by Edwin McRae
Damn, thought Arix. That would’ve been a bit shit.
He looked up at the archway and murmured “Truelight” under his breath. The archway glowed with chill, blue light. Three of its engraved symbols shone brighter than the rest. A circle with a jagged tail. A zee on its side. A three-pronged fork.
“Circle, zee, fork,” he said out loud. His voice echoed eerily through the deathly quiet chamber.
Nothing. He tried saying the other five combinations of those words. Nothing. He gritted his teeth and let out a growl of frustration. He wasn’t a fan of puzzles but they seemed to be a necessary evil in RPGs. He personally preferred the games where you just slaughtered stuff and worked on your character build, like the first edition of Reign of Blood. That was still his favorite, even now. Still, it looked like this version was determined to test his puzzle-solving skills so he would have to humor the designers this time.
He tried drawing the symbols in the air, starting again with the circle, zee, fork combination. He smiled as his fingertip began to glow. “ET phone the fuck home.” He drew shapes in the air like a kid with a sparkler on Guy Fawkes Day. No sooner had he drawn the sideways zee, preceded by the fork and the circle, the air within the archway shimmered and the malevolent curtain of magic drew aside. Cursing himself for not thinking to bring two bits of tyrant in the first place, he went back, picked up the severed claw, returned to the archway and tossed the claw through. It landed with a light thump on the other side. So far so good, but he still braced himself for instant powdered death as he took the fateful step himself.
On the other side of the archway, he let out a sigh of relief and took a moment to absorb his new environment. He realized that it was the archway’s deadly magic that had given this chamber of worship its gloomy appearance. The room was actually filled with light that poured down from the intact stained glass windows in the roof high above. Their imagery was warped, much like the statues in the entrance hall, producing an abstract smear of color that hurt Arix’s eyes. He looked away and took in the rest of the room.
It reminded him a little of Salisbury Cathedral with all of its dwarfing magnificence. Stone pews lined a wide, central aisle. The aisle led to another winged woman with flames for legs, a much bigger one this time. Once again, she was surrounded by worshipping figures, warped and weird. It was strange that the winged woman wasn’t misshapen in any way. In fact, to Arix’s eyes she was oddly sexy for an object of worship, leaning more towards anime than avatar. He chuckled as he thought of the environment artist, a patina of lustful sweat on his brow as he fashioned this colossal wet dream out of pixels and code.
At the woman’s fiery feet sat an ornate box that looked like a coffin, a masterwork of gold and carved wood. The latter should have rotted away centuries ago. Arix would hazard a guess that it was either petrified or preserved by some magical imbuement. From the description Karina had given him, this coffin was the Altar of Khorlvah.
Peachy. All he had to do was secure the area and call in the sergeant. She’d have her reiver grunts carry the thing out to Karina and he’d get a pain-free night for a change. Of course, as Arix had come to expect in these games, that was going to be easier said than done.
The vaults above echoed with scuffling and screeching. Arix unclipped his crossbow and loaded the top and bottom barrels with bolts. Now was his chance to really work out some frustration.
3
[Mark]
Mark’s “Volcanic Bastard” sword carved through the creature’s abdomen, leaving a sizzling trail of green hemolymph and sundered chitin behind it. The lion-sized insect waved its remaining legs pitifully in the air and then fell still.
To his left, Braemar crushed two more of the oversized beetles under a cascade of ancient masonry. Mark flinched, remembering his own experience of being ‘squashed like a bug’ beneath stone and mortar. He turned to his right and winced a little at the pain in his thigh as he shifted his weight. His insectoid opponent had managed to take a chunk out of his leg before becoming properly acquainted with Volcanic Bastard.
He found Vari looking at him, her eyes bright, a faint smile on her lips as she murmured her spell. Warmth flooded across his leg, staunching blood, knitting muscle and stitching skin together. Soon only a memory of injury remained, a blood-stained puncture in the steel cuisse Citadel had forged for him.
Vari’s Mend Flesh has healed you for 30 HP.
HP: 126
He made a mental note to find some better leg armor. Then he willed Volcanic Bastard into ‘Cooldown’ mode, returned it to the sheath on his back, and took a moment to survey the carnage. It consisted mostly of rubble and crumbling ruins, decorated with splatters of insectoid gore and fragments of midnight-black chitin.
Your party has slaughtered five Level 3 Pit Scroungers.
Your XP reward per party member = 50 XP
Your party currently has three members.
He pointed down the wide avenue they’d been following through the Barrens. It was lined with looming buildings that might once have rivaled the architectural wonders of Venice. Now they were distorted echoes of their former selves. The avenue ended in a vast edifice that looked to have been a government structure or major temple.
“That big building down the end, let’s head there. Might be some interesting stuff in-”
He was interrupted by the wet screech of a shellfish being torn apart. He remembered that sound all too well, from the times his ex-wife would demand that he take her out to her favorite seafood restaurant. He always ordered the vegetarian nachos.
The smell was another unpleasant reminder. He pressed the back of his hand to his nose and turned to Vari. The figurist was crouched over the splayed innards of the giant bug she’d just cracked open.
“Woah, Vari. That thing reeks.”
Vari nodded absently as she poked and prodded various viscera with her dagger.
“Judging from the contents of its stomach,” replied Vari, her voice soft with fascination, “this thing was primarily a carrion eater.”
“Then why did they attack us?” slurred Mark, his mouth now thick with nausea-induced saliva.
“Probably being territorial. We may have wandered into their scavenging ground.”
“So there’s more of them around?” asked Braemar.
Vari nodded. “Might be a nest.”
She shrugged off her pack, opened it up, and took out a small lidded ceramic bowl and a pair of forceps. With a deft slice of her dagger, she cut a yellow sac out of the gooey mass and dropped it into the bowl.
Mark tried to keep the disgust out of his voice. It was cool with him that Vari was unfazed by stuff like this, but it didn’t change the fact that it was pretty gross. “Um, that’s an interesting choice of trophy, Vari.”
Vari winked at him. “I’m going to make it into a hat for you.”
“You’re too kind.”
“I know.”
“No, seriously. What are you doing?”
Vari cleaned her dagger and forceps with a few large leaves she plucked from something that looked like a rubber tree plant. “Practising my Physik Perception and nabbing a nice, juicy ingredient for a potion I’m working on.” She tucked the bowl and forceps away in her pack. “It’s an acid sac. These insects disgorge acid onto their food, much like a fly does, to break it down before eating. It’s a pre-digestion process.”
Braemar’s suddenly pale face was a striking contrast to the red frame of his hair. “We’ll end up drinking that thing?”
Vari nodded, her expression deadpan. “Bile is a base ingredient for a lot of potions.”
The druid’s pallor took on a green tinge. “Even the essence potions you’ve given me to drink?”
“They didn’t taste too acidic, did they? I try to balance the flavors, make them as palatable as-”
Braemar shook his head and pressed his hands to his belly. A sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. “I think I’m going to sick.”
“Hold on then,” urged
Vari as she took another bowl from her pack. “Let me collect some.”
Braemar blinked, taken aback. “You want to collect my-”
“Of course. I can’t brew essence potions out of water and kind wishes. I usually have to make myself throw up.” She shrugged. “Unpleasant but necessary, you know?”
The druid’s Adam’s apple worked up and down like a busy elevator. Mark laughed, took the bowl from Vari and pressed it into Braemar’s hands.
“Come on, mate. Do as the lady says. We’re in the middle of the damned Barrens. I reckon we’ll need all the essence potions Vari can make for us.”
Braemar stared at Mark for a wide-eyed moment and then fled around the corner of a gutted building. Retching sounds followed.
Mark put his arm around Vari’s shoulders. “You, my darling, have the strongest stomach of anyone I’ve ever met.”
Vari smiled up at him and picked a scrap of chitin off his chainmail. A blob of insectoid goop trailed the fragment, stretching out until it snapped like a string of melted mozzarella. “I’m not the one who ends up covered in blood and gore half the time.”
Mark shrugged. “That’s adventuring for you.”
He looked at Vari, and for a brief moment he felt scared for her. She was vulnerable, but not in the emotional sense. The figurist had been through a lot during her time with the inquisitors. Rather than damage her, those experiences had served only to make her more resourceful, more resilient. But on a purely practical level, thick cloth wasn’t going to save her from a pair of sharp mandibles and she certainly wasn’t going to be able to take anything down with that dagger of hers.
“Speaking of which, we need to get you guys some proper adventuring gear.”
Braemar groaned as he shuffled back around the corner, having conveyed the contents of his stomach into Vari’s bowl. He passed the bowl to Vari with trembling hands.
Vari smiled kindly as she secured the lid and slid the bowl into her pack. Then she looked to Mark, one eyebrow raised.
“What do you have in mind, Mark?”
He gestured at Vari’s dissected beetle. “If these things have been scavenging around this place for a while, even since this city fell apart, they might have collected some interesting stuff over the generations.”
Vari nodded. “Makes sense. They would’ve hauled whole corpses back to their nest so they could consume them in safety. Whatever was on those corpses might still be there.”
“Exactly,” said Mark with a grin. “So let’s go bug hunting.”
Then he realized what he was saying. Hunting, tracking, finding a needle in the proverbial haystack, that’s what Dayna had done for them. For the dozenth time he saw the reiver sergeant’s dagger in his mind’s eye as it sank up to the hilt in the soft flesh under Dayna’s chin.
“Mark?” asked Vari softly. “You okay?”
He nodded and sighed. “Just thinking how handy Dayna would be right about now. It’s all well and good saying ‘let’s go bug hunting’, but I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start.”
Braemar cleared his throat. “Um, I could give it a shot.”
Mark tried not to let the skepticism show on his face. “Have you been learning a few ranger skills on the quiet?”
“No. If we were in the forest, I’d be bloody useless. But here’s different.” He swept the stark surroundings with a freckled hand. “A lotta dirt and dust, not much vegetation. I can use my Earthcraft skill to see where dust has fallen, naturally or otherwise. I can tell if soil and stones are where they should be or if they’ve been disturbed by something.” Braemar crossed the battlefield, giving Vari’s dissected beetle a wide berth, and knelt down to inspect the ground. “These little hollows, they’re not due to the natural sedimentation process, and there’s no sign of water erosion or subsidence. They were made by the beetles and the dust has blown over them.”
Mark clapped his hands together in impressed applause. “I reckon even Dayna would’ve found that impressive, Braemar.”
Braemar stood and shook his head. “Nah, she’d have called me a fucking amateur and pointed out exactly how many beetles had passed through in the last few days, where they came from, where they were headed, and probably even what their bloody names were.”
Mark forced a smile and tried to ignore the nagging of guilt in his gut. He’d replayed Dayna’s death in his head too many times and never once had he come up with something he could’ve done differently. “Well, let’s face it. Dayna isn’t here and some trail is better than none. Lead the way, good sir.”
Braemar did as he was bade, watching the ground as he headed off towards a squat line of ruins. To Mark they looked to have been a row of terraced houses. He and Vari followed at a short distance so as not to disturb the earth or distract their druid from his work.
It wasn’t long before the beetle trails led them into a relatively intact townhouse. Judging by the worn carvings framing the entranceway, and the grand stone staircase leading from the foyer up to the second level, this had been a residence of wealth. To the right of the staircase, tucked into the gloom, Mark could just make out a large and misshapen mass. He drew his sleeping Volcanic Bastard and woke it up. The blade flickered, as if Mark had blown across the coals of a dormant fire, then took on the iridescent mottle of molten iron. The sword’s warm light picked out the jagged boundaries of the pit beetles’ nest, an organic coagulation of clay, rotting wood and withered vegetation, held together by a waxy yellow resin.
“Looks like it might burn,” whispered Vari. “You could set it alight with your sword, or use that fire breath of yours if you didn’t want to get that close.”
Mark shook his head. “Might damage any loot these scavengers have collected. Braemar?”
“Yeah, Mark?”
“No bringing the roof down, please. Remember what happened to the Helm of Supremacy.”
“And to the man wearing it,” added Vari.
“No worries,” answered the druid. “Got another spell I picked up at Level Six. Haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. If you can draw them out, I should be able to soften them up a bit before they reach you.”
“Sounds good. Let’s give this a shot then.”
Mark raised his glowing sword and advanced towards the nest. The firelight made the sharp shadows of the nest dance like gnashing teeth. Mark knew he was about to wake something huge and ravenous, a gigantic boss beetle of some kind. He glanced back at Braemar and Vari. If that happened, he would give them as much time as he could to get the hell out before he became bug food. At least he would wake up after the subsequent nightmare. They wouldn’t.
As he neared the nest, he brought up the description of the Doppelganger spell.
Doppelganger
Creates an illusion of image, scent and sound that is an identical copy of the caster.
Tier 1: The doppelganger can appear up to 10 meters away and lasts for one minute.
“My darling wife aside, I tend to prefer my own company.” - Zevryn the Everborn
Good, he thought. Scent was important here. Though the pit beetles had eyes, he wasn’t sure how well they would see his illusion within the gloom of their nest. But they would definitely pick up his doppelganger’s smell with their antennae.
He whispered “Doppelganger” and focused on the beshadowed maw ahead. His own likeness flickered into existence instead. Mark was taken by surprise, realizing he’d not seen himself in a mirror lately. The warlock before him was much broader and significantly more athletic than real-life Mark. His wavy brown hair was an unruly mane reaching almost to his shoulders, and he cut quite a striking figure in Garridar’s Ironhide and travelling cloak. He was no longer the noob, dying with a ranger’s arrow through his neck. Nor was he the self-pitying bastard, dragging his sorry ass through each and every day, aching to be back in FIVR where he could have his precious mini-break from his real life. The Mark before him was a warlock, a man of might and magic fighting for what he believed in. He rolled his eyes, a b
it embarrassed with himself. That last bit was OTT, but it still felt bloody good.
His observation was rudely interrupted by the pair of mandibles that snapped shut around his doppelganger’s waist with such power they would’ve sliced the real Mark in twain. The boney clack echoed around the once-grand foyer and was followed by scratching and rustling as the giant beetle scuttled out of the nest. It was much larger and more heavily clad than the scavengers they’d met outside. A soldier bred to defend the nest.
As the first soldier beetle was followed by a second, and then a third, Braemar shouted “Erupt!” at the top of his lungs. His voice echoed only once before the rocks answered his call. One beetle saw its leg sundered from the tibia down as the rock it was standing on became the fantasy equivalent of a land mine. Stone fragments played drum tattoos across carapaces, and in two cases, punctured and ruptured compound eyes.
As the dust swirled around them, all three insects reeled in shock. Mark raised Volcanic Bastard, ready to make brutal use of their discombobulation.
“Mark!” yelled Vari. “Aim for the spiracles!”
“What’s a spiracle?” he called back.
“Little openings along the beetle’s flanks. They’re for breathing.”
“Barbequed beetle on a stick?”
“That’s right!”
Mark laughed as he closed the distance to the first beetle. The giant insect was still shaking off the shock of Braemar’s rock blasts. One of its bulbous eyes was a deflated mass of sinew and viscous goo. Through the dust he spotted the creature’s abdominal spiracles, small holes that opened and closed like the mouths of goldfish. He leveled his sword at the nearest spiracle, took aim, and thrust forward with all of his might. The smouldering sword sank into the orifice with the ease of a skewer going into a roast chicken. Steam gushed from the hole, followed by a stream of bubbling hemolymph. The soldier beetle let out a hiss, its entire frame shuddered, and then it collapsed to the ground.
