by Andrew Lynch
‘Okay. So, it’s kind of tiered. With the normal schools of magic, it’s rock, paper, scissors. Then you’ve got the outliers with no interactions apart from with each other in arcane and nature. Then you’ve got the god tier stuff with light and dark.’
‘Right. And, if not obvious, a light offensive spell meeting a dark defensive spell will just go through as standard damage. No modifiers.’
‘Weird. So, my defence magic is actually, like, the best in the game?’
‘Damn right. I mean, physical attacks will still break your shields, but no magic will.’
‘I feel like that’s incredibly important information. Why am I only hearing it now?’ I remembered that my training with Angie was far from finished when the game broke and left me without my trainer construct. ‘Never mind. Anyway, shall we continue? There may be some more skeletons hiding in some of these broken down houses, and there’s probably a cave nearby. Also, it looks like I’m close to level eleven.’
Ixly joined the conversation, heading our way. ‘The question is, are you ready for more grinding.’
‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?’
‘You took some damage in that fight.’
I checked all of our health. I was sitting on 50%, Ixly was on 90% and Bri was unscathed. Whatever Ixly’s defence spell was, I wanted some of that for the next time a dozen skeletons swarmed me.
‘Anyone have a healing spell?’
‘Not to worry,’ Ixly said, rummaging through a pack. ‘I’ve got some bandages. Always useful to keep First Aid levelled, anyway.’
Well there you have it. First Aid really was a skill. Now I knew.
Ixly wrapped up a cut on my arm and applied a salve to my neck, allowing Bri to give her view of the situation.
‘While I was mining that ore, I saw a set of steps carved into the side of the cliff further on. Probably carved by the villagers when it was still occupied. Through the village, and then head down and see if there’s any caves.’
I frowned. ‘That was my idea. You can’t just repeat things and claim them as your own.’
She waved a hand. ‘Nonsense. My hot stair-intel gave the plan purpose.’
Ixly finished, and picked up his gear.
Out of the post-battle serene silence, a high pitched shriek shattered our peace. It wasn’t a human sound. It was an apex predator marking its territory. It was a beast in pain.
Bri and Ixly shrugged and started walking into the ruins.
‘Uhh, guys? You heard that, right?’
Nothing from them.
‘Why are we walking that way? We all know what that was. Shouldn’t we head back?’
No response.
‘Guys?’
A faint echo of the screech reverberated through the ruins, and I hurried to catch up with my friends. My friends who were, as far as I could tell, idiots!
Chapter 32: “Steps”
The ruins of the village held a few more encounters with skeletons, and one particularly large rat. However, there hadn’t been any more ambushes by a small army, and so there wasn’t a huge threat to the three of us working as a team. Anything I didn't kill before it reached us, Ixly tanked and Bri backstabbed.
There were only five small houses to sift through, so it didn’t take us long. At one point, Bri ran off again and grabbed another mining node in the middle of a fight, but we had things under control.
Sure enough, at the other end of the village, we found a set of roughly cut steps winding their way down the side of the hill, to the valley below.
‘Just throwing this out there one more time. No one wants to turn back? I mean, I don’t, obviously. All about that loot. All about it! But I’m willing to turn back if one of you guys doesn’t feel up to it.’
They both shook their head.
‘Good. Good. Me neither. Yes, very good. Good. Gooooood.’
They started walking down the steps and I followed. Not reluctantly. I wanted to go. Yes.
Calling them steps was generous. These were steps in the same way that a cliff was a ladder. The original carvers clearly had a very loose interpretation of safety guidelines, as even the nimble Bri wasn’t being her usual, prancing, watery self.
We were halfway down, and I was awkwardly pressed between two outcroppings of precariously smooth rock, when I finally asked a very important question.
‘Why are you white?’
They both turned to look at me.
‘No, not like that. I mean, why are you an albino Steggar? All of your Stagodon are yellow, your Geeko are multicoloured. So why are you pigmentless?’
They kept navigating their way down the “steps”.
‘Understand, that although Steggar, Stagodon, and Geeko are all, collectively, lizardmen, we are not the same species. So their colour shouldn’t have any bearing on my own.’
‘Okay, bit racist of me there, fair. Or, speciesist? Either way, nature follows patterns. You should either be camouflaged – so a kind of tan brown for sand, green for swamp, whatever – or you should be a flamboyant, neon red to warn of danger. Right? So what happened?’
‘The character creation screen happened. You’re right, all of those colours were available. I could have been almost any shade or hue I wanted, from a dull and muted brown, up to a hot pink. One of the advantages of being a non-human race. But, to be honest, I’m not sure why I’m white.’
Even Bri had to stop and ask, ‘Huh?’
‘When I created myself, I had decided that camouflage made the most sense, and I picked a light brown. It would have suited the starting desert for Steggar, but also be suitable in the grander swamps of the region. But… well, that all changed.’
We were just passing through the canopy, so although the fall probably wouldn’t kill us anymore, the sharp trees might.
‘Definitely going to need more info,’ I urged him on.
He shrugged. ‘I can’t give much more, sadly. A few years ago, I logged in, but my colour had logged out.’
Bri snorted. ‘And what? There was no quest to go along with it?’
‘No. But that doesn’t mean much. Official quests aren’t exactly a common occurrence outside of situations. If I had to speculate, I think you’re right. It’s some sort of a quest. I don’t know what though.’
‘Seems pretty obvious to me,’ I said. ‘You need to inject some colour into your life! Spice things up.’
‘He’s not wrong, you know?’ Bri concurred.
‘Always am, I know. Hey, maybe you should visit Bri’s grove. If you know what I mean.’ I winked even though he wasn’t looking at me.
‘You what?’ Bri asked, barely holding herself back from a shriek.
‘No no no. Your quarter of the city! Get your mind out of the gutter, Bri. Such a perv. But really, get a nice massage from a Fawn. I hear they… you know. Yeah. Will get a rise out of your Life bar, if you know what I mean.’
‘Severo,’ Bri said, sternly. ‘What are you implying?’
‘Woah now. Don’t get angry at me. Horace passed on some information about several of Thanis’ visitors being very pleased about the Fawns’ service. Don’t blame facts, Bri.’
‘You think my Fawns are giving happy endings?’
‘Hey, they’re sexy demi-humans. If you choose to capitalise on that and prostitute them out, I’m not arguing. I’m just spreading the knowledge to our good friend, Ixly, here.’
Bri laughed a deep, belly laugh, and the convulsion got her spiked by a tree. After she composed herself, she said, ‘They give happy endings of a sort then, yes. They’re all attuned to nature, obviously, and they have a few spells because of it. You’re right though, I had ordered them to do what they’re doing, but they’re casting a very weak Charm Nature on the clients, then telling them to let go of their problems. The client is forced to comply, and so when they leave, for the next hour, they have literally no troubles.’
‘You can do that?’ I asked.
‘Of course. Incredibly easy when the participant is willing.
Now, if they had to do it subtly, and make sure the client’s suspicions didn’t become aroused–’ I snorted. ‘– then it would probably be beyond their capabilities. But as it is…’
‘Well. That is far less salacious than I’d thought. But what about Teint and She Who Slays?’
Bri thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know who Teint is. What about her, though?’
Ixly cut in. ‘From what I saw, Severo, that was… a deal of their own making, shall we say. One born of genuine affection.’
I thought back to when I’d seen Teint digging around in the ground near She Who Slays. ‘Ooh. That was not a polite spot of gardening. I suspect having a green thumb will mean something very different for Teint from now on.’
Bri looked thoroughly out of the loop, but Ixly laughed his completely too loud laugh right into my ear, and I almost fell as I tried to stop the pain.
‘Eyes, Ixly, you need a muzz–’
The unnatural screech from earlier pierced the air, and we fell quiet. We were closer to the noise now. It came from below. The way we were headed.
We all froze and looked at each other.
‘Severo,’ Ixly said, softly. ‘About your idea of returning to the village…’
Part of me wanted to abandon this, but in reality, I knew we had to continue.
Also, I didn’t want to climb back up these steps.
‘If we can’t handle one angry Moonbeast, then how are we going to handle an invasion, huh?’
‘With an army to support us?’ Ixly suggested even as he continued down.
After a few more minutes of silence, Ixly said one final thing. ‘My lack of colour. What I said is true. It happened for a reason a few years ago. But that was no in-game reason. It appeared the first time I logged in after the accident.’
I didn’t know what to say, so as I placed my foot back on solid ground, I grabbed Ixly’s forearm and squeezed. Bri did the same. Then we headed toward possible loot, likely death, and certain scared shitlessness.
We made our way further along the ridge. The dead trees in this part of the forest were different to the ones in which I’d found Horace and his Wooded Cult all that time ago. Those had been sparse and thin, and the trees themselves had the appearance of burned out husks, for the most part. But now, deeper into the wood, the trees seemed, oddly, teeming with life. Yet dead. Dead life. Live dead trees, is what I mean. The trees had big, thick trunks, like they were modelled after oaks from real life. Big, healthy, strong, full of life. But these had something growing on them, constricting them, warping them into twisted shapes as they grew. These vines were where the spikes and the sharpness and the death came from. Giant parasites, choking the life out of things that were, in essence, life itself.
I hoped there was a quest to banish the dead from these woods. Which, now that I thought about it, didn’t make much sense. I spawned in these lands because it represented my class. It’s all themed. But was I the trees or was I the vines killing them? Maybe, giving up the life of these trees was the big sacrifice I had to make. How allegorical. Quite the foreshadowing, game. Quite the foreshadowing.
Or, possibly it was just a cool theme for warlocks. Hard to know.
Surprisingly, I wasn’t actually thinking of taking up arboriculture. Trees didn’t interest me that much. I wasn’t a druid, after all. No, I was paying so much attention to things that didn’t matter, because the alternative was to realise that we were coming up on an opening in the cliff face. It was a crack, running from the top, all the way down, until it broke beneath the canopy, where it began to widen, and then, about six metres from the ground, it rounded out into a picturesque cave mouth. If the picture you had in your mind was one of stony death
We all stopped and stared, the earlier steadfast resolve of my friends wavering.
‘It’s really dark,’ I said.
They both grunted an agreement.
‘I’ll be able to see,’ Bri said.
We both grunted an agreement.
‘Some weird druid magic?’
They both grunted an agreement.
‘Part cat.’
We both grunted an agreement.
‘Ready?’ I asked.
No one grunted an agreement.
‘We came this far, guys. We’ve got to go in.’ I looked at them and they looked highly unconvinced. ‘Look, whatever is in that cave could be the key to defeating The Eastern Shadow. I mean, it could be powerful enough to turn the tide in our darkest hour, right whenever everything seems lost. Heroic as shit, right?’
Ixly held up a finger to hit me with a concise counter argument. ‘Or… what’s in there will kill us, ruining the defences of Thanis, robbing us of even a fighting chance against The Eastern Shadow.’
I looked at both of my friends. I mean, I really looked at them. Bri’s angular features, softened only by her watery skin, and her deep eyes. Ixly’s noble visage – if you considered lizards noble – and resolute set to his mouth. These were two good people. Two people that just wanted an escape to Tulgatha. I couldn’t get my head around it, but they didn’t view this as their entire life. And despite whatever else I saw on their faces, beneath those overtures, I saw a sadness, or a reluctance, or… well, I was no expert on the emotions of water elementals and Steggar, but I had to respect that.
‘Okay, here’s the plan.’ Time to put this newfound sense of purpose and leadership to real use. ‘Ixly, hand me one of your bandages, I might need it. I’m thinking that this thing in here is going to be pretty pissed, right? So I’ll go in alone–’ they started to protest. ‘–Wait. I’ll go in alone, and lure whatever’s down there up to you. If there’s an ambush, or it’s completely unwinnable, then only one of us gets killed. You both know it makes sense, and yes, Bri, you’re probably faster than me, but thanks to my Shadow Clone, I should be able to get a decent head start.’
They looked at each other, and I could see their warring emotions. They didn’t want to let me go down there on my own, but the mixture of their own lack of desire to head towards certain death, and the logic of my argument seemed to tame mollify them.
‘Okay,’ Bri finally said. ‘But nothing stupid down there.’
‘Yes. And if there’s no obvious loot and you haven’t aggroed anything, try and get out. Better ways to get experience than fighting an Epic beast. We’re here for the loot.’
I wondered if they could see the lie on my face and chose to ignore it, or if I was crit succeeding my bluff check. Whatever happened in that cave was staying in that cave. I wasn’t getting these two killed if one of those Moonbeasts saw me. My friends were here, doing this, for me. I wasn’t sure why, but I was sure I wouldn’t let them come to harm.
‘Great.’
Chapter 33: The Moonbeast Cometh
Calling the cave dark was like calling the sea wet. Sometimes, facts aren’t enough. Sometimes, you need metaphors.
This cave was so dark it could be the punchline in a holocaust joke.
There was still some light, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t blind. I was keeping one hand on the cave wall in case I fell, because I definitely couldn’t see where I was putting my feet. The faint light from outside barely guided my way off the jutting cavern walls all around me. It was a dry cave, just like the rest of the Dead Wood. Every step was covered in dust, and the faint light couldn’t glimmer or wink off the grit that layered the walls. It was a dull existence in this cave. But no, it was obvious that this wasn’t just a cave. This was a den. It was musty and lived in and smelled like… life. Which was odd. The rest of Dead Wood smelled like death, and so the fact that something was actually alive in here gave it a certain energy that I hadn’t realised I’d been missing during our travels through the ruins above. This den had the smell of death, but in its dying, it proved there was life. The Dead Wood, conversely, was barren. Devoid of– oh, so that’s where void comes from. Cool.
As I went deeper into the den, I started to leave the light behind until, after a few minutes of stumbling,
I realised that even though I had turned a corner and couldn’t see the entrance anymore, it still wasn’t pitch black. In fact, I was starting to see light ahead of me. As I continued toward what I was still pretty sure was my certain death, the light became lights. Multicoloured lights. One was a bright radiant white that began to let me make out features of the cave, and I was very close to being able to place my feet with some certainty. The other, much fainter, was purple. It was the colour of Gurim – who had faithfully attached himself to my legs, almost acting as stabiliser wheels if I began to slip – which meant it was the colour of dark magic.
I finished rounding the long, winding corner of the cavern, slowing down despite the better light. The cavern, while by no means narrow, had been linear until this point. Now it opened up into a massive circular room, with three tunnels the same size as the entrance tunnel splitting off in different directions.
Each tunnel shone with a faint, wavering white light, and I knew what that was now. Because in the middle of the cavern, lying on the floor, was one of the sources of it. A Moonbeast.
It wasn’t the largest thing I’d seen in Tulgatha – a Child of Light still held that crown – but this was damn close. It was lying down, and still twice my height. It must have been five metres tall when upright.
It was covered in ragged, chewed up feathers, but didn’t have the raptor hunch of a bird – it would stand upright like a human. It did have the beak of a bird, and that was in an equally shoddy state of repair as its feathers. The typically bright green was a muted brown, there were dents all over it, and the edges were chipped, its mouth open to the world.
Its chest rose and fell in shudders of hastily gasped breaths. It must have been sick for a long time. Or dying and near the end. Or maybe, this was life in the Dead Wood.
From the gaps in its patchy feathered body, and its maned neck, a bright, vibrant white light shone across the cavern. As the beast breathed, the light waxed and waned, skittering across the rough floor.
