Delvers LLC- Surviving Ludus

by Blaise Corvin (ed)

  Despite their best efforts, they found little. A few rings, some metal, and a few broken weapons, nothing whole or very valuable. Anahi started to neatly pile it up, until Geb told her to stop.

  “Don’t bother organizing it, just throw it in a pile. If we get out of here alive, we’ll come back and get the best of it. Get some more to eat before we head out.” She nodded and left the little stash. All the metal, even damaged, would have surprised her a month ago, but now she understood how little it mattered compared to everything else.

  Mos and Jessel hadn’t died trying to acquire some broken bronze and bent tin plates.

  Anahi no longer paled at the thought of death. Almost everyone in the village had lost someone. As far as she knew, her entire family was dead, starting with her parents but extending to distant relations as well. Death was part and parcel to life on Ludus, and adventuring only increased the likelihood of a messy end.

  Her parents had moved to the village when she was young, which seemed an odd decision for adventurers. Many adventurers flaunted their wealth and strength in the larger cities, likely enjoying their lives while they still breathed, but her parents had eschewed that lifestyle, raising their daughter in the solitude of a small village. She wished for the hundredth time that she could ask them why they had made that choice, along with a thousand other questions that had crossed her mind in the years since their passing.

  Innear walked up to her as she was thinking, his battered leathers looking even more battered. “Lass, you ready? The most difficult fight of this dungeon will be on the other side of that door. Whatever happens, don’t lose your head. Stay calm, stay smart and help when you can. When we call out, do as we ask.”

  “Understood,” she said, and meant it. She wanted to get out of this alive, and knew their only chance was to work as a team. The man grinned at her, before turning to Geb and the door a few dozen feet away. The exchange had been the most anyone had really spoken to her since the fighting had begun, and it eased her stress a tiny fraction that the scout had taken the time to speak to her.

  Innear approached the door as Geb drew his sword from his sheath. The shadows seemed to gather around the tall scout until she could barely see him, torch light doing little to penetrate the gathering darkness. When she tried to follow where he was going, she realized that she couldn’t see him any longer.

  Geb said nothing, but his body tensed as he leaned forward on the balls of his feet. The door opened by itself, and hair raised on the back of Anahi’s neck. The same green light she had seen before glowed from the other side, but there was no sound. Without thinking, Anahi pulled an arrow from her second quiver and placed it on her bowstring, ready to draw.

  Beyond the Village Borders, Chapter Nine

  An explosion in the other room caused the door to open fully, and Geb bolted forward with his sword at the ready. Anahi was caught standing flat-footed, her mind slow to catch up with what was happening.

  She started to run just as Geb reached the door, disappearing inside. She paused to peek around the corner before entering, and her jaw dropped. Innear was shooting fire-imbued arrow after arrow at the necromancer, who looked much different than she had before.

  Now the necromancer’s body was wrapped in bones, and she stood half again as tall with skeletal legs underneath her torso. Her hands were enveloped in the same green light, but they moved much slower. The bony extensions of her bone armor swayed as she chanted.

  Anahi could only guess that temporarily defeated, the necromancer had slunk away and spent time preparing for a second round.

  An arrow struck the necromancer squarely in the chest armor, throwing her back against a stone wall. This room was half the size of the previous room and no pews, but instead had a rotting desk in the corner along with a large, intact black altar in the center. Three torches had already been lit around the perimeter of the room, with the necromancer standing behind the black altar.

  Green mist darted from the necromancer’s hands towards Innear, nearly striking him in the chest. He threw himself to the ground to dodge the light, and it struck the stone wall instead, throwing shards of sharp stone in every direction. The tall scout rolled away, flipped to his feet, and circled around moving lightly on his toes.

  Geb flanked the robed woman from the other side. Understanding what they intended, Anahi moved to the center of the opposite wall to avoid striking either of her team members.

  Team members? she thought. Am I good enough to even consider myself something like a team member? She ignored the thought with a shake of her head and carefully aimed. The battle with the ork chieftain was fresh on her mind, so she waited, not willing to further endanger the two adventurers.

  The necromancer shrieked alien words, threw a hand out, and a green stream of light flew at Geb. Amazingly, he somehow batted it aside with his sword, following up with a strike to the skeletal legs. Just as he had done with the trolls, Geb hacked at the legs like he was cutting a tree, angling his blows for the most damage. To distract the cloaked abomination, Innear threw daggers at the woman, trying to find something, anything that would damage her.

  The first two daggers hit and bounced off the bony exterior, but the third dagger stuck firm. The necromancer howled in pain, the green light around her hands dimming as she tried to dislodge the dagger. Geb hollered an inarticulate war cry as his sword hammered at the distracted necromancer’s bony legs.

  A large snap sounded before the leg collapsed, and the necromancer fell on her side. Green light flared, but Anahi couldn’t see the necromancer or what was happening behind the black altar. Points on the ground all around the room began to glow.

  Geb screamed again, throwing himself back as his body was encased in green light. For a moment everything hung in limbo, like the world had frozen, but then flesh began to drip from his body, and bones could be seen through translucent skin. The man’s shrill screams were haunting.

  Innear shouted, but Anahi couldn’t hear what he said. She could figure out that if Geb had been afflicted by the necromancer, he could turn on them and kill them both. The lights all around the room seemed dangerous too, and she remembered how the necromancer had raised skeletons in the earlier room. She and Innear were likely about to die. She shook her head, heart cold, and replaced her arrow with an enhanced one, then aimed at the black altar. Something about it bothered her, and the entire room felt off because of it, and she decided to work off a hunch.

  The way the altar in the other room had been broken seemed important right now.

  Anahi prayed, putting all the hope in her heart into her actions. Her damaged fingers screamed in pain as she released the enchanted arrow toward the base of the altar. The resulting explosion rocked the room, knocking her off her feet. Dust fell from above and made her cough. She covered her eyes with one arm as a lightshow of green and darker colors flashed through the room.

  The necromancer screamed in fury, and as Anahi opened her eyes to take in the scene, she scrambled to her feet. The black altar was now broken in half, with black rocks scattered around the room. The green lights around the necromancer dimmed, then faded entirely, and Geb fell to the floor in a heap. Innear darted forward, incredibly quickly, and impaled the necromancer’s head with his thin sword.

  The torches around the room flickered wildly as the necromancer died.

  Anahi dropped her bow and ran over to Geb, using all her strength to turn over his damaged, armored body. When she finally succeeded, she stumbled back in shock, tears freely flowing from her eyes.

  What had been Geb was now a hideous, grimacing, but very dead and unmoving zombie looking back at her. The skin on his face was pulled taut, his right hand still clenched around the hilt of his sword even in death. His body was ravaged, damaged even after his short undeath.

  Anahi cried, losing track of time as tears flowed freely from her eyes. When she could get ahold of herself, she looked up only to see that she was alone in the room. A door had appeared where none had existed ea
rlier off to the right, and stairs led up past it.

  Geb’s body was gone, moved at some point while Anahi had been in hysterics, and drag marks were clearly visible in the dust. Fresh tears threatened to fall, but she held them back. She knew she would likely need more shortly.

  Looking around the room, she saw the remains of the necromancer on the floor. Part of her wanted nothing more than to loot the cloaked woman for everything she was worth, maybe kick the corpse, but the more rational part of her turned away and headed toward the stairs. She was still alive and would like to stay that way.

  Anahi wasn’t surprised that the hidden stairs led outside the dungeon. She found Innear digging a hole in the ground not far from the entrance, Geb’s body hidden under a cloth. When he’d finished, she helped lay Geb in the grave, his arms crossed with both fists around his sword. Without being told, Anahi understood the respect they were giving their friend, laying him to rest in his adventuring kit.

  Nobody would be taking away the man’s sword, the one he’d saved them with.

  There was only one shovel, but she did her best to put dirt into the hole and cover the remains of Geb. At some point, she’d started crying again. By the time they’d finished, her nails were broken and packed with dirt, tear streaks running through the dust and grime on her face. She would clean herself later, but now was a time to grieve and be thankful she had lived. If not for Geb’s sacrifice, she knew without a doubt that she would be dead along with Jessel and Mos somewhere under the ground.

  Anahi had been scared plenty of times on this adventure, but this time, she’d brushed death so closely, she could have touched it.

  She left Innear to loot the necromancer, not asking what he had found or if it’d been dangerous. Without speaking, they lit a fire where they had stayed the night before, and Innear kept watch all night. Anahi didn’t sleep, though; she just watched Innear’s back, feeling numb and thinking slow, dark thoughts.

  When dawn broke, Innear hefted a heavy wooden box onto the ground and opened the lid. It was full of magic stones, the devices used to power the world’s technology, a fortune of them. “I found this in a hollow under the altar. You’re welcome to a fifth by my reckoning. I’ll take…I’ll take their shares to their families.”

  Anahi said nothing, seeing more wealth than she could have imagined in one place. She numbly nodded, packing some of the wealth into her pack, and some into pockets. It was amazing how it all fit into such a small amount of space.

  Innear wasn’t done, though. He brought out the last gem that the adventurers had found in the ork chieftain’s cave. The man just gave her an unreadable look until she finally worked moisture into her mouth and asked, “What is that?”

  “This is a Dolos orb. Geb had wanted to deal with who got it after all the treasure was being divvied up, and we’d already been thinking about giving it to you if your share would allow for it. The others wouldn’t have been able to complain if they were receiving the same cut. Anyway, now you’ve earned this I suppose. Either way, I can’t swallow another orb, and I’d rather give it to someone worthy who will use it than sell it.”

  Part of Anahi’s numbness seemed to fall away, and she clearly felt a note of surprise. “You’re orb-Bonded?”

  “Yes, as was Geb. We are—were, only first rank, and had common orbs, but it had always kept us alive until now.” The man hung his head sadly. “Make sure you follow the instructions exactly, and show it to no one.” He paused and in a rush, he said, “Geb wanted to give this to one of you before we tackled this dungeon, but I wanted to wait. Now we will never know if it would have…made things turn out differently. I will live with this knowledge until I die.” With that, he walked away, back stiff.

  Instructions? Anahi thought. She opened the box and stared inside, unsure what she was looking at. A crumpled note lay beneath a small colorless orb. It felt like it took a lifetime for the reality of what she was actually holding in her hands to sink through her depression. Anahi’s breath caught, realizing how much more precious this orb was compared to all the other treasure combined. She quietly slipped the little box into her pocket, deciding that she was not in the correct state to deal with something so major now.

  Shortly after that, they quickly, mechanically sorted through the most valuable of the treasure. Innear used the next-largest pack and the two of them stuffed both their packs with as much gear and loot as they could fit inside. Not many words were spoken, but Innear reminded Anahi to keep the other ork treasure in mind. On the way back, the two of them stopped by their cache, and completed the load they would haul back to civilization.

  It took three full days of steady hiking to reach the village again. The river had returned to normal, so they crossed without the rope line. Despite the ever-present danger of the wilds, Anahi felt no fear. Compared to the horrors of a dungeon, she doubted she’d ever feel truly scared in the wilderness ever again. Instead, now she enjoyed the feeling of pushing her muscles harder than she ever had before.

  The entire time they travelled, Innear said only the minimum of what was necessary. He never called her lass again, nor did he mention the orb. They ate what they killed along the way, eating quietly over the fire at night.

  After some soul searching, Anahi finally swallowed the orb the night before she reached the village. She couldn’t fully describe what had happened during the night, only that she knew that her life would never again be the same.

  Her orb controller had been condescending and mean, and she hoped not to meet it again any time soon. From what she could understand, it had given good advice, though. Now she knew that she’d actually swallowed a Duanna orb, not a Dolos orb, but that they were similar. She’d gotten something rare, similar to a modular Dolos orb. Most of this information had gone over her head, but she felt thankful nonetheless.

  As a new orb-Bonded, now she had greater strength, endurance, sight, and she’d chosen an ability to heal faster on her own. The orb had also given her abilities to help her fight, and add a small elemental effect to her own arrows. That last power she’d chosen during a ceremony in her dreams she still didn’t quite understand, had come about as a direct result of her experience in the dungeon. Enhanced arrows had saved her life and allowed her to wield real powers. Her orb controller had kept pushing her to choose something called “Energy Blasts,” but Anahi had thought it sounded too much like the evil power the necromancer had wielded.

  The children waved to her as she returned to the village, and she smiled for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Innear only nodded at them. Then he shook her hand, his eyes haunted, and turned to continue down the long road to Mirana. Anahi knew she would be leaving soon as well, but she would stay one more night. She felt an obligation to say a last goodbye to her parents and bury her memories before moving forward with her new life.

  The children came to find her after she’d returned to her shack and gotten settled, and found a shower. They called for her by name and asked her to play but her heart didn’t have the warmth she had felt for them before. Perhaps in time she would again, but in the end, she moved past the children and to Karla’s mercantile. This would likely be a simple stop, unlike her trip to her parents’ graves. She wondered what they would think of their daughter now.

  Almost as soon as she’d entered Karla’s, the older woman asked, “What happened to the other lads? I thought you left with four adventurers?”

  Anahi said nothing, placing a couple bronze goblin daggers and some broken metal she had pulled from her pack onto the table in front of her. Last, she laid the tin dagger down that the woman had given her, returning it, and Karla deftly moved it under the counter, separating it from the rest.

  “I see. What would you like for these? The knives are common, but the bronze can be melted down again to make something better. The rest would fetch a decent amount too if I had any to give.”

  Anahi thought for a moment. This woman had shown her consistent kindness over the years and had even giv
en her a weapon when she’d left. She decided that this was a debt she should pay. “Karla, for this and all my store credit I have with you, all I would like in return is a final meal to remember. This will zero out our balance. I’m leaving in the morning, and I don’t expect I’ll be coming back.”

  Beyond the Village Borders, Note

  From the Author, Jon Svenson:

  This story was placed prior to the time frame of book one of Delvers LLC. Instead of jumping directly into orb powers, I wanted to show a slice in the life of a poor village girl who jumps at an opportunity and forges a new path in her life.

  The author is an actuary living in the Pacific Northwest.

  Enemy Mine - Introduction

  Enemy Mine

  By Cory Gaffner

  When a World War II American soldier and a German soldier are transported to Ludus at the same time, will they manage to repay a debt, or kill each other first?

  Enemy Mine, Chapter One

  1944 June 6th, just off the coast of France

  I waved my men closer and pulled on some of their helmets to get them even closer again until all six of us were so near that I could feel their breath on my cheeks. I left my arms across the closest one’s shoulders on either side of me as we formed a tight circle. I looked at each of them in the eyes; this was my squad, these were my boys. I knew it wasn’t right but I couldn’t help but think of each of those young men as my surrogate sons. I was tough on them, but I would do anything for them. The Higgins boat we were in hit a particularly rough wave and we were all jostled but held onto each other.

  One of my boys couldn’t hold his stomach and left the circle for just a second to barf all over the deck but he came right back like nothing had happened. My boys were warriors. We may have had a dumb shit of a Platoon Sergeant, but my men followed me, and I made sure they had the best training and discipline possible. The dumb shit in question had been at the front of the boat at the time saying some more dumb shit, and like always, we were currently ignoring his dumb shit orders that he was giving out.