by J. J. Lorden
Bendik tossed the coin to Pete. “I’m calling it a Leo.”
Deftly snatching it out of the air, Pete inspected the coin, and after a glance, he chuckled, then his brow rose with surprise. “You included the new material…” He trailed off and looked up. “Is that wise?”
Bendik grinned. “Wise? Probably not. It’s necessary, though. Besides, they won’t have enough time to figure out what to do with it.”
Pete nodded, knowing that he had to trust–it was the only way forward. It’d be easier if we knew how to make Sentance work, he thought and took a deep breath. “Well, I’m glad. Logistically speaking, the tonnage math works better when we include this.”
Pete’s look became quizzical as he glanced from the coin to Bendik. “I thought we were the only ones who knew about this.”
“We are.” Bendik smirked.
“So… did Hutch print it for you with a blindfold on? He literally sleeps in his shop.”
Bendik chuckled, “He is a stubborn one. You know what he told me? He actually forbade me from using his gear without an explanation of what I was up to!” Pete smirked; Hutch pulled no punches and was well within his power to require the city’s owner be supervised in his lab. Bendik insisted it be so, but Pete knew his friend. End would have enjoyed the challenge.
“Soo…” Pete said.
“Well, he got pulled into the nanitics lab on some urgent issue a few days ago. I just happened to be in the area at the time, so I popped in and printed a few.”
Pete snorted a laugh then looked back at the coin, flipping it over to read the back inscription. “You’re going to give scholars fits with this, End. Latin, Greek, and what language is this other bit?”
Bendik just stood up and turned around. He stepped back to stand on the lip of the platform, then edged back, hanging his heels over the edge. “You know I can’t give them more of the past. A new paradigm requires new language, Pete. I like this one, don’t you agree that it speaks to our purpose.”
Peter did agree and nodded so. He stood as well and pocketed the coin. Its fifty-thousand-dollar value was incidental; what it represented was much greater than the money. He moved several paces away from Bendik, ensuring they wouldn’t interfere with each other, and backed up until his heels hung over the edge.
“Okay, End, it’s your day. What’s the game?”
“Random generation, twelve ring minimum, and finish at the outer corner of the pasture dome.”
Pete put on his Augmented Reality glasses. They curved from temple to temple. This particular pair was designed as part of a set, not to look fashionable. They settled about his eyes comfortably, and Pete looked back over the edge. Hundreds of silver ring-gates filled the sky under the dome. Alright then, let’s see... One, two… three, four... Pete counted as he worked out his route; each added ring extended a thin, red, optimal-path line that he would try to follow.
As he focused on gates further and further away, the glasses magnified the center without distorting his peripheral vision. The effect took some getting used to, but it helped prevent tunnel vision.
Twelve. Umm, no, not that one… there, twelve. He changed the last to a lower ring that left him on a direct vector toward the finish as represented by a silver dot on the ground at the far corner of the three-hundred-acre housing for grazing herds of cattle.
“I’m good,” Pete said as he raised his left hand and touched index and middle fingers to a pair of shiny black points on his right collarbone. His athletic, black pull-over instantly snugged about his torso and began extending to cover his head. After three seconds, the top connected to his pants which were already merged with his shoes, wrapping Pete’s entire body in a continuous black jumpsuit.
A flexible black webbing joined the space between his legs, thin tinted film filling in the spaces. He extended his arms, and four-foot-long, whip-thin, black rods grew from the back of his hands, as they did, delicate control loops molded onto his thumbs, index, and ring fingers.
An exoskeleton of bracing spread across his back, rising from the suit in a pattern that followed his ribs and spine before stretching narrow lines down his legs and thicker ones out the backs of his arms to connect with the whip extensions. The hood grew over his ears and across the top of his head, encasing and incorporating the AR glasses.
While the bracing reinforced his body, overlapping, almond-shaped panels filled in the space from the rod tips back to his hips. When finished, Pete had a sixteen-foot wingspan. Several yards to his left, Bendik’s clothing underwent the same transformation.
With a nod from Pete, Bendik counted them down, “On three. One, two…”
The two men leapt backward off the platform, rolling over and pulling their wings in tight as they began to accelerate. The separate wing panels collapsed back to their bodies like leaves on a camera iris, each panel sliding smoothly atop the next, preventing slack and drag just like the wings and long flight feathers of predator birds.
Pete flexed his right index finger the smallest amount and rolled slightly to his left, keeping Bendik in sight. They dove straight down, black falcons gaining speed for a strike. Heartbeats later, both men edged their wings out a few degrees, forming themselves into arrow points. Over one hundred feet per second of falling speed gathered on their sleek black surfaces as vertical drop became a controlled dive.
Then, in unison, both men carved to the left. Black wings flared, bracing activated, and two midnight silhouettes exploded into horizontal flight. Pete smiled and laughed like a wild fiend. This feeling never got old. They’d obviously picked the same first ring, and he poured his attention into his form, willing it to sleek perfection, and raced, neck and neck, with his best friend.
24
Preparations
The room was a rectangle, at least a hundred feet deep and about half as wide. Down the center was a two-sided, A-frame weapon rack. Both sides held gleaming swords, spears, halberds, and shields.
On either side of the weapon rack, and running the room’s length, were benches wide enough to accommodate two people sitting back to back. At intervals of several feet, posts with multiple hooks stuck up from the center of the benches; both looked well used, and the bench wood was worn smooth.
Along the sidewalls were armor racks festooned with hundreds of sets of different types of armor. Closest to the front were heavy shelves laden with leather armor pieces. Beyond them, chain mail and scale mail were stacked on tables, and at the back, sets of full plate armor rested on humanoid mannequins. From a distance, they looked like a company of armor-clad warriors.
“Ohh, yeah! Time to gear up, baby!” Erramir exclaimed as he sauntered into the room regarding the fantastic treasure trove of steel. He went first to the weapons and began to pick swords off the closest rack, testing them for weight and balance. None of the gear showed any signs of rust or aging, lending further credibility to their theory that the entire ruin had been magically preserved.
I wonder if I broke the time-lock on the whole place when I crashed in here. Or, if each area is preserved separately? he pondered silently while sighting down a longsword, habitually checking it for trueness as he did so often in his forge back home.
Erramir dismissed the thought, realizing it was unanswerable, and sheathed the longsword. It was a good weapon–he set it on the bench and kept looking for other options.
Valerie went immediately to the armor and began browsing through her options. Carson joined Erramir at the weapon rack and was busy hefting different swords and swinging them in practice arcs.
Being familiar with bladed weapons from his blacksmithing hobby, Erramir had a craftsman’s eye, and found each blade was high-quality work with excellent balance.
He also noticed that Carson seemed lost. His friend looked back and forth between a rapier and a longsword, one held in each hand. Erramir knew Carson wasn’t going to train seriously with the weapon and just needed it as a fallback until he learned some offensive magic.
He found a good d
ouble-edged short sword, handing it to the mage, it was more suited to his needs. Carson nodded his thanks and racked the two longer weapons.
The A-frame weapon rack was split in the middle by a wide walkway that allowed passage from one side of the room to the other without going around the end. On one of the end caps in that gap, Erramir discovered a massive two-hander in a felt-lined shadowbox. It had a beautiful scrawled pattern down the center of the blade and felt shockingly good when he swung it.
The two-handed sword was four-fingers broad with a thick core that made it stiff and strong. It was probably the best choice for Erramir’s physique and agility, and he was undeniably drawn to the weapon. But he had to consider his role in the group was to be front and center, the tank, taking the bulk of the damage.
Without a healer, defense was going to be more important than dealing damage. Torn between the sword he preferred and the group’s needs, he decided to let the decision simmer and left both blades on the bench, walking to the back of the room to inspect the plate armor.
He found most of a complete set that fit, but not from a single mannequin. He was able to piece together a reasonably fitting helm, shoulder pauldrons, a breastplate, vambraces for his arms, and leg grieves. His nails made the closed fingers of gauntlets impossible, and none of the sabatons fit, confirming his initial thinking that it may be difficult to find footwear when you were part tree.
Before donning the armor for a test, he looked around for some underlayer clothing and saw shelves lining the back wall with stacks of it. He dug out a set that looked right, then ducked behind the last row of dummies to change. Looking for a bin to throw his starter pants in, Erramir realized that the gap he was using for privacy was unusually wide. The space between the last set of armor and the back wall was much more expansive than necessary.
He looked at the other side of the room and saw it did not have the same gap. People walked back here for some reason. Maybe another room? he thought, creeping slowly down the aisle and inspecting every inch of wall and floor.
At the end, on the left, he found it. Another rune glowed ever so faintly in muddy yellow. Even with True Vision, it barely registered.
Scrutinizing the area around the rune, he found two mortar seams that were out of place. He traced them and made out the rough outline of a door. It was faint and definitely nothing he’d locate without having first seen the rune.
“Hey!” Erramir shouted. “Secret room in the back!”
Startled responses were followed by the sound of running. “Where are you, Err?” Carson called, sounding close.
“I’m over here. To your right.”
Carson rounded the corner, followed closely by Val. The mage rushed right at Erramir, bumped him aside without a word of apology, then started intensely inspecting the area where Erramir had been looking.
Erramir had been crouching and had to shuffle a foot back and shoot his right hand out to brace himself and keep from falling on his ass.
“Hey! What the hell, man?” But Carson was immersed–he didn’t even register the complaint. Erramir might as well yell at the wind, and he knew it.
After a long moment of staring at the wall section, but without the same up-close inspection as Carson, Valerie shook her head. “I don’t see anything. Are you sure?”
“Yep, I’m sure. There’s a glowing rune here that has the same rotational activation points as the armory door.” Carson was on one knee and running his fingers along the smooth wall; unlike Val, he was able to find the nearly imperceptible break outlining the door.
“Oh yeah, there’s a door here all right! Sweet! Secret room loot!” He looked up at Erramir as he stood and gestured at it.
“Alright, brother, do your thing. Open sesame.” Carson grinned, either oblivious or uncaring that he’d been an asshole.
Erramir frowned and stepped forward, retaking the spot in front of the rune-lock. “My thing, huh,” he groused. “Well, maybe my thing is to not share loot with rude asshats.” He looked pointedly at Carson.
“What? Come on, dude. You realize this kind of thing is my addiction,” Carson said. “You know that. It’s not being rude when you should have moved before I got here.”
“That’s just fucking dumb,” Erramir replied and stared at him. Carson stared back for a long moment. Erramir’s glare intensified.
“Alright, I’m sorry, okay?” Carson relented, but he didn’t sound so. “Now, if your hurt feelings are appropriately coddled, can we please open the secret door?” When Erramir didn’t move, Carson looked at Val for validation, but she shook her head.
“No, Car, you were a pushy asshat,” Val said. “Err’s steady eddy, but you literally shoved him.”
Erramir took a breath. It was true that Carson got a bit wacky around all things secret, but that was a thin excuse to act like an asshole. “Just dial it back, bud. Manners, you know, we’re not nine anymore.”
That seemed to strike a nerve with the mage, and he grimaced then scratched the side of his neck. “Yeah… um, I’m sorry, bro. I ahh, I don’t really know why I did that shit.” And he sounded sincere.
Erramir bobbed his head in acceptance. “Thanks. Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.”
He inspected the rune closely now. It wasn’t the same as the one that granted access to the armory. The central glyph was the three-pointed crown, but it had a triangle with concave sides, like a shuriken, in the thickest part of the crown’s central teardrop. The triangle had a red glow, and this was why it had looked muddy-yellow at first glance–the red blended with the gold to make it look muddy. The shape was integral to the rune, but he didn’t feel any resonance with it.
Erramir hadn’t yet interacted with any runes that weren’t attuned to him, and he had no idea how the rune would respond. On the other hand, he remembered the first runes on the stone slabs. Many beings must have walked over those without any ill effects, so it seemed unlikely that touching this one would trigger an adverse reaction.
“This rune is a bit different,” he said, turning toward Val and Carson and dropping his right knee to the ground. “I don’t think I’ll be able to activate it.” He pointed. “It has a central design element that I’m not attuned to. It looks like a pointed trefoil or a shuriken. Even so, I think it’s probably safe to test it. Considering how many beings walked over the entrance without activating those runes, there doesn’t seem to be any negative consequences to touching a runic lock you’re not attuned to.”
“Don’t you mean, there doesn’t seem to be any negative consequences, yet,” Valerie said. “We’re just starting to learn about Kuora, and just knowing that there are magically empowered runes in this world has me already waiting for our first runic trap.” Erramir hadn’t thought of that–it was a good point.
Carson interrupted the thought. “I think I’m with Val on this one, bro. As much as I want to see what’s inside the door, I think I’ll wait over here while you touch it.” Carson backed to hide behind the last suit of plate mail on the corner. Valerie followed him, and then their two faces peered at him, bodies hidden behind the armored dummies a half dozen paces away.
“Right, I guess I draw the short straw by default, huh,” Erramir said.
Carson, whose face poked out a foot below Val’s, responded, “Look at it this way, Err, your respawn point is the closest. If you get blown up, we’ll meet you at the base of the stairs in a couple minutes. No big deal.”
“No big deal, my ass. I’d still get blown up, so I’d say that’s at least a medium deal.” But he was already turning back to the rune.
Erramir estimated that since he had at least one of the two resonances for this rune, it would at least recognize that he wasn’t a threat. So, without further debate, he reached for the rune and touched the unlock activation point.
Warning: You are not authorized to activate this rune-locked door. Authorized access is only granted to those of the ancient blood with tri-nodal crimson clearance and having a minimum advancement rank of 5
.
“Damn, the city won’t let me open it,” Erramir said, standing. “I got a system message telling me that aside from being of the ancient blood, I also need something called a tri-nodal crimson clearance and advancement rank of five. I suppose that might be advanced attribute rank five, but I don’t even know if those have ranks or how many ranks there are. Even if that’s the case, I have no idea what a tri-nodal crimson clearance is or how to get it.”
“Wait, what?” Val said, stepping from behind the armor. “Advanced attribute rank? What are you talking about?”
“Yeah, you holding out on us, Err?” Carson followed her, and they both came back around the corner.
“Huh? You guys don’t have it unlocked?”
“No,” Val replied flatly.
“Nope, not here,” Carson added.
“Well, I don’t know exactly why, but I unlocked an advanced attribute during character creation, so I have a single point in the attribute of Presence. It’s some kind of secondary attribute system that you can only level with special advanced attribute points. And, I have no idea how to do that, so don’t bother asking,” Erramir finished, trying to cut off a bevy of questions.
“Humph. It’s probably nothing,” Carson grumbled. “Nothing useful, anyhow. I wouldn’t waste your time on it. I certainly won’t.”
Valerie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I don’t see why you’d care about that. From the way you talk about it, it’s not even a real stat.” She turned and headed back around the corner.
Erramir was stunned to silence at the instant rebuke. What the hell just happened?
If any one of them discovered some hidden mechanic or in-game Easter egg, it was always well received, and they all typically worked together to figure it out.
His gaze landed on Carson, who shot him an irritated look. “What?” Carson said. “You look like we just killed your dog or something.” Then he turned and followed after Val.
