Zones of Alacria- The Dragon Gate

by K R Dimmick

LEVEL: 6 (Progress 95%)

  GUILD: The Dragon Hunters

  HEALTH (HP): 395 (10 x 37 + 25 + 0)

  MANA (MP): 125 (10 x 10 + 25 + 0)

  STAMINA (SP): 605 (10 x 56 + 25 + 20)

  STRENGTH: 44 (15 + 29)

  DEXTERITY: 55 (15 + 40)

  INTELLIGENCE: 10 (10 + 0)

  TOUGHNESS: 37 (15 + 22)

  ENDURANCE: 56 (25 + 31)

  FORTITUDE: 35 (15 + 20)

  WISDOM: 10 (10 + 0)

  KARMA: 0

  My stats were coming along nicely. It looked like I’d managed to get rid of my negative Karma, which was a huge bonus. I guess helping Kailu had had a hidden reward.

  As I entered the prison alcove via the portal stone, I could hear people in the main room talking. Something about the voice made me suspicious. At this time of night, no one except the prisoners should’ve been in here and only one of those seemed at all interested in talking.

  Crouching down, I dropped into stealth. Very carefully sticking to the shadows, I peered out from around the large stone partition that separated the portal stone from the rest of the room.

  I could see Andrew and Joe standing against the back wall, talking to each other in hushed voices. I strained to listen to what they were saying.

  Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Eavesdrop.

  You are 10% more likely to overhear things you shouldn’t.

  I could now catch the odd word here and there but not much of it made sense. So far, I’d heard ‘artifact’, ‘power’, ‘two’ and ‘life force’. Joe started to turn around, so I quickly ducked back behind the partition in case my stealth didn’t hold up against someone with a much higher level than me.

  There was a click as one of the cell doors was unlocked, followed by a lot of screaming for help that was abruptly cut off with a loud thud.

  I risked putting my head around the pillar again and I could see Joe dragging the middle-aged man, who was now unconscious, out of his cell.

  Andrew had moved and was now standing next to the large rock platform in the center of the room. He had a glowing green ball of energy that seemed to be contained between four wooden sticks, stuck in a metallic base. My guess was that this was the artifact I’d heard them mention. It might even be the artifact Andrew had told the guild he was building to help get us all what we needed to progress to the next zone.

  Joe and his prisoner reached the side of the platform and he dragged the unconscious man behind it, so the only part of him I could see were his feet.

  The man’s shouting had now awoken the other two prisoners, who were both huddled silently at the back of their cells, staring at the scene with a look of terror on their faces.

  Andrew focused on the artifact and started chanting something I couldn’t understand. The words themselves made it feel like my insides were being turned to liquid. I covered my ears in an effort to stop feeling so nauseous.

  Dark tendrils started to form over the ball of energy. They flickered and began to reach out toward Andrew, Joe and the unconscious man at their feet.

  With a harsh sounding word, the chanting ended, and the artifact glowed brighter and brighter.

  Joe unsheathed a vicious looking dagger and bent down toward the prisoner.

  Suddenly, the other two realized what was going to happen and started screaming. I may have joined in, but thankfully, they couldn’t seem to hear me over the others.

  “Now!” shouted Andrew.

  A cloud of bright white light floated up from behind the pillar and made a beeline for the artifact. As soon as it touched it, the artifact flashed, and the dark tendrils disappeared. The edge of a pool of deep red blood emerged from behind the rock platform, rapidly increasing in size.

  I retched.

  “We need one more,” said Andrew, as if he were chatting about the weather.

  Joe started walking toward Cara’s cell and I froze in terror.

  21

  Mace Dodging

  “No, the other one. The annoyingly loud one,” Andrew glanced up briefly, directing Joe away from Cara’s cell. “At least that one’s quiet.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t watch them sacrifice another person and I couldn’t stop it. There was no way out. As soon as they were finished, they’d discover me standing here if I didn’t leave and then who knows what Andrew would do.

  My vision narrowed to a single point in front of me. Stepping over to the portal stone, I quickly left the prison.

  I ran away from the entrance as fast as I could. My only desire was to avoid being found. A thought struggled to gain my attention. As I slowed down, it hit me, why didn’t I just leave the guild? I couldn’t possibly stay somewhere they were sacrificing people, even if those people were NPCs at the moment. I pulled up my guild interface.

  There, staring at me, was the Leave Guild button, but it was greyed out, and no matter how hard I thought about it, nothing happened. This was not good.

  My feet had brought me to the entrance for the dorms. I automatically stood on the portal and thought 9751W. The shock of traveling through a portal focused my mind a bit. Entering the room, I found Saris sitting up in bed, having willed the light to come on.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What on earth have you been up to?”

  I sat down so I wouldn’t fall over.

  “I was in the prison and just saw Andrew and Joe sacrifice one of the prisoners and feed their energy to the artifact thing he’s building. They killed a second one as well, but I left before I had to see it. After that, I tried to leave the guild and found I couldn’t because the button is greyed out. I don’t know what to do.”

  Saris moved her hands about, showing she was looking at her interface.

  “It’s greyed out for me too,” she said, looking rather paler than I’d seen before. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s not like you can stop it. Frankly, I’d rather they sacrifice a few NPCs than find myself out there with six days to live and no guild potion to reset it.”

  She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath.

  “The way I see it is that it comes down to you or them. Andrew’s doing his best to keep us alive. If a few NPCs die off along the way, I’d say that’s a fair trade. It’s not like they’re real.”

  My eyes wide, I muttered something about them sounding extremely real. Saris simply willed the light off and left me sitting in the dark with thoughts to match.

  The next couple of days passed in a haze. I brought Cara food, but she spent the entire time in some sort of trance, so I couldn’t talk to her.

  Even the bunnies had disappeared from the prison. I wondered if they’d been sacrificed as well, but I couldn’t find any evidence of it. They had simply vanished.

  I spent each day pushing myself past my limits in an effort to gain extra stats. The first day, I tried to increase my Endurance further, but unfortunately, however hard I pushed, I couldn’t seem to add more than the ten extra points I’d already gotten.

  The second day was spent carrying huge amounts of armor around in the armory. It was the only building I could find that was mostly out of sight. No one ever seemed to go to the armory, and since I hadn’t been banned from there, it was the perfect place for my plans. I ended up adding another ten points to my Strength, which I was extremely happy with.

  Day three dawned and I decided that today, whatever happened, I was going to work out how to increase my Dexterity. Since avoiding imaginary attacks had no effect on my Dodge skill, I needed to find something that could actually hit me so I could dodge it for real.

  I rummaged through everything I could find in the armory and finally found what I’d been looking for. A rope. I threw it up to try and hook it over one of the beams on the ceiling. I got lucky on my third try and I had a way to hang something. There was a wicked looking, heavily spiked mace that I’d had my eye on. It was so heavy I could barely lift it, so I dragged it over to where I’d hung the rope. There were a few furrows left
in the ground, but what could you do.

  Tying the mace securely to the rope, I used all my weight to raise it up off the ground. Then I tied the rope around a nearby pillar. Now, once I pushed the mace, I had something to Dodge.

  I took a quick look at my stats table to see what my percentage progress was for my Dodge skill so I could work out if this was doing the trick. As I scanned down, I did a double take. I’d added a point to Wisdom. Since Wisdom helped my problem-solving skills, then solving problems also increased my Wisdom. Sweet. Now I just had to find other problems to solve. Which, in itself, was a problem, so maybe I’d get a point for solving that?

  I pushed the mace as hard as I could and when it swung back toward me, I threw myself out of its path. Another quick glance at my stats table showed me it was working, and I’d gotten a small amount of progress to the next level of my Dodge skill. This would hopefully result in a Dexterity point, but either way, I was gaining skills.

  I had been so excited, however, that I’d completely forgotten that the mace was going to swing back the other way. Pain shot through my back and I fell face-first onto the floor. The mace had gouged a hole in my back and right shoulder, and I’d lost 30% of my health. Quickly grabbing a health potion from my inventory, I downed it in one gulp. I felt my back and shoulder knit themselves back together. Not the smartest thing I’d ever done, but with some focus, I was at least on the right track.

  Half an hour and a number of health potions later, I was rewarded with a skill increase in Dodge, my first extra Dexterity point, and amazingly enough, a point in Toughness, as well. I guess getting hit increased your Toughness. Definitely not my favorite stat to work on, but progress was progress.

  After a bruising three hours, I’d gained another five points in Dexterity and Toughness, but I was now out of health potions. Time to go visit the kitchen and hope no one discovered my hanging mace while I was gone.

  “What can I get you?” Suri asked as I entered the kitchens. I had no idea if Andrew had told her I wasn’t allowed to leave the guildhall, and therefore had no need for health potions, so I decided to err on the side of caution.

  “I’d love some bacon, please.”

  As soon as her back was turned, I opened the potions cabinet and threw 15 basic health potions into my inventory.

  “Is there anything I can help you with, by the way?” I asked as she handed me a few strips of crispy bacon. “I’m stuck in the guildhall for a while, so if you need any help with anything, I’d love to lend a hand. You make such wonderful food that I’d love to pay you back for your work.”

  It sounded cheesy even to my ears, and I was about to apologize and explain that I was simply bored, when I realized she was actually thinking about my question.

  “No one has ever asked me if I’d like some help before. If you have the time, I’d greatly appreciate a hand with a little problem I have.”

  That sounded like a possible quest and my ears perked up. Maybe I could level up without leaving the guildhall.

  “I didn’t join the Dragon Hunters voluntarily,” she explained. “Andrew wanted a Grandmaster Chef in his guild, and I’d refused him several times. At the time, my sister was a Grandmaster Alchemist, the best in this zone. She kept a journal where she wrote down her experiments and their results. Somehow, she heard that the Dragon Hunters were going to kill off every Alchemist over level 40. Since she was well-known, she didn’t think she could simply hide and get away with it, but there was nowhere in this zone she could escape to, either. She resigned herself to what was coming, but insisted that the Master and Grandmaster recipes needed to be preserved. She spent her last few days creating a version of her journal in code, which she gave to me for safekeeping, after destroying the original. I was supposed to pass it on to her daughter when she came of age so that the recipes would live on. Her daughter is somehow supposed to be able to decipher the code and translate the journal.”

  “Did she?” I asked, thoroughly wrapped up in the story.

  “Well, that’s where my problem comes in. As an Apprentice Alchemist, my niece, Aliz, was nearly level 20 at the time, so he threatened to kill her if I didn’t join the Dragon Hunters as their chef. Obviously, I wasn’t going to let that happen, so I gave in and agreed to join. However, as soon as I joined, he confiscated the journal. I suspect he had an idea of what was in it, but since it was in code, he couldn’t prove anything. Now that Aliz has grown up and is ready to become a Master Alchemist herself, I think she could decode the journal and bring these old recipes back to the world again. I don’t know exactly what they are, but my sister hinted that they would change the world. The fact that the journal is being held somewhere in the guildhall is the only thing keeping me in the guild. Aliz is willing to risk everything to get hold of it and become a Master Alchemist, but I have to get the journal back for that to happen. I think it’s probably kept locked away in Andrew’s office, but I can’t be sure.”

  “How can I help?” I asked. In reply, a pop-up appeared in my vision:

  You have received a quest: Missing Journal

  Help find and recover the missing journal.

  Completion of this quest will give you a set of high-quality lock picks and the ability to train as an Apprentice Alchemist with Aliz Rynemann.

  Do you accept? Yes / No

  I thought yes, silently congratulating myself on working out how to get to the next rank in Alchemy. Now I just had to work out how to search Andrew’s office.

  Armed with my extra health potions, I went back to the armory to finish gaining my extra points in Dexterity and Toughness before anyone discovered the hanging mace.

  The following day, Andrew called a guild meeting.

  “I’ve been notified about multiple sightings of corrupted monsters. Apparently, they’re spreading rapidly, so we’re putting together parties to deal with them. I want everyone in groups of three so you can deal with whatever’s out there. Ask the NPCs in the area if they’ve seen anything unusual, and if not, start combing through the area and killing off any corrupted mobs you can find. It’s going to be a long search, so make sure you have enough supplies with you.” Andrew told the gathered crowd.

  “Party up and start heading out,” Andrew shouted.

  This was exciting, maybe my confinement to the guildhall would be lifted. People started disappearing in groups of three, until there was only a few of us left.

  “We have a few new prisoners as of last night,” Andrew said, looking at me pointedly. “Make sure you take care of them while we’re all gone.”

  With that, he and his group vanished.

  Okay, so I still couldn’t leave the guildhall, but I now had plenty of time and an excellent excuse to be in Andrew’s office while he was out and about. Things couldn’t have worked out much better.

  22

  Blinded by the Light

  I made a beeline for Andrew’s office. I needed to find the hidden journal first, in case anyone came back early.

  Palming the entry plate, I stepped into Andrew’s empty office. After a quick scan of the place, I headed over to the first tapestry hanging on the wall. After all, if I were trying to hide the equivalent of a safe, that’s probably where I’d put it.

  I lifted the first one to look at the wall behind it. Focusing on finding hidden gaps in the walls, I tried to get my Perception skill to activate, but nothing happened. No blue outlines anywhere, so this probably wasn’t the place.

  Moving on to the other tapestries, I pulled up their edges one by one. These things were heavy, I thought, grateful I’d gotten those extra points in Strength. I focused hard on the stones that made up the wall, desperately trying to will a blue glow into existence. Nothing. The blank stone wall stared back at me, completely unaware of my growing frustration. Maybe this wouldn’t be quite as fast as I’d hoped, but if there was something to find, I was sure I’d find it.

  Okay, time to look elsewhere. The rug on the floor was a possibility, so I pulled it up as far as I could wi
thout disturbing the large desk. Once again, the stone floor gave no blue outlines, no matter how hard I focused on the edges of the stones.

  Other than the desk and throne-like chair, there was no furniture in the room, so there really wasn’t a lot of other possible hiding places. I could feel myself starting to panic a little. I took a couple of quick, deep breaths to calm myself down so I could think straight. Clearly, this was going to be a tougher puzzle than I’d expected from Andrew.

  I pulled out the first desk drawer and started rifling through the contents. There was nothing that looked remotely like a journal. The second and third drawer were the same. Pulling open the final drawer, probably harder than I needed to, left me doing a double take. It was completely empty. That was a little odd, given how much junk was in the other drawers. However, it didn’t get me closer to my goal, so no matter how odd it was, it was simply wasting my time.

  Frustrated, I slammed the drawer closed. There was a faint click just before it closed that caught my attention. A spark of hope kindled deep inside me. Pulling slowly on the drawer again, I could feel a tiny amount of resistance, before suddenly, that faint click occurred and the drawer moved more freely. Aha! I got something.

  I lay down on the floor, looking up at the underside of the drawer, and tried opening it again. Just as the click occurred, there was a tiny flash of blue at the side of the drawer. I focused on the area and finally saw a tiny little hole.

  Needing something the size of a needle, I stood up and searched through the other drawers again. Andrew must keep the item he used to open it in here.

  “Owww!” I stabbed my finger on a small piece of metal in my attempt to move the contents of the drawer around. A little red teardrop icon appeared on my debuff bar.