“Great,” Emma muttered. “We have to help her and pay her way.”
“You should be used to it by now,” Ethan replied, grinning broadly. “You’ve had to pay the toll for me for a while now.” He turned to Riley. “There’s not enough juice in me to light up a street lamp,” he explained with a rumbling chuckle.
While Emma and Lucas offered mana to the pedestal, Riley’s eyes searched the interior of the hall. At the far end lay another set of wooden doors, but she didn’t see anything yet to indicate that this was a library. Then a thought crossed her mind, and she turned back to the brown-robed man.
“You work here, right?” Riley asked.
He smiled good-naturedly and nodded. “Of course, miss.”
“Great. We’re looking for the person that’s responsible for hiring runners to bring scrolls and books to the other mages. I understand that the library engages children from the lower levels to perform these tasks.”
The young man nodded again. “That we do. I often handle this responsibility when I’m not manning the door.”
“Great,” Ethan said enthusiastically, clapping his hands together again. The sound echoed loudly through the stone hall, and the young man stared at him with a pained expression. “You’re just the person we’re looking for then…” Ethan trailed off, realizing he didn’t know the man’s name.
“My name is Clarence, sir,” the man replied with the same unflappable politeness.
“Clarence then,” Ethan said. “We have some questions for you.”
“I would be happy to assist you. Please give me just a moment to attend to the other guests; my shift at the door is nearly over.” Clarence gestured for the group to move to one side while he assisted another patron who was waiting her turn to pay the library’s toll. In the time it had taken them to speak to Clarence, a small line had already formed behind them.
The group shuffled off to the side, and, a few minutes later, Clarence was replaced with another brown-robed young woman who took over his role herding the guests into the library. The young man approached the group again. “My apologies for the delay. You were asking about the children we use as runners?”
“Yes,” Riley replied. “We would like to know where those children have been sent recently.”
“Why do you need this information?” Clarence asked. “If you don’t mind my asking, of course.”
Riley had to think fast. She didn’t want to just blurt out “magical plague.” From her experience, the game required a bit more tact than that. “One or two children have gone missing, and some of the townsfolk on the lower levels hired us to find them,” Riley explained cautiously. The other members of the group looked at her askance but held their tongues.
“Ahh, that is a desperate circumstance indeed,” Clarence said, yet his expression still stayed entirely neutral. Riley was beginning to wonder if he was an emotional eunuch. “In that case, why don’t I lead you to the registry room? We keep a log of the runners we hire, the items they check out, and the recipients.”
“That would be great,” Riley said gratefully.
“Follow me then,” Clarence replied, starting toward the set of double doors on the far side of the hall. “Please do not wander too far,” he explained over his shoulder. “It’s easy to get lost among the stacks in the Great Hall, and the books like to play tricks on people.”
Riley just shook her head at this warning. She was done asking any more questions.
As they walked toward the door, Ethan spoke quietly, “What was with that story?”
“Would you prefer to tell him we’re following up on the deaths of several children from a magical plague and we suspect that it started here?” Riley whispered.
“Well, when you put it like that,” Ethan replied in a dry tone.
Their conversation was interrupted as Clarence opened the door at the end of the hall and ushered them through. Riley immediately found herself in an immense room. The ceiling towered nearly fifty feet in the air and rows of bookshelves stood in ragged lines, stretching up towards the ceiling. A chaotic assembly of scaffolding had been built along the edges of the shelves to grant access to the upper levels, and brown-robed men and women walked quietly among the stacks.
Riley paused for a moment to gape at the scene. The room was nearly silent. She could just barely hear the flutter and rasp of paper and looked up. Books flapped gently in between the shelves, migrating from shelf to shelf like highly-flammable birds. Realizing that she had been gawking, Riley looked for her group and saw that they had walked farther down one of the towering rows of bookshelves. She hurried to catch up.
Clarence led them through a disordered maze of shelves and books. Riley quickly realized that the openings between the rows were not uniform, creating a patchwork system of passages. In many cases, it appeared that holes had simply been carved into the shelves themselves, probably by a frustrated librarian. In some ways, it reminded her of a nerdy version of the minotaur labyrinth she had explored with Jason and Frank.
As they passed a side passage, Riley heard a strange shuffling sound. Seeing that her group was going to continue along the same row for a few minutes, she walked toward the hole in the shelves and peeked around the corner. She immediately jumped back, her eyes widening.
A creature made entirely of books and scrolls lumbered down the hall to the sound of paper scraping against the tiled floor. It was vaguely humanoid, standing nearly nine feet tall. However, its body and extremities were a writhing maelstrom of paper. As it moved, the creature picked up scrolls and books, adding the objects to its body. At the same time, it replaced books back on the shelves.
Some kind of librarian golem? Riley wondered. Shaking her head, she moved back into the row of books and jogged to catch up with the group.
They eventually found themselves at a small administrative office located at what Riley could only guess was the back of the building. She had lost all sense of direction with the twisting route Clarence had taken through the stacks. The brown-robed man opened the door to the office with a small key that he pulled from beneath his robes and stepped inside. A globe of light immediately lit the interior, revealing an orderly office. In contrast to the chaos of the stacks, every piece of paper was neatly piled and labeled.
Clarence moved to a desk along the far wall and flipped open a large book. “What time frame are you looking for?” he asked Riley over his shoulder.
“Uh, probably the last couple weeks,” she replied, mentally face palming for not asking Marie when the children had gotten sick.
Clarence nodded, and his finger ran down the page. “Here we are. Nearly fifty entries for the last two weeks. That’s a rather busy schedule in my experience.” When he saw the blank looks on their faces, he elaborated, “Most low-level mages live close enough to make the walk to the library, and we only offer the runner service to Prefect-level mages or higher.”
Riley nodded in understanding and glanced at the page. She saw a bunch of names she didn’t recognize. However, she noticed a clear pattern immediately. A column was provided for the requesting party’s guild, and the same name and guild repeatedly appeared – Vindictus, Fire Guild Prefect.
“Vindictus has been requesting this service a lot,” Riley said to Clarence. “What books has he been checking out?”
Clarence glanced at the register, quickly skimming the list. “They cover several different practice areas,” he said slowly. “These all deal with the use and manipulation of dark mana. That’s odd now that I think about it.”
Riley didn’t think it seemed strange. She had already observed the fire mages purchasing the undead in Sibald. She felt like kicking herself now. She had never stopped to ask what they might be using them for. She turned to her group, “Do you think the fire guild could be connected to this?”
Lucas looked thoughtful. He glanced at Clarence briefly, mulling over how to phrase his response. “Maybe. I wouldn’t put it past them, and they do seem to be a common link. The books
on dark magic are also strange.”
“That is an uncommon research topic,” Clarence agreed, his face still passive. “As I mentioned, dark mana does not have a place within the city any longer. There was a… falling out, you could say – many years ago. Dark mana users are known to be unpredictable. No offense to you, miss,” he added, nodding at Riley.
Riley tapped her lips with her fingers. If the Prefect she dueled was representative of the rest of the fire guild, then the other members were likely amoral and ruthless. The only one she had met so far that seemed reasonable was Flare. Perhaps the cultists had infiltrated their ranks? Assuming they were even involved…
“Well, maybe the fire guild is the best place to start looking,” Riley said. “For the missing children, I mean,” she added quickly for Clarence’s benefit.
“Or it’s just a dead end,” Emma groused.
“Hey, it seems plausible,” Ethan said. “We’ve already seen their cruelty in action. Would you really put it past them?” Emma just snorted and crossed her arms in response.
“This sounds like a plan,” Riley said, her eyes shining darkly under her hood. If the fire guild was tied up in this or the cultists were hiding in their midst, she would have no qualms with burning it to the ground. “Let’s go talk to some fire mages.”
Chapter 12- Tempered
It took nearly an hour for the group to make it to the entrance to the fire guild. Clarence had been forced to lead them back out of the stacks himself since none of them had been able to keep track of their circuitous path through the towering shelves of books. The librarian had revealed that this wasn’t uncommon. With a disconcerting nonchalance, he had gone on to explain that the stacks often moved or shifted over time, as the books migrated through the hall.
Riley and her party now stood in front of a rough-hewn wooden wall on level eleven. Large logs had been embedded into the ground in a long line, the tops of each filed to a point. Red banners were draped from the bulwark and torches lined the walls. Riley had played a few other MMOs, and – in any other game – she would have expected a horde of orcs to live here, not a group of mages.
“This is the fire guild?” Riley asked tentatively, noting that her teammates didn’t look surprised at the crude structure.
“The fire mages can be a bit savage,” Emma said with distaste as she eyed the walls.
Ethan grinned at the mage. “Their leadership structure is pretty straightforward. Like we explained back in Sibald, you advance in this guild based on raw strength, and you can openly challenge guild members to duels. The guild apparently destroyed their hall so many times that they just gave up trying to rebuild it. So they live with this half-assed guild hall now,” he said, waving at the structure.
Riley eyed the walls skeptically. She had already observed how reckless the fire mages could be, and she wasn’t certain how to proceed. She didn’t expect that banging on the gate and shouting about a magic plague was going to work. Perhaps her best move here was to try to find Flare, the woman she had met on the road to Vaerwald. Hopefully, she would be in a talkative mood and could tell them more about why the fire guild was buying undead slaves. Riley still wasn’t certain how that could be related to the plague or the cultists, but it was the only lead they had to go on for now.
With a sigh, Riley approached the wooden gate, smacking her hand against the rough surface. “What do you want?” someone shouted gruffly from inside.
Riley looked at the group beside her, and they all shrugged. Ethan pantomimed making a muscle with his arm and took an aggressive stance. Riley interpreted that to mean she needed to be more abrasive.
“What do you think? I want inside,” she shouted curtly. “Open the gate, or I’ll knock it down.”
A rumbling laugh came from the other side of the wall, and the gate swung open slowly. A grizzled old man with an eyepatch stood in the opening. His muscled arms were crossed, and a red tabard was draped over his shoulder. “Good,” he said as he surveyed Riley and her group. “I was half afraid it was going to be some sissy water mage. I actually convinced a girl to leave yesterday. Can you believe that?”
His gaze lingered on Riley for a moment. “So what do you want with the guild, girl? The flame flickers inside you, but it’s still weak. You don’t strike me as one of our own.”
“We want to speak with Flare,” Riley responded, meeting the man’s gaze evenly.
A smile crept over his face. “The runt? Fine by me. You’ll likely find her at the training pits. Just head straight through the camp. Oh, and make sure to pay the toll. I always forget about that.” The old man motioned at another worn, stone obelisk beside the gate before retaking his seat on a stool nearby.
Riley just shook her head and led the party inside the fire guild. Emma and Lucas paid the toll for the four of them. As they entered the interior of the guild hall, Riley quickly realized that the old man had accurately described it as a “camp.” It was nothing more than a rough assemblage of tents and winding dirt paths. Red flames were emblazoned on the leather of the tents. The material whipped and flapped in the strong wind that swept the upper levels of the city, creating the illusion that the camp was on fire.
“This is worse than I imagined,” Emma said haughtily as they wandered between the tents. Her eyes scanned the rough structures with disdain.
Groups of fire mages lounged around campfires and eyed them with open hostility as they passed. Many had shed their robes in favor of more loose fitting red clothing or had altered the garments by tearing off the arms. They seemed particularly unimpressed with Emma, perhaps detecting her contempt. More than one trickle of flame suddenly appeared under her feet as she passed, causing her to yelp and dance to the poorly-concealed glee of the red-robed men and women around them.
While Emma could be a bit stuck up, Riley couldn’t help but agree with her. The only fire mages she had seen up close were Jason’s zombies, and he usually used them in a mechanical, strategic way. This was her first glimpse of their human counterparts, and they were a rowdy, boisterous lot.
“Are the other guilds like this?” Riley quietly asked as they walked through the camp.
“Not really,” Lucas responded. “Each guild is pretty unique. For example, if we were in the air guild, you would just see a bunch of people gambling. It reminds me of a real-world casino.” He snorted. “I’ve even heard of air mages picking their new spells at random!”
Riley was quiet for a moment as she processed this. “So dark magic feeds on desire and air magic is based on spontaneity – sort of. What do fire magic users focus on?” she asked, directing her question at Lucas.
“Passion and strength,” he answered bluntly. “That’s all they care about. That’s also the reason they duel so often. Their magic feeds on conflict and aggression. Those aren’t the only passionate emotions of course, but they’re the most common.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Riley said. She had caught more than one fire mage eying her appraisingly. But she noted that no one had tried to light a fire under her feet. They merely watched her with the cool recognition of one predator acknowledging another.
A few minutes later, the group mercifully arrived at what Riley could only assume were the training pits. The fire mages had dug holes into the disc itself, creating several rough circular rings in the ground, each nearly twenty feet wide. Fire mages dueled viciously in the circles, hurling huge balls of flame and clashing with flaming weapons while others watched and heckled from the sidelines. However, Riley observed that no one interfered with the duels that were taking place.
As she watched the battles raging in the pits, Riley could appreciate why the Prefect she had dueled had adopted a melee style. The rings made it difficult to run away or hide. The group wandered through the training area until Riley spotted a woman that looked like Flare standing in the center of one of the large holes.
“You have to fight, runt,” a large man standing at the lip of the pit shouted at her. “We don’t tolerate
weakness in our guild.” As Flare glared at him sullenly, the man turned to the mages beside him. “Who’s up for another duel? Journeymen rank and lower for this one.”
Without bothering to respond, a young man smirked and jumped down into the pit. He landed with a thud and a puff of dust before walking to stand in front of Flare. The two eyed each other carefully, but neither moved. Riley inspected Flare and her opponent, discovering that they were each approximately level 60. She had no idea how the ranking system worked in the fire guild, but she assumed that they must be relatively junior members.
Just as Riley was about to ask her group what was happening, the pair erupted in a flurry of movement. Flare darted backward, her fingers racing through an elaborate series of gestures. A shield of glowing magma engulfed her left arm, and she barely managed to raise the shield in time to ward off a bolt of flame that her opponent had launched at her.
“You can’t always stay on defense,” the mage on the rim of the pit yelled at Flare. “You better learn to fight back.”
Flare’s opponent kept launching bolt after bolt at her. She barely managed to keep her shield raised. Under the constant barrage, she was having trouble casting a spell of her own. The occasional bolt splashed her unprotected skin with tendrils of fire, creating welts where the flames struck. Riley watched the scene with a frown. Perhaps Flare was trying to let the other mage run out of mana.
Then the other mage faltered on his next attack. A look of relief passed over Flare’s face, and she lowered her arm to begin casting a counterattack. As the shield dipped, the other mage’s eyes gleamed viciously. Several thin streamers of flame rocketed toward Flare from behind. The other mage had cast the bolts as his last spell, sending them up into the air, where they then curved and honed in on the female mage.
Flare saw the missiles at the last moment, her eyes widening and her arms raising ever-so-slowly. Yet she was too late, and the darts of flame struck her body, stabbing through her flesh and causing her skin to sizzle and pop. Flare screamed in pain, repeatedly jerking as the needles of flame penetrated her body. The momentum of the many missiles caused her to slam back into the wall of the pit where she then slumped to the ground unmoving.
Awaken Online: Retribution (Side Quest) Page 9
