The Lost City_An Epic LitRPG Adventure

by C. M. Carney

  He was about to swat the screen aside in disgust when he spotted Soul Bind. He had gained the Apprentice Tier Ability by reaching Level 20 in Soul Magic. It allowed him to bind a creature, beast or animal to him if he could beat it in a contest of wills. He’d used it only once and that mental battle, against a chaos corrupted dire wolf, had been horrendous.

  His eyes snapped up to the swarm of particles assaulting his shield. Could it work? Deciding he had nothing to lose, Gryph closed his eyes and cleared his mind as best as he was able. First, he cast Mind Shield, which enabled his Wisdom to temporarily borrow the score of his highest Attribute for purposes of mental defense. His 59 points of Dexterity was more than double his 27 points of Wisdom and he felt more aware of the universe and of himself.

  Hoping the boost to his mental fortitude would be enough Gryph activated Soul Bind and pushed his will towards the black fog. The strands of soul magic stretched towards the swirling maelstrom and then he felt the fog.

  It was a mindless weapon, composed of millions upon millions of microscopic motes of something trapped midway between energy and matter. To Gryph it looked like the Realms equivalent of nano technology. He pushed his mind further, and a prompt blared red in his vision.

  Soul Bind has Failed.

  The Black Fog is neither animal nor beast nor a sentient being and therefore has no soul to bind.

  Well crap to that, Gryph thought, a part of his mind growing more fearful. How do I fight these things? He glanced up at Myrthendir and pushed his will into the elf lord’s mind. He knew, from Soul Bind’s description, that binding a sentient soul was an evil act and would push him further into the dark side, but he didn’t see another option.

  The Prince Regent’s eyes snapped up and locked onto Gryph’s. The elf lord bared his teeth with an animalistic snarl and then the strongest mental shield Gryph had ever felt snapped down like a bear trap, chasing Gryph out. He recoiled and Myrthendir’s mind lashed out at his own, like the quick strike of a scorpion’s tail.

  If only I had time to consume you, he felt the aberrant’s stained mind more than heard it. The tendrils of his soul bind reacted like a child touching a hot stove, and he suspected that even with his upped mental defenses, Myrthendir was more than capable of backing up the threat.

  But then the elf lord returned his attention to the rune covered control panel and the tendrils of Soul Bind searched once more. They twined about the adamantine cube and deep inside Gryph felt the mind of the arboleth larva.

  He focused his will into a needle thin dagger of psychic potency and jabbed it into the mind of the larva. He expected it to scream in psionic agony, to rage and flail as it tried to pull itself away, but what happened was much more disturbing.

  The larva was no longer Prime. It was as if Myrthendir had wiped the mind of any self-awareness. He has enslaved the larva by overwriting it with a mote of his own self. Gone was the superiority and the rage at inferior life forms. Gone was the need for conquest and genocide. Nothing was left of the Prime mind but perfect order and harmony, an organizing intelligence with no more personality than a common AI back on Earth.

  Gryph already knew the Game Mechanics, the Realms equivalent of the laws of nature, could be hacked. That was how Alistair Bechard had invaded the Realms from Earth. He’d rewritten the underlying laws of nature and altered the Game Mechanics to his benefit. Now, without realizing it, Myrthendir had done something similar.

  He’s built the Realms’ version of a supercomputer, Gryph realized in shock. If I can just find the right subroutines, the ones that control the black fog. He pushed in further and he could feel the black fog itself.

  He had suspected to feel the malevolence of the Prime, but what he felt was worse. A cold, calculated intelligence flowed around Gryph as he pushed his mind inside. It was desperate to control all, to bring order to the chaos, all in service to the mind that created it.

  Gryph searched for a back door. He knew that Myrthendir would be unfamiliar with the concept of computing and hoped he would not notice the infiltration.

  Gryph sent a reluctant thank you to his long-dead father who had insisted Gryph learn the basics of coding as a child. He fed a simple one-word order into the structured alien mind and hoped. STOP!

  The world got quieter and Gryph opened his eyes. The black fog hung motionless as the last few seconds of his Air Shield ticked down to nothing and disappeared with the whoosh of air filling a vacuum.

  He knew he had mere moments before Myrthendir discovered what he had done. I have to get out of these bonds. He reached deeper into the larva’s mind and sent another command into the black fog, just as Myrthendir’s suspicious gaze tuned from his control panel to Gryph and then to the immobile swarm of mites. The black fog quivered for a moment and then rushed towards Gryph.

  Gryph had once been caught in a sandstorm while serving in the Middle East. It had torn at clothing and skin and left him temporarily blind. What Gryph was now experiencing was far worse and the scouring torrent of microscopic motes ripped at clothing and skin alike. But they also tore at the hardened bonds that held him. His health dropped a mere 10%, but the pain made it feel like he was on the brink of death.

  He fell to the floor and ordered the black fog to dissipate. The mites flew up and coalesced once more. Myrthendir jumped over the console and smashed down at him with his staff. Gryph activated Parry, but he was near blind and the elf lord’s blow knocked him back.

  Gryph’s connection to the black fog snapped like a taut rubber band suddenly breaking and the recoil felt like a punch to the face from a baalgrath. He staggered, barely avoiding Myrthendir’s next attack. He used Counter Attack, landing a blow to Myrthendir’s side. The Prince Regent grunted in pain and Gryph pressed the attack, spinning and landing another blow before he saw Myrthendir grinning at him.

  Gryph only had a moment to wonder why the elf lord was grinning when the black fog swarmed around his head. Claustrophobia took him as the mites filled his nose and mouth. Tears exploded from his closed eyes and he could not breath. A childhood memory of being swarmed by hundreds of black flies in the woods near Bow Lake punched into his mind and he fell to his knees hacking, desperate for breath.

  A distant part of Gryph’s awareness heard a metallic clang through the pain and terror, but he was far too focused on the burning behind his eyes to pay heed to the sound. The minuscule motes swam inside his vision and pushed into his mind.

  His muscles calmed, and he felt his resistance to the onslaught of the black fog wane. Then a vortex of darkness pulled him down threatening to smother him.

  “Goodbye Gryph. I am saddened that you would not join me willingly, but life so rarely gives us what we desire.”

  Then there was nothing to Gryph but obedience.

  Myrthendir grinned down on him. “Our friends have arrived just in time.”

  Gryph’s mouth opened, and he vomited up the stream of black fog. It swarmed above him, diminished in size and dove back into the adamantine cube. What little remained of Gryph was ordered to stand. He did as commanded, ignoring all the pains in his body as if they were another’s burden to bear. Myrthendir looked over Gryph’s shoulder and told him to turn around. He did and the sight of his friends, a sight that would have caused a ‘fuck yeah’ fist pump moments before, didn’t even stir the smallest of smiles.

  “Gryph?” Wick asked in shock.

  The shell that had been Gryph stood rigid, like a war drone awaiting commands. Avernerius’ monstrous new form failed to impress or terrify this new Gryph. He felt no confusion or amusement at Wick’s unexpected skin tone. Only deep down, buried under layers of control, did Gryph feel anything at all, and that was fear for his friends. Run, this part of his mind screamed.

  But nobody could hear him and then the black fog erupted from the cube once more.

  33

  Deep in the bowels of the city, in a room that was not on any maps, the lid of a coffin-sized box slid open and a man thought long dead awakened from slumb
er. He’d spent millennia cocooned in a mantle of unmoving time, but from his perspective his eyes had closed mere moments ago.

  The man was stocky, broad of arm and chest and wore a long beard that hung to his waist. His skin was the leathery quality of one used to hard work and a sharp intelligence burned in his eyes. Those same eyes struggled to focus, and he blinked to clear the sleep of ages from them. He tried to speak, but his throat felt like a tube filled with sawdust. He smacked his lips and moved his tongue along his teeth, stimulating long dormant salivary glands.

  “Maevnera, did the stasis field not form?” No voice came back to the man’s eager ears no matter how hard he strained. The only sounds were a deep and distant rumble he felt more than heard and a rush of nearby water. “Maevnera?”

  He tried to sit up, but his muscles were stiff and the small effort spiked him with a dozen cramps. He grit his teeth and his breathing grew harsh as he willed the pain away. After a few moments the spasms subsided and his eyes cleared enough to see motes of dust floating in the air above his head, dimly lit by magical glow globes on the walls and ceiling.

  Why is it so dusty? And where is my wife?

  Panic built up in him as realizations that he had not quite made swam in the deepest recesses of his mind. Then, like a fog burned away by the morning sun, realization hit him with the force of a hammer blow to the chest.

  The stasis worked, and the city has awakened me. There was only one thing that could mean. Someone has opened the city!

  He pushed his will into his muscles and pulled himself from the sarcophagus. More dust puffed into the air as his feet came to the ground. His knees buckled under him and he nearly fell. He turned to see his wife’s sarcophagus a dozen feet away and knew something was terribly wrong. It lay partially open, a layer of dust sprouting from the exposed lip like mold. He took a tentative step as fear bit into him. His second was steadier and by the third step he was running. He grabbed the heavy stone lid and heaved with his considerable strength.

  For a few seconds nothing happened, but then the lid moved inch by inch, until it eased back into its track and slid open. Inside among the dust, detritus and vermin droppings was the remnants of a skeleton and a necklace of platinum and sapphire.

  A strangled sound tried to force its way from deep inside him but failed. His legs gave way, and he collapsed against the sarcophagus. Tears filled his eyes as the depths of his loss pushed through the shock and he wept. He did not know how long he mourned when a voice spoke to him.

  “Grimliir, get off your fat, lazy ass.”

  Grimliir jumped, eyes scanning the room, heart thumping somewhere between excitement and fear. “Maevnera?” He knew the moment the name left his mouth that she would not answer, that the voice he’d heard had not spoken in millennia, but was a figment of his own making.

  Maybe I have gone mad?

  They had both known the dangers of the plan. He had tried to talk her out of joining him, but she had reminded him their mission was too important to fail and two chances at success were better than one.

  Their plan had always been a desperate one. Stasis was a tricky proposition; equipment could fail, someone could discover their hidden lair and perhaps worst of all, stasis could tear at one’s sanity. The risks increased the longer the stasis lasted.

  “And I’m hearing voices.” And talking to myself.

  He took a deep breath, steeled himself for what he was about to do and stood. He looked down into the hollow meant to preserve life that had, instead, stolen his wife’s life from them both. Maybe it isn’t her, his mind begged, but it was a foolish wish born of desperate hope. The necklace was the one he had given her on their bonding day. Gently he pulled the length of silver and platinum free and said his goodbyes.

  Only then did his mind allow him to wonder why he had been woken. And how long have I been asleep? He walked over to the work table at the far end of the room. Like everything else a thick layer of dust covered the stone surface. He wiped it clear and placed his hand on a small indentation. The spot grew warm, and a white light flared under his hand. He pushed down and a square section slid down, and the desk split in half expanding outwards as another section pushed its way up. An array of glowing runes lit the surface.

  He ran his fingers over the surface, tapping several of the runes. They pulsed and changed, granting Grimliir access to a host of information. He found what he was seeking and his mouth hung open.

  “I’ve been in stasis for 6,719 years.”

  The part of him that was the crafter, the thinker, and the artificer wondered how the Realms had changed in all that time. Was the world a better place? Worse? If someone had gained access to the city, then things were likely to get worse, much, much worse.

  Panic pulsed into his heart as a thought occurred to him and his fingers flew over the runes. Several more clicks and the sound of a heavy slab of moving stone drew his attention. The left wall split into sections and parted.

  The door to the vault was a series of interconnected slabs of stone designed to be impossible to open. One could hack with a sword, axe or blast it with magic for days upon days and not gain access. It took a complex code to open. Only two people in all of existence know the code. He caressed the platinum chain at his throat. And both are in this room. He pushed thoughts of his dead wife from his mind and stepped inside the vault. Additional glow globes came to life, illuminating shelves laden with precious metals, gems, magical powders and crafting materials off all kinds.

  A massive automaton stood to the left, opposite a slot that looked to have once housed another of the large metal monstrosities. At first glance the automaton seemed to be of the standard goliath design, but a closer examination revealed a hollow the exact size of an average Thalmiir.

  Grimliir’s heart thudded in his chest. Her rig is gone? He tore his eyes away from the empty slot and rushed to an adamantine cube built into a stone dais. From all appearances the cube seemed solid. It had no hinges or doors, no cracks of any kind. Grimliir placed his hand atop it and the metal turned from solid to liquid and flowed aside, revealing a square space.

  A red velvet pillow rested on a raised platform. A circular impression embedded into the soft cloth as if something heavy and about eight inches in diameter had once lain there. Seeing the box was empty, Grimliir flinched backwards as if bitten. He stood and stared for several long beats of his heart.

  “The Seal of the Dwarven King is gone. How?”

  The full burden of his useless sacrifice hit him and he became dizzy. His hands gripped the edge of the desk preventing him from falling. Then his knuckles went white as fear turned to fury.

  “I have failed.” His wife had died for nothing.

  34

  Barrendiel vomited again and Sillendriel held him, muscles straining to support her brother’s weight. His legs buckled, and they both fell and skinned their knees. Twenty minutes had passed since Sillendriel had pushed Myrthendir from her brother’s mind and while the physical symptoms were fading, his mind would not be whole for some time, if ever. He was dehydrated and starving. Had she not found him, he would soon have died.

  “How did you find me?” his voice cracked with pain and regret.

  “We’ll talk about that later. Now we need to get you to the Spire. We must warn Gartheniel and assemble the rangers.”

  He took her face into his hands and stared into her eyes. He had no mental gifts, being a man of purely physical prowess, but she felt his gaze pierce into her. “You removed the blocks didn’t you?”

  She looked down and worry built in both his expression and in his mind. “I had to. It was the only way to find you, to save you.”

  “What will it do to you, sister?”

  “We will talk about it later.” She slipped her hand under his arm and helped him to his feet. For a moment her brother’s legendary stubbornness took ahold of him, but then he nodded and let her lead the way.

  “Did you ever sense … it … in him?”

  “N
o,” she went silent for a moment, trying to process the feelings raging through her. “They must have taken him when the two of you were in the outside world. He never let me get close once you returned. He claimed he had ‘moved on’ from me.” She paused, pain pushing her lips up in a wry smile. “Did you know I haven’t even touched him since he’s been back. Not a single hug, no sisterly peck on the cheek, not even the slightest touch on his arm in seven years. He must have known that I would sense it.”

  “The temple in Gypt,” Barrendiel said in shock. “The one where we found the Dwellers in the Dark. We were separated for days and … they must have taken him then, made him Prime.”

  “He is not Prime, he is something else, something worse.”

  Barrendiel opened his mouth and then unsure what to say closed it again. The siblings walked in silence for several long minutes before a cool breeze flowed over them. They rounded a corner and saw the end of the tunnel and the green of the Sward beyond it. As they emerged Barrendiel took a deep breath as if the fresh air would cleanse away the stains in his mind.

  “How did he take you?” Sillendriel asked.

  “I tracked the Dwellers in the Dark into the catacombs.” She looked at him, a mix of worry and anger. “I know, I should have told someone, but I did not know who to trust. At least one of them is a ranger.”

  A look of shock crossed Sillendriel’s face. “Are you sure?”

  Barrendiel nodded and she could see regret dig into him. He pushed it away and continued. “I found their temple, the place where you found me.” He paused. “It is ancient. I cannot believe they have been down there all this time, hidden among us. How could they…?”

  “Do not try to understand zealotry little brother. There is no logic at work in their madness.”