The choice was a hard one, but eventually I made my decision. If I was going to survive on this world, and more importantly, protect my tiny new family, then it really wasn’t a hard choice at all. Time to take a trip down the rabbit hole. I popped the Orb into my mouth and swallowed.
By the time my head slammed into the floor I was out like a light.
***
“Please wake up, Zac Riggs-tam!”
Consciousness came back slowly. I could feel someone shaking me, but it was a distant thing. I might have just kept my eyes shut and fallen back into the softness of oblivion, but the voice was insistent. Eventually I opened one eye, then the other to find myself looking into the concerned face of my adopted sister.
“Um awake,” I mumbled and levered myself up. Strangely, once I was actually sitting up, the exhaustion fled, leaving me awake and alert. The aches and pains from before were gone, too, as well as the bloody line where Pretty Boy’s bullet had grazed me. I felt good, great even. That Orb packed a hell of a punch!
Then I realized that Gazra-tam was up and apparently moving without pain too. “Oh, crap! Gazra-tam, are you alright? How are you feeling?”
She looked at me a little strangely, like the question had come out of left field. “I am better. Not complete, but better. What happened?”
“Well, you were hurt and Pretty Boy—I mean the man who shot you—said he was going to be back with his buddies, so I needed something to heal you up and keep us safe. That’s why I went into the dungeon and—wait, what’s wrong?”
Gazra-tam’s slitted eyes widened and her mouth was hanging open in shock. “How—you are speaking Luda like you were born here. What happened?”
What she’d just said was nuts, but when I thought about it, yes, I had been speaking Luda as easily as if it were English. The words and phrases were just there in my head when I needed them. “Orbs are nuts,” I said to myself in amazement.
“An orb? You found a Dolos orb?! And you used it?” I couldn’t tell if she was angry or surprised or awestruck, so I just laid the whole thing out for her, from our escape from Pretty Boy to the treasure room. It was kind of strange how such so much stress and terror could be distilled into a story that was over in only a few minutes, but detail-wise, there just wasn’t much to tell.
When I’d finished explaining my decision to become orb-Bonded, the Mo’hali immediately said, “It was the correct choice. To run from evil when you have the means to fight is dishonorable. All under the sun bear witness for the choices we make.”
I knew about Gazra-tam’s religious views, so I was able to puzzle out what she’d said. The sentiment was straightforward, even if a little naive, but one I could get behind.
“We’re not leaving,” I said as a statement, not a question. “But you called them evil. Why? I get that they’re not nice people, but you did attack one of them.” Gazra-tam’s eyes had flashed with anger, and I rushed to cut any outburst off. “Hold on. I know you had a good reason. What was it?”
Her face went through a complex series of expressions, from seething anger, to sadness, to guilt, before settling on a look of misery with ears drooping and eyes downcast. “They destroyed my Clan.”
I had actually been expecting something like this, but the way she said it, almost like it was really her fault, made me want to cry. “Wh-what happened?” I croaked, emotion suddenly constricting my throat.
And so she told me the whole story.
“We were traveling the road from Pilk to Colo at the end of spring. My uncle led the caravan and there were twenty-four of us. As far back as I can remember, the roads had been good to us. We saw the cities of Tolstey, moved things between them, and lived on the road. We all felt sorry for the people stuck in cities, who had to live behind walls to feel safe. Everyone in our caravan could fight, and the occasional monster attacks never did much damage.
“People told stories about bandits back, but they were just stories. We’d always assumed that bandit groups never got very big because anyone willing to use violence to make money could just raid a dungeon. In reality, bandits were usually a few women with swords harassing small groups into paying a toll, but our group was too big for them to bother. When we started hearing about other caravans disappearing, we thought they were just scary stories, like ones travelers told around a campfire on a moonless night. We just swiveled our ears and told our own tall tales.
“Then a few months ago, my cousin and I went out to gather vegetables for the stew like we always did, but then we heard screaming from camp. We ran back expecting a sudden monster attack, but when we reached the camp clearing, there were a score of bandits cutting through my clan. Our guards, and our mages had been hit with arrows from ambush and the rest were out-geared, claws and teeth against bronze. When I saw one bandit put a spear through my uncle’s chest, I screamed and they saw us.” Gazra-tam was wringing her hands and looking at the ground. It obviously hurt her deeply to uncover these memories, but she bore through the pain.
“Cheris-tam was a year older and always looked out for me. When she told me to run, told me she would be right behind, I didn’t think, I just ran. But when I finally looked back, she,” she choked. “She was gone. Like all the others. I left them all behind.”
Gazra-tam’s story trailed off. I wanted to say anything to comfort her, to tell her it wasn’t her fault and she would be dead if she had gone back, but there really weren’t words that would help. Anything I said would just be empty platitudes. Truth didn’t matter much when the person hearing it was hurting and already convinced in the reality of a lie. So instead of talking, I put an arm around my sister and gently hugged her.
The contact helped, because Gazra-tam went on after a few shuddering breaths. “The ones who walked into the dungeon, I shadowed them for a while, listening. They talked about the caravan. They joked about it! And about the ones they kept alive. They—they—”
I stopped her then. “You’re right, they are evil.” Shit, they were the definition of evil. “And you couldn’t save your family, so you want to avenge them.”
“Yes,” she hissed. “We will avenge our Clan, wipe their stain from Ludus.”
A little voice in my mind protested that her Clan wasn’t mine, that it wasn’t my family that had been murdered and raped by these bandits. I gave that voice a whack upside the head. Gazra-tam was my family now, and even if I hadn’t known them personally, our murdered Clan was, too. I owed this girl my life, and I was never going to forget that again.
I nodded and said, “We’ll kill them all. Every last one.”
Gazra-tam’s smile would have done a lion proud.
Engineering Ludus, Chapter Six
A little more. A little more. There. The bronze spring locked into position as if it had been made for this purpose. Since the mass of parts floating in midair had come from the mechanisms of at least four different traps, this was no mean feat. Luckily, I’d had lots of time to tinker over the last three days, and my new orb-Bonded power was almost tailor-made for the work.
Apparently there had been something odd about my orb. Gazra-tam said they usually came with actual directions, not cryptic messages. And while they all needed the user to sleep before they took effect, she had never heard of one that actually knocked them out. But as soon as she’d asked what my power was, I’d just known. It was exactly like how Luda had appeared in my mind, except the knowledge came with an entirely new set of senses, and what felt like muscles.
The long and short of it was, I was telekinetic now. Yep, the spooky action-at-a-distance stuff, and it was real. When I’d first realized what I could do, scenes of controlling dozens of flying daggers, or crushing hearts, or doing Sith-style force chokes flashed through my mind.
Unfortunately, the reality of my new power was a little different. While I had telekinetic “hands”, they might as well have belonged to four-year-olds as far as strength went. One of them could barely heft a baseball-sized rock. Solid barriers also stopped them pret
ty effectively, so reaching inside of a living body wasn’t going to happen. They could slip around obstacles and out to about fifty feet, but definitely weren’t the sort of insta-killing battle magic that would have been really helpful for my current situation.
My instincts were telling me that these TK hands were like any other muscle, though. With exercise and time, I believed they would grow in strength and speed.
Unfortunately, time was something I didn’t have. Maybe someday I’d be able to train, but right now, a clock was ticking and we were likely to be massively outnumbered. Brute force would not win this fight, so we’d made a plan.
As I hunkered down on the dungeon floor, playing with gears, I thought back to my conversation with Gazra-tam.
“Traps are the key,” I’d said. We’d been looking at our crude map of the dungeon. “They can do all the work, so we don’t have to.”
“Traps are too easy to spot and too easy to get around,” Gazra-tam had countered. “There is a single way in and out. All they have to do is sweep in from there, so there is no need for them to move quickly. They will find each one and disarm it or find a way around.”
It’d taken her aback when I’d agreed. “Yeah, the traps here are pretty repetitive and I noticed that they are almost designed so that a person with a sharp eye or enough patience can get past. I’d like to change that. Gazra-tam, have you ever heard of an engineer?”
Apparently, there was a word for it in Luda, because what had come out of my mouth wasn’t English, but she’d still thought for a bit. “I think so. They usually stay in cities, designing buildings and bridges, right?”
I’d nodded. “That’s one kind of engineer, but not the kind I was thinking of. Back home, we had all different types, and I was training to become a mechanical engineer. They design—uh—” The word for machine in this language had all sorts of connotations that didn’t really fit. “Sorry, they create new mechanisms, complex devices that do specific jobs without any magic. Things like the traps in this dungeon.
“Anyway,” I’d continued, “since you first started showing me around, I couldn’t help but think about how I would change things if I built this place. I’ve had ideas, ideas I think could turn this place from a dangerous puzzle into a meat grinder.”
“And you are sure you can build these ideas of yours in time to help?”
I had just smiled and levitated a set of gears, springs, and bearings into a bronze halo. “Piece of cake.”
Thinking back on that conversation made me cringe a little. It seems I’d developed a flair for the dramatic since I’d been living on Ludus. And since then, after working seriously on the plan, I’d screwed up more than a few times. It definitely hadn’t been easy, and I hadn’t realistically expected it would. Luckily, it turns out that TK hands don’t get cut to bits when the high-tension spring they are working with snaps, or crushed when a pin on a deadfall comes loose and half the ceiling comes down on top of them. I’d learned from my mistakes and carried on, thankfully with all my physical limbs attached.
Meanwhile over the last few days, Gazra-tam had split her time between discussing our plans, bringing me supplies, and keeping watch. She still wasn’t at one hundred percent, but the potion had crammed about a month’s worth of healing into a few hours. She could move quickly and quietly if needed. She still favored her right side a little but it didn’t make her any less invisible in the woods. When the inevitable battle took place, her job would be to warn me, then hide. Then once the main body of enemies had passed, she would slip out and play ninja with the rear guard.
Unfortunately, we’d both thought this would be necessary.
We couldn’t just rely on traps to get the job done. There wasn’t the time or the resources to build enough quality traps, not unless our murderous friends decided to come back in over a month, so chances were we would have to take more direct measures.
Despite being rather bare, the treasure room had still had a few bronze blades, a definite upgrade for us. I’d kept my e-tool but also grabbed a handy bronze short sword that sure looked impressive. Hopefully I wouldn’t actually need to use it because my knowledge of sword fighting began and ended with, “Swing really hard.”
On the other hand, Gazra-tam had claimed a serviceable-looking dagger and seemed to know how to use it. It seemed when you grow up on the road having to help defend your clan from monster attacks, you learned the basics of fighting at an early age. Gazra-tam was fast, graceful, and I had to admit, significantly stronger than me. In a fair fight, I was pretty sure she could eat one of these bandits for breakfast.
Speaking of breakfast, my stomach chose that moment to let me know it felt neglected. “Fine, fine, but we’ll see if you still feel that way when you see the menu,” I muttered before putting the finishing touches on a trap and heading back to camp. Along with telekinesis, the Dolos orb had also done something to my stamina. Now I needed less sleep and could work longer without a break.
Now I functionally had more hours in the day, but we were always on the clock. This meant we couldn’t take much time on foraging, so we’d been forced to stay near the mouth of the dungeon. Since the only plants left there were the ones we had been passing up for the past month, meals currently really sucked. The level of suckage going up would have been unbearable if I hadn’t been constantly working on life-or-death work.
Camp was empty with Gazra-tam out on watch, so I helped myself to a celery-looking thing that tasted only marginally worse than toe jam. The junk had kept me alive this long, but this fact didn’t make forcing it down any easier. Maybe I’d get used to it. Eventually. In a century or two. Damn, I could kill for a bag all full of mystery meat and artificial flavors and preservatives. Truly the food of the gods.
I was just imagining the sort of damage I could do to a vending machine when a shadow blocked the light and brought me out of my daydream. “Hey Gazra-tam, didn’t hear you.” As usual. Then I looked up to see her expression. Shit. “They’re here?”
“Yes. At least fifty. They are coming fast and quiet. We do not have much time.”
“Well, I’d prefer a few more days, but it is what it is. Do you have time to get into position?”
“Oh, yes, plenty of time. Do not worry about me, Zac Riggs-tam, together we will avenge the murder of our Clan. We will cover our claws in blood and purge evil, all in the light of the day.”
I cocked my head at her. Sometimes I was reminded just how alien this young Mo’hali woman was. I couldn’t imagine hearing anything like what she’d just said from a fifteen-year-old human girl, heck any human for that matter.
“Stay safe out there, Gazra-tam.” Thoughts of our time together flashed through my mind as for just a moment I imagined life on this world without her. This wasn’t a future worth contemplating. We would both get through this, I had to believe it. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the best thing on this planet and I don’t think there’s enough revenge out there to make up for losing you.”
She smiled at that one. “You stay safe as well.” And with that she vanished up the stairs to her hidey hole.
Just like that, I was all alone. It wouldn’t be for long, though.
My first job was to hide the best of our equipment. The bandits needed to know we were still here. I wanted to give them something to chase so they would come in fast and dumb, but I didn’t want them getting their grubby fingerprints on our good stuff. With laser-like focus, I stashed everything but a stack of firewood, scattered vegetables, and a pair of rough beds into a hidden compartment underneath a disarmed pressure plate. Judicious use of TK helped finish this job in under a minute.
With that done, I used one of my last remaining matches to start a small campfire. The idea was to make the area look like the sort of place a pair of ragged and defenseless refugees might call home. Of course if this were true, since these hypothetical runaways couldn’t have escaped through the dozens of armed and alert bandits, they must have run deeper into the maze. Naturally.
After I was done with preparations, I got to the hard part—waiting. I stood just inside the hall leading deeper into the dungeon, staying hidden in the darkness. One of the first things I had done to prepare days ago had been to remove most of the magic lights from the labyrinth. Little islands of light would stand out like beacons to the bandits, but Gazra-tam and I could stay safe in the darkness. Her Mo’hali senses were superior to any human’s and she could make her way through the shadows without any trouble. As for me, well, I had a trick up my sleeve.
As the minutes passed by, I wondered what was taking these assholes so long. My nervousness weighed heavily on my mind and it started to play tricks on me. The dungeon was nearly silent, with only the sound of the campfire and my own breathing to keep me company. Throw stress and a whole lot of adrenaline into the mix and it became a recipe for my senses lying to me.
Was that a footstep or a heartbeat? A quiet voice or a crackling log? A woman’s distant scream or some wind? Then the doubts and second guessing began doing a dance through my brain. We should have stuck together. You never split the party, that’s dumb, and the traps aren’t going to be enough, either. There’s no way we can kill fifty people with them. Fifty people! Holy shit. Fifty living people! This wasn’t my war, so what am I even doing here? I’m not a soldier! I’m a damn engineer! I wanted to save lives, not take them!
“Don’t panic,” I whispered to myself. It was some of the best advice I’d ever read.
Deep breaths, deep breaths. Somehow I kept it together for an eternity and a half. I hadn’t broken by the time real footsteps started to echo down the stone stairway, and when I heard them, it was with a strange feeling of relief. At least now I had something real to worry about.
Show time, I thought.
Just as the first bandit showed her face, I started my grand performance. “Quick, they’re coming!” I hiss-whispered just loud enough to carry across the room. As acting goes, I wasn’t exactly an expert. I felt like I’d done a pretty good job, though, a grand showing, worthy of an Academy Award—top notch, all around.
Delvers LLC- Surviving Ludus Page 5
