by J. J. Lorden
“Yep,” Erramir said. “Something like that.” He squatted to inspect. “Something just like that.” The circle was the size of a tea saucer, and he guessed the depressions were a couple tablespoons each.
Examination revealed one rune was his three-pointed crown. Carson, after some study, said he felt an affinity for another of the runes. Val didn’t have any sense of the runes, but since they’d eliminated two of the three, her spot was evident.
Erramir pulled out his dagger, held it over his palm, then pulled it back. “I’ve never done this.” He looked up at the other two. “But, if we need to fight after we do this, the hand is probably a bad spot. You guys have a better idea?”
“I suppose we could cut forearms,” Val volunteered as she knelt next to Erramir. “But we need to control where it goes. That’ll be tougher from the forearm.”
“Still, I’d rather not cut my hand.” Erramir removed his left arm bracer and pushed the underlayer up past his elbow, just below where his scale-mail shirt ended.
Arm bent with his elbow above the depression, Erramir held the knife over the thick part of his forearm. “Like this, the blood should run off my elbow.”
Val mimicked him with her washboard bracer removed and leather jerkin pushed up. Kneeling and facing opposite directions with their arms bent, they had to touch shoulders which didn’t leave room for Carson. But he wasn’t bothered by waiting.
With a nod, they made the cuts and let blood run down off their elbows. The technique worked well enough, although both of them had aimed poorly and left thin, crimson trails outside the circle.
“Fill it up, you think?” Val asked.
“Might as well. I’d rather not do this twice.” Erramir replied without breaking his attention from aiming his stream of blood.
When they were done, Carson knelt and followed their example, but his cut stopped bleeding with his depression only half full. He stood up and looked around. Nothing happened.
“Get down here and fill up your damn blood cup,” Erramir said.
“It didn’t say anything about filling it up,” Carson whined. “This may not even be right.”
“I don’t care,” Erramir said. “We filled ours up, so do yours, or we won’t know for sure this isn’t the answer.”
Carson begrudgingly squatted, but he didn’t hold his arm over the offering depression. “This shit is messed up, man. What the hell kind of quest needs our blood anyway?”
“This kind of quest. Here.” Erramir drew and held out his knife. “You want me to do it for you?”
Carson flinched away. “Ugh, no. Get away from me. I can sacrifice my own blood, thank you.”
The mage made a proper cut the second time, grimacing in disgust as he did, and the third depression filled quickly. When it was topped up, Carson stood.
The blood soaked into the stone, then the whole circle turned crimson.
The runes radiated golden, green, and silver light. Within moments they dimmed, and the circle returned to normal. As they did, the rooted hammer sigil came to life.
It changed from rock to living plant and black iron. Then a deep grinding sound started reverberating through the chamber.
“Okay, that definitely did something!” Carson said, looking about in alarm. “Anyone see what’s making that noise?” All three were turning about, trying to locate the source.
“The floor,” Erramir said.
Radial lines melted into the rock, dividing the room into wedges around a circle in the middle. Then the wedges started dropping down. The group took quick steps to the relative safety of the stable center. Val was standing on the first to begin falling, and she had to leap up a couple feet.
As each wedge thumped into place, the whole room reverberated and shook. In short order, the three of them were standing at the top of a descending circular stair.
Erramir looked at his companions with a big grin and was about to give a celebratory cry but froze when he noticed something else had moved. His grin disappeared. “Well… hell.”
Carson followed his gaze. “Fuck me sideways! This game has some kind of sick obsession with spoiling good news with screwed-up news.”
A massive slab of rock now blocked the path back. The only way left was forward. They looked at each other and then moved together to the top of the stairs.
A wail of whipping wind echoed from below. With a last glance at his companions, Erramir led the way down.
26
Into the Tundra
“Well, at least the dungeon gave us coats,” Carson said as he pulled on a knee-length, fur-lined jacket. There was a slot stitched in the back for his sword; Erramir had the same in his significantly larger coat.
“Not that we’d have any chance of surviving otherwise,” Carson continued. “I’m still coming to grips with being trapped in a frozen wasteland.”
He looked at his companions and laughed. “If we’re not the most polar-express, arctic-explorer-looking schmucks in the whole world of Kuora… then I’ll… I don’t even know. We look ridiculous.”
Erramir looked up from where he sat on the ground. He chuckled too. “Yep, we look like Eskimos.”
The stairs had exited into a well-kept cave with racks of winter clothing, a half dozen cots in the back, and wall sconces like those on the stairs down. These, too, were dark.
But those things were all secondary, none of them commanding attention like the image emblazoned on the ground. Larger than Erramir, centered in the space, and emanating strength with color and detail untarnished by time–was a rooted hammer sigil.
Upon arriving at the bottom of the stairs, the three friends had gathered around it and just stared. Like the smaller copy on the landing, this one seemed to have a living energy that drew the eye, only more so.
Looking at it, first studying the roots and glyph-work on the hammer, Erramir’s eye eventually fixated on the three-pointed crown. In this much larger version, the central point clearly held blood, not a gem.
As a group they felt vaguely comforted finding the rooted hammer. The feeling might have been an intentional effect, but mostly, they were all just glad it wasn’t the star over the sea of blood.
That sigil still gave Erramir the creeps, if he got his way, they wouldn’t deal with anything connected to it until level fifty, maybe eighty.
The opening out of the cave was the width of a barn door but squat with a line of glyphs across the threshold that formed a barrier of sorts. Although the sound of howling wind carried into the cave, snow and cold did not. Erramir took note of the glyphs, mentally recording them for future experimentation.
Geared up, Erramir stood in the opening with his two friends, looking out on unending white. None of them were trained for survival in this climate, despite that his confidence in himself and his friends was rock solid.
Erramir had been harboring silent doubt and feeling like an imposter invading this place. The concern had been buried deep and only tugged at the corners of his mind in a way he wasn’t even aware of.
One would think any reservation would have been dispelled by the runes only he could activate. Or by the linked companion quests Val and Carson had, or even by their blood being the key to the stairs that allowed entrance to this place.
Any of these seemed like more than adequate proof to have already cleansed any lingering uncertainties.
But they hadn’t.
His creeping doubt was revealed by perhaps the sole method by which one ever uncovers such things–when they’re truly banished.
For Erramir, it felt like inner silence and peace. And it was good.
The oddest thing had finally allowed him to drop into this natural confidence—the three custom-fitted sets of cold-weather gear at the bottom of the stairs. More specifically, it came when he sat down and pulled on the largest pair of boots he’d ever seen.
The instant his feet settled into the fur-lined boots, snug like Italian loafers, he felt right as rain. Erramir glanced at them, wiggled his toes, and smi
led. Love me some comfortable shoes.
Carson was considering the sky, shielding his eyes from the stark winter sun. “I don’t even think we’re underground anymore. Hell, I don’t think we’re even in the Whitewood anymore.”
Val nodded. “We must have gone through a portal without noticing.” She checked her map, “Yep, looks like the upstairs is still connected to this cave. It’s just locked.”
Erramir observed the wind-blown expanse, then tilted his gaze up to the sun. It was high in the sky, almost overhead. Even in the shelter of the cave, it didn’t feel warm on his face. “This is wrong. The sun can’t be that high in an arctic region. It’s impossible even in the middle of the summer.”
He took a couple steps out, pulled off a glove, and pressed his hand to the frozen ground. The subtle pulse of living energy he’d felt ever since arriving was gone.
He stood and pulled the glove on. “I think something is stealing all the life from this place. This should be green and verdant and alive.” He pondered for a moment before looking to Carson. “I think there’s some kind of parasitic magic here; might be the reason Qar’Dakar was locked up and abandoned.”
Carson glanced at him, nodding slowly with a scowl on his face. “What do you think?” Erramir asked.
Carson had been considering the unnatural feeling too. “I think something magical is being twisted here.”
He paused, dropped to a squat, and repeated what Erramir had done, putting a hand on the ground. “But…” He took a deep breath, stood, and exhaled slowly. “I’m not sure it’s malevolent magic. Could be, but I just can’t tell.”
Erramir frowned. “Not sure how this isn’t evil. But even if it’s not, I don’t think it changes anything for us. Either way, we’re here to cleanse this undefined evil, and we’ve only got one way to go.” He pointed. “Out there.”
“I can get behind that,” Val said. “Someplace out there is probably some big, bad, snaggle-toothed ugly, and we need to go kill it. Hopefully, we’ll get some decent grinding in between here and there because we seriously need to level. And if you’re right, Err, maybe we’ll unfreeze the place. That’d be a bonus.”
Erramir smirked at Val’s summary. She wasn’t wrong.
Beside him, Carson made a noise of agreement. They were all calm in the face of this vast unknown expanse; they’d found a purpose here. He felt his resolve reflected by his friends in a way that hadn’t been present before.
A new awareness lit within him. They had a unified purpose–they were together–a team.
As Erramir was observing this, quite suddenly, a knowledge of his friends blossomed in his mind. He could sense their well-being and their power levels. In his HUD, small transparent bars appeared below his own. “Well, I’ll be damned.” They had become a party.
“Hey hey, look at that,” Carson said. “That’s one hell of a way to party up. I gotta hand it to you, bro, no half measures here in Kuora; party-up mechanic activated by baring your soul and finding deep and abiding purpose in common with others. Fuck me.” He snickered. “That’s a damn sight more honest than a button.” He looked crosswise at Erramir. “You might have a touch of trouble selling it, though.”
“Maybe.” Erramir chuckled in agreement. “But I’ll take it. In my entire life, I’ve never felt so right about where I am. I’m exactly where I need to be, doing exactly what I need to be doing.”
He nodded toward them. “Even better, I know I’m not alone, and you both feel the same.” Carson and Val bobbed their heads in agreement. “It feels good–we’re in this together. Better than good, it feels damn good.”
“Helll yeah, brother,” drawled Carson.
Val bumped Erramir with her shoulder and shot a smile across to Carson. “Wouldn’t want to be trapped in a frozen wasteland with anyone else.”
Erramir looked to the sky with eyes closed and quietly added. “It also means that Elle is doing precisely what I wanted her to do.” He turned back to his friends. “As they say in Brittan.” He affected a British accent. “Seems right possible that Elle’s the dog’s bollocks.”
They both looked at him like he was nuts, and he grinned back. They both laughed. Val shook her head. “Well, then, the Brits are fracking weird. Why the hell would they consider the ass of a dog a good thing?”
Erramir chuckled. “It actually means balls in Britain. Still, it makes no sense at all, but I think it’s great.”
Valerie calmed and grew somber. She looked onto the icy landscape. When she spoke, her voice was tight. “Thanks, Err.”
He looked at her, and his eyes felt glassy, but he wasn’t embarrassed about it. “You are most welcome, Val.” She met his gaze and he could see her emotions just below the surface.
Val nodded once and turned back to the frozen expanse, blinking to push back the threatening tears.
“I’d say where we need to go is pretty clear.” Erramir cocked his chin toward the only landmark that stood out in the expanse, and they both nodded.
“I wonder what the hell that is,” Carson said.
“It’s our north star for now,” Val said. “No way we’re gonna lose sight of that.”
“No, we won’t, will we.” Erramir nodded. “Okay, let’s do this.” He stepped out, leading the party toward the only landmark that stood out from the ice and snow. A black obelisk that poked above the horizon and pierced the clouds. Against the artic backdrop, it stood like an iron spike dropped upside down from heaven.
They found what amounted to a path marked periodically by tall, thin stone spears not far from the cave. They fell in single-file with Erramir leading and followed the trail. For an hour, they tramped along, cutting through fields of snow up to the knee, detouring around drifts that topped out well above head high, and cutting across stretches of nothing but clear ice.
At some point, the wind began howling, and their occasional broken conversation stopped infringing on the silence. When an entirely different kind of screaming joined the wind, they all heard it at the same time.
“Val, you got threats on your map?” Erramir called over his shoulder as he crouched defensively and pulled his shield and long sword.
Val came up on his right. “No, nothing,” she replied.
He addressed Carson, who’d closed on his left flank. “Car, can you sense anything in the magic weaves?”
Carson started at the question and shot Erramir a surprised look. “Good idea, Err. Lemme check.”
He stepped away from them and unclasped a loop on the rear of his mitten, flipping back the top to touch the air. Carson held the hand up, observing it intently.
Erramir activated True Vision and immediately saw wisps of energy moving around Carson’s fingers. It looked disorganized and chaotic. He couldn’t make any sense out of it.
Carson, however, did see something. “Yeah, I can,” he called. “The essence flow is distorted; it’s being warped in that direction.” He pointed out in front of them to the right, met Erramir’s gaze, then unclasped his other glove. He didn’t draw his sword or mace but just held his hands down, slightly out, and ready.
Erramir could see threads of magic dance around his fingers, seemingly willing but without proper direction. “Gonna work on that attack spell?” he yelled over the wind.
“Damn straight!” Carson hollered back. “Not gonna be dead weight for a second longer than I have to.” Erramir nodded a smile to him.
Valerie crouched at the ready, watching Carson, and nodded her approval. “Good,” she said, but only Erramir could hear it. She turned and fixed on the direction Carson had indicated. “Better a glass cannon than a glass of nothing,” she hollered, and Carson just nodded agreement–he was focused on his task.
The wind suddenly calmed, then the screaming echoed out again much closer; they all heard where it came from this time and made a slight shift in their battle wedge to face the threat. An explosion of snow announced the arrival of their first party fight.
Fifty yards away, a section of snowdrift was
obliterated by a towering humanoid creature with four arms and glowing sapphire eyes. It spotted them immediately and started lumbering their way, picking up speed as it did.
“Holy shit, that thing is big,” Erramir said, gripping his gear in response to a flash of fear. He called to Valerie, “Val, can you target it from here? Maybe a staff through the eye?” She nodded, cocked her arm back, and let fly with Virginwood. The magically assisted staff flew unerringly–at the last moment, a giant blue hand batted it away, causing Virg to pass over its shoulder.
Valerie called her weapon back and snatched it out of the air. To his left, Erramir heard Carson mutter, “Ahh, maybe I can…” Then his attention was back on the giant.
It screamed again, then dropped its head, raised its upper set of arms to shield its face, and started really trucking toward them. Its lower limbs began pumping faster and faster, and to Erramir, it began to resemble a giant, blue locomotive on legs. The effect was more than a touch intimidating. Erramir had no intention of taking that charge, but he didn’t have any other ideas.
When it was about 30 yards away, he was able to focus on it and get a description tag to pop. As the label appeared to his sight, Val’s spear whipped toward the creature again, lower this time.
Famished Ice Elemental (Elite): Level 10
“Level 10 Elite!” Erramir yelled just as Val’s staff struck. Virg speared the monster square in its left hip, impaling and locking up the joint, interrupting its stride and causing the left side to lose momentum while the right continued unhindered.
The Ice Elemental’s balance was thrown. It teetered, flailing and looking about ready to fall. The party held their collective breath.
Sadly, the beast was more agile than it appeared.
Half spun backward, it hopped forward with its right foot and landed in a slide, right leg bent and out front with left dragging behind. Virg stuck out like a forgotten skewer from its trailing hip. The monster wobbled for a moment and stabilized, eyes fixed on them.
Then Val recalled her staff.
