“You can travel with us to Iskarg then,” I said. “That’s where we’re headed anyway.”
Smoglar got to his feet. “And if we meet your buddy who left you, we’ll feed him some of that plague water.”
The four of us started the walk to Iskarg. The city was hidden behind the curve of a hill in the distance. Although I couldn’t see it yet, I knew it wasn’t far away. I realised that I had done more walking so far in Re:Fuze than I had my entire life.
Feidan and Brian walked at the front of the group. Brian was asking him questions about alchemy. When he was curious about something, the giant would fire question after question at you until it felt like you couldn’t keep up. I imagined that Feidan’s head must have been swimming, but he answered all the giant’s questions with good grace. He proved himself to have a deep knowledge of alchemy.
“That settles it,” said Brian, turning to face me.
“What?”
“I’m going to become an alchemist. It’ll take me CR5000 to change my class, but as soon as I have that kind of money, I’m changing.”
“As soon as we have that much CR, I’m buying a pub,” said Smoglar. “With a blacksmith shop at the back.”
“A drunken dwarf working with hot metal, just what we need,” I said.
Feidan walked with his hands in the pockets of his robe. “Don’t forget; it might take you a while to save the coin for a class change, but you can still learn the skills in preparation. Give yourself a head start. I’ll teach you.”
“I’ve heard about you alchemists,” said Smoglar. “Brewing up mercury and then selling it to assassins to put in people’s drinks. Which kind are you? The light side or the dark side?”
Feidan’s forehead screwed up as he looked at the dwarf. It seemed like he was appraising him. “A bit of both,” he said.
As we got closer to the hill I knew that my first glimpse of Iskarg wasn’t far away. Blundow was the biggest place I had seen so far, and other than that I’d only visited Dry Gulch and the trader’s hamlet. It would be good to be in a city. I guessed that if this place was like in any of the other games I’d played, that there would be guards there. The wrath of the guards would provide a deterrent against player killing, and that was the kind of protection we needed.
The first thing we had to do there was to go to the library. Smoglar could go with Feidan to get the CR from the bank while Brian and I poured over books. Once we knew the location of the Greye homeland, I’d wire some CR back to my parents and then go to find the secretive guild.
I had to smile at myself. I was thinking about it like it was nothing, but the fact was that nobody knew where the Greyes lived. I trusted Brian, and if he said the library held the key then that’s where we’d go, but it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.
We came to a stream that ran in a spiral across the plains, trickling its way beyond the foothills and toward Iskarg. When I heard the sound of running water I felt my lips were dry with thirst, but when I saw the stream I lost my desire for a drink.
The water was discoloured and smelled of sulphur, and a mist rose off it like it had in the moat in the dungeon. I turned around and looked at where the stream went. Although it took twists and turns across the grass, it seemed to run from the general direction of the dungeon. That meant that the stream was infected. In turn, any animals that had drunk from it would also have the plague. We had to be careful.
“Iskarg might not be as welcoming as we expected,” called Smoglar.
I turned around and saw the dwarf had walked on ahead of us. Joining him, I could see beyond the hill now. From so far away I could see the bleached city walls of Iskarg, and a metal tower that rose up beyond all the other buildings. Holes were cut into the walls every so often, and water gushed out into a bank below.
The walls soared so high that I had to crane my neck to see them. They were impressive, but it was something above them that caught my attention. Moored to the parapet of the walls by four chains, was a zeppelin. It was too far away for me to make out in detail, but I saw a bulbous balloon made of a patchwork of material. Masts stuck out from the side of it, giving the impression that the zeppelin was a giant bee hovering above the city.
“I’m in love,” I said, unable to take my eyes off it.
“It’s going to be unrequited, I’m afraid,” said Brian. “Zeppelins cost more CR to buy than we’ll make for a long time.”
The structure of the city or the airship weren’t what had worried Smoglar though. I saw it straight away. The plague stream ran beyond us and then went into a pipe that led to the city. The plague-ridden stream was Iskarg’s source of drinking water.
“That’s our cue to stop and re-think,” said Smoglar.
I looked at Feidan. “If the city had been infected, surely people would know about it?”
“It depends on how long ago it happened.”
Smoglar shook his head. “No way. I’m not going near that place. We’ve just left one plague-infested hovel, and now you want to wander into another?”
“I don’t want to any more than you do,” I said. “But they might not be infected yet. They might not even know what’s in the stream. We have to go there and warn them.”
Brian took a few paces forward and put his hand to his forehead and peered into the distance. “There’s also the fact that we need access to the library. There really is no other way.”
“Are we settled then?” I said.
Feidan shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve already had the plague, so I’m immune. Fine by me.”
“Hang on,” said Smoglar. “Why don’t we just infect ourselves here and then have Mr. Healer whip up an antidote? That way we’ll have resistance when we reach town.”
Feidan and Brian looked at each other. “Do you want to take this one?” said the giant.
Feidan nodded. “There’s no guarantee an antidote will work on everyone. It’s a 5 in 7 chance each time.”
“Which means a 2 in 7 chance the plague kills us,” I said. “Not worth it. If we’re careful, we’ll be okay.”
Our walk across the plains was slower than it had been before, as if all of us were reluctant to reach Iskarg. When we finally stood before the city gates, everything was quieter than I expected. I thought there might have been guards there who would question us before permitting entry. Instead, the gates stayed down and nobody moved to open them. There wasn’t any indication that anyone was around.
Brian walked over to the gates. Gripping the iron, he grunted and then lifted it up. The screech of the metal disturbed the silence, and I saw magpies and crows fly off the city walls and into the sky.
For centuries, the brightest young scholars in the land dreamt of coming to Iskarg. Boasting the biggest library, a university with no equal, and a mage college that had produced some of the finest wizards ever known, Iskarg offered a lot to those with a keen mind.
King Lasteck, a ruler nicknamed ‘The Magpie King’ for his attraction to the treasures of others, decided that he wanted the oldest books in Iskarg Library. These were tomes whose age was beyond calculation, and a mere page of them was more valuable than most houses.
Filipian Arnock, the librarian and a romantic, believed in the preservation of knowledge with all his heart. He resisted the king; courteously at first, and then firmer when the king wouldn’t budge.
As is the case when stubborn men disagree, things spiralled until the king marched on Iskarg with his personal guard. He gave Filipian the ultimatum that he must submit the books, or die. Filipian, a fire-mage, delivered a fireball that burnt the king’s horse and scorched the ruler’s legs. The battle that followed was hard-fought and bloody, but the King’s men held out.
The grand library was ransacked of everything with value. With the ancient knowledge lost, the University of Iskarg started to wither. Librarians have stocked the library shelves once again but today, both the library and university are a shade of their former selves.
The city was eerily silent and comp
letely devoid of movement. The only footsteps we heard were our own. The absence of noise didn’t seem to fit the town around us. Ahead of me were dozens of cobbled streets lined with stone buildings. Some had shop signs hanging off the front, while others were houses. The street was littered with discarded food that had started to rot. In front of me and to the west was a courtyard with seven wooden market stalls set up on it. Each stall still had its produce on show. One was covered in metal pocket watches and another in various leather pouches, but there were no vendors watching over them.
As we walked on, I saw that some houses had green markings painted on the doors, while others had red ones. It was clear, then, that the plague had hit Iskarg, and these were warnings of some kind. The only thing I didn’t know was what the markings meant. Green usually meant ‘Go’ or ‘Good,’ and red was a universal sign of danger. The only thing was, in Re:Fuze red was the colour of health potions, while the mist that rose from plague victims was green. The residents of Iskarg hadn’t exactly come up with a simple warning system.
Ahead of us, rising high above the roofs of the shops and houses, was the Grand Library. It was a tower that stretched seventy feet into the air, made out of interlocking metal girders that must have taken decades to assemble. That was where we needed to head.
Before we could start in the direction of the library, there was movement on the street in front of us. I saw men and women stumble out from dark corners, and some pushed themselves up from where they had been laying, unseen by us until now.
The way they moved was unnatural; they took small, jerky steps, and their whole bodies seemed to shudder with the effort. Their faces were pale and bloated, and the skin had fallen away in parts to reveal their raw insides. I doubted there would be an antidote strong enough to cure these people.
“This answers one question,” said Smoglar, gripping his axe. “Looks like they caught the plague a while ago.”
“Surely a place like Iskarg would have alchemists and antidotes?” I said.
Brian nodded. “True, but it depends on how fast it spread. They might not have had time to act.”
Feidan pointed up at the library tower. “I’d bet you all the CR in my bank that all the alchemists, mages, and healers have locked themselves away up there. Cowards.”
The residents of Iskarg had caught the plague, it seemed, and now its residents were undead. Getting to the library wouldn’t be as simple as a stroll through the streets.
The plagued folks turned in our direction when they noticed us. They had looks of anger on their faces, as though they saw that we were alive and uninfected, and in their state of death, it made them angry. I knew that we were going to have to fight our way through the streets. The longer we waited the more impossible that became. I watched as more and more of Iskarg’s undead filled the pavement and then walked towards us.
Smoglar stood in a fighting stance gripping his axe, while Brian sorted through his inventory and organised his bombs. I looked around me at the undead. Their arms hung limply at their sides, and they stepped forward on legs that had thinned from weight loss. Their clothes were ripped and dirty. The way the creatures moved was unnatural. I had to remind myself that these people were human, once. I wondered how many of Iskarg’s residents had survived, barricaded inside their homes while the rest of the population had died.
I opened my inventory and took stock. I had the materials to assemble a dozen screw bombs, but there were so many undead that even twelve wouldn’t cut it. We needed something else.
The first of the undead reached us. It was a woman. Her hair fell to her chest, though clumps of it had already fallen out. Her waist looked so thin that it could snap. She growled at Smoglar and then lashed out at him, trying to slice him open with her dirty fingernails. The dwarf swiped back at her with his axe, severing part of her arm at the bicep so that it hung off at an unnatural angle.
I opened my inventory again. Sensing that we were outnumbered by a good two hundred to one, I knew that Smoglar’s axe wasn’t going to get us through this. I opened a casing and laid a foundation of gunpowder across it, smoothing it out so that it was distributed evenly.
“Do you still have some of the antidote?” I said, looking at Feidan.
The healer shook his head. “I drank it all. I could make some more, though. I’d need something infected. Is this in case you get bitten?”
I shook my head. “Something else.”
Smoglar struck the woman again and this time he cut clean through the bone and gristle on her arm. He walked over to her, pushed her back, and then kicked the severed arm in Feidan’s direction.
“Never say I don’t lend you a hand,” said the dwarf.
The healer picked up the arm, showing no sense of revulsion whatsoever. “You’ll have to hold them off while I cook up the antidote.”
Smoglar swung his axe at any undead that got close to Feidan. Brian made and threw screw bomb after screw bomb, peppering the undead with shards of metal. The problem was that although the screws were doing damage, they were inflicting a just little bit of injury to a lot of undead, rather than wiping any of them out.
I opened a new casing. I tipped some gunpowder into this one, and then I pulled a roll of paper from my inventory. It was the Bless scroll that I had taken from Red Leroy. When I unravelled it, the paper seemed to glow slightly, and the words were written in gold, curved handwriting.
“From the skies I call down…” I began to read.
A faint yellow aura took form in front of me, growing stronger as I read down the scroll. Finally I had a ball of yellow light that I pushed down onto the bomb casing and mixed with the powder. I connected the casing and fastened it together, finishing my bless bomb.
The undead were approaching from all sides now. As much as I felt sick when I looked at their undead faces, I pitied them. It seemed that most of the population of Iskarg had drunk from the plagued water source and caught the affliction. If only we’d gotten here a few days earlier.
Next to me, steam rose from Feidan’s black cauldron, and a sour-smelling green liquid bubbled inside it. Two plagued men lurched toward Smoglar, who swiped his axe at one and caught him just below the knee cap, crippling him.
I lit the bless bomb and threw it into the largest concentration of the undead who gathered in the street that led toward the library. The bomb landed in the middle of them. One undead, a man with a beer gut and a beard that was once carefully-groomed, looked at the bomb with curiosity. If he wondered what it was, the question was soon answered when the bomb exploded and sent a wave of burning yellow light all around.
When the light hit the undead it burned the parts of their skin that it touched. I watched as health bars all around me dropped further and further, and I heard the sounds of undead hitting the floor.
Smoglar shouted behind me. I turned around to see him pushing a woman away. He shoved her back against a wall and then aimed the blade of his axe at her waist, spraying her insides on the pavement.
The dwarf turned to face me and held up his hand. I felt my pulse race when I saw bite marks gouged deep in his flesh between his thumb and index finger.
“Save a little of the antidote,” I told Feidan, who nodded.
“That’s my bloody blacksmithing hand,” said Smoglar, holding it against his chest.
Despite my bless bomb, we still had an army of undead walking toward us. Brian had run out of bomb cases and instead had taken to swinging his hatchet at anything that came his way.
Finally Feidan sat back from his cauldron. He pulled a glass vial out of his bag and scooped most of the liquid into it, saving a little in the bottom for Smoglar. He handed the vial to me.
The groans of the undead rose around me, and I knew that I needed to work quickly. I poured the antidote over the gunpowder spread on the casing in front of me. I made sure it was well-mixed, closed the casing and then lit the bomb.
“Let’s hope this works,” I said.
I threw the bomb in front of me,
where it landed in the middle of a dense crowding of the plagued. We all watched as the fire fizzed down the fuse. It seemed to go agonisingly slowly, and for a second I thought the bomb might be a dud.
Then, the fire hit the casing and the bomb exploded. The sound roared to my ears, and a flash of light filled the streets of Iskarg. The smell of burned gunpowder hung in the air, and a green mist wrapped itself around the bodies of the undead.
I waited. I hope that the antidote would cure the townsfolk of their plague and that they would return to their former selves. Instead, a series of messages flooded my vision.
NPC Killed – 0 Exp gained.
NPC Killed – 0 Exp gained.
This carried on until I had seen the message so much that the words didn’t make sense anymore. I watched as the undead fell to the floor. Their skin was scorched wherever the mist from the bomb had hit them. The cries of the undead lessened and were replaced by the sounds of their bodies hitting the ground.
Tinker, Tailor, Giant, Dwarf ( LitRPG Series): Difficulty:Legendary Book 2 Page 12
