Shadowbound

by Gage Lee

  With that, the metal man slumped back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes changed from their normal steady golden glow to a deep blue.

  “We don’t even know how long it will take to cultivate the amount of ghostlight we’d need to rebuild the gate,” I said. “I’d rather take my chances gathering ghostlight ore to wrap this up more quickly. Biz and I want to go home. And I want to help you get back on your feet. Mining ghostlight seems like the quickest and surest way to do both things.”

  “And that is why we’ve done some scouting for you,” Ylor said. “It took longer than I would’ve liked, thanks mostly to that thief on your sister’s shoulder, but I was able to scry a likely seam location. It is close enough you will not need a map to reach it, and there is a clear line of retreat back to the Academy should the situation warrant. We have also gathered the tools you will require for the job, and Baylo will instruct you on their use.”

  Ylor went on to lay out the rest of the plan. The Academy was located on the southeast side of the splinter city of Incaguloth. The seam they’d located was directly east, between the Academy and the edge of the splinter. Ylor pointedly noted that the Fell Lords hadn’t been seen in that area, though there was no guarantee they wouldn’t send their agents to check things out once Biz and I started digging up the ghostlight.

  “The seam is in the basement of a building with a red door, one block east of the Academy.” Ylor laced his fingers together and leaned forward until his elbows were on the table. “Do not stop to look at anything else or poke around in any other ruins. Go straight there, get as much ghostlight as you can as quickly as you can, and then come right back here.”

  “If anything gets in our way, I’ll knock its lights out,” Biz said with a grin. A golden aura of ghostlight surrounded her fists, and the strange fire was back in her eyes. “We got this.”

  “The world is more dangerous than you know,” Monitor said. “I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor.”

  “Okay,” Baylo said. “Enough talk. Let’s move out, kids.”

  Monitor’s eyes turned from blue to red, then back to blue. I wasn’t sure if anyone else had noticed it, but that simple change raised the prickly hairs on the back of my neck.

  Baylo led us out of the great hall, through a wide set of double doors that swung open at her approach. We entered a smaller chamber, its floor covered in heavy, moldy carpet, the stone walls hung with more faded portraits. Golden globes dangled from the ceiling to provide light that revealed another pair of doors, much sturdier than those we’d entered by, and a bulging sack next to them. The warrior gestured toward the bundle on the floor.

  “There are picks and shovels in there,” she said. “Use the picks to break up the seam. Once you start banging on it, you’ve got five minutes before the scrats or their buddies get wind of the loose ghostlight ore. Use the shovels to load the stuff into the sack and haul it back here. It won’t kill you to touch the ore with your hands, but you won’t like it, either. Don’t worry about bringing the tools back if there are bad guys on your tail. Just dump them at the site; we have plenty.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Take a left outside those doors. Follow the building all the way to the gate. It will open for you, then close behind you.” Baylo looked off in the distance and lowered her voice. “Those gates won’t open if there are any threats nearby. If anything chases you, lose it before you head back.”

  “Comforting,” Biz said. The fuzzball on her shoulder made an angry chittering noise, then raised its fists at Baylo.

  The emerald warrior growled at the critter. There was no love lost between them, obviously.

  “Doors’re open,” Baylo said. “Do you accept this task set before you, engineer?

  >>>A new bonded task, “Ghostlight Ore Recovery,” is now available. Do you accept?<<<

  “Yes,” I said to both Baylo and the voice inside my head.

  >>>Your Silent Council faction rating has increased by one.

  Your Iron Quill Cognate faction rating has increased by one.

  Your Band of the Shadow Fist faction rating has increased by one.

  The rewards for this task are ghostlight ore and two reference points.

  There are no failure penalties specified for this task.

  A secondary bonded task, “Freed Allies,” has been added to your task list.

  The rewards for this task are three Akashik network credits.<<<

  Well, that was new. That was the second time I’d heard the interface mention reference points, but a first for credits. When I got back from this trip, I’d have to dig in and figure out what they were for. At the moment, all my concentration was devoted to staying alive once we left the Academy’s grounds.

  “Good luck,” Baylo said. “May the Shadow’s fist strike your enemies, and the ghostlight shield you from danger.”

  With those words of encouragement, Biz and I left the Academy. The purple sky seemed more ominous outside. The massive objects that floated through the air like low-hanging clouds were worryingly close, and I wondered if there was anything dangerous hiding behind them.

  The Academy’s exterior looked a lot more impressive than its guts. The walls were mostly unbroken, with only a few missing stones to reveal the shadows within. The shuttered windows hid the broken glass and empty hallways, and if I hadn’t known better the whole place would’ve looked like an impregnable fortress. The Fell Lords, whatever they were, must’ve been under the same impression if they hadn’t bothered to attack.

  “There’s the gate,” Biz said quietly.

  Sure enough, we reached the end of the building and saw the tall spiked fence that surrounded it. The black bars were easily twenty feet tall, and the gate’s hinges were enormous hunks of iron that looked like they could take a direct hit from a tank’s cannon without much more than a scratch. The lock that held the barrier closed was as big as my little sister, with no keyhole or handle.

  Luckily, the gate swung wide as we approached so we didn’t have to figure out how to open it.

  Biz and I hesitated on its threshold. A cobblestone street, thirty feet wide, pocked with holes and festooned with black weeds, lay beyond the bars. Ruined buildings hunkered across the way, their empty windows and broken doors looking too much like staring skulls for my comfort.

  “Keep your eyes open,” I said to Biz. “Anything could be hiding in those buildings.”

  “Any monsters poke their noses out, I’ll bop ’em,” my sister said.

  We crossed the street in silence, our heads swiveling left and right in search of any threats. Gusty breezes kicked up dust around us, and somewhere nearby a shutter or a broken door slammed into its frame with a sound like a hammer driving a nail. Biz jumped at that, and her hands blazed even brighter.

  “Easy,” I said. “It’s just the wind.”

  Biz nodded, but the glow around her fists didn’t dim.

  The buildings on the other side of the street weren’t nearly as cramped as they seemed at first glance. There was enough space between them for Biz and me to walk single file, though my shoulders brushed the stone walls on either side. A short passage between what might once have been a pair of small businesses led us into an alley. I’d been worried that it would be hard for us to track down the building with a red door, but those fears were banished when I looked down the alley. Our target’s door was faded and the paint peeling, but it was still very obvious in the otherwise drab surroundings.

  “I’ll check it out first,” I said. “You wait here. If you hear me yell, head back to the Academy.”

  “If I hear you yell, I’m coming in there,” Biz said. “Don’t be a jerk, bro.”

  Biz’s stubborn tone told me she’d already made up her mind on that count.

  “Have it your way.” I shook my head and opened the red door.

  Its rusted hinges squealed like a boiled cat, and I froze, waiting for something to jump out at me. Another hunk of wreckage floated through the
air above us, casting shadows through the roofless building. I couldn’t tell if anything had moved inside the building, or if it was just a trick of the light. I lowered the bag of tools to the ground and entered the ruin.

  The small room was no larger than where Biz and I had spent the previous night. I picked my way across the rubble-strewn floor to the doorway on its right side. A narrow hallway ran from the front to the back of the house, a door on each end.

  From what I’d seen so far, the door at the front had to lead outside. The floor creaked and groaned as I made my way to the doorway at the rear and into a room half the size of the first one. The ceiling had long ago collapsed on what might’ve once been a bed and a small chest of drawers. A single doorway pierced one wall, and I thought I glimpsed a stairwell beyond it. Navigating the ruined bedroom was difficult because rotten boards and crumbling clay tiles gave way beneath my feet with every step, forcing me to pause and regain my balance before I continued.

  Finally, I reached the doorway and found myself in a small square room with a set of steps leading down to the basement. Orange light flowed up the stone steps in slowly shifting patterns, like sparks of sun reflected off a pool of water.

  I froze in place, listening for any sounds from the basement.

  Nothing.

  Satisfied there was no immediate threat, I crept down the stairs. The light tingled where it touched my skin, and a faint crackling tickled my ears. It wasn’t ghostlight, but it was something very much like it.

  I took the steps slowly and circulated my breath as I went. By the time I reached the bottom step, my core was filled with golden light. I might not be able to dish out fancy punches like my sister, but at least I’d have enough fuel to strengthen myself if an attack came.

  The home’s lowest floor was a cramped cube, barely ten feet on a side. It had been spared the serious damage of the room above, and a collection of clay pots with wax stoppers lined up along the wall to my right had escaped unscathed. A niche in that same wall was filled by the molten and solidified remains of a used-up candle.

  The light came from thick seams of mottled, shifting orange and black that forked through the stone wall like tree branches.

  Or veins.

  “You’ll probably need these.” I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of my sister’s voice.

  “You were supposed to wait outside for me,” I barked. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

  “Nah,” Biz said. “Wow. That’s the ghostlight, huh?”

  She handed me the bag of tools, then slipped past me to examine the glowing veins. She held one hand up to the stone, then shrugged.

  “Looks like fire, but it’s not hot,” she said. “Pretty neat, though.”

  I wouldn’t have described it that way. Sinister, maybe. Weird, definitely.

  I took one of the small pickaxes out of the bag. Its handle was a couple of feet long, and the shiny metal head was six inches wide. One side was a sharpened beak, the other a wider, curved spatula.

  >>>Ghostlight ore harvester.

  Rarity: Common.

  Activation cost is one blade of ghostlight, with a duration of thirty minutes.<<<

  “Stand clear,” I said to Biz as I put the bag on the floor.

  My sister stepped away from the wall, offered me a sarcastic bow, and gestured for me to go right ahead.

  “You can do all the menial work. I’ll supervise,” she said.

  The harvester was surprisingly light. Its balance shifted toward the business end and the silver metal took on a golden luster when I used a blade of ghostlight to activate it. I lined up my first swing, cocked the pickaxe back over my shoulder, and slammed the tool into the ghostlight seam.

  A bell-like tone rang out through the basement when the harvester struck the orange-and-black ore. Thin threads of white light crawled away from the spot where I’d struck the ore, and a trickle of luminescent dust floated into the air. I swung the tool again with much the same results.

  “You’re making an awful lot of noise,” Biz commented. “Did you knock anything loose yet?”

  “Not yet,” I grumbled. My sister had a point. If I kept banging away down here, I might as well be ringing a dinner bell for any nearby monsters. Maybe I just needed to put a little more elbow grease behind my swings.

  Or some ghostlight.

  I infused a blade from my core into my arm meridians and swung again.

  This earned me more sparks, a lot more dust in the air, and a very, very loud gonging sound. The white-light threads were much longer and brighter now, but still nothing broke free of the seam.

  Brute strength clearly wouldn’t speed things up, but I had to think of something. The longer Biz and I stayed down in the basement, the more likely we were to be overrun by scrats.

  Whatever those were.

  I thought back to my morning sparring exercise with Biz. She’d picked up that discipline very quickly, and Baylo had mentioned there were noncombat disciplines, as well.

  I imagined using my ghostlight to make mining easier. The first seeds of an idea took root at the edges of my mind. On a hunch, I raised my pickaxe, focused all my thoughts on breaking through the ghostlight ore, and closed my eyes.

  >>>An available discipline may assist you with this task.

  Gaze of Discernment

  Base Engineer Discipline

  First-level step on the Path of the Piercing Gaze.

  Five-second duration

  Available once per minute

  One ghostlight blade to activate

  This ability marks a critical weakness in a single material object. Striking this weak point allows the engineer to seriously damage the object.

  You have one discipline slot remaining at this level. Do you wish to add this discipline to your interface and begin your journey along the Path of the Piercing Gaze?<<<

  “Oh, yes,” I responded to the interface with a thought.

  It was time for a power-up.

  I opened my eyes and focused my new discipline on the divot I’d managed to create in the ghostlight ore seam. A blade of ghostlight drained out of my core, and a bright red X appeared over a spot slightly to the right of where I’d been fruitlessly hammering. I took a deep breath, focused on my new target, and swung the pickaxe into the ore as hard as I could.

  Another gonging echo bounced off the basement walls. Sparks jumped clear of the seam in a blinding flash, and streams of floating dust shot away in every direction. When my vision cleared, I saw that the white threads were gone.

  They’d been replaced by deep black cracks.

  “Yes!” I crowed and pumped my fist. “Get that bag ready, Biz. It’s time to load up.”

  The seams were a few inches wide, and the cracks that had spread from my final stroke had busted at least five chunks of ore free of the vein. All that remained was for me to fish them out of the wall.

  I twirled the harvester, wedged the spatula side into one of the fractures I’d created, and used the handle like a lever. A hunk of orange-and-black ore popped loose from the wall and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. It didn’t bounce or roll, and its impact knocked a divot in the basement’s dirt floor.

  Apparently, ghostlight was heavy.

  It was also extremely bizarre.

  The instant the ore came loose from the rest of the vein, it began to hum. The air filled with a sickly sweet smell, and sparks of static electricity flickered through the hairs on my arms. The ore’s glow shifted from orange and black to gold and white, and formed nearly hypnotizing patterns. It took me a few seconds to tear my eyes off the mottled rock.

  “That’s gorgeous,” Biz whispered. “I want to lick it.”

  “Knock it off,” I chided my sister. “You heard what Baylo said. Don’t touch the stuff if you can help it.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Biz shook herself as if waking from a dream. She dumped the tools out of the bag, grabbed a shovel, and scooped the ghostlight ore into the now-empty black sack. The light still sh
one through the cloth, but it wasn’t nearly as difficult to ignore.

  Over the next few minutes, I freed more chunks of ghostlight until the section of the seam I’d broken through was empty. I was just about to hammer away at another section of the seam when something in the hole caught my eye.

  “What is this?” I wondered.

  My questing fingers found something long and cylindrical. Its surface was etched with a crosshatched pattern, and a trio of smooth half-spheres ran down its length. I pinched the end of it between my fingers and pulled it out.

  The object I’d found was a little over a foot long and fit comfortably in my hand. One end was a smooth, round bulb, while the other was open and surrounded by short, curved spines. Something glimmered down inside that opening, but no matter how I twisted and turned the thing, I couldn’t get a better look at it or dislodge it. The hemispheres along the length clicked when I pushed on them, but nothing else happened.

  “Looks like a sword without a blade,” Biz suggested.

  >>>Secondary task “Blade of Burning Shadows” available.

  Recharge this weapon to complete this task.

  Legend says this weapon was broken during the siege of Hokendai Tower, the final redoubt of the legendary scrat blood cult led by Boiltongue Vansinger. The legendary scrat assassin is said to have murdered the Blade’s wielder and shattered the weapon.

  The rewards for completing this task are the Blade of Burning Shadows itself and five Akashik network interface enhancement credits.

  Do you accept this task?<<<

  Well, duh. My years of video game experience told me it was a very bad idea to pass up a quest with a kick-butt weapon as its reward. I informed the interface of my decision to grab that secondary task with both hands and was about to suggest we harvest more ore when the fuzzball lost its mind.

  The little creature screeched and flung itself toward the stairs. It froze on the bottom step, one hand pointed like a compass needle up to the next floor, every muscle in the little guy’s body vibrating with tension.