Skirmish (The Stork Tower Book 8)

by Tony Corden

  “S: How do you know this stuff?”

  “Grade eight science assignment.”

  “S: I bet you got teased a lot at school.”

  “Not in grade eight. In grade one, though, I ended up having to hire a bodyguard from one of the local gang lords.”

  Granite, Shaman and Val just stared at Leah as she started to direct a stream of Dragonfire at the place she’d chosen. Thad had heard some of her history, and just looked up at them and nodded, affirming that this was the truth and not some joke. Leah kept her senses focussed on the ice even as steam billowed all around her. Finally, after the depression in the ice was over a pace in depth, she sensed the top of a medium-sized chest. She redirected the fire around the edges to set it free. A minute later, Granite reached in and pulled the chest free.

  Leah took another luck potion and opened it. Besides five complete sets of ancient coins minted by the frost dragon, Lord D’durulmuş D’hşet, there were five gifts, one for each of the players. Val received an ice bow which shot bolts of freezing plasma, Shaman received a beast casting spell for ice-wyrms, Granite received a dagger of stone and ice which he could reform into any sized edged weapon he chose. Thad received some vambraces which formed shields of ice when needed. Leah received a small book of Draconic Ice spells.

  When the chest was emptied, Leah said, “Is everyone ready? We need to keep moving.”

  After everyone indicated they were, Val led the way to the only exit from the cavern. She slowed and stopped as she reached the opening and, “V: This is the portal to the dungeon. This time, I’m permitted to go first.”

  With that, she stepped through, followed by Granite, Leah, Shaman and Thad.

  30

  December 27, 2073

  DUNYANIN

  As Leah stepped through a braille reader appeared.

  Citadel of Frost - Warren of the Dwarf Mages

  You are the first player to access this area. It is one of four dungeons on Mt Siddetli designed for the Merkize Odyssey. Once completed, it will be open to other players.

  For three thousand years Mt Siddetli was home to mighty Frost Dragons who, under the sway of Lord D’durulmuş D’hşet, ruled the entire mountain. From their vantage point high on the northern face, they had domination over everything that lived on its slopes. The Frost Lord was cruel, and his heart was as cold as his power. 2410 years ago a caravan of adventurers and merchants camped near the base of the great waterfall, Uzun Şelale, which flowed from the base of the frost dragon’s eyrie. As they made preparation for their camp, one of them, a dwarven warrior on her first trek as a caravan guard, braved the icy waters, taking the opportunity to bathe for the first time in almost a month.

  As she swam, she saw something glittering on the bed of the pool. Taking a deep breath, she dove until with almost the last of her air, she grabbed what turned out to be a simple bracelet of gold. It had never belonged to a great hero, nor did it hold a single spell. It had been the love gift of a farmer for his beloved wife. It had been collected years previously by the Frost Lord when he’d killed its owner for disturbing him while he ate the family’s cattle.

  Even as the dwarf pulled herself from the pool, the Frost Lord descended and with a single breath turned her to ice and then crushed her to retrieve the bracelet he’d misplaced years previously. He ignored the rest of the caravan as he returned to his eyrie, satisfied to have the bracelet once more in his possession, even though he’d not truly missed it until the dwarf had surfaced and held it aloft. The caravan continued, and in the passage of time returned to the Demir Dovuyor Mountains with the news of the guard’s demise.

  Her father was chief of a minor clan and in his rage swore an oath to Lady Intikam, Goddess of Revenge and Retribution, that his daughter would be avenged. With fifty of his most competent warriors, he made the trek to Mt Siddetli to find justice. Instead, he found only despair. The Frost Lord was impregnable in the eyrie, and when tempted outside his lair, his power was too strong to be overcome. When all his warriors lay slain, her father, Iyilik, was filled with grief and hatred. He returned home and gathered the rest of the clan. This time he made sacrifices to Lord Kötücül, God of Malevolence.

  Lord Kötücül accepted the offerings as a downpayment. After wresting promises of future deeds from the dwarf, he did explain how to defeat the Frost Lord. Iyilik, who changed his name to Acinin Eli, did finally defeat the Frost Lord and took possession of both his eyrie, his brood and his power. The citadel had five levels, and the dwarves have dug deep and added a further five. You are on the lowest of the old dragon levels. MOBs range from Level 404-654.

  You have three choices to complete the Dungeon.

  A. Level 4 Dungeon Achievement First 1 (Diamond) - Escape the Citadel

  B. Level 5 Dungeon Achievement First 1 (Painite) - Defeat the Warren of the Dwarf Mages*

  C. Level 6 Unique Event (Celestial) - Become the Frost Queen**

  * To Defeat the Warren of the Dwarf Mages you must first complete a modified Level 4 Dungeon - Map the Citadel

  ** To Become the Frost Queen you must first complete Defeat the Warren of the Dwarf Mages

  Which option do you choose? [A] [B] [C]

  When she’d finished reading and moved her hand back from the reader, Thad said, “T: What level is the dungeon? What I read doesn’t say.”

  “It’s a choice. I have to choose which one we do. I could choose the Level Four dungeon, and all we have to do is make our way up five levels and somehow exit the eyrie. There is a Level Five option which involves defeating the Warren of the Dwarf Mages. Or, there is the Level Six unique event where the aim is to become the Frost Queen. To pick a higher choice, you have to do the others first.”

  “V: I’ve never been through a Level Six.”

  “G: My AI says only one person has. It’s a new designation, and apparently, Dunyanin has upgraded dozens of dungeons to include it as an option. There is talk that Merkize has dungeons up to Level Ten.”

  “S: Leah, my AI says you did one. How hard was it?”

  “It was an individual event and not a group one. I had to use a unique gift and kill a Level 8000 plus demigod, and its one hundred minions, all of them were fifty levels or so higher than me.”

  “T: OK, that sounds doable. I’m game.”

  “It could take at least three Dunyanin days to get through this, is everyone up for that?”

  “V: Your choice, Atherleah. On the other hand, if you were seriously asking me, then, absolutely.”

  “G: I’m up for it.”

  “S: Go bold or go home.”

  Leah lowered her hand back and pressed the raised [C] section of the reader.

  Level 6 Dungeon Achievement: First 1 (1, Celestial)

  Atherleah (Level 454), you have accepted the task: Become Queen Frost.

  Reward 1: 10000 x 454 = 30236400 (+566%) Experience Points (85409048/103650000)

  Reward 2: + 5% to all future Experience

  Reward 3: 1 x 10 Diamond = 10 Diamond

  Reward 4: Increased probability of valuable drop. Luck is increased by 10 whenever you are in this dungeon. During your first time in the dungeon, the probability of all drops is increased to 0.5.

  Fame: 10000 Fame Points (613175)

  Note: This achievement will be published on the Dunyanin achievement forum.

  Atherleah (Level 454), you have chosen to attempt the Level 6 Unique Event (Celestial) - Become the Frost Queen. To achieve this, you must first complete the modified Level 4 Dungeon - Map the Citadel.

  You must map all ten levels of the Citadel. Success is a complete map of the Citadel with at least three members of the group remaining alive or free to continue to the next level.

  For a definition of what is meant by a ‘complete map’ please see the relevant section of the handbook.

  Granite actually sat down and said, “G: Ten diamonds! I got two last time and now ten. What will I do with it?”

  Everyone had suggestions except Leah. Finally, she said, “Val,
you’ve put a lot into stealth, what about the rest of you?”

  “S: Not personally, but I can see through the eyes of some of my creatures out to about thirty or so paces. It lets me look ahead.”

  “T: I’ve a cloak which makes me invisible, but it doesn’t work effectively with MOBs higher than me.”

  “G: I’m supposedly able to walk through shadows but never learnt how to. Usually, I just bash things.”

  “Val, check how secure we are down here. If not, then find a place we can hide.”

  Leah checked her levels and her use of Shadow. She was at the Master level, so she was able to gift the skill to those who had the ability to Shadow Walk. She then took Granite aside, and using her shadow shroud to create shadows in the tunnel she talked Granite through how to step from one shadow to the next. He’d only managed to do it once when Val returned.

  “V: This level is fairly bare. There are three other tunnels which lead to what I think are large caverns like this. Access up is via a spiral tunnel large enough for dragons. Access down is via a dwarven style stairway carved through the rock. I didn’t see anyone on this level, but there are traps at each of the tunnel entrances. Some echoes were coming from the lower levels that sounded like voices. I recommend one, or maybe two, reconnoitre and the others chill in place.”

  “Anyone besides Val have any skills with traps?”

  No one did. Finally, Leah said, “Will you guys be OK if Val and I leave you somewhere? Seems kinda lame but I was always told to never take muscle on recon. Having said that, I don’t really want to be caught out like this again, so I want you to choose a skill in stealth and work at it. We’ve another eight months of dungeons, and I’m sure this will come up again.”

  “T: Agreed. We’ll be good, as long as when people need bashing you give us a call.”

  “No problem. Val, where is the best place to leave them?”

  “V: Two rooms from here is a tunnel with two traps. I think we could get past them and I could reset them. I’ve a spell for listening, and all I heard was a dripping sound. There was no sound of breathing, so I’m pretty sure the room is empty, and it’s unlikely it’ll be checked.”

  “OK, lead the way.”

  Val led them out into a large round tunnel that seemed to meander between the rooms on the floor before spiralling upwards. At the second slightly smaller tunnel that branched off to one side, Val slowed and after checking nothing had changed she pointed out the traps to Leah. The first involved a large trapdoor with poisoned spikes and the other was similar to a motion sensor made from shadow mana. Val wasn’t sure what it triggered besides an alarm, but Leah sensed a store of earth mana under the floor and Val found the ends of the spikes which would have speared upwards, trapping them inside.

  “V: These are dwarven by the look of them. But the spacing is further apart than normal.”

  Halfway along the tunnel, Leah used her shadow shroud to reach forward and motion for Val to stop. Leah and the others moved forward, and Leah asked Three to lower her voice even further and said, “It isn’t empty, and I think the traps are to keep something in, not keeping people out. Move forward slowly.”

  As the chamber came into sight, everyone had a shocked look of horror on their face, except Leah. She’d already recognised what was in the room and her face showed only an intense and almost overwhelming rage. Hanging from the roof of the cavern on chains of a bluish metal was a frost dragon. Her muzzle was bound with bands of the same metal, and her wings had been cut off and thrown in one corner. Only the bones of the wings remained, so the dragon had been kept this way for years. The metal looked to have been formed in place around her body and limbs and had caused open wounds where it cut into her scales. In fact, much of her body was devoid of scales, and it looked like they’d been torn away. The dripping came from taps made from the same metal which had been hammered through her hide and into the veins around each leg and those of her neck. Blood dripped slowly into buckets placed in the right place for collection. Each bucket had a rune stamped on it that Leah recognised as the one for stasis.

  Val hadn’t heard her breathing because it was so shallow in her weakened and emaciated state. Before the others could respond, Leah said, “Val, can you see any traps or alarms on the bindings?”

  “V: Not that I can sense. Why?”

  “I need to get her down from there before I heal her.”

  “S: With the risk of sounding super callous, would it be better to wait until we’ve finished checking what else is in the dungeon?”

  “T: Yes, it would be safer, but that isn’t going to happen. Let’s get her healed, then you and I can stand watch while the others do that.”

  “S: What if they sense the healing?”

  “T: Then that’s their bad luck. If that happens, we go straight to Level Six and tear this place down. Slavery of any sort is unacceptable and this, this is beyond despicable.”

  Leah turned to Thad then reached up and kissed him on the cheek before turning back to the dragon. She asked, “How do we break the chains?”

  “S: If you can deal with the sound of her falling, I can get rid of the metal.”

  Shaman pulled a vial from his backpack and sprinkled what looked like small beads on each of the shackles. Within moments the balls unfurled into small ant-sized millipedes which started slowly chewing the metal. With each bite, they scored a mark on the metal. Then, after almost a minute, they began dropping to the ground and disintegrating into dust. Shaman stepped back and put the vial away. He said, “S: The only time I’ve heard of these things dying is with a metal called empyreanite. It’s formed from steel quenched in divine blood which somehow infuses it with the god’s mana and will. It’s the divine mana which kills them, they can’t break it down quick enough.”

  Leah’s memory was prodigious and in some ways would have been considered by many to be almost eidetic. Even so, she had to take out the small spellbook of the Master Blood Mage, Queen Ikinci Nota, which she’d found in the crypt below Yilinlar. It was now in braille, and she quickly read the preface and skimmed the spells. Once or twice she stopped and worked through the detail of the spells. Finally, she pulled a level two Darkness Diamond from her bag and cast, after tweaking slightly, one of the medium level spells in the book which described how to create a vessel to hold blood. When she’d finished, she said, “This should pull the blood mana from the metal. Get ready to try that again.”

  Shaman nodded as Leah held the diamond against the metal and simultaneously cast the Draw Blood spell mentioned in the spellbook and tried to absorb the blood mana into the diamond. Very slowly the diamond began to change colour until it had what Leah imagined was a single drop filling the centre of the diamond, a swirling viscous mass of red and black that burnt her skin where it was transcribed.

  Leah took out a small chest and placed the diamond inside. Thad said, “T: I couldn’t see what happened?” Leah put a finger to her lips and nodded to Shaman, who added a few beads. As Shaman’s metal-eating millipedes devoured the metal, Thad whispered, “T: Will he know what’s happened?”

  “I don’t know. Part of me says, ‘he will’, but another other part says, ‘it shouldn’t matter’ because what I did was entirely within the limitations of this dungeon. Best not to mention it out loud. I changed the spell slightly to mask what was inside, which was why you couldn’t see it.”

  “S: I hope you have more Darkness Diamonds.”

  “Now that I know it works, I’ll try with a larger one.”

  The most Leah could transform was a level four Darkness Diamond, and it would only take three drops of blood. By the time the dragon had been lowered to the floor using Gravity, Leah had filled three level-four darkness diamonds and four each of level three and level two.

  When the dragon was on the ground, Leah turned the pages of Lord Y’sam Ejderhasi’s spellbook to a spell she’d read which was similar to what she’d been taught by Merdivan. It used life mana and was designed to return health by surroun
ding the dragon with a shield which nourished them while they healed in body and spirit. Leah used her shadow shroud to cover the entrance to the chamber in the hope that it would hide her spell, then pulled some of the divine light shroud into a ball. She transformed it into life mana and prepared to channel that through the Imperial Sceptre. Using a frog pad in each hand and switching to international braille letters, Leah typed out the Draconic incarnation which she asked Three to save for when she released the spell, and to make them audible but just slightly out of sync. Then, taking the sceptre in both hands, she dual cast Dragon Heal.

  31

  December 27, 2073

  DUNYANIN

  Leah felt an enormous barrier pushing against her body as she cast and literally had to lean forward to stop herself from being pushed back. Finally, she took some of the earth mana and used it to propel her hands forward against the barrier. Suddenly, the barrier shattered and mana blazed from the end of the sceptre and struck the dragon on her head. The mana was sucked into the dragon. Leah had to add more of the shroud as the ball of life mana shrank faster than she’d expected. After several minutes Leah’s light shroud was empty, and she used mana from the earth shroud and then from what was left of the shadow shroud. Finally, she drew on the mana in the sceptre. When the sceptre was drained, Leah used her own reserves then transformed her Kai. Even then, she kept the spell going as she watched her health begin to plummet. The spell finally started slowing when her health dropped below fifty percent and stopped when she had only fifteen percent left. Leah lowered herself to the floor as she stared at the dragon who could just be seen through the foot-thick green-tinged ice that had formed around her.