by Pavel Kornev
As long as I stayed in the crowd, I was one of many. My Incognito turned me into a veritable invisible man who nobody gave a damn about. The passersby’s gazes seemed to be averted away, glancing off me. And Barth? Much to my joy, the scumbag was nowhere to be seen.
I wanted to believe that I’d gotten completely away with it. Still, as it grew dark and townspeople began vacating the streets, I risked attracting the attention of some overly beady-eyed observer.
Others could go drinking in taverns or simply go home to sleep, but for me, neither was an option. I would have pretended to be a beggar, I suppose, but as the night fell, the square in front of the Sun Temple had become deserted.
Having considered all the pros and cons, I climbed the roof of one of the houses on the hillside and lay low on its slope, hoping that I wasn’t too conspicuous against the backdrop of the dusty faded roof tiles.
This choice proved to be a decent observation point, offering an excellent view of at least a third of the city. I could see the militia patrols as well as the cavalcades of paladins and an occasional sighting of the mysterious knights in white armor. They definitely reminded me of someone but I couldn’t for the life of me remember who it was. One thing I was sure of: they weren’t just prowling around the city, they were looking for me. It was a good job they hadn’t yet turned up at the Sun Temple.
AS SOON AS darkness fell, I immediately headed for the temple. At first, I’d been planning to wait at least until midnight but the darker the city became, the closer the white knights approached along the hill slopes, apparently bent on continuing their search for the assassin. I was simply afraid of dragging it out any longer.
This time I wasn’t going to neglect Stealth. Like an ethereal shadow I crossed the square and stole toward the temple gates. The bars were still there, blocked. There was no way I could lift them.
Unwilling to succumb to the sin of apathy, I moved around the temple but noticed just in time the surges of orange flame ripping through the night. I dove behind a stone bench, then crawled toward a manicured acacia bush.
My anxiety hadn’t been for nothing. Soon a few night guards stomped past my makeshift shelter: two warriors and a Disciple. Their torches were suspiciously bright as if they were lit not just by oil and hemp but also by a fraction of the Solar blessing. What if it could reveal a stealthed-up intruder? I’d have to kill them, wouldn’t I?
Still, they hadn’t noticed me behind the bush so I didn’t have to smoke them, after all.
I decided against checking the guardhouse next to the temple. I could always do it later, so I gave it a wide berth for the time being. As if to please, I could see no other doors except from the main entrance.
I was just about to try my luck in the guardhouse when I heard a soft splashing sound. Something was streaming somewhere — probably, underground.
I immediately thought of the fountain and started waking away from the temple, trying to work out where the extra water was being diverted to. I passed a neighboring house and walked down the hill until I climbed into a clump of thick dry grass where I finally discovered the mouth of a stone sewage pipe. The effluent which came out of it definitely originated in the temple even though there was nothing holy about it anymore.
I climbed into the pipe. I didn't have to crawl on all fours: I managed to scurry along half-crouched. At some point, I came across some bars but they proved to be entirely rusted through so it didn’t take much effort to bust through them. Doubtful anyone could hear the clanking; I was much more worried about any potential traps. But even if there’d been any, they must have rotted away a long time ago.
Trying not to make a noise, I slowly advanced up the pipe, straining to catch the slightest glimpse of light. The pipe was dark as... as the devil’s backside.
I suddenly stubbed my fingers on some brickwork through which tiny streams of cold water were escaping. There was nothing holy about them, either.
You bastards! What was I supposed to do now, break through the wretched wall? I had neither pick nor hammer on me! And I couldn’t make a noise, anyway. Having said that... there must have been a reason for those bars at the entrance. And what if...
I backed up toward the exit, groping at the ceiling above my head. Very soon my fingers closed around thin air, then chanced upon the slimy rung of a steel ladder. Yes!
I jumped up and began climbing until I got to a wooden hatch. Effortlessly and noiselessly I wrenched the rusty bolt away and climbed out into a dark broom cupboard cluttered with mops, empty buckets and dirty rags. I froze, listening, then stealthed up just in case.
The door wasn’t locked. I passed through a short corridor, turned right, then left. The sanctuary was on the left, so that’s where I headed, then froze immediately, pressing my back to the wall.
Someone was in the temple. Shadows flitted along the walls, chased away by the flashes of fire which dispelled the darkness.
Hearing unhurried steps, I shrank back, readying the bone hook, but this proved to be a false alarm. The night watchman walked past and disappeared in the neighboring corridor, probably heading for the guardhouse.
The holy spring bubbled away at the very center of the temple. I could have easily run over to it, filled the chalice and escaped through the sewage pipe. Still, I decided not to rush it and lingered in the dark, counting the passing seconds.
Exactly three minutes later, the light of another torch dispelled the darkness. I wasn’t entirely sure it was the same watchman, so I decided to wait some more. Still, the timing of these visits didn't change: exactly every three minutes, the watchman made his rounds. I wouldn’t even have to rush.
Should I just smoke everybody here, maybe? I shook my head, dispelling the prickly thought. There was no need for it. Was I a thief or just a pretty face? I had to do it all on the sly. You never knew what sort of surprises the temple guards could throw at me if I made a noise. Also, the residence of the Fiery Hand clan was a stone’s throw away.
When the torchlight had disappeared again, I ran out of the corridor, pulling the silver chalice from my bag.
Immediately a flicker of daylight flitted across the wall, jumped to the floor and dashed toward me. Luckily, I managed to catch it in my Moon Grail and turned the chalice face down on the tiled floor, trapping the sun phantom. The silver chalice began to heat up until it burned my hands through the leather gloves. I cussed under my breath as I counted the seconds remaining until the watchman’s arrival. What a predicament!
Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer and began sliding the chalice along the floor toward the fountain on its pedestal. The silver began to cool down. Even though I wasn’t entirely sure it had managed to disembody the phantom, I decided to take my chances. I grabbed the chalice by the stalk and turned it round, preparing to hurl it aside if necessary.
It was empty. Not a trace of any light, only the matt white glow of polished silver. A dream item! What a shame I had to part with it.
I stepped close to the fountain and froze. Only a moment ago, the temple had been pitch black. And now I was surrounded by a ghostly shimmer. What the hell?
I looked up. To my amazement, a full moon was peeking into the temple through the hole in the roof. How was it possible? The starry sky outside was perfectly dark and moonless.
A logical chain started to form in my head: ‘The moon — the silver — the phoenix’ but I ignored it and held out the chalice under one of the fountain jets. The metal immediately began to freeze, forming icy patterns on the silver. My fingers turned numb and senseless.
The Moon Grail
Property: bestows the Moon’s blessing upon you
All done!
Before shoving the chalice back into the bag, I took a peek into it. I wasn’t even surprised when I saw that there was no trace of water inside and that the chalice was filled with a ghostly glow as if it were filled with moonlight.
A torchlight glimmered in the distance. I darted off, desperate to take cover in the adjacent corrido
rs before the watchman could re-enter the temple. I made it to the utility room just in time, unhurriedly climbed down into the sewage pipe and started out for the exit.
Uncertainty overcame me just when I was about to climb out. Everything had gone too smoothly; I couldn’t be sure that the paladins couldn’t be laying in wait somewhere nearby. Still, I forced the thought out of my head and slid out of the pipe. Between Stealth and the darkness of the night, I was safely hidden especially because I had no one to hide from. There was not a soul around.
Having emerged out of the thick grass, I walked down the hill slope into a street and hurried away. I’d done everything I needed to do; now I had to make myself scarce ASAP. And somehow I didn’t think I could leave through the city gates. I shouldn’t underestimate Garth’s stubbornness: he may be unable to constantly keep an eye on the city exits but he could afford to hire mercenaries to do it for him. Dark or Light, didn’t matter; the only thing a mercenary cares about is getting paid on time. Which moral are you talking about? What’s good or bad got to do with it? Somewhere else maybe, but definitely not in a game.
I noticed a brook running down the hill and followed it. Still, almost immediately the torches of the night guards flashed below, so I had to turn off into a nearby lane. As a result, it had taken me quite some wandering around the dark sleepy streets before I finally reached the little river that flowed through the city. On top of some guards and militiamen, I’d come across a few white knights and as I had no idea who they were and what to expect from them, I gave them a wide berth.
Still, I’d made it, and that was all that mattered.
Unfortunately, my hopes for an easy escape from the Marble Fortress weren’t meant to happen. The arch through which the nameless river flowed out of the city had been closed off with bars as thick as my arm. I couldn’t leave that way.
Without losing heart, I headed for the nearest watchtower. Its ground-floor room was lit; from time to time, the garrison soldiers ran out into the street for a smoke or to take a leak.
None of them bothered to lock the door behind them. I waited for the right moment and snuck inside, climbed a spiral staircase and found myself on the parapet of the city wall. It was crawling with sentries — but some one them dosed off while others stared watchfully into the darkness outside with little interest in whatever happened behind their backs. I slid past them like a ghostly shadow looking for a suitable place to jump. Having found it, I climbed over the parapet and stepped from the wall, plunging straight into the river.
6
EVEN IF THE SOUND of splashing water had alerted the guards, they didn’t seem too bothered. A few arrows sank to the bottom, surrounded by bubbles of air, together with a heavy boulder — that was the extent of the garrison’s reaction to the suspicious noise.
The river’s silty bottom was a much bigger problem. I’d gotten stuck in it so badly that I very nearly didn’t make it to the bank.
Regardless of the dirt, my escape was clean. There was no one chasing me.
Only once did I notice strange flashes of white light by the city wall but no matter how many times I stopped and peered into the night, I didn’t see anything suspicious. So I just stopped looking back. I had more pressing problems other than keeping an eye on any hypothetical pursuit. The night valley wasn’t as deserted as it had appeared from the city wall. I had to shake off prowling predators from my trail quite a few times; and at a certain point, only my well-leveled Stealth had helped me to avoid a scuffle with a loud and boisterous group of gamekeepers.
Luckily, the abandoned temple was further from the border than the city so as I moved away from the Marble Fortress, I encountered fewer patrols. Here, the grasslands gave way to sunbaked rocky foothills.
A fast-flowing brook raced between the rocks. I checked the map and began scrambling over the wet and slimy stones. That was it! The only way was up!
STRANGELY ENOUGH, I managed to get to the mountain temple without any further unpleasant surprises. Here and there, the crevice was blocked by rockfalls, causing the stream to spread and form treacherous whirlpools. Gradually I began to realize why the abandoned temple hadn’t yet been discovered by any of the players. Had it not been for the ghost’s help, I would have never found any of the secret trails and steps cut into the rock and would have turned back long ago.
On top of everything else, the temple was situated in a cave whose mouth was concealed by a waterfall cascading from the cliff above. At first, I felt perplexed until Scarecrow sighted a rocky trail running along a deep whirlpool. Then everything fell into place.
Oh yes, my dead phoenix was back — without the charmed skull. I shuddered. It felt like running your tongue along your teeth and discovering a gap. Something was missing. I sort of felt uncomfortable — unpleasantly so.
You’d think that now the artifact was safe — and still my heart was restless. The sooner I sorted that quest out and retrieved the skull, the better. Garth might have tracked Scarecrow down, you never knew. What if he had the skull now?
I forced myself not to panic and edged toward the waterfall, casting wary glances at the dark outlines of some rusty armor on the bottom. Immediately the spirits of the drowned warriors started casting curses on me. Not that I cared. I was dead and immune to them.
I stepped through the wall of water, stealthed up and kept quiet. The place was silent. No screeching or clanking noises; the otherworldly howling of ghosts had died away too. The abandoned temple looked deserted.
The problem was, supernatural creatures loved to make their home in places like these. Which was why I kept on my guard, ready to dodge any potential threat.
At first, I couldn’t hear anything over the noise of the falling water but as I climbed the steps cut into the rock, its rumbling became duller until it became perfectly quiet. Here, a complex pattern of symbols covered the walls; as I walked, I started coming across some empty niches. The place was perfectly devoid of both the living and the dead.
A staircase lined with a stone balustrade took me to a round room on the top level. The altar lay shattered under its domed ceiling; a dark figure holding a book froze at the center.
A monotonous chant echoed through the temple. I couldn’t make out a single word he was saying. Not that it mattered.
The warlock stood with his back to me. I took a few silent steps toward him, then took an almighty swing at him with my sword. The undulating blade went right through the dark figure as if it were woven from smoke.
The warlock swung round, unharmed, and uttered a brief word of power, throwing me against the wall. I pulled the bone hook from my belt, suddenly realizing that my opponent wasn’t human:
The Curse of the Mountain Temple
I darted aside, dodging his attack. The otherworldly creature missed, turning a complex wall carving into a heap of rubble, then materializing next to me again. By then, I’d already overcome my initial stupor and met his attack with a counter-blow from my Moon Grail.
Bang! The silver chalice emitted a bright light which burned holes in the ghost’s incorporeal figure. The embodied curse collapsed on the floor and tried to scramble back to his feet. I whacked him over the head with the chalice and he dropped back down.
Now you’re gonna get it! I dropped down onto him and began thrashing him with the chalice, each blow stripping the ghostly curse of some of its power. One! Two! Three!
The figure disintegrated into a shapeless cloud which flickered with a silvery flame, then dispersed. Still holding the chalice by its stem, I stood up and took a look around.
So what was I supposed to bless here?
“Uncle John,” a quiet voice whispered.
I swung round. Neo’s translucent form floated out of the heap of stones which had once been the altar. Suspecting an illusion, I raised the chalice and splashed some of the white light on him but all it did was add a degree of corporality to the spirit. It looked like this was Neo all right.
“What do I do?” I asked Neo’s gho
st.
“Give it to me,” he demanded. “I must do it myself!”
An invisible force pulled the Moon Grail from my hand. The boy’s soul floated to the ceiling. The temple filled with an unbearable light.
One of the many sparks had dropped onto my shoulder, burning a hole through my flesh. I ouched. “Wait! You’re gonna scorch me!”
The light stopped getting brighter but didn’t cease its intensity, either.
“Uncle John, run!” the boy’s voice rustled. “I can’t control this force!”
I scampered down the stairs and dashed away from the temple. I didn’t so much fear my own death — if push came to shove, I could always respawn by the skull hidden in the place of power — but I dreaded the possibility of having to come back here again in order to resurrect Neo.
With one swift leap, I sprang back through the waterfall. Surprisingly, it was bright as day outside. The whirlpool was frozen solid.
“Here we meet again, strange creature,” the white witch said.
Her clothes were white and so was her skin, hair and even her eyes. A white glow spread around her. Her retinue knights were clad in white armor.
Dammit! If it wasn’t this lady who’d tried to exorcise me in the Stone Haven.
Leap! Sudden Strike! Sweeping Strike!
The Soul Killer slid into my hand. I microported toward the witch and took a swing, aiming for her throat. No sorcerer would have been able to promptly react to my attack — but still she parried the bone hook with her open hand. The Soul Killer split in two like a piece of rotten wood.
I swung round and darted back into the temple. I’d rather burn alive!
A gust of icy wind hit me in the back, lifting me from the ground and throwing me into the waterfall. The freezing cold assaulted me and everything around, turning me into an ice statue. I couldn’t move a limb.
Unhurriedly she walked over to me and patted me on the cheek. Immediately my face turned numb as if she’d given me a Novocain shot.
