by Andrew Novak
Attention! You have completed the quest “Kill the hydra”.
Collect your reward from Kaled.
You receive 1 XP.
You have 53 XP. Earn 7 XP to unlock new skills.
Attention! You have earned a total of 20 XP while completing Service to the Dark quests.
You receive a second Dark skill: Path of Blood.
Continue to complete Service to the Dark quests and earn Dark skills for every 10 XP. Earn 10 XP to unlock more Dark abilities.
Path of Blood, thought Jack. Hmm, I wonder what it does? And how do I activate it? No new icons had appeared in his skills menu. And another mystery! What had he got ahold of now?
Jack brought up his skills tab. There were the old skills, the ones he’d had for a while, and then some relatively new ones…
10 XP Furious Strike increases the force of your blows by 50%. Can be used up to three times within 10 min. Cooldown: 1 hr.
20 XP Tireless Wanderer increases stamina while traveling. Lasts 3 hours. Cooldown: 6 hours.
30 XP Sprint increases movement speed in combat by 30%. Effect lasts 15 seconds. Cooldown: 1 hr.
40 XP Berserk reduces sensitivity to damage and increases resistance to all magical and physical debuffs. Lasts for 30 sec. Cooldown: 1 hr.
50 XP Shadowmaster doubles stealth stat. Doubles the effect of artifacts with camouflage and spells with no additional mana cost. Effect lasts 10 min. Cooldown: 2 hours
He still hadn’t used that last skill. Under these icons was a second row with the Dark skills and there was only one:
10 XP Leader grants the ability to form a squadron of five dark units.
He didn’t see the second skill. While herding the goblins back into their box, he remembered how he had gotten his first Dark skill. It was a quest connected with the box and he’d had to consult Egghead for advice. What about now? Evidently the devs were supposed to give him something. Where was the guy dragging a box? No, not a box. A box wasn’t big enough. Now, a barrel or chest… because the second skill should be important than the first. But no, of course it’s not that simple! The box had been part of a quest, which meant that now he had to complete some task. So, what was the solution to the task of unlocking Path of Blood?
Jack looked around for a clue. He was standing among hewn stones that had once formed the wall of Astra’s temple, but were now a scattered mess. Here was the trail he’d used to get here from the coast, which crossed a flagstone path that, in better times, had circled the temple.
Ha! It was a crossroads! This, this was the path where he was supposed to shed blood. He needed to bring a sacrifice to Dark Necta. That was it! Path of Blood would unlock when Jack shed blood at the crossroads. There were no animals around to test his theory, though… Maybe he could summon the goblins and order them to catch a rat? Because he did not particularly want to go all the way back to the village for a sheep…
A noise came from overhead, there was the smell of hot wind, and the crossroads was flooded with blazing orange light. Dazzling sparks danced around him. Jack bolted. There was a group of large stones nearby, but he didn’t reach it in time. A roaring ball of fire fell from the sky and landed in front of Jack, flaming muzzle stretched wide to reveal white fangs. The fiery hound stood before him, wings fanned out. The beast inhaled. Jack saw its ribcage expand as it drew in the spark-filled air…
That was it. All he could do was fall prostrate to the ground.
You receive damage!
You lose 17 hit points!
Jack rolled, jumped to his feet and hauled himself toward the safety of the stone pile. Orange light flared behind him. The dog had taken to the air, flapping its great wings. It was overhead in an instant. Jack staggered back and flung his sword up to defend himself. The dog dropped from the air, just missing his head, and the sword passed through the flame without causing the creature any harm.
You receive damage!
You lose 22 hit points!
Jack slipped out of the flame’s embrace and tossed back an elixir as he went, but his health bar was almost empty. Shadowmaster! The skill for reaching 40 XP was a bonus to concealment! It wouldn’t be enough to escape the fiery beast, even at night, because concealment had always been a weak spot for Jack. Shadowmaster amplified the player’s skill and he had practically nothing to increase… Darting from side to side, he dodged between boulders, shadows dancing under his feet. The hound rose into the air and circled, eyes searching for the runaway. A pillar of flame struck the ground nearby.
You receive damage!
You lose 6 hit points!
Jack careened away from the fire, tripped, and plowed a furrow in the ground between the rocks.
You receive damage!
You lose 2 hit points!
He froze. In the next moment, something heavy crashed down from above, pressed him into the rocky ground, and enveloped Jack in darkness. Lisa’s voice whispered just behind his ear:
“Don’t move! And don’t play without me, got it?”
Jack took a deep breath. He lay still, digging his nose into the gravel, while Lisa settled herself and shrouded them with the Cloak of Theokrist. The muffled sounds of flapping wings and crackling sparks carried through the heavy fabric. The hound continued to circle, gradually moving away and climbing higher…
Lisa’s cheek rubbed Jack between his shoulder blades. Her hair slid across the nape of his neck, but the game didn’t render it as tickling… A few minutes passed, then all fell quiet.
“Dawn’s getting close. It’s time for you to go,” Lisa sighed.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “It’s time. But, holy hell, do you understand what just happened here? That thing flew over here for me… This is a personal enemy. Someone set it on us, someone who doesn’t want me to light the fires on Gaerthon. Somebody really doesn’t want the mysteries of the lost continent discovered.”
Chapter Five
The Middle Finger
THE BLIGHTED WASTELAND was a good place for thinking. Look at the scenery or not, it didn’t really matter. There was rarely anything new. Jack had already been walking for most of the day, but there was nothing in the gray landscape to hold either his gaze or thoughts. So, out of habit, he reflected on the events of the previous evening. If he just let his thoughts wander, they returned to Lisa. Jack didn’t want to let his thoughts wander too far and talked thoughtfully to himself:
“Was that the same winged hound? Or was it a second one? No, it was the same one. I didn’t see any stats or descriptions, but it was unlikely that there were two of such a unique monster. The only place he could find a bunch of identical dogs was in the Wasteland because they’re weren’t winged and made of fire. Nature loved to scrimp on things like fire and wings.
Jack stopped and gazed at a strip of dust rising into the air. It could be the wind or, worse, a pack of wild dogs. It turned out to be the wind. He could continue.
“So, it was the same dog. It had been on Scand island, where I completed Nevil’s quest with the giants, and had prevented me from visiting the temple there. If the island inhabitants were Scands, then the temple was most likely dedicated to Ged. When I came to Lahitte island, it showed up there at the exact moment I was going to enter Astra’s temple. It didn’t appear right away, because it takes time to fly from island to island. Was it following me? No.”
Jack pulled out a canteen and took a couple of gulps.
“No, it can’t be, because it didn’t chase the Dead Wind when I steered the ship away from the shore. The brute was watching the temples. It was making sure that no one entered and lit the fire. You’d think the indigenous monsters on Theokrist’s path would be enough. Like Nevil’s giants and Kaled’s hydra. But a flaming dog with wings and no stats that chases me from temple to temple? Something didn’t fit. Especially since I saw the Skyfort when this creature made its first appearance. How is the Skyfort connected?”
In the distance ahead, a bank of oddly-shaped, dust-covered hills cut through the Wasteland
. Jack studied it for a moment, then took his binoculars out… and whistled. It was a highway. The asphalt could still be seen in some places under the sediment. A string of cars sat on the highway. There were dozens — a couple of trucks at the front of the line, but mostly passenger cars. Not a single one had an intact body. They were all crushed, compressed as if something had run a giant iron across them. The asphalt in front of the lead car rose in the air, the broken layers stood upright, and Jack could see the bent tail of a helicopter sticking out of the piles wreckage. The tail rotor blades were crumpled and twisted. The copter had taken a nosedive into the line of cars, driven itself into the asphalt and flattened. Afterwards, the helicopter had exploded. A few of the foremost cars had been swept back and tossed in the blast wave.
Jack lowered the binoculars and continued on his course, without turning toward the derelict highway. No, he didn’t particularly want to see up close the remains of a bygone disaster. No time for that. Later, maybe, when he didn’t have any pending quests.
His path was blocked by ridge of low hills peppered with bristled shrubs growing in the shade between slopes. Wasteland bushes had more thorns than leaves and even those were thin, rigid, and needlelike. And they often served as a good hiding place for certain animals.
Jack abandoned his speculation about the fire dogs of Alterra and began studying the dust underfoot. Would he find tracks? If a creature had a lair nearby, then they always left traces around the area. Probably nothing. The dust was undisturbed and he couldn’t find any prints. Now to survey the hills through the binoculars, and what Jack saw made him none too happy. Black spots, probably holes, darkened the hillside. And any hole is a potential burrow. And a burrow most certainly means trouble. Anything you meet in the Wasteland is trouble. Reality was not Alterra, and no one handed out rewards for dealing with trouble. Jack veered and walked parallel to the hilly ridge.
He was already at the boundary of the Dead Strip, the Middle Finger should come into view any moment now… Evening was fast approaching and he needed to find shelter for the night. He would approach the Finger early tomorrow morning. Jack spotted a passage through the hills — a narrow valley about a hundred feet wide that offered no shade or vegetation. Jack strode off in that direction. As he came up to the hills, a view of the infamous Dead Strip opened up before him. Wind drove waves of dust across a stark, utterly flat valley. No bushes, not a single tuft of grass. Here and there, the remains of old buildings stuck out and the Middle Finger loomed in the distance beyond them. It was a tall, smooth column dotted with rows of black windows. The rubble surrounding this vast hulk seemed small, insignificant.
Jack chose some ruins with an intact, more or less, house with an attic to spend the night in. As a general rule in the Wasteland, the higher off the ground you are, the better. Animals scurry and crawl all over the ground, and it was just safer to sleep on the second floor. Leaving the hills behind, Jack wandered toward the ruins. From time to time he glanced at the Middle Finger. What was so dangerous there? Why did this place have such a shitty reputation?
Was it possible that the thing that spooked Walkers in the past had already abandoned the skyscraper? He wouldn’t know until he got inside. When Jack walked around the Middle Finger and looked at it from the other side, he found a huge hollow at the base of the building, as if something had gnawed away a portion of the lower floors. He saw beams, pieces of concrete hanging from twisted reinforcement rods, and lumpy heaps of debris through the hole. The tower had been built to last. Even this assault hadn’t brought it down.
The wind picked up, clouds of dust obscured the hole, and something stirred in the darkness behind the empty window openings. Jack hastily grasped at his binoculars, but the gust of wind passed and all was still again in the gloom inside the building. The dust, swirling slowly, subsided.
“Tomorrow we’ll take a closer look,” He said to himself. “Now I just have to survive the night.”
* * *
The two-story house Jack had chosen looked terrible. Floorboards rattled and sagged disturbingly with each step, half of the wooden ceiling overhead had collapsed, but the exterior brick walls still held and there was room on the remaining attic floor to settle in for the night. The roof seemed solid enough and the attic window directly faced the tower. He’d be able watch it after dark.
He clambered up the ceiling debris to the attic and settled into an intact corner. He propped his spear against the wall, took Egghead’s subsonic device out of his bag to have at hand… and dozed off. When he woke up, the sun had already set and twilight settled over the Wasteland. A faint light trickled in through the window, but the attic was otherwise dark.
He pulled out the binoculars and pointed them at the windows of the Middle Finger. Something was moving in the darkness. Maybe it was some fortunate poster that survived or peeling veneer fluttering in the wind. Or perhaps not. Time went on, the sky grew dark and heavy, but nothing happened. It could be the movement was simply no longer visible.
Jack again moved away from the window and leaned against the wall. Every time he moved, the floor creaked and quivered. Everything here was rotten and falling apart.
A light breeze found its way in through the window and shifted his hair. Something scratched at the roof. The sounds were soft, not too alarming. A bird, maybe? There weren’t many birds in the Wasteland. They didn’t have anywhere to build nests that land animals couldn’t reach. But they had a tower here. Jack stood up, walked over to the window, and stepped into the dimly lit rectangle on the floor. Before he’d even reached the window opening, he was hit by a wave of stench and a shaggy, formless… something pushed inside. The thing immediately filled the entire opening and the attic went dark. Jack staggered away from the teeth snapping just in front of his nose, and the effluvia that puffed in his face…
He backed up all the way to the wall where he’d left his weapon. The shaggy creature flopped over the window sill, claws struck lightly on the floor, and the window was obstructed by another shadow. Before it blocked all the light, Jack managed to see protruding ears, faintly glowing orb eyes, and just below — jaws full of tiny, sharp teeth. He snatched the revolver from his pocket and fired at the spot where the ugly, grinning mug had just been. Then immediately retreated back to the wall for his weapon. As he took up the spear, the second creature jumped down from the sill. Its form seemed fluid. At first, it looked thick, broad, when it blocked the window, then it unexpectedly shrank and slipped inside without effort. It slipped in blood, straightened, and hobbled toward Jack. As it advanced, he could see it was at least three feet tall, but it moved lightly and the flimsy, cracking floorboards underneath didn’t squeak.
Two more faces appeared in the window, hissing and baring teeth. Two more of the bastards, jostling each other, climbed inside. As they shoved through the window together, it went dark inside. Jack stabbed the spear blindly, stepped back, and thrust a couple more times. The spearhead didn’t strike anything, so Jack pointed it lower and finally hit something. Something rustled right next to his feet and Jack, flipping the shaft, struck straight down. The tip stuck firmly into the boards, the floor under Jack shuddered and the impaled creature gave a screech. By then, the two beasts in the window had finally squeezed through, followed by more and more. Jack moved back along the wall, swinging his spear like a club. Sometimes a blow hit its mark, sometimes the beasts just yelped and jumped aside. Meanwhile, creatures continued swarming in through the window opening one after another. The clicking of their jaws sounded all too close, waves of fetor rolled over him. Jack heard rustling above him, then a creaking, claws scratching on wood, but he had nowhere else to go. He was at the edge of the intact portion of the floor. He ducked, exposing his back to the thing creeping along the rafters. Clawed feet grasped at his cloak from several sides.
With a deafening crack, the boards gave way under his boots and Jack, with creatures clinging, tumbled down amidst the rotting debris to the first floor. In his fall, he turned over, put
ting one of the shaggy smelly things between himself and the floor. Fragile bones broke upon impact. Jack rolled off the crushed beast, the other two jumped away. Overhead, a few more of these strange beasts fumbled about, hissing and squealing with creaky voices.
Jack jumped to his feet and seized the spear and the sudden movement caused the floor to give way again. He fell through to his waist and felt something under his feet begin to move.
“How many of you are there?!” Jack pushed off from the doughy, squirming thing hiding under the floor and slipped out of the hole. The floorboards cracked again, threatening to break, and he rushed for the door. He flung it open, shot outside, and immediately dove to the side. Oddly enough, though, nothing else attacked. Something was bustling and scratching around in the middle of the room where he had broken the floor. He could see it through the doorway.
The shaggy beasts slid over the edge of the attic floor to the ground, slipped into the hole, trying to enlarge it… Jack sat back on his heels so they wouldn’t notice him. The creatures that attacked him upstairs were winged. Now that he could take the time to look, he could see the membranous wings folded against their bodies. At the moment, the creatures were flapping them to drag their prey out from under the floor more easily.
This explained why their forms seemed to change in size. They were opening and closing their wings. But what was under the floor? The flying creatures dragged something long, fat and wriggling up to the first floor. Was that a worm? Ten feet long?!
Jack, doing his best to keep quiet, slowly crept away from the wall into the skeletal shadow of a neighboring building, crouched under a concrete slab and lay low. The moon emerged and washed the ruins with its silvery sheen. Jack stayed to the shadows and listened to the rasp of wings inside the building next door.
After a short time, the winged creatures emerged again, ponderously flapped their wings and flew away from the rooftop. Some headed toward the Middle Finger, others began circling above the ruins. Jack stayed hidden and waited.
