Fayroll [04] Gong and Chalice

by Andrey Vasilyev

  I grabbed the loot from the dead giant and noticed that the other two had been finished off by my group. They were standing there staring at me suspiciously.

  “Hey, Hagen,” Ping asked, coughing, “you aren’t a wizard, by any chance, are you?”

  “Yeah, are you?” Pong added cautiously.

  Lane didn’t have a question to add, though he hadn’t put his sword back in its sheath. Ur couldn’t be bothered with questions; he was too busy knocking the biggest gorilla’s teeth out.

  “Are you serious? If I were a wizard, what would I need the lot of you for?” I asked with the frankest face I could manage. “Plus, we could have taken those monkeys on our own.”

  It was true, incidentally. Sure, they would have given us a run for our money, but the balance of power was in our favor. I still should have had Lane find an archer for us. He knew half the Free Companies, and he definitely would have been able to.

  “That makes sense.” Lane nodded and put away his sword. “Let’s head into the temple before something else jumps us.”

  ***

  The temple entrance was closed, and I was about to curse when the golden doors creaked open. A piquant smell wafted out to greet us. Torches lined the walls, lighting our way into the temple.

  “Damn, that’s terrifying,” Ping whined.

  “And you’re a mercenary?” Lane said sadly. “The Free Companies aren’t what they used to be.”

  “I’m not afraid of living enemies,” Ping shot back.

  “Dead ones either. But that…nasty,” Pong said supportively.

  On the inside, I was with the brothers. The temple really did look like a nasty place. But I didn’t have a choice, so I stepped inside.

  You entered the Temple of Hannuman, the Monkey King. In ancient times, this was where deals were often cut between the Departed Gods, and the temple proprietor was frequently called as a witness. The walls of this old temple still remember the voices, the power, and the ambition of the Old Gods.

  Note:

  You entered the temple as part of a group, and have therefore forfeited your claim to the bonus reward.

  Difficulty level: standard (default)

  Additional note: You can only visit the Temple of Hannuman once. If you die as part of any quest related to the temple, you will fail that quest.

  The temple can be left without counting as your visit until you use a key to open any of the doors inside it related to your quest. Once you use a key, you can only exit the temple by successfully completing the quest or by dying.

  Note: portal scrolls do not work inside the temple.

  Well, that’s harsh, I thought, realizing that dying would mean that everything I’d done up to that point would have been a waste. Losing everything I’ve worked for? Damn…

  “What are you waiting for?” Lane shoved me. “Come on, let’s get going. I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to. We’ll get this done and go find some girls. Ur, you and I are behind Hagen, you two bring up the rear.”

  The corridor was empty save for the light from the torches and the shadows we cast on the walls. It was long and winding, leading inexorably downward. That, apparently, was why the temple was so small. Most of it was below ground. From time to time, we came across doors on either side, and I couldn’t help but note their variety. They were wooden, stone, carved, with and without bas-relief, and one was even crystal and semi-transparent to the point where we could see some kind of coffin atop chains and surrounded by small, frozen figures. The doors were all closed, however, and the interface gave me a single message for each of them.

  You don’t have the key to that door.

  Finally, at the end of the hall, was a door decorated with an elaborately carved monkey with a staff and that same horn in his hands. He was delivering the knockout blow to a large snake. It was good, quality craftsmanship. Already just about to give up hope, I gave that door a push as well, and, to my surprise, it opened.

  You used the Key of Bravery.

  Ah-ha, bingo. The only questions remaining were what awaited us on the other side and whether the five of us would be up to the task.

  I turned to give my troops a pep talk, but only two of them were standing there: Lane and Ur. The brothers were gone.

  “Where are the other two?” I blinked in amazement.

  Lane spun around quickly and spouted off a string of curses; he was an artist when he wanted to be. It seemed that everything he chose to do was done deftly and well.

  “They ran off, the bastards!” Ur spat. “Those animals. And they did it quietly; I didn’t hear a thing. Don’t worry, though, we’ll make them give you your money back.”

  “Screw the money,” I said, crestfallen. “The problem is that we’re two men down!”

  “We’ll be fine,” Ur assured me. “Even just the three of us are a force to be reckoned with. Plus, it’s been quiet so far. We’ve come this far, and we haven’t come across anyone.”

  Warning: if you don’t enter the temple room within 30 seconds, the door will close, and you will fail the quest.

  A timer started to count down in the left corner of the interface. 30…29…28… Damn it!

  “Okay, let’s go. We can nail them to the wall later,” I ordered darkly as I stepped across the threshold.

  ***

  From the seventh edition of the Fayroll Times:

  From the editor:

  Our paper is about to get even bigger, as we expand the amount of useful, widely varied information we bring to you about the wonderful, fascinating world of Fayroll. There will be new columns…

  Personal Transport: Expensive, But Oh, So Convenient

  …can afford to buy a horse. The price, however, isn’t the primary obstacle standing between you and owning one. There’s an incredibly difficult quest series you have to beat if you want to learn how to ride horses, with two of the quests linked to group dungeons. You also have to build up a significant reputation in the NPC guild of grooms and stablemen.

  The Fayroll Legal System

  …the judge can simply sentence you to a prison term or correctional work. Your sentence term will be based on the game time, which may not seem that bad, but it’s important to remember that the game time is linked to actual time. Getting ten years for murder means it would be easier to delete your character than to come back time and again to find it toiling away in the mines or quarries. Even death isn’t good enough to ease the burden of justice. You can, of course, dig deep into your pocket…

  Excerpts from the Fayroll Chronicle

  The Fortune’s Favorites alliance successfully completed their expedition to the left bank of the Crisna, reaching the Skeleton Emperor’s palace. The alliance achieved its first victory, announcing its entrance into the gaming community by beating an incredibly difficult raid.

  Ivan the Light, one of the game’s most well-known knights, single-handedly cleared a nest of vampires in the Western Reaches’ Twilight Forest. The quest, which was designed for a group of six players, had him freeing a girl who stupidly fell in love with one of the vampires against her parents’ wishes. Sadly, the quest was a failure. Even though the knight was able to destroy the entire bloodsucker nest, one of them was able to bite the girl and turn her into a vampire. The knight mercilessly finished her off once he realized what had happened, failing the quest in the process.

  A soccer game between two dwarf teams, the Stone Balls and the Underground Cleats, ended in a brawl. Only twenty minutes were played before someone said something, and that’s when everything got started. Not a single game between dwarf teams, we should note, has ever been played through to half-time without breaking into a fight.

  Hooray, competition time!

  Dear readers,

  Beginning with this issue of the Fayroll Times, the paper and Raidion, the game’s developer, will be running competitions offering a variety of prizes related to the Fayroll world. They will include game items, equipment, weapons, bonuses, hints, and even new quests
.

  The prize for the inaugural competition will be a month of free playing time for each of the three winners.

  Competition rules:

  Send in funny screenshots from the game. They can be of your player alone, with a group of players, or even with NPCs, so long as they’re actually funny.

  The paper’s editorial staff will be evaluating your submissions, with our head editor casting the deciding vote. We will be accepting screenshots until 5 p.m. Tuesday.

  Please submit them to the paper’s email address listed at the end of this issue, putting “For the competition” in the subject line.

  In the next edition:

  Abandoned Cities of the East: a Short Excursion

  Chapter Sixteen

  In which the hero manages to recognize himself.

  Notice:

  You have begun a quest tied to the Temple of Hannuman. Because of that, you cannot leave the temple until you complete the quest or are killed in the attempt. Logging out of the game will fail the quest.

  But what if there’s a bug? Or my electricity goes out? Sure, the latest-generation capsule model I was playing in had its own energy sources, but still…

  The room we walked into was large and dimly lit, and the torches on the walls were set up to cast light on the middle of the room. The walls and ceiling faded into the gloom.

  “Like some kind of arena,” Ur hissed. “We have something like it in the capital, in a pub called the Griffin and Chariot. They have battles there every Friday, and even the könig stops by once in a while.”

  “You’re right, barbarian,” somebody’s voice boomed out of nowhere. “It is, in fact, an arena and, in it, you will prove to me that you have the right to continue on. If you are weak and impotent, you have no business being in this temple, in which case, the reward waiting at the end of this path is not for you.”

  “Let me ask you a question right off the bat,” I quickly replied. “Is this going to be a collective battle or a duel? Also, who will the opponents be? What if you send out some gigantic strong men the entire forces of all the kingdoms put together couldn’t beat?”

  “It is for you to decide if you will fight in a group or if just one of you will do battle in the arena.” So he’s a fan of democracy, at least. “There will be three opponents regardless, as there are three of you. You have every right to limit the battle to a set of duels. If you do so, however, there is one condition—you cannot switch fighters. Whoever fights in the first duel will fight in the following two, as well. If he wins, you all continue on. If he dies, the rest of you die, as well. Regarding the strength of your opponents… While they are equal to you in strength, they have the experience of many battles behind them.”

  “Great,” I said. “And what if we decide to fight together?”

  “Then you will fight together, though with the same opponents.”

  “We’re going to take a minute to discuss our choice,” I told the voice before turning to look at my companions.

  “We need to fight them all at once,” I said, “otherwise—”

  “That’s ridiculous,” cut in Lane. “There will be more trials, right?”

  “Yes, two more,” I replied.

  “We have a better chance of winning if we all fight,” Lane said, looking at Ur. “Though there’s also a very good chance that all three of us will walk away wounded and weakened. But I doubt any of them will be a match for Ur one on one, and the two of us will be healthy and able to cover for him the rest of the way if he’s wounded.”

  “You talk so much,” Ur responded as he pulled out and brandished his sword. “All you had to do was tell me to go fight. All these chances, healthy, wounded…I barely understand you, anyway.”

  “Have you made your choice?” asked the voice.

  “Yes,” I replied. “Here is our champion.”

  Ur stepped out into the middle of the hall and swept his sword around a couple more times to warm up his muscles. A roar rang through the room, and a tiger leaped out of the darkness across from him. It snarled again, mouth gaping wide, and crept closer on its stomach.

  “Beasts,” Lane whispered next to me. “Animals… Not humans; animals… They’re the worst thing to fight.”

  “It’s a good thing all three of us didn’t jump in,” I noted pragmatically. “That tiger would have left us all nice and sliced up.”

  Animals really are the worst. Although Ur was incredibly agile and shifty for his size, beating the tiger and the enormous panther that followed it was anything but easy. Blood flowed freely from a number of cuts, and his left leg was dragging noticeably. One of the two predators had landed a strike with their clawed paws.

  “A-a-and the third opponent!” The voice had fully embraced its role as ring announcer. “The daring, brave, and valiant Trom Bonecrusher!”

  I nearly collapsed in shock. Into the ring strode an honest-to-goodness Neanderthal…or at least something that looks awfully similar. Either way, it was a wild man wearing an animal skin and holding a club. He was covered in thick hair, and his eyes were crazed. It wasn’t so much that he wasn’t intelligent; there were no thoughts in his head. A caveman, in a word.

  “And who is that?” Lane’s eyes popped out of his skull as well. “He looks awfully wild.”

  “That’s what he is,” I replied. “That’s a distant ancestor of ours. Once upon a time, we all looked like that.”

  “This is bad,” Lane said, his lips pursed. “Wild men aren’t afraid of pain, blood, or death, so they fight to the end…”

  “Oh, come on; Ur will be fine.” I was trying to cheer myself up as much as him.

  The humanoid Trom bellowed, beat his chest with his fists, tore out a few handfuls of hair (presumably, to get himself even more angry) and dashed toward Ur, who tried to catch him with the blade of his two-handed sword. Despite the fact that the caveman was running in a straight line, Ur couldn’t handle what had appeared to be a simple task. Trom ducked away from the blade and slammed his club into Ur’s shoulder.

  The crunch of bone was so loud, it echoed somewhere up around the ceiling. Ur went white, his arm dangled, and his sword clattered to the floor.

  With an exultant shout, Trom swung his club again, this time meeting nothing but air. Ur had dodged the blow, and he grabbed the wild man from the side and threw him to the ground. The latter yelled when he dropped his club and began battering the Northerner with his fists—one of his shots caught and broke a rib. In the meantime, the fingers on Ur’s good arm grabbed hold of the wild man’s throat, right when Trom stopped throwing punches and went for the neck as well.

  The next minute or two saw the giants rolling around on the floor, the picture an odd one when coupled by their wheezing and groaning.

  Bom-m-m. A bell rang out through the hall.

  “You have passed the trial, and can continue on,” the voice announced impassively.

  We ran over to our friend, although the way he was laying made us think that he had to be dead.

  Once we got Trom’s pincer-like arms off of Ur’s throat, we found that he was alive, looking at us, doing his best to smile. Everything about him was an attempt to show us that he was going to get up and walk away. But it was with that smile on his face that he slipped away into the eternal light, green fields, and digital Valhalla.

  “What the hell is this?” I yelled into the darkness. “Broken ribs, crushed windpipes, and you call this a game?”

  The pain deep inside me spoke to the fact that I was sure I’d lost an actual friend—a little clumsy, but always near and true to the end. Someone like Fat Willie, who Ur had always reminded me of.

  “What?” Lane’s voice brought me back to reality. “What are you yelling about?”

  “I’m just upset,” I muttered. “I feel bad about Ur.”

  “He was a warrior, by Tekhosh, and a good one,” Lane said with a shrug. “None of us get to die in our beds—not him, not me, not you. We should bury him, though. If we come back this way, we’ll
take his body with us.”

  “If we come back,” I sighed.

  I crossed the lit area and walked over to the wall across from the exit. The flickering torches were enough for me to see a small door in it, and I pushed it open.

  You used the Key of Guile.

  The next room was lit by a golden shimmer. And that made sense, given the fact that it was littered with piles of gold coins, gold bars, and statues made out of the very same gold. It’s like Mecca for anyone with a greedy streak. The trap seemed oddly simple and straightforward, but it also made sense—grab some and die. The key was for guile, not greed, so I had to assume there was something more to it.

  Lane looked around and barked an order. “Follow me, step exactly where I step!”

  “Are you sure you know where to go and how to get there?” I asked in surprise.

  “How? No. Where? Yes. You’re paying me to get you where you want to go, so let me do my job.”

  I thought for a second and agreed he was right.

  Whatever else Lane might have been, he was thorough to a fault. He took twenty or thirty seconds to plan each step, and only when he was satisfied, did he move forward. The room was neither wide nor long, but it took us a good ten minutes to cross it. Still, I couldn’t figure out how I was expected to be sly or cunning in my movements. We stepped on gold since there was no way around it, and at one point, I even slipped and touched a statue, but nothing happened. What guile? This is dumb.

  We’d gotten to the other side and were standing in front of the door when Lane looked over at me, confusion written all over his face. “Weird, I still don’t understand what—”

  Just then the stone he was standing on clicked softly. A blade flew out of the wall, and I saw it jutting toward me out of Lane’s back.

  Bom-m-m. The bell rang out, breaking the silence.