by Dmitry Bilik
Another monstrous dragon flew toward us. It was slightly smaller, the carriage on its back half the size of ours. It only held one Player who gave us a long, intent look. He had a rather ordinary appearance — possibly even Slavic. His cropped white hair was his only distinguishing feature: not blond but the color of Alpine snow. He flashed past so quickly that I didn’t even get the chance to get a good look at him.
Still, when our eyes accidentally met, I sensed an inexplicable anxiety. This is the kind of feeling a lamb must get when he sees the knife hidden behind his owner’s back: the knife which will soon slit his throat. I would have liked to have put it down to my paranoia, had it not been for a new system message:
You’ve taken the first step toward acquiring the Intuition ability.
“This leg of the trip is a bit longer,” Arts said. “The next jump will be the last. We’ll port within five hundred yards from the flying platform.”
Everybody in our carriage fell silent. Even the talkative Litius who’d just been impatient to reveal all the world’s secrets to me was pensively looking down. The constant rocking almost put me to sleep, but I was jolted awake by the dragon’s sudden shaking. I heard another soft popping sound.
An avalanche of light assaulted my eyes. The wide streets of the city below resembled bright streams of magma. The famous tower rose on the horizon, almost consumed by the surrounding light. Still, the driver steered our flyback to the left toward a darker part of the city. A few more shadows flashed past us. More flying dragons!
“Seven minutes,” Arts said, glancing at her phone screen. “Quicker than by plane.”
I didn’t bother to reply, especially because the driver banked our flyback into a tight turn and began to lose altitude. I couldn’t catch my breath. No more flying for me, thank you very much. No more teleporting dragons. I’d rather walk.
Buildings and streetlamps flashed past. The G-forces pinned me back to my seat, crunching my vertebrae and making me bite my tongue. I could taste blood. Dammit!
“So here we are,” Arts said.
I looked out the window. It was pitch black outside. For a while, we continued to rock as the flyback walked unhurriedly, his wings already folded, until he stopped and dropped to his stomach. The driver finally left his saddle, climbed up to us and opened the carriage door. He checked us out and announced,
“We’ve arrived!”
The first thing I did once I’d stepped onto terra firma was bend over and throw up. It just happened — I’d say it felt like the most natural thing to do. Finally I stood up, spitting bile, and gave my friends a guilty look. They just smiled. All of them, even the timid Kaf.
“It’s all right, my friend,” Litius said. “The first time is always like that. Your sense of balance plays tricks on you. You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t intend to get used to it… to… to… any of this! You’d better tell me what’s gonna happen now.”
“We need to get to the Avenue du Colonel-Henri-Rol-Tanguy, in the 14th arrondissement. The stables for the snapdrakes must be there.”
‘What, more animals?” I asked, feeling sick again.
“Let’s take a taxi,” Arts said, putting an end to the conflict brewing.
A quarter of an hour later, we were gawking at Paris from the back of a black Citroen. Everybody except me, that is. The transition between cities and countries had been way too fast to have done me any good. Or it might have been the shock of flying a teleporting dragon. A teleporting dragon! It was a good job Tolkien hadn’t lived to see this. He would have turned in his grave.
Which was why all the cozy little streets and broad avenues with few cars and only the occasional tipsy passerby didn’t catch my eye. One of the most beautiful cities in Europe, so what? It still couldn’t compare to my home town’s old embankment, its crumbling fortress, meeting places and its ancient monastery.
We stopped by a large two-story building with an arch in the middle. Arts very conveniently paid the cabman, because I only had dust and Russian rubles on me. We climbed out.
“Over there,” Litius said, tugging at my sleeve.
We walked past the building to a dark green steel pavilion which looked tiny next to it. Litius took a quick look around, approached the padlock on the door and was soon busy with it, turning and clinking something.
“So you’re also a burglar, are you?” I asked.
“It’s not d-d-difficult,” he said, suddenly reverting to his stuttering habit. “It only requires th-th-the knowledge of b-b-basic mechanics.”
“Litius, please don’t get so het up. I’m scared enough as it is.”
“That’s it.”
The steel door creaked, revealing a dark tunnel.
“Why are you all looking at me?” I said. “I’m not going first in there.”
“Me neither,” the Archalus said, stepping back in fear. “I can help you locate the Kabirids’ remains, that’s not a problem, but…”
“Oh, do shut up, for crying out loud,” Arts said, stepping forward.
Litius gave us an accusing look and followed her. Kaf and I almost had to run to catch up with them. I had absolutely no wish to stay outside with the cowardly Archalus — and it looked like the feeling was mutual.
I cast Light and just about made out some black and white columns. My temples felt heavy. The claustrophobic space seemed to close in on me from all sides. It felt like an invisible steel band was digging into my head. The atmosphere down here was quite oppressive. You wouldn’t have thought so: it was just an ordinary underground tunnel like any other. Still, I didn’t feel okay here.
“This is an old and very powerful curse,” Kaf said behind me. “But it can’t harm anyone anymore.”
Oh great. He sure knew how to put one at ease! The very fact that some ancient evil was lurking here gave me the creeps. To add insult to injury, we’d already gone down into the bowels of this tunnel and found the first room. It contained some kind of monument, writings on the wall and a heap of skulls and bones. A curse, he said? I started to get a better idea of its nature now.
“Well?” Arts said, conjuring up a flashlight. “Can you feel anything Kabirid?”
Kaf shook his head. “Nothing. Only humans.”
We continued our journey past the maze of stacked-up human bones and skulls. Admittedly, we occasionally came across more monuments, plaques and even drawings. Still, the overall impression was quite dismal. All those dead souls who’d never found peace even in their graves. In the light of this, one Player killing another could even be seen as merciful: the victim left nothing but ashes behind.
After about half an hour, Arts finally asked, “Do we have to go on much further?”
The girl was a bundle of nerves, and I could quite understand her. Firstly, we’d been walking for quite a while in this badly ventilated space. Secondly, the place’s interior design was quite monotonous: only skulls and bones. And thirdly, if Kaf were to be believed, there was no trace of any Kabirids here.
Now, too, the Archalus shook his head.
“Litius, I think it’s time to admit that your plan has failed miserably,” Arts said grimly.
“So what do you suggest?” I snapped. It was my turn to lose it. “Do you want us to go to Firoll and start smoking demons right and left just to procure some of that stupid sulfur?”
“How the hell do I know? And at the end of the day, who gave you the right to shout at me?”
“Wait a sec! I think I can sense something,” Kaf tensed, turning his head slowly, as if trying to listen or sniff something out. “No, nothing.”
“What are you playing at?” Arts shouted, all but going for him with her fists.
“Wait, I can feel it again. Over there,” he pointed directly at the wall.
“I think I know,” Litius butted in. “The Kabirids’ remains can detect negative energy. They sort of respond to it. Try to say some nasty things to each other.”
“Piece of cake,” I said.
For the next two minutes, Arts and I voiced our differences, followed by a whole list of the same to all those present. Even Traug got his fair share. His ears were probably burning there in his prison cell.
But the Archalus had transformed. Gone was the ingratiating little coward; even his broken wing wasn’t so apparent anymore. He walked unhurriedly to and fro along the wall until he finally stopped, ran his hands over the bones and nodded.
“Are we supposed to move them?” I asked.
“Kaf! Get the hell out of the way!” Arts snapped, still wound-up.
He managed it just in time. Had he not moved, his good wing could have been served up with a nice French sauce. What Arts had used was a regular fireball. Correction: it had been pepped up a little. For a brief moment, the place was flooded with a light so bright that I could see the veins bulge on her forehead. Then we were thrown into darkness again.
“Light,” I mouthed under my breath.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure that her spell would actually work. But our self-appointed wizard was in top form. We studied the resulting yard-wide passage which now connected our tunnel to one of the other corridors. After only a few feet, we could already stand up in it after a fashion, albeit hunched up. But the most important thing was, this tunnel seemed to have never been accessed before. It definitely wasn’t on the tourist trail.
“Yes, yes, it’s over there,” Kaf nodded vigorously. “It’s not very far.”
His “not very far” turned out to be a hell of a way. We plodded on for another quarter of an hour, constantly stooping, cussing half-heartedly at each other whenever he told us to (which soon became a hassle), then stopping so that our feathered scanner could focus on his own sensations. And finally…
“Ouch!” Arts recoiled, rubbing her hand.
“What’s happe-” Litius jumped back so fast he’d very nearly knocked me off my feet.
“We’ve arrived,” Kaf said with an idiotic smile on his face.
“What’s up?” I asked as I got to my feet, still uncomprehending.
I forced my way past them in the narrow tunnel. There was both fear and surprise on their faces. The Archalus peered warily into the void. Arts stood there sucking her finger like a little girl.
I gingerly reached out my hand and immediately snatched it back. It felt as if I’d just touched a hot skillet. I blew on my finger realizing it wouldn’t do any good. It felt like it had been burned.
“This seems to be some sort of magic veil,” Litius said pensively. “That’s both good and bad news.”
“What’s good about it?” I asked angrily. My finger was throbbing.
“It means that we’ve found the right place. This is where the Kabirids’ remains must be. Fire is their element. So whoever buried the demons here must have set up some sort of protection artifact. And the bad part about it is that we can’t get past it. Had we had a Kabirid with us, he could have just ignored it…”
I wasn’t listening to Litius anymore. As soon as he’d said “protection artifact”, I felt a light bulb switch on in my head, which all but lit up the place — but only until the moment when I reached into my bag and produced Arthall. Its bright blue light dispelled the darkness, revealing a barely noticeable protective veil. I reached out again but felt nothing this time. Guided by some gut feeling, I just carried on walking.
You’ve taken the first step toward acquiring the Intuition ability.
“Sergei!”
I couldn’t make out who exactly was shouting: whether it was Arts or Litius, or all of them together. The veil shrank around me like a piece of old yellowed paper trying to escape the greedy tongues of fire.
Nevertheless, Arthall couldn’t destroy the protection completely. I moved along the wide tunnel, peering at the big blocks of expertly laid masonry. Here, the ceiling was almost ten feet above my head. There must have been another approach to this corridor apart from the one we’d just taken. Otherwise, how could the demons have gotten through to here?
As soon as I found myself in a large round room, I could finally take a better look at my surroundings. It was a crypt of some sort, built by Kabirids for Kabirids just in case someone might get nostalgic enough to visit it many centuries later. But I discovered no trace of any such curious intruders, judging by the thick layer of stone dust. What I did discover were sixteen open sarcophagi arranged around a central pedestal with some kind of glittering artifact placed on it.
I walked over to the nearest stone coffin. The hand of time had left its unforgiving mark on it. The corpse’s clothes had crumbled to dust, revealing a powerful skeleton. The epee lying on top of it seemed to have oxidized, so thin that it could fall apart the moment you touched it.
The only thing that seemed still in one piece was a large skull topped with two massive tusk-like horns. I got the impression that its empty eye sockets might light up any moment and that the corpse might ask me what the hell I was doing in here. It was an interesting place, of course. Where else can you see a burial of Kabirid commoners who’d ignored the Game and just lived a normal life here in Cesspit?
Shuddering, I shrank back from the demon who had finally found peace. I then checked all the other sarcophagi but they were all the same, the sole difference being that some remains were hard to even discern. Apparently, they’d suffered so much during that massacre all those centuries back that there had been nothing left to actually bury.
But that wasn’t what worried me. How about the Devil’s Sulfur? Where was it? I hadn’t seen a single gram of it yet. Could I be searching in the wrong place? Either that, or this was the final get-together of some ordinary Kabirids. In which case, why were they guarded so closely? Weird.
In any case, I needed Litius to take a look at all this. The one-winged angel too, might have an idea or two. The only problem remained, I had to somehow switch off that wretched Eye of Sauron or whatever it was.
I walked over to the pedestal and froze in place, unable to take my gaze off the artifact. Something dark stirred inside my heart, lingering, then shank back into the deepest recesses of my soul, leaving a whole bundle of emotions behind.
This didn’t feel like exaltation — more like an impotent fury caused by an unfair but deadly offense. I felt like growling, ripping my enemies’ flesh with my teeth, tasting their blood, screaming in ecstatic rage.
My hand shaking, I reached out to the artifact. A soothing warmth caressed my palm. It didn’t burn; I knew it couldn’t hurt me. The stone had been waiting for me all this time.
I peered at it, making out a few brief lines:
Karthall (Divine Stone)
It looks like you’ve already met.
The artifact began to vibrate, which felt very pleasant. Then it expired, leaving me in pitch blackness with nothing but my very confused thoughts for company.
Chapter 9
AS THEY SAY, two heads are better than one. Provided you’re not an ogre, of course. Now, too, the old adage had proved correct. To all my complaints that my trip to the burial had resulted in exactly nothing (I expertly evaded any mention of the protection artifact), the Archalus replied with a crooked smirk. He pulled out a bastard sword, walked over to the nearest sarcophagus and sank it into the corpse’s skull. He rummaged inside it, then raised his open hand full of some mustard-color dust.
“An Angel’s sword!” Arts said wistfully.
‘The Devil’s Sulfur!” Litius echoed.
“Their brains don’t decay completely?” I asked, trying to work it out.
“Not quite,” Litius replied. “Although sulfur accumulates inside their skulls, it doesn’t affect the demons’ mental properties. But it does affect their magic skills. Which is why, once a Kabirid dies and his body decays…”
“Litius, I already got it. The sulfur is inside their skulls. Quit droning. Kaf, how much is there?”
The Archalus walked over to me and poured the dust into my own hand.
Devil’s Sulfur
Ingredient
2 grams
“Excellent,” I said. “Now we need to check-”
Arts’ hand covered my mouth. “Don’t say anything if you don’t want your karma to drop.”
“You’re the one who hired Kaf, so all your orders will affect your own karma, not his,” Litius explained.
“I know, I know,” I said, transferring the sulfur into the bag. “I’m just a bit restless, so I forgot. Okay. In that case, each of us should do as they please.”
“I got it,” the Archalus said, cleaving another skull with his sword like an overripe melon.
