The Road East (Epic LitRPG Adventure - Book 2) (Fayroll)

by Andrey Vasilyev

  “Oh, wow,” I said, having regained some semblance of vision.

  There was a corridor for you. You confidently march right into it, only to find yourself fried to a crisp. Singed and wearing nothing but your underwear.

  I leaned against the archway and thought about what to do. The corridor wasn’t that long, of course, but the flame was incredibly strong—more than enough to roast me. I wonder; does it need time to recharge?

  I took a few steps away from the archway, squinted, and tossed in yet another coin. The flame appeared and roared down the corridor.

  …Ten. I finished the count I started when the first coin hit the floor and threw another one. Nothing. I threw one more coin. Again, nothing. Only the fourth coin triggered the fireworks.

  Okay, so it takes the flame ten seconds to make its way down the corridor and about the same to recharge, plus or minus. I had fifteen seconds or so to get from one end to the other, and I only had one shot at it. There certainly wouldn’t be another opportunity.

  As a smart Japanese person named Yamamoto Tsunetomo[12] once said, “When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance.” It was a shame Gunther wasn’t there. He would have enjoyed hearing another Japanese saying. Also, I could have sent him into the corridor first…

  I headed back over to the archway and did my best to hide behind it. I didn’t want to get singed again, and I certainly didn’t want to get blinded. In went the coin.

  The already familiar sound of the flame took off down the corridor, and I, after counting to five, took off after it in what was more a succession of crazed leaps than a run. The flame got to the end of the corridor and petered out just as I crossed the midpoint. Five more impossible bounds later, and I flew into the next room, where I quickly jumped to my right in order to avoid the next flame.

  It turned out, I was fine. I had apparently gotten through the corridor fast enough that I didn’t trigger it again. I leaned against the wall, breathing hard, and wondered how I would possibly get back out of the temple if I didn’t find a scroll or the trap wasn’t turned off. Getting back through would be even harder.

  I looked around to find myself in a large (perhaps overly so) hall capped with a high dome. Through the dome, what was obviously not sunlight filtered down onto the marble floor and the frescos on the walls. The frescos were covered in centuries of dust, though I could tell that they depicted people and perhaps gods vigorously disfiguring each other with swords, spears, and other weapons.

  Despite small heaps of stones and trash on the floor, it didn’t feel littered or abandoned. It was almost as if someone had made a mess, had some fun, and then run off before finishing the clean-up. It certainly wasn’t as if the place had been empty for ages.

  I regained my breath and started walking around the perimeter of the room. Walking out into the middle would have been a mistake; I’d seen what happened when you did that. You got out there, heard kneecaps cracking, and watched as skeletons creaked their way up from under the floor. Or from out of the walls, another favorite trick of theirs. Then you had to try to fend off all of them at once. Plus, you might have gotten some hell hounds, zombies, or some other kind of exotic undead for good measure. No, thank you. I’ll just keep walking around the wall, around the wall, around the wa—

  “You’re here for treasure, I assume?” A snide and evil voice rang out.

  “Ah, no,” I answered, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. “I’m just a student here on an ethnological expedition.”

  “What?” the voice asked, somewhat confused.

  “I’m looking for different traditions, legends, toasts…”

  “Toasts? I don’t know any toasts. I do know legends though.”

  I liked the voice even less. It was obviously coming from a corner very close to where I was standing, but there wasn’t anyone or anything there besides dust and a pile of trash. So he’s invisible. If I had to fight him, especially in that semidarkness, I was a dead man. Why did I ever decide to come here?

  “That’s great!” I answered cheerfully. “Then I’ll just head up to the surface so I can grab my notebook and write everything down. Only the door is closed. Would you mind opening it?”

  “Of course not,” the voice said politely. “The door isn’t a problem. As soon as you finish the temple challenge, I’ll open it and turn off the trap for you.”

  “Challenge?” I scratched the back of my head, happy that at least he was a quest-related undead. That meant he wouldn’t be deciding to suddenly attack me. That’s not what they’re programmed for.

  “I just wish I could see you,” I said, looking around. “Just talking into thin air isn’t right. You start thinking all kinds of strange thoughts, wondering if you’re going crazy.”

  “Going crazy,” said the voice with a snort. “You’re already a madman. Who in their right mind would walk into an abandoned temple? Just fools and people looking to get killed. You can decide which of those you are.”

  “Oh, come on.” The voice’s logic impressed me, as I had been thinking the exact same thing about myself. “As if abandoned temples are always cursed. There are lots of different kinds of them.”

  “Different kinds? Yeah, right. Now, you and I are going to see what kind this one is.”

  The air a few steps away from me took the form of a ghost with an unusually ugly face. It was green and covered in warts, and it had rotten teeth and ears covered in slime and jutting downward. In short, he just needed a sign that said “Careful or your face will freeze that way.”

  Still, as surprising as this may sound, seeing him was calming for me. Sure, he was a demon ghost, and sure, he was nasty, warty, and slimy, but he was Level 35 and visible. If he decides to try to kill me, at least I’ll stand a chance. Or, maybe, we can figure this out peacefully and go our separate ways.

  “I’m sorry; who are you?” I said to the materialized ghost. “What’s your name and what are you doing here?”

  The ghost looked me over as if deciding if I was worth an answer.

  “My name is Zorbofayl. I have served in this temple as its guardian and overseer since the beginning of time. Well, at least, since the gods departed.”

  “Yes, you’re obviously great at your job. It’s nice here, cozy, and everything works.” I jabbed my finger in the direction of the corridor.

  “Well, brave temple visitor,” said Zorbofayl, all business, “shall we begin the procedure?”

  “What procedure?” I asked cautiously. “What do you mean?”

  “You came here to the temple?” asked the ghost.

  “I did.” There was no sense arguing that point.

  “You’d like to receive its bounty?”

  “I told you, I’m not exactly after material things.”

  “Oh, I know what you’re here for—I’ve seen enough of your kind over the last thousand years. Everyone comes here to look around, and then, suddenly, things go missing,” said Zorbofayl in a peeved tone. “Although, of course, sometimes they stay here.”

  “Fine, you’re right,” I answered, realizing that I wasn’t getting out without a fight. My initial suspicions were on the money; it was victory or death. In the meantime, however, I tucked away in the back of my mind what the ghost said about things being left in the temple.

  “There we go. Then we’ll begin the procedure approved in time immemorial by my master.”

  You’re kidding me. What kind of game is this? A demon ghost who’s also a bureaucrat? I wonder, does he take bribes?

  “To receive the treasures of the temple, the searcher is obligated to defeat four of its warriors in single combat, one after the other without interruptions or breaks. Ah, here they are.”

  Four skeletons armed with the usual swords, shields, and helmets tramped out of the corridor with the fire trap, their bones clacking together. Where could they have been hiding? I wondered, although that didn’t really matter right th
en.

  The challenge didn’t look to be all that difficult; they were just a few skeletons. And I didn’t even have to fight them all at the same time. Things were looking up.

  “Seekers who defeat the four temple warriors, fight the Temple Defender. Those who succeed in defeating him, win the temple’s reward and the right to leave it.”

  What could Elina have liked so much about this quest? Seriously? There wasn’t anything all that interesting about the plot and nothing out of the ordinary. Sure, the setting was fun—an old temple, a slimy ghost, skeletons in the ambient light…

  “Is everything clear, seeker?” asked Zorbofayl. “Are you even listening to me?”

  “Yes, yes, got it.” I decided to dispense with the formalities.

  I understood that he wasn’t at all aggressive, that he wouldn’t attack me unless I attacked him first, and that his job was to walk players through the process of getting the bounty of the temple. I just needed to follow his cues.

  Stepping away from the wall, I walked toward the center of the room. The skeletons, joints clacking, made a square around me.

  “Well, seeker, shall we begin?” the ghost asked, rubbing his hands and their long, green fingers together.

  “Just a second,” I told him and walked to the wall furthest from the entrance. As I got closer, I saw some wooden scraps on the floor where an altar had once been, some kind of posts surrounding a something I didn’t recognize, and the figure of some large person on the wall. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female. Then I took seven steps away from the wall, making sure that I had room to maneuver while not giving anyone room enough to get behind me.

  “I don’t like having anyone behind me,” I explained to the ghost. “It’s annoying.”

  “Agreed. Nobody likes that.” The ghost nodded. “Begin?”

  “Why not?” I gripped my sword and, in a practiced motion, pulled my shield from its position hanging on my back. “We ethnographers are never happy without a fight.”

  The first skeleton, who was the lowest at Level 33, charged, sword whirling and teeth chattering. I had long since learned to ignore how my opponents looked, and the nerves I had felt in Gringvort when I first saw walking undead were forgotten.

  I met the skeleton’s sword with my shield, and answered by slashing my own sword into him. My attack, combined with an ability, took off forty percent of his health. Just another battle.

  Nothing special happened in that battle or the next. The skeletons were fairly straightforward opponents, since they’re only dangerous when there are enough of them to overwhelm you. Killing them one at a time was a piece of cake.

  To be fair, I should note that my second foe was Level 34, something that I missed at the time. That made sense, however; the further you go, the harder it gets. Plus, they weren’t your ordinary enemies; they were part of a quest, so they had some tricks up their sleeves. The second was armed with two sabers rather than a sword and shield, though that didn’t save him…

  The third skeleton Zorbofayl beckoned forward behaved the same as his predecessors: a slashing attack, chattering teeth, creaking joints. He was Level 35. But then something strange happened.

  During my first two duels with Fayroll’s undead, I had edged backward until, at that point, my back was almost up against the wall. That wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that pieces of trash and other junk had piled up at the foot of the wall over the hundreds of years the temple had been around. I stumbled over a piece of wood or stone, waved my arms in a vain attempt to regain my balance, clanged my sword against the wall, and collapsed on my ass.

  The skeleton’s sword (this one, thank God, didn’t have his friend’s two swords; he only had the one) drew sparks on the wall right above my head. I rolled to my right, held my shield up to protect me, and tried to get on my feet. The skeleton quickly jumped over and tried to finish me off with his blade, but, luckily, it just glanced off my shield. My feet slipped on the floor, I couldn’t get my bearings, and the skeleton was raising his sword once again. I dropped my sword and reached out to with my hand, trying to find the wall and pull myself up. Instead, my fingers felt their way onto some kind of object that I squeezed, hoping it would be strong enough to support my weight.

  It didn’t break, but that was only half the story. It came to life, as it were, and it was as if I turned on the sun. From the cupola, which had been doing its part to barely illuminate the room, burst a bright, blinding light. I can’t say that was much of a windfall for me, however, as I found myself weaponless and suddenly half-dazzled. I barely had time to catch the skeleton’s blow with my shield and shove it backward before quickly crouching to pick up my sword and shuffling my feet to make sure my footing was sure.

  The skeleton once again charged, but that time, I was ready. I knocked his sword away and landed a strike of my own on his hip. It was critical, and my third opponent, the only one thus far who had given me reason to worry, collapsed into a pile of Lego pieces.

  I saluted him with my sword, recognizing the tenacity that had accompanied the usual skeleton stupidity. He alone had been close to drawing blood. Then I looked around. Where was my fourth enemy? I’ll figure out what’s going on with the light later.

  Opponent number four was still standing where I’d last seen him. I was puzzled as to why until I looked at Zorbofayl. Have you ever seen a ghost in a stupor? I can say with pride that I have, and let me just tell you what a comical sight it is. Seriously! Zorbofayl was frozen in the air, his jaw dangling, his tongue protruding, and his eyes popping out of his eye sockets. The only thing I can think to compare him to is a scene from Tom and Jerry—two plumes of smoke even wafted their way out of his nostrils. Needless to say, he’d forgotten to give the command to the skeleton, who was not about to do anything without it.

  “Hey, Zorbofayl,” I said to the demon ghost.

  He didn’t move a muscle.

  I walked right over to him and tried to pull on the tongue that was hanging out of his open mouth. It didn’t work—ghosts are ghosts—but it was worth a try. First of all, because I wanted to wake him up out of his stupor, and, second, because, you know…I wanted to be able to say that I yanked on the tongue of a demon in a temple once.

  Even though I wasn’t able to grab hold of anything, the ghost stirred, slurped his tongue back into his mouth, and put his eyes back in.

  “Where did you get the Mark of the Gods?” he hissed.

  “What mark?” I was dumbfounded, as I didn’t remember any of the gods talking to me, not to mention giving me some kind of mark.

  “You touched the Palm of the God and lit the Holy Fire. The only possible reason for that is that you have been marked by a god.” Zorbofayl got all that out in one breath before adding, “Or goddess.”

  I stopped to think. Sure, I’d come across a goddess, but not personally—and she hadn’t blessed me. I would have remembered that. How could I possibly have her mark?

  “So, that’s the Palm of the God.” That was the dusty old thing I’d grabbed. The dust had scattered, and I could see that it was a small, rectangular stela with a clear and oversized handprint. And, I went and squeezed it, bringing about whatever doomsday we were looking at. “Could it be mistaken?”

  Zorbofayl nearly exploded in outrage.

  “It was made by the gods, and they are infallible. The fire greeted you—nothing could be surer.”

  I remembered the text from the scroll and the pixie’s reaction. Nonsense. You sure about that?

  The ghost scratched his head.

  “So, I guess you’re who I’ve been waiting for all these centuries—one of the chosen ones.”

  “One of the chosen ones? You’ve had other people here who were able to light the fire?”

  “No, you’re the first. Everyone who’s come here and passed the challenge has touched the Palm—none of them were marked by the gods.”

  “Wait a second. What about the challenge? Don’t I still have to kill the last skeleton?
” I asked.

  “Forget it,” the ghost answered with a shrug. “Everything’s fine. The skeletons are there to weed out all the greedy idiots, plus, the God knows best when to leave his mark. You were marked, so you’re one of the few he needs. Come with me.”

  The ghost wafted over to the wall by the Palm and bellowed out a spell. The wall, which was covered in a fresco of something large that I realized must have been divine, parted to reveal a staircase leading downward. The catacombs under the temple.

  “What’s down there?” I asked Zorbofayl apprehensively. “Are you sure that’s where we have to go?”

  “Down there?” he answered. “That’s the True Temple of the God of War. Come on, let’s go.”

  He flew off down the stairs.

  “This isn’t getting any easier. Maybe, it would have been better to just finish off the skeletons and part ways,” I said. I wanted to spit, but decided not to—we were in a temple, after all. Gods are awfully touchy, not to mention vengeful.

  So, off I went behind the ghost, wondering about the Palm. So, if lots of players come through here, and they all grab it, how was it so dusty? Maybe, the ghost covers it every time people leave to make sure it doesn’t stand out?

  The staircase went further and further down, and Zorbofayl flew right down it a little ways ahead of me. He kept the corridor lit with some kind of sickly glow.

  “Follow me, brave warrior, follow me.”

  I kicked myself for going with him and for taking the quest in the first place, but there was nothing for it. Deeper and deeper we went under the earth on our way to the True Temple.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In which the hero learns something new about his world’s past and future.

  The sickly light flickered, Zorbofayl muttered, the stairs stretched downward, and I walked down them, thinking to myself. Ah, a little harmony and stability in the world—everybody’s just doing their thing.