A Slave in the Locked Lands

by Arthur Stone

  “Fine. If there are no other suggestions, I believe we should start the descent. We’ll find a fitting place and use our pickaxes to attract mobs. In the meantime, Danger Babe can rest from the game.”

  “Why do you keep telling me to go offline?”

  “My dear, it hurts me to look at you. Even with the best kind of capsule, it is wrong to spend this much time in the game, especially for someone in as lovely an age as you. And with your kind of connection, it’s nothing short of a crime. So, live and enjoy life instead of wasting away here.”

  “Look at yourself! You actually live here!… Oh, Tangh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “No hard feelings, my dear. And you are absolutely right. So, what are we up to? Are we going?”

  “Not before Agythric gives us some elixirs. I can see it in his piggish eyes—the bastard wants to pretend he has forgotten. Like hell I’ll let him.”

  Chapter 28

  “You kill the Moss Shadowcrawler. XP received: 4388. Points left until the next level: 22,0458. Achievement completed: Brave Companions, Part Five (Stage 2). Achievement bonus: +1 to Mental Power, +1 to Accuracy, +1 to Defense, +1 to Creation, +25 to mana. Bonus effect: permanent. Achievement unlocked: Brave Companions, Part Five (Stage 3). Kill 200 monsters whose level exceeds that of the party’s strongest player by 70 or more using your party’s resources to complete the achievement. Achievement bonus: random. Condition: the party cannot contain more than six players. The party’s median level must be at least twice less than that of the monsters.”

  “I’ve never leveled at this rate,” Tangh noted.

  “Me neither,” replied Danger Babe.

  “Ros might have a different opinion.”

  “I’d rather not tell you about my leveling speed. I wouldn’t like you to gnash your teeth in envy—or, perhaps, even choke on it. That would be a weight that my frail and vulnerable soul could never bear. By the way, there are many shadowcrawlers here this time. Have you noticed?”

  “But we’re taking a route we haven’t explored before,” Tangh replied. “We know nothing, so we shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “You’re wrong. We shall soon approach the detour around the first rockfall. We passed by just yesterday without seeing anyone. The mobs may be migrating. Or, perhaps, our footsteps have attracted them.”

  “So, do you suggest to keep on moving at the pace of three feet per hour?”

  “Better than wiping.”

  “We’ll never manage to reach the hall. We’re losing time—this is our second day.”

  “We’ve been given a more relaxed deadline than the first time. We should make it.”

  “The previous time we had a map. And the bosses were small fry.”

  “Your pessimism never ceases to amaze me. Watch out! A shadowcrawler!”

  Two minutes later they breathed a sigh of relief, and Ros made a conclusion:

  “You cannot even stand in this tunnel—they crawl across the ceiling and come right at you. There’s something fishy about these mobs, they look really agitated. Let’s keep going as fast as we can.”

  But there was no need to worry—that shadowcrawler was the last. They made good time as they reached the second pile of rubble, stopping just in front of it.

  “This is it. It’s dangerous to go any further—the skeletons might attack. We’ll camp here for the night.”

  “They can come here just as easily,” said Danger Babe.

  “They’d have to go through the hole we made at the top of the pile, which is going to take them a while, and give us time to prepare a cordial welcome. We’re spending the night here. As for you, it’s time to go offline.”

  “All right. I’ll try to come earlier tomorrow morning.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Tangh wagged his finger at her warningly.

  They camped for the night; nothing of interest happened. Ros feared that the strange behavior of the shadowcrawlers might portend new problems, there were no disturbances. He slept for some three hours, and spent the rest of the time crafting and enchanting accessories. He didn’t craft anything extraordinary, but a few items turned out pretty decent. He was especially happy about the staff. It took him many attempts to create something that would fit him, and this one was of good quality, for level 55 players. It would mitigate the loss of his Intellect points, and his spellcasting should not suffer much.

  He didn’t try to browse the forum anymore. The previous night he’d left a message in the thread about the recent enslavement, where he explained his utter reluctance to join any clans and asked everyone to leave him alone. He doubted it would help, but his recent conversation with the “ambassadors” had urged him to take that measure. Tangh browsed a few pages and complained about having received over fifteen hundred private messages. The headhunters must have identified him as one of the hero’s companions, and were now trying to use him to establish contact.

  Danger Babe turned up early in the morning, just as she had promised. The norder scolded her a little, but there would be no point in sending her back.

  They moved forward, passing the hall with the remnants of the Worm, then along the passageway made by the skeletons or some other variety of the undead, and finally reached the mine. About a hundred paces in, Ros said:

  “This is where we bought it the previous time.”

  “We were without equipment, and we did not resist,” Danger Babe pointed out. “You even called your pet back.”

  “Here’s the situation. Your Cartography is at zero, unfortunately, so we’ll rely on mine. I have seen many mines. They were all designed in more or less the same way. This one, however, is different. The main tunnel is too wide, and there are grooves for no less than four mine carts. Two are rare enough, and three would be unnecessary extravagance. So, why four? I don’t really get it. There are no galleries on either side. I believe this to be the main passage that used to lead to the surface. The mine must have been enormous, and they made several tracks to avoid congestion. For example, the left two were used by miners working in galleries to the left, and the right two, by those working in galleries to the right.”

  “Ros, why are you telling us all this?” Tangh inquired.

  “Because I haven’t quite made out the plan of this mine yet, and I’d like to know how we could search it in the quickest and easiest way. Don’t get too surprised if I lead you to strange places at first.”

  “Lead already. We’re wasting time.”

  “Prepare for battle! Skeletons!”

  * * *

  Oddly enough, that was the only group of skeletons. They kept walking through a perfectly straight tunnel for almost an hour without meeting anyone else. There were no side tunnels, either.

  The mine was supposed to be ancient, but there were no piles of rubble anywhere. Even lone rocks lying about were scarce. Danger Babe and Tangh were surprised, and Ros explained to them certain details concerning the upkeep of mines. Mines were created with certain characteristics, including those related to fixing virtually any damage. The process was similar to regeneration, but it was an underground construction rather than a living organism.

  Therefore, the antiquity of the mine notwithstanding, there were no signs of decay—the very construction, or structure of the mine, continued to support itself.

  And then they came to a rockfall that blocked their way completely. One couldn’t even dream of removing it with just a spade and a pair of hands. Boulders weighing tons were stacked one upon another, reaching up to the ceiling. Ros assumed this rockfall was the result of ancient events, that the game mechanics did not clean up in this case. Since it was said that the mine with the mage sealed inside had gotten buried under rocks, it would remain that way. They would have to return. Danger Babe was especially chagrined—it would take almost an hour to return to the place where they had fought the skeletons, and it was by no means a given that they would find anything of interest there. It was a waste of time, and incredibly boring at that.

/>   But the girl was wrong. There were more than a dozen skeletons standing at the spot of their last battle, studying the remains of their comrades-in-arms. The battle was fierce, but short. The only danger presented by the bony fighters was their high resistance to crowd control spells. Ros, who had lowered his Intellect, only managed to cast Sleep successfully every other time, maybe even less often. But there were no other problems, and the mobs fell quickly. The damage they dealt was high, but the attack speed was low, and were pretty stupid to boot, which was probably explained by there being nothing inside those skulls.

  From then on, they would run into skeleton squads every five or seven minutes. Some would just stand still, while others would approach. Ros believed that the latter had also stood still initially, and only started moving upon hearing suspicious sounds. These mobs didn’t cause any problems, their high levels notwithstanding—the pet’s level was much higher, and boasted all kinds of buffs from a flighting that wasn’t a total noob. They would take turns healing it in tight spots.

  They sent Danger Babe offline by midday, spending around three hours on their own. Ros used this time crafting new items—fortunately, there was enough ore, stones, and loot. He also kept grinding Enchanting, while Tangh made forays to the forum, returning quickly and reporting to Ros the latest news.

  Danger Babe returned, and they moved on. Some forty minutes later they came to a Y-shaped fork in the tunnel. Two pairs of grooves went into the left tunnel, and two more, into the right. The new tunnels were of a much smaller size, and looked perfectly identical. Ros didn’t know where to go next, but he realized this mine had a much more complex layout than his first mine. There was nothing like a single main tunnel with perpendicular tunnels to either side. Apart from that, he didn’t see a single piece of ore so far, with the exception of those found among the remains of semi-disintegrated mine carts. That meant they hadn’t reached the production area. The ancient miners must have spared no effort to go deep underground—none of their modern counterparts ever ventured as far.

  What could have been their motivation?

  They ran into a bunch of skeletons at the crossroads. This time, they saw a new mob among them—a completely desiccated mummy of enormous height, with a rusty coat of mail hanging all the way down to its knees, worn over crusty old bandages. It was armed with a long halberd, but used it very slowly, taking such an incredibly long swing that you could finish a cup of espresso while you waited for it to bring its weapon down. Once the pet attacked, it proved to be completely helpless, unable to fight at close quarters.

  The mummy bestowed to the party a rare quality helmet whose stats were ideal for a tank. The trophy went to the norder, obviously enough.

  They chose the left tunnel and went on, continuing for about an hour and a half as they took out squads of skeletons and mummies in just as carefree a manner. These weren’t serious adversaries, whatever their levels. Even Danger Babe was managing to deal them decent damage. It turned out that the adepts of the School of Light had natural bonuses that helped them fight the undead, and flightings counted as such by birthright. Offensive spells of the School of Light may not have been of much use against regular mobs, but worked amazingly well against the undead.

  Ros thought the first pair of galleries was yet another fork, for instead of being perpendicular to the main tunnel, they shot off at different angles. They chose the left one, ran into three skeletons, and rendered them to piles of bones. That was when he saw something new on the wall, and pointed at it.

  “Take a look at this.”

  “Take a look at what?” Tangh wondered.

  “There’s a gem here. An ametrine,” said Danger Babe as soon as she saw it, and followed up with her favorite question. “Is it valuable?”

  “That depends on the quality. It also requires Mining & Quarrying to be at 41, whereas I have a measly 23 points. Almost half the required amount…”

  “Well, your Luck is exorbitant, and you have lots of other stuff. Come on, try getting it.”

  “Let’s check the rest of the gallery first to make sure we don’t attract a horde of skeletons while we’re at it. You can hear the sound of a pickaxe from a long distance.”

  The gallery was a little over half a mile in length—much longer than any Ros had ever seen. Apart from ametrine, there was taphite—an even more valuable gem. It was used reluctantly, though, and mostly in tried and tested items. But that was true for every high-level gem. They were so expensive that there was a general reluctance to use them in risky experiments, which explained the lack of variety in the items that contained them compared to those made of cheaper resources.

  Unfortunately, in spite of his high Luck, taphite was hard to mine. Every other attempt was unsuccessful. Nothing unexpected about it—after all, it required Mining & Quarrying to be at 47. On the other hand, high-level resources were excellent for raising the stat in case of success.

  Ros could have lingered in this tunnel a long time, but he didn’t want to hold everybody back, so they headed onward. He roughly understood the layout of the mine now, and ignored the galleries they encountered later on. The game’s logic implied that there would be nothing new there—the same small groups of skeletons and gems as before. They had to be on the lookout for other mobs—new and dangerous ones, guardians of the passages leading to the boss’ very lair. That was how the previous quest worked—the fiercest battles were fought as they drew closer to the lair. It made sense to prepare for the same scenario this time.

  They spent twenty-four hours in the left tunnel. Ros leveled his Perception and Mining & Quarrying, crafted a couple of accessories good enough to equip, and plenty of those that could not be used yet on account of requiring levels upwards of 100. They should be able to sell them at some point. The less useful ones could also be deployed toward Enchanting. Progress did not only depend on the item’s quality, but also on its level, albeit to a lesser extent.

  The left tunnel ended in a cul-de-sac rather than a rockfall. This was where the ancient engineers had apparently decided to stop. There were abandoned mine carts, piles of debris, and even a couple of rusty pickaxes with disintegrating handles. All of it added up to a very characteristic tableau.

  It took them several hours to return to the fork. The skeletons were not replaced by new ones, but it still took them a while—the tunnel was a long one.

  The party encountered a reception committee right at the center of the Y-shaped fork. The skeletons must have taken offence at the slaughter of their troops, and decided to use a larger force to guard this strategic location. All the mobs were small fry, however, as the party dispatched them promptly. The norder diverted the attention of some while others attacked the pet, and five minutes later nothing remained of the squad of twenty undead warriors but a pile of dusty bones and shreds of filthy bandages.

  They proceeded down the right tunnel. There were galleries here, too, but instead of gems they found platinum ore. There was also the odd occasional outcropping of crystalite ore. Of course, there was probably a lot more of it, but it was much harder to spot due to its high level.

  The deeper they got, the stronger the skeletons became. They would often have formidable armor, and their weapons were pretty powerful, too, rust or no rust. The fights presented no particular complications, as before, but the changes meant they were heading in the right direction—toward the boss’ lair.

  They spent the next two days going deeper down the mine. It was almost evening when they spied a suspicious glow up ahead.

  “Put out your light, Danger Babe,” Ros told her.

  “What is it?” whispered the girl tensely.

  “I’m not sure. It looks like a fire.”

  “There’s no smoke. I cannot catch so much as a whiff of it.”

  “Well, look for yourselves—that looks just like glow from a fire.”

  “It does indeed. I wonder what it could be.”

  “I don’t have a clue. I’ll keep ahead, and you two, follow cl
osely. If anything starts happening, summon your light sphere at once.”

  “We’ll keep tripping. You can’t see anything under your feet.”

  “Farther on, everything’s smooth and there are no rocks. Just walk between the cart grooves and have no fear. You can also use them for orientation.”

  “Yeah, if you crawl and run your fingers along them,” Tangh groused.

  The tunnel ended, but this time it wasn’t a dead end. The engineers building the mine had reached a natural cave and had decided to stop there. The sight was well familiar: mine cart wreckage, piles of rock, and a rotten pickaxe handle sticking out from one of the piles. However, there was a difference—an uneven break at the end of the gallery. That was where the suspicious glow was coming from.

  Ros carefully sneaked up to the “mine cart graveyard,” then returned quickly and explained the situation.