“You’re going up the pass?” said Merric.
“That’s the plan,” said Cass.
“Don’t,” Merric said. “The wyverns have been breeding. We got hit last night, more than ever. I lost two girls and barely made it out myself.”
“Okay, try your leg,” said Noah. Merric set his foot down gingerly, testing it. His eyebrows went up, and his face cleared as he settled his weight.
“Not bad, kid!” he said. “Shame you aren’t a girl, or I’d take you in a second. Anyway, you guys wanna head through the Teeth. Forget the Pass.”
“Thanks,” said Cass. “We’ll think about it.”
“Which means no,” Merric laughed. “Shame, I could’ve used an archer… tell you what. You survive, look me up in Wellpoint. Just promise me you’ll find shelter for the night, okay?”
***
We may have ignored Merric’s warning about the pass, but we took the news of wyverns seriously. We’d had enough trouble fighting off the harpies that we didn’t want to tangle with another flying monster just yet. As night drew down and we neared the crest of the pass, we began looking seriously for shelter.
It was Noah who found it, a pentagonal hole cut into the ground halfway beneath a small boulder. Shoving the rock aside took all four of us and caused a minor landslide of its own, but it revealed a drop of about six feet onto the landing of a staircase that led down into blackness.
“Did you know this was here?” Cass asked as she unslung her backpack.
“No,” said Noah. “I don’t think anyone’s found it before.”
“God, I wish we were streaming right now!” Cass rolled her eyes to the sky. “Okay, Magpie, get a torch going. I’ll go first, then you, then Linnaea and Magpie last. Oh, wait. Tie up a rope so we can get out easily in the morning. Good? Good.”
We set to work and soon the four of us stood on the stone landing, staring down the stairs into murky dark. As promised, Cass went first, torch in one hand and my dagger in the other. The staircase led straight down for a while, then hooked to the right at something wider than a ninety-degree angle. This happened three more times before we finally reached the bottom.
“Oh, wow.” I dug for my notebook as I took in the chamber at the end of the stairs. It was a single rectangular room, but absolutely massive, on a scale I associated with sports stadiums. Ten columns of stone statues stretched away into the darkness. I could see at least a dozen rows in the flickering torchlight, but there was no telling how far back the chamber went.
“What is it?” asked Magpie.
“Look at this,” said Noah. He was peering at one of the statues, whose head was cracked. He picked at the stone, flaking away a few shards. “I think there’s hair in here.”
“Hair?” said Cass.
“Definitely,” said Noah. “And a skull. I think it’s a corpse.”
“Okay!” Cass said, a little too loud. “I think that’s enough exploring for today. Let’s make camp and get some dinner going. Emma, make a fire, please.”
The corpse statues loomed over our shoulders as we worked, but the familiar routine of camping took over, and soon enough we had a little fire going, sending smoke up to the high ceiling of the tomb. We’d spent plenty of nights camping under the orange glow of the night sky, so even in this alien place, the evening had a nostalgic air. Soon we unfurled our bedrolls and let the exhaustion of the day carry us away as the fire burnt down to embers.
***
I woke with a start to the sound of scuffling feet. The fire was low but still alive, and there were shadows moving around it. My mind was too fuzzy to panic until a whisper of sound told me that one of the shadows had drawn a sword.
“Wake up!” I screamed. Magpie sat bolt upright and his knives flashed red in the firelight when they appeared from somewhere nearby. Cass was next; she leapt to her feet while I was still on my knees. Noah sighed and rolled over.
I turned my backpack over and shook it. The contents spilled over the cold stone of the tomb: food, flint and tinder, two torches, a few coins. I threw one of the torches onto the remains of our fire, where its oil-soaked wrapping promptly burst into flame.
Cass faced off against the intruders, crouched low and ready to spring in any direction, my dagger in her hand. There were three of them, in black leather armor, their faces wrapped with bandanas. They all carried swords and they were spreading out to flank Cass.
I snatched a copper coin up from the ground and began to roll it across my fingers, warming it up. It fell, but I snagged it before it could hit the floor and started again. I was muttering under my breath, Elvish words, their meanings obscure but their power obvious now as the coin began to glow a faint crimson that made wobbling shadows on the floor as it tumbled over my fingers.
The attacker on Cass’s right lunged for her and suddenly Magpie was there, his long knives slicing through the air. One caught the man’s sword as the other darted for his face, but Magpie’s opponent ducked back at the last second and Magpie stumbled forward, overreaching.
Camera! I thought as Cass bullrushed the swordsman before he could take a swing at Magpie. The two went down in a crash and tumble as Magpie leapt clear. I glanced around frantically. My drone was hovering outside my reach, dangerously near to another of the attackers. I dropped my coin, scrambled around the fire and turned over Noah’s backpack, shoving away his rations and magic gear.
“Looking for this?” said the man nearest me. He held up Noah’s handheld just long enough for me to register what it was, then threw it in a high arc far out among the statues. I didn’t hear it land.
“Shit!” I yelled. The man drew his sword and started for me. Casting around for anything I could use, I saw the dull red light of my half-magicked coin on the black floor. I snatched it up and began to roll it again, but it had lost most of its heat. The attacker advanced, his eyes locked on me and glittering in the firelight.
Noah sat straight up with a snort, his head crashing into my assailant’s hip.
The coin in my fingers burned hot and bright and I flicked it at the third man, who was squaring off with Magpie. It hit him in the chest. A sphere of flame about the size of a basketball flowered where the coin struck, sounding a dull thump that echoed in the tomb. He stumbled backwards and hit the ground, his armor scorched and smoking.
I jumped to my feet. Noah was up, too, his sword whipping up to catch an arcing slash from the attacker he’d bumped into. He brought his blade back down in a neat counterattack that caught his opponent on the sword arm.
“Run!” the wounded fighter yelled, slapping his free hand over the fresh cut. His two companions responded instantly; Cass’s attacker disengaged from her and bolted for the stairs, while the one I’d scorched stumbled after him.
“Yeah, run!” Magpie shouted as the apparent leader followed his men. Soon they’d disappeared up the stairs, leaving us panting and bewildered.
“Everybody okay?” said Cass, brushing dirt from her pants. “Nice fight, Hammers. MVP goes to Linnaea, though. Clutch fireball!”
“Thanks,” I said. “But what the heck was that about? PvP is illegal. Were they trying to steal something?”
“Probably. Anything missing?” asked Cass. We spent the next few minutes sorting and repacking the gear that had scattered all over the floor. Everything was there. Noah took a torch and found the drone controller out among the statues where it had been thrown, its screen cracked but otherwise fine.
“I’m not going to be able to sleep,” I said.
“Me neither,” Cass agreed. “But—what the hell is that?” Her eyes were fixed on the archway where the staircase let out. Water was sluicing down the steps and spilling across the floor of the tomb.
Magpie laughed. “It’s raining!”
***
We packed quickly, leaving the fire behind, and took the rain-slick steps as fast as we dared. The water came thicker as we climbed and soon we emerged panting into a torrential downpour.
“This is new!�
�� shouted Cass over the lashing roar of the storm.
“It’s the Summerlands, not the Sunshinelands!” I yelled back. Thunder boomed as a sheet of lightning illuminated the boulders and mountain slopes around us. “Come on, let’s move!”
Any hopes I had of the descent down the far side of Hard Pass being easier than the climb up were soon washed away in the storm. The pass swiftly became an impromptu streambed as the rain rushed downhill, lapping at our ankles and making the rubble floor of the pass shift erratically beneath our boots. We stumbled our way through the darkness, crashing into boulders that loomed up out of the darkness to scratch and rasp against our questing hands.
“Sound off!” Cass shouted for the third time in maybe ten minutes.
“Here!” I called back.
“Here!” That was Noah.
A few empty seconds passed. I stopped, bracing myself against a rock, and let another long moment go by before I began to panic.
“Magpie!” Cass’s voice cut through the hiss of the rain. “Magpie, where are you?!”
They tumbled out of the darkness, two figures locked in desperate combat, just as another blaze of lightning showed them like a photograph. One was Magpie—I saw his knives flash—and the other had one hand on his sword and the other on Magpie’s collar. Then they were gone among the boulders further down the slope.
“That way!” I shouted, but nobody could see where I was pointing. I plunged after them, bouncing off rocks and slipping in the rain-slick scree.
“Emma, don’t—” That was Cass, her words lost under another boom of thunder. But it was too late. I’d lost him in the darkness and the rain muted any sound of the fight. Magpie was gone.
***
Hard Pass ended at the top of Wyatt Falls, where a rain-swollen river tumbled down from the left-hand peak and spilled over the sheer cliff edge in a glittering rush. There was a rainbow in the mist, pale colors against the faraway blue sky, and framed under its arc we saw the little frontier town also called Wyatt Falls alongside the little lake at the base of the cliff.
A wooden scaffold ran two hundred feet from the top of the cliff to its foot, supporting a rickety staircase whose planks squished and bent under our feet as we picked our way down. We were all as soaked through as the staircase, still dripping and shivering in our soggy clothes despite the morning sun. There were only three of us and we made our way to Wyatt Falls in miserable silence.
The town itself was like something from a Wild West movie. It lacked the cobbled streets and stone buildings of Wellpoint; instead, two dirt tracks made a cross between a few wooden structures that looked about as sturdy as the stairs we’d come down. There was a little inn for players, an Expedition Hall that held the wireless signal repeaters and a single small TV, and a general store, and that was it.
We headed for the inn, praying they’d have space. We needn’t have worried. The innkeep, a yawning NPC, seemed surprised to see us. Apparently rumor of the rangers’ discovery had gotten out and the adventurers based in Wyatt Falls had all spread out into the wilderness to hunt for the new dungeon. Despite the bad news, we were much too exhausted to turn around and head back into the wilds, so we handed over our money and tromped upstairs to strip and dry off.
We had no extra clothes, of course, but just being out of my waterlogged leather pants gave me the best feeling I’d had in days. We took turns with a small, scratchy towel provided by the innkeep, and soon lounged around our small single room wrapped in the sheets from the beds. We barely said a word to each other. Cass was especially subdued, her eyes locked on the floor and her voice little more than a mumble. I knew what she was thinking: she’d lost another one.
There was a knock at the door.
“Noah, can you…” Cass said, but he was already on his feet, his sheet around his waist. He shuffled to the door and turned the handle.
The door burst open and Magpie tumbled into the room. He took in our near-nudity in a glance, paused for half a second to wonder at it, then dove for the backpack at Cass’s feet.
“Magpie, what the hell—” she started.
“Map! Map!” He was tearing through her bag, tossing stuff to either side as he dug for the bottom.
“What?” said Cass. “What map?”
“This map!” Magpie held it up, his grin nearly blinding. It was the fake treasure map Cass had bought from Andronus back in Wellpoint. Magpie shook it open one-handed, then flipped it over and held it out at arm’s length. He sprang to his feet.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” He was practically jumping around the room. I put a hand on his shoulder.
“What is it?”
“The map is real! It’s real! And I know where the treasure is!”
An Awful Lot
“Are you sure this is right?” Cass asked, her gaze flitting between the map in her hands and the woods around us.
“Absolutely,” Magpie said. “I just came this way.”
“You gonna tell us what happened?” I said, pulling a branch out of the way for Noah. Wyatt Falls was built on a lake, but it backed on a dark, tangled forest through which Magpie was now leading us with the help of the treasure map.
“What’s to tell?” Magpie flashed me a grin. “We got separated and then that asshole from the dungeon attacked me. It was still dark when I found the staircase, so—”
“What happened to the guy you were fighting?” Noah asked.
“Well, he found the staircase for me,” Magpie said, “by falling down it. It was still dark when I found his body at the bottom, so I figured the best thing to do would be to stay near the cliff. I walked for a while, but I was pretty worn out, so I grabbed a catnap. Woke up, got a good look around, and realized I’d seen the place before.”
“Okay, so what exactly are we looking for?” Cass asked.
The trees fell away suddenly, revealing the cliffside. On our left, maybe a mile away, was the waterfall itself and the rickety stairs just beyond it. Just in front of us, a grove of what looked like crystal trees erupted from the white earth at the base of the cliff. They rose in sharp, stiff angles to glitter blue and silver under the noon sun. The glinting facets of each branch made lines of light on the ground, like the inverse of shadows. It was nearly blinding to look at.
“Not bad, right?” said Magpie. He pointed to a clump of angles on Cass’s map. “See? There’s the cliff and that’s the grove.”
Cass squinted at the tangle of ink. “Mmm… I guess so. Okay, let’s take a look around.”
We headed into the crystal grove. It was easier to see under the glassy eaves, where the reflections were muted and the light was a soft blue glow. The map suggested that the treasure, whatever it was, was hidden right at the angle where the cliff met the valley floor, so we started our search there. We picked between the smooth blue roots for maybe ten minutes before Magpie gave an excited shout.
“Look at this!” He waved us over with a flash of something red.
“What is it?” I asked. Magpie held a scrap of rich crimson cloth with a few stitches of silver thread trailing from one edge. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“It’s from Dr Agony’s robes,” he said and he was right. It was part of the robe Agony wore on the billboard near my old apartment block, the one I’d seen every day for years. “It was hooked on this root here. I think it tore off.”
We stood beneath the largest of the crystal trees, which was so wide that it would have taken all four of us to get our arms around it. Its roots stuck up and plunged into the earth at sharp angles, leaving gaps big enough for a person to climb under. As we passed the red scrap around, a leaf separated from its branch high above our heads and fell to shatter on the ground with a faint tinkle.
“So they were here,” Cass said.
“They certainly weren’t in town,” I agreed. “This must be it. But where’s the entrance?”
“Wait, before we do that.” Cass held up a hand. “Cameras on, guys. Linnaea, I know it’s not your favorite, but we’
ve been caught with our pants down twice now. Shit, we almost got PKed last night and we’ve got no proof! We’re doing it right this time and that means making sure we have a record of whatever goes down in the dungeon.”
I peered up at my drone, which was hovering uncertainly among the branches. “Can I borrow the handheld?”
“Sure,” said Noah. He dug into his pack and pulled out the little controller. He tapped the screen a few times, then his eyebrows went up.
“What?” I said. “You’re making me nervous.”
In response, he flipped the handheld over and put it in my waiting hand. I saw my tag at the top, then the green NEW MESSAGES line and the red viewership graph. It took me a second to register what I was seeing: my inbox, which had contained maybe a hundred messages the last time I looked, now had over a thousand.
“You’re popular,” Noah said.
“Oh no,” I said.
“Read them!” said Cass. “Or at least check ’em out. Come on, superstar.”
I took a deep breath and hit the email icon. The screen switched to a long, scrollable list of unread messages. I swiped through them at high speed, but it was easy to see what they were about from the subject lines that swept past: “You OK?” “Don’t die!!!” “WHERE IS LINNAEA??”
“Well?” asked Cass.
“I think people were worried about me,” I said.
“Of course they were!” Cass said. “They love you and you disappeared without a trace. You left them on a cliffhanger. It’s kind of genius, actually.”
“It’s terrifying,” I said.
“Well, you better give them what they want.” Cass waggled her eyebrows at me. “Superstar.” Before I could stop her, she leaned in and tapped the big START STREAM button at the bottom of the screen.
My drone swooped down obediently and oriented its camera at my face. I glanced down at the handheld and tapped back to my viewership graph. The red line was already climbing.
“Uh, hi,” I said, and gave the drone a little wave. “Linnaea here. Sorry for the radio silence. We, uh… we didn’t want to give away our secret plan. But I think it worked, so here we are. Thanks for hanging in there, guys. Okay, check this out.” I gestured to the glittering grove. “We’re just outside Wyatt Falls, here in these amazing trees. Or are they actually trees? I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s beautiful. But that’s not why we’re here. We heard the rangers found a new dungeon outside Wyatt Falls and we’re pretty sure this is it. So, let’s check it out.” I glanced at the roots of the big tree where Magpie had found the scrap of Agony’s robe. “This is either gonna be really cool or super embarrassing. And, uh, if we don’t come out, send somebody to get our bodies, okay?”
Expedition- Summerlands Page 14
