what looked like a bar. Tables dotted the room, and he thought he caught a glimpse of something small scurrying between all the debris.

  “This is one of the recreation rooms from back in the old days when people came to test themselves in Blapy,” Sift said.

  It struck Ruwen that he knew almost nothing about this place. He didn’t even know what it looked like outside. His stomach clenched, but he pushed his anxiety down. There would be time to learn all those things. Right now, he needed to focus on staying alive, and hopefully, leveling.

  Sift closed his eyes and stood completely still. After a few seconds, Ruwen stepped away from Sift, and took a practice swing with his staff, relieved that he heard the chimes. His hands shook, and his legs felt weak.

  Sift put a hand on his shoulder. “Relax, friend.” Sift pointed to the two closest doors on the right wall. “Those two antechambers are yours. I’ll start on the other side and work my way around.”

  “You’re leaving me?” Ruwen asked.

  He hated how weak that made him sound, but he was barely keeping his fear in check.

  “If I stay too near you, I’ll leach all the experience. Further down that won’t matter as much, but up here the monsters just aren’t worth enough to share.”

  “Okay.”

  “There is nothing too dangerous in here.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I sifted the energies in here.”

  “When you closed your eyes?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ruwen didn’t know what that meant, but it did make him feel better. Sift was the expert here. Ruwen took a deep breath.

  Sift walked toward the doors across from the ones Ruwen would enter. “Remember Shade’s first rule.”

  “Which is?”

  “Fear is best heard, not followed.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Your fear means you aren’t stupid. You should be cautious. But, if you follow fear, stay safe your whole life, you will never grow.” Sift stopped in front of his doors and faced Ruwen. “And you want to grow, don’t you?”

  “Yes, very much.”

  “Good. Then let’s get busy.”

  Sift slid between the half-opened doors and disappeared.

  Ruwen faced his doors, which also were ajar. He took another deep breath. People wanted him dead, maybe even a god, too. He needed to get stronger, and the only way to do that quickly was to fight. He swung the staff again, touched the dagger on his right hip, and his baton on the left. His Scarf of Freshness remained wrapped around his neck. He didn’t have much, but it would have to do. Before his fear overwhelmed him, he pushed the door open and walked inside.

  Chapter 17

  Ruwen stopped just inside the door. Pews, most of them broken, lined the room like a freshly plowed field. In the central aisle, a few six-foot-high candle stands had survived the destruction. Their eight-fingered hands were empty now, the candles lost long ago. An altar stood at the far end of the antechamber, fifty feet away, and a statue of Uru leaned against the back wall. Her arms were broken off, and half her face was shattered. Brown webbing covered the walls, and it made the light dimmer. He slowly studied the room and then as much of the ceiling as he could see. The webbing probably meant spiders. He hated spiders.

  The room appeared empty, and he relaxed a little. Keeping his back to the wall, he sidestepped to the left. He didn’t want anything coming up behind him. When he reached the corner, he stopped again and listened. Nothing. He knelt and tried to look under the pews, but he couldn’t see very far because of all the debris.

  His heartbeat seemed loud in his ears, and he took a few deep breaths to slow it. The webbing stuck to his arm, and he stepped away from the wall. A new thought struck him: what if they were tiny spiders, and millions of them would swarm his body, consuming him in seconds? His heart thudded again, and he began casting Campfire.

  The five second cast time felt like an eternity, but then it finally finished, and the room brightened. Ruwen’s Mana bar flashed the number one hundred fifty and then dropped to almost empty. The +1 intelligence from the Staff of Chimes had brought his pool up to one hundred seventy, giving him twenty Mana to spare. Not that he had any other spells to cast.

  His Mana bar quickly refilled as the magical Campfire boosted his Regen rates. With the new light, he studied the webbing, walls, floor, and ceiling. Nothing. He eased forward down the side aisle, passing a couple of the candleholders. They stood about six feet high, and each of the eight fingers of the hand at the top ended in a point. The section of the candleholder touching the floor looked identical. It was a good design. They didn’t have an up or down, you could just place them on the floor and then impale the candles on the side that faced up.

  He reached the stone platform that held the altar and carefully stepped up onto it. A torn red cloth covered the altar, and a candleholder stood on each side. His fire didn’t provide much extra light over here, but something about the fabric bothered him. He bent closer and realized the cloth had originally been white. The red coloring that covered most of it looked like a stain. He stood up straight. That cloth had been soaked in blood.

  The candleholder on his right bent toward him, the eight fingers spreading wide. Before he could react, it snapped forward, and the eight fingers gripped his head. The pointed ends sunk into his skull and neck, and his Health bar flashed ten as it dropped. Ruwen screamed as a hole opened in the center of the hand, and a fleshy tube emerged, a ring of sharp teeth at its end. The fingers stuck in his head pulled his face toward the ring of teeth.

  Ruwen dropped his staff and grabbed the top of the candle stand, just under the hand. When he pulled though, his hands just slipped down the monster’s slick body. A five flashed on his Health bar as it dropped again. He stumbled to the side as something struck him, and a sharp pain erupted on his left side. The other candleholder had attacked him. Ten more Health disappeared. In seconds, he had lost a quarter of his Health and was already down to seventy-five points. Panic overtook him as the writhing tube of teeth inched closer to his face.

  He tried again to pull the thing off his face, but its entire body was coated with some sort of oil, and he couldn’t grip it. He had dropped his staff, but it probably didn’t matter. The weapon was too large to fig
ht something this close. Sift had said not to let things get close to him, and that reminded him of his dagger. Sift had told him to take one just for a time like this.

  A five flashed on his Health bar, and then another five. He was down to sixty-five Health, and if those teeth reached his face, it would drop a lot faster. He grabbed the dagger with his right hand and jerked it upward. Frantically, he sawed at the creature’s long body.

  Nothing happened at first. But then the blade vibrated. The dull sound increased in pitch as the blade started to shake so violently that Ruwen had to hold it with both hands. Warm liquid covered his hands as the teeth in front of his eyes ground against each other. The monster shuddered, and the fingers touching the floor clicked rapidly against the stone.

  Ruwen heard a snap and then fell backward as the monster’s body separated from the portion holding his head. He landed hard on his butt. The part on his head collapsed forward, and the tube with teeth rested on his cheek. He pulled the thing off his face with his left hand. The dagger, still violently shaking, fell out of his right hand.

  The monster on his side dug its teeth into the flesh above his waist, and the sharp pain made him wince. His Health dropped by fifteen, putting him at half Health. Gritting his teeth, Ruwen reached for the blade, which had slowed its vibrations. As soon as Ruwen touched it to the Tube Spider, it ramped up again. In seconds, it had vibrated its way through the shaft of the second one.

  Ruwen pulled it off his side, disgusted at the bloody teeth. He looked up in time to see six more of the Tube Spiders coming toward him. Two walked along the ceiling, and the other four bent in the middle, placing their finger-legs on the floor and then flipping themselves forward, like some sort of acrobats.

  He stuck the shaking dagger back in its sheath and picked up the staff. If he stayed on the altar, they would swarm him. All he wanted to do was get out of this room. Not giving himself time to overthink it, he moved to the wall on his right. A few steps later, his Health began regenerating faster, and his Campfire buff flashed under his bars. Too bad he couldn’t cast a Fireball. He swung his staff back and forth, trying to get rid of the nervous energy filling him. The sound of chimes filled the room, and two of the Tube Spiders stopped as the staff’s distraction effect struck them.