by Edwin McRae
“Is he clean now?”
Maribella smirked and took a small pouch from one of her pockets. “Strict rationing. Keeps him useful and loyal at the same time.
“You know your soldiers well.”
The captain shrugged as she tucked the pouch away. “Everyone’s selfish, madam. If you want a bunch of people to work together, you’ve just got to get all that selfishness pointed in the right direction.”
“Now there’s a philosophy we share, Maribella.”
The captain called in the archers and led their small troop over to the leaning building. Colik greeted them at the partially collapsed entranceway.
“Find something?” asked Maribella.
“Serna did, yeah.”
“Is that why she’s not here?”
“Afraid so. She was careful too. Just not careful enough.” He pointed inside. “Come see.”
After ducking and weaving their way through a rubble-strewn antechamber, they stepped out into a once mighty hall of worship. Now it was warped and cracked, teetering on the brink of collapse. The looming figure of Agrovesh was the only upright piece of architecture in the place. One upraised arm had punched through a ceiling that now rested snugly against her head.
An ornately carved door was set into the base block of Agrovesh’s statue. That would be their most likely path to the goddess’ altar, yet their way was blocked by a wide stretch of dark water. A thin bridge spanned the artificial lake. Serna floated beside it. She was face down, her outline made ragged by the creatures that now tugged at her leather armor and ripped small chunks from her flesh.
“Something got her when she knelt by the water to take a look,” explained Colik.
“Those somethings?” asked Karina, pointing at the feeding monstrosities. They looked like a cross between a maggot and a tadpole, a coagulation of each animal’s worst features.
“No. Big ugly thing. Like an asshole on legs. Tongue of a toad. Pulled Serna in real fast, before she could even bleat.”
“A mother putting food on the table for her youngsters,” concluded Karina. “Any other ways into this place?”
The scout shook his head. “Collapsed long ago.”
Maribella pointed at the left hand wall, the one leaning against the neighboring building. The incline was steep but the various windows and carvings offered plenty of handholds and footholds for climbing. “We could all get across there.”
“How long was the creature’s tongue, Colik?”
“A few meters, I reckon.”
“The creature’s legs, toad-like were they?”
“Weirdest fucking toad I’ve ever seen, but yeah, it had the basics.”
“Then it can likely jump, and once we take that tongue into account, it might just pick us off that wall like flies.”
“Perhaps we should return to camp,” suggested Maribella, “bring some engineers so we can rig up a suspended catwalk.”
Karina shook her head as she took a small glass flask from her satchel. It was filled with cloudy water. Tiny, sinuous shapes flitted about inside.
Maribella curled her upper lip in disgust. “What are those?”
“Bloodworms. A waterborne parasite that burrows through the flesh until it hits a vein. Then it injects a venom that paralyzes its victim while it feeds and lays its eggs. After hatching, the offspring eat their way out, swim off to find another host, and the whole process starts again.”
Her explanation drew four horrified stares. Durk’s eyes remained blank and distant, probably because the dullard had only understood a fraction of what she’d said. Colik seemed equally unmoved, and Karina put that down to the starweed. It tended to burn the emotions away with extended use.
Karina smiled. “Needless to say, don’t touch the water.” She unstoppered the bottle and murmured, “Command Creature” under her breath. She expressed her wishes to the Bloodworms with a single, clear mental image and passed the bottle to Durk.
“Want me to tip this into the water, madam?”
“Yes, please.” She looked to the others. “Tie a rope around Durk just in case our toad decides to grab him.” She pointed at Kravel. “You be the anchor.”
She motioned for Maribella to follow and moved to a safe distance so they could watch the show. The creature didn’t disappoint. As Durk stepped to the edge of the water, a slimy, bloated head broke the surface. A gaping, wrinkled sphincter of a mouth opened and out shot a length of jaundiced muscle that lassoed the man-at-arms around the midriff. To his credit, Durk didn’t flinch. In fact, he seemed oblivious to his plight as he upended the bottle into the water, his own tongue poking out of the side of his mouth in an almost cute expression of childish concentration.
The muscle and sinew snapped taut as the creature started to pull. So did the rope tied around Durk’s waist. Kravel and the two archers hauled with all their collective brawn while Colik drew his shortsword and sawed through the monster’s tongue. Yellow flesh parted and the reiver tug-of-war team tumbled backwards. The creature let out an almost puppyish whimper as it drew in its injured tongue, and then gave a shiver that sent out a ring of waves to lap at the lake’s edge. The bloodworms were making themselves at home. The whimpering turned to agonized squeals as the monster thrashed about in the water, trying to rid itself of its new additions. Then it fell silent as the bloodworms filled its blood with paralyzing toxins.
Your party has neutralized a Level 11 Lakestalker.
Your XP reward per party member = 15 XP
Your party currently consists of seven members.
Durk giggled like a little boy as he got to his feet. “I just leveled up.”
Karina raised an eyebrow at the captain who shrugged. “Too stupid to feel fear. I believe that’s what you asked for?”
“He can go to the toilet by himself, can’t he?”
“Thankfully, yes.”
“Glad to hear it.” She strolled over to Durk and gave him a companionable pat on the arm. “Well done. Now be a good boy and walk across that bridge for us. I want to make to make sure it’ll take our weight.”
“Yes, madam.”
“Don’t want us going for a swim with those nasty bloodworms now, do we?”
“No, madam.”
Durk did as he was told and the bridge, though crumbling at the edges, proved sturdy enough for even his considerable weight. They crossed one by one, just to be on the safe side, and gathered outside the ornate doorway at the statue’s base. An experimental shove from Colik proved it was locked and an inspection of the mechanism showed that it was sealed with rust.
“Durk and Kravel. Bash it open.”
As the men-at-arms set to pummelling the door with their warhammer and mace, Karina folded her arms and looked up at the looming visage of Agrovesh. The second altar would soon be hers, and all of this war goddess’ ancient fury with it.
13
[Arix]
Arix tried to contain his frustration as Mark stopped again, took the amulet from around his neck and pressed it gently to a cracked colonnade. The polished ruby glinted in the morning light, a happy twinkle in Citadel’s eye as he got to work.
“Follow this street for roughly one hundred meters and then we’ll check again,” concluded Citadel after a moment or two.
Mark thanked him, slipped the silver chain back over his head and tucked the amulet underneath his armor.
As he and Vari followed Mark down the desolate thoroughfare, Arix tried to breathe through his impatience. Yes, he could still abandon Mark, go after Karina, but that meant taking on a reiver army all by himself. If he died, he’d have no-one to retrieve his gear. Then there was the very real danger of Karina finding his resurrection point and clamping one of those bollocks-shrivelling collars around his neck. No, he couldn’t go through that again. For now he would have to bide his time and get in some serious leveling up as he helped Mark with his Cockholes of Corruption quest. After that he’d demand that the warlock to help him hunt down Karina.
It paine
d him no end to be stuck in this virtual prison while his real life went on without him. Krissy would be weeping at his bedside. His channel fans might be holding candlelight vigils as they awaited his return to the land of the living. He consoled himself with those soft-focus images as Mark stopped at yet another crossroads and laid Citadel on the fractured cobblestones.
“The vibrations are growing quite vigorous,” reported Citadel. “I liken it to the feeling I had of woodworm in my timbers.”
“Poor you, Sid,” commiserated Vari. “I imagine it felt similar to boneworm.”
“Boneworm?” asked Mark. “What’s that?”
“A parasite you can pick up from eating contaminated beef. It bores through the bone and feeds on the marrow within. The inquisitors use them to wear down a subject’s will power over a period of days, even weeks. Victims feel a deep, dull ache... a constant discomfort that prevents sleep and makes it very difficult to think about anything other than mental images of creatures gnawing at your insides.”
“That sounds horrifically like the experience I had,” said Citadel.
“Jesus,” exclaimed Mark with a shudder. “How did you get rid of them, Sid?”
“It turns out that woodworm is vulnerable to the salivary secretions of cockroaches.”
“You got cockroaches to spit on you?” asked a revolted Arix.
“Yes, and it was far preferable to having my internal tenders chewed upon. By the way, we need to go right from here. Tread carefully. I believe we’re close to the chasm.”
“Will do,” said Mark as he picked Citadel up and put the amulet back on.
As they followed the right hand street, Arix marveled at the trust Citadel was putting in Mark. If Arix was a disembodied spirit able to possess buildings, he sure as fuck wouldn’t trap himself inside a single gemstone. That was the solution Citadel had offered, to migrate himself into one of the amulets Mark and Vari had brought back from a previous foray into the Barrens. Sure, it was better than lugging a brick around, but what if Mark died and fell into the very chasm they were trying to clear?
He checked himself, realizing that he was falling into the same trap Mark seemed hooked by, the blurring of the virtual and the real. Citadel was just a scripted AI like Vari. It wouldn’t upset Citadel one little bit because Citadel wasn’t capable of being upset at all. Yes, he could sound upset, he could feign all of the symptoms and eloquently express his emotional discomfiture, but it was all bollocks. He was a soulless facade just like everything else in this make-believe world.
Take the figurist, for instance. She hadn’t spoken to him on this trip so far, containing her communications to the occasional impassive glance. He didn’t take it personally because Vari wasn’t a person. She was a sophisticated piece of code written to drag hopeless romantics like Mark into La La Land so they would max out their credit cards on lust-induced microtransactions.
He moved up to walk beside Mark and did his best to mask his inner vitriol. “Mark, when we hit this chasm, I’ll take point while you stay back with Vari. You take out anything that gets around or through me.”
“Good call.”
The pain of guilt etched into the furrows of Mark’s/ brow. Arix suppressed the urge to tell Mark to “snap the fuck out of it”. Instead, he patted Mark on the shoulder.
“I’m sure Braemar would’ve wanted you to look out for Vari and Sid, mate.”
“Yeah,” Mark agreed. “He would’ve.”
No, he wouldn’t, thought Arix, because he was a mindless muppet made of pixels and script.
It occurred to Arix that he’d have to drag Mark kicking and screaming out of this game. Perhaps if he got one of Karina’s collars and learned how to use it, he could kill Mark and then keep him subdued while Karina performed the necessary rites to send them back to RL. It was a “cruel to be kind” move, but Mark would thank him in the long run.
He smiled. It reminded him of the time his dad made him smoke a full pack of cigarettes. It was the day after his eleventh birthday. He puked his guts out and the head-spins and cold sweats had lasted the rest of the day and most of the next one. And the stink was something he’d never forget. To this day, Arix felt nauseous at a mere whiff of cigarette smoke. He thought his father was a right bastard at the time. He changed his tune when his old man died of lung cancer two years later. That was why his mum had stood aside and let it happen. She knew. His dad had tried and failed many times to give up ‘the ciggies’ and wasn’t about to let his only son go the same way.
They walked in silence up a long series of marble stairways. They crested the rise and saw the chasm stretched out before them. It was far larger than the one the corpse soldiers had crawled out of. Much of it was obscured by the ruins of the palace it had sundered. Towers had toppled to form bridges. Basilicas had been cracked open like chocolate eggs at Easter. Arix rubbed his hands together. This once mighty center of glory and government was likely to be brimful of loot. Perhaps this Chasms of Corruption thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Arix quietly prayed to the developers for a Battleaxe of Shit-fucking-upness and then turned to the others.
“Let’s do this section by section, make sure we only aggro as many mobs as we can handle.”
“Good idea,” agreed Mark. “We should see if we can pull a few outer mobs first so we can find out the level range we’re dealing with. If this place is out of our league we might have to find a smaller chasm to grind first.”
Vari sighed. “Is this some sort of arcane language the followers of The Developers speak when they don’t want anyone else to understand what they’re saying?”
Mark laughed. “Sorry, Vari. ‘Mobs’ is our name for enemies. ‘Grinding’ is our name for doing something over and over, like killing a lot of the same mob. Through grinding we can get strong enough to take on something bigger.”
A wicked smile crawling across Vari’s face. “Like if I tied Arix up then stabbed and flesh mended him a few dozen times?”
“Wo, lady!” said Arix, taking a step back. “What did I ever do to you?”
Vari winked at him. “Just joking, luv.”
Mark laughed even harder as Vari strode off down the steps, headed for the chasm.
Arix shook his head. “Remember that old 90s film with Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone?”
“Basic Instinct?”
“Yeah. Beware of ice picks.” He set off after Vari, leaving Mark to stew over his words.
The warlock was clearly in love with Vari and that shit just weirded Arix out. Not that it was uncommon. Guys were falling in love with virtual girls long before FIVR. It was a one-way street to nowhere good as far as Arix was concerned. He sighed, realizing that he was just missing Krissy and should go easier on Mark. He didn’t know anything about Mark’s RL. Krissy would’ve reminded him of that had she been here.
He stopped and looked back up the steps at Mark. “Sorry, geeza. That was a bit uncalled for.”
Mark’s expression was implacable as he walked on past. “Yes, it was.”
Shit, thought Arix. He was going to have to watch his mouth if he wanted Mark’s help with Karina.
He followed the warlock down the steps, making a mental note not to openly criticize Mark’s weird-assed fuck-bot relationship, at least not until he was at liberty to slap some sense into the bloke.
As they entered the first of the ruptured basilicas, Arix picked up a faint scrabbling of claw against stone. His Fox Ears skill was handy like that, a passive perception boon that enhanced his hearing far beyond natural human levels. Although it was a passive skill, he was able to switch it off during non-critical times so he didn’t have to deal with a steady chorus of belly-gurgles, burps and farts from his companions. It wasn’t that they were particularly gassy. Everyone sounds like a leaky gas bag when you have preternatural hearing.
He motioned for Mark and Vari to stop, put a finger to his lips to quieten them, and then closed his eyes so he could better focus his Fox Ears. He picked up the scrabbling again, this
time accompanied by a low hum. It was off to their right. Two more sounded up ahead, either side of the path, and a fourth one behind them.
“Mark, put your back to Vari. You’ve got a mob directly behind you, another to your left once you’re in position. I’ll take the two up front.”
“Okay.” Mark did as he was instructed then murmured “Second Skin”. Blue light formed an ephemeral crown on his forehead then cascaded down over his body.
“If they’ve got eyes, I’ll try out my Blinding Malaise spell,” offered Vari.
“Physik Perception too, please. It’s real handy,” answered Mark.
“Physik Perception?” wondered Arix.
“Allows me to spot anatomical vulnerabilities,” explained Vari. “For instance, to slow you down I’d slash your hamstrings. They’re the most vulnerable target on your legs.”
“Good to know,” he answered, a tiny bit freaked out that their bot-healer was sizing him up for weak spots. Doing his best to ignore the malicious glint in her eyes, Arix turned as he heard the scrabbling grow louder. “Look alive, geezas. Here they come.”
Four misshapen figures crawled into view. To call them a hybrid of insect and human was to do both categories a disservice. To Arix they looked more like insects made out of various human parts. Head a cluster of skulls. Legs and arms twisted together to form limbs. And while many of the exposed bones looked ancient and yellowed, they were all held together by still-functioning flesh. Rib-cages and pelvises had been lashed together with dried intestines and the limbs retained much of their former musculature. As the creatures moved, they disturbed clouds of flies and the entire undead amalgamation wriggled with maggots.
Mark drew his sword and it burst into superheated life. “Vari? Weak spots?”
“Whatever’s controlling these things is nestled in the very center, behind multiple layers of bone. See those green ropey things that look like veins?”
Arix peered at the closest monster with his Buzzard Eyes ability and saw what Vari was referring to. A network of slimy wiring reached up from within, weaving down into the limbs and onto the snapping jaws of those skull clusters.
