“I can, milord.”
“How is the battle going?”
“The obsidian legion is currently winning. 3,966 of 5,421 kobolds have been killed and 75 golems remain functional. However, the golems’ essence batteries are almost depleted. I estimate that at least 1,042 kobolds will remain after the golems shutdown.”
Damn, thought Kyran. He had rather hoped the golems would prevail, but had known it was unlikely. Yet, to give them their due, the golems had significantly reduced the kobold threat in the city. Which was something that bore consideration, especially if matters didn’t go as expected in the world above. I never want to see this place again, but if we have to return, we will.
“Any sign of pursuit?”
“No, milord, none of the kobolds have moved towards the south gate. The creatures continue to converge on government square both from within and without the city.”
“From beyond the city, you say?”
“Yes, milord. More of the feral creatures are entering the city from the caverns outside the northern gates.”
“Aargh.” The kobold threat in the city would not be as reduced as he had hoped. “Do you have any estimate of their numbers?”
“No, milord. My awareness does not extend beyond the city.”
Kyran’s lips turned downwards. “That’s unfortunate. And what about champions? Do you detect any?” This, he realised, was a question he should have asked earlier. If he had known Lesh was in the city, perhaps things would have gone differently. Or perhaps not.
“I cannot sense any.” Durn hesitated, then added, “But I must caution you, milord, that my capacity to detect champions is limited. Most possess abilities that allow them to hide from my sight.”
“Thank you, Durn. That is good to know.” Kyran was three-quarters across the bridge now, legs straining. The river and the ground below had disappeared into blackness. Surrounded by nothing but emptiness, he felt as if he were floating up an abyss.
On the bridge’s far end, he sensed Aiken’s anxiously pacing presence. Only the jade bear’s certainty of Kyran’s wellbeing kept him from tearing across the bridge to join his bond mate. No, that was not all, Kyran realised with a start. Aiken was scared.
Through their companion-bond, waves of terror rolled off the bear and towards Kyran. Aiken, Kyran suddenly grasped, was petrified of bridges. I should have figured it out days ago, after our first bridge crossing.
The jade bear was a creature of the deep earth. The thought of traversing a void of air with only a thin sliver of earth to support him had terrified the bear. Kyran could only wonder at the courage it had taken for Aiken to make the crossing and felt sudden bone-deep contrition at subjecting the bear to the ordeal—twice over.
“Sorry, fellow, I hadn’t realised. I’m almost there, now.”
Aiken responded with a flurry of images conveying his earnest desire—no, demand—for Kyran to move faster. Given fresh impetus by Aiken’s distress, Kyran hurried his steps along, somehow mustering the energy for a little more speed.
Beyond Aiken’s bulk, he made out the forms of Adra and Gaesin. Adra was wrapped in blankets and stretched out on the floor while Gaesin hovered over her. Kyran’s apprehension grew. The wolven had taken a blow to the head in the battle with the kobolds. Aiken had reassured him earlier that Adra was recovering, but at seeing her stricken form, his anxiety increased.
The healing salves will restore her, he told himself firmly. There is no need to worry.
Their first priority on exiting the city would be to secure a camp while the salves did their work and Adra recovered. But it was not only Adra who needed rest—they all did. He dearly hoped that no danger awaited them outside the gate.
As for what came after, well that he didn’t know…yet. He had plans, but all were half-formed, nebulous ideas only, which depended much on what they found in the world above. Time would tell.
Kyran reached the bridge’s end, and, no longer able to restrain himself, Aiken bounded forward to meet him. Huffing excitedly, the cub butted Kyran. Staggering backwards, Kyran laughed at Aiken’s enthusiastic greeting. He leaned forward and dug his hands into the cub’s fur. “I missed you, too, brother.”
Following close on Aiken’s heels came Gaesin. With tears streaming down his face, the half-elf barrelled into Kyran and hugged him tightly, his greeting no less exuberant than Aiken’s. “Thank the gods you’re alright!”
Embarrassed, Kyran patted the youth awkwardly before extricating himself. “Are you fine?” demanded Gaesin, eyeing him critically. “Do you need healing?”
“I’m alright, Gaesin, don’t worry,” Kyran replied with a smile. The half-elf looked at him doubtfully. “Really, I am,” he promised. His smile faltered as his gaze shifted to Adra’s unconscious form. “How is she?”
Gaesin’s own jubilance faded. “I have done all I can. Her wounds were quite severe,” he said, chin trembling at the memory. “Without the healing salves...I don’t think she would still be alive.” With visible effort, the youth regained his composure. “But she is on the mend. What she needs most now is rest while the salves do their work.”
Kyran laid a comforting hand on the half-elf’s shoulder. “Then let’s get out of here and find a safe place to camp.”
✽✽✽
The walk from the top of the bridge to the inside of the south gate was a short one. It could have been just Kyran’s imagination, but to him the air up here already felt lighter. We’re nearly there, he thought as he approached the mammoth gate. Behind him, Gaesin and Aiken followed, with Adra’s still form once more bound to the bear’s back.
The cub was struggling, he knew. Aiken was still not large enough to endure the wolven’s weight across his back indefinitely. And he had been carrying Adra for so long already. Just a little further, brother, he thought.
Kyran looked left, right, and then up, taking in the entirety of the gate. Their journey through the labyrinth was nearly complete, and now all that separated them from the world above were the doors of the south gate itself.
The two doors leading out of Durn Duruhl were huge. Each the size of a building, they would be large enough for an army to move through when opened. A masterwork of engineering. How did the dwarves ever manage to fashion such a marvel? I wonder.
Now only to open them.
Closing his eyes, Kyran expanded his senses through the ether and towards the Durn Duruhl settlement stone. From the city’s control centre, he followed the ley line extending to the massive essence engine built into the gate and examined it with insight.
Structure: South gate
Type: Defensive (essence structure).
Available power: 27%.
Condition: Operational.
The engine was charged and humming with life, primed to power the tracks beneath the massive blocks of rock that were the gate’s doors. Turning to Gaesin, Kyran asked, “Ready?”
The half-elf gulped nervously, then nodded, his gaze transfixed by the gate.
Kyran stepped forward and placed his hands on the intricate symbol which had been carved into the stone where the doors met. He had to bend down to reach. Dwarves must be shorter than elves, he thought with a small grin.
At his touch, the inscription flared to life. Seeking tendrils of essence swirled out from the gate and burrowed into his mind. Finding the earldom sigils of ownership imprinted within Kyran’s psyche, the symbol pulsed green and accepted his authority as the city’s lord.
This is the moment, he thought with bated breath, not even daring to think what the party would do if it did not work. “Open,” he whispered.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then slowly, with the screech of grinding stone and puffs of dirt that billowed into a storm of dust, the great doors opened, sliding back smoothly despite being unused for more than six hundred years.
It worked! Kyran expelled the pent-up breath he had not realised he was holding. From between the gradually widening split of the doors, rays of moonl
ight peeked through. Kyran lifted his face, bathing in the light. It felt like years since he had last beheld open sky.
Eager to rush forward to the waiting world above, he yet paused for one last farewell. “Thank you, Durn,” he said, reaching out to the city’s guardian. “You have done well. Continue tracking the kobold presence in the city. I am leaving now and am not sure if I will be back.” He hesitated, then added, “Take care, Durn.”
He felt strange saying such things to a construct, but in his interactions with Deepholm’s well-keeper and Durn Duruhl’s settlement guardian both had struck him as particularly lifelike. It did no harm at least.
“And you, milord. Best of luck on your travels.”
“Farewell, Durn,” Kyran said and unsheathed his training sword.
Hefting the weapon, he studied the blade. The sword had served him well, but he had grown beyond it.
You have unequipped a novice’s training sword.
Willing the longsword into his inventory, he recalled the elven mageblade to his hand and inspected its length. Forged of blood iron, the blade had a metallic-red sheen to it. Slightly shorter than the novice longsword, the elven blade felt lighter and more nimble in his hands.
Weapon requirements met.
You have equipped an elven mageblade (+8% longsword skill, governing attribute changed from strength to dexterity).
Your maximum physical attack has increased from 21.3 to 44.2 (slashing).
He read the Game message and smiled in satisfaction. With the mageblade in hand, his melee damage had more than doubled, and that was not even considering the additional spelled-damage that he could channel through the sword.
Kyran glanced down at his chitin leather armour. He had outgrown it as well, but it would take too long to remove its damaged pieces now. It can wait until after we reach the surface and get Adra settled, he thought.
Sheathing his new blade, Kyran took a deep lungful of air. Then with a nod to Gaesin and Aiken, he stepped into the dust storm and the world above.
✽✽✽
Mirien still couldn’t believe her eyes.
How can the south gate be opening? Its doors had remained sealed for over six hundred years. On any other day, Mirien would have been awed by the sight, but not today. Today, she was the last remaining member of what had so far been a disastrous mission for the Brotherhood. One that had ended in the slaughter of all her companions a few weeks ago.
Now all hope of the mission’s success lay with her. It had been a longshot to begin with. What she absolutely did not need, what she mostly certainly could not cope with, were more surprises. Mirien stared hard at the defunct structure suddenly sprung to life. What could be causing the gate to open? Nothing good, she thought, watching the widening gap between the doors with rising trepidation.
Her gaze darted from the opening gate to the surrounding mountainside. There were shadows aplenty to hide herself in, but her campfire lay out in the open and would certainly be spotted.
She had chosen her camp for the vantage it provided and not for concealment. From here, the lower mountain slopes and pass leading to Xetil’s domain were unobscured. She would spot any approaching danger miles before it reached her.
But this threat had crept up from behind. From within the mountain. From ancient doors that had remained sealed for centuries. Mirien bit her lip, unease deepening as the rumbling doors shook overhanging rocks loose and caused the ground to tremble.
Nothing had surfaced yet. There was still time.
Run? she wondered. Not yet. If she ran now, whatever emerged would spot her, and if her presence was going to be noticed anyway, best she gather what information she could before she was forced to flee.
She did not doubt she would have to run, or that she would eventually be discovered. Whatever emerged from the labyrinth, opening a door shut for eons, was not likely to be weak—or friendly.
Bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, she drew the twin sabres sheathed across her back and crouched down, waiting.
✽✽✽
Congratulations! You have found a way out of the labyrinth and completed the quest: Escape! As reward, you have been granted 2 combat ability points. 6 open quests remain in your quest log.
Kyran blinked.
Eyes formed in the sightless darkness of the labyrinth, and never having seen more than a dim glow of natural light, were blinded by the absurd starry brightness of Myelad’s night sky. To think that for months his vision had been limited to only a few metres; to see again, truly see, was nearly too much for him to bear.
Blinking now for an entirely different reason, he stared up into the night sky and drank in its strange beauty. The sky was altogether alien, filled with mysterious constellations and twin moons. A far cry from Earth’s. But breathtaking.
A heaviness, real or imagined, vanished from his spirit, healed by the refreshing openness of the world. It finally sank in. I’m free, he thought, free at last.
From behind, he felt Aiken, where he waited inside the mountain, sharing in his joy. The bear was pleased by his companion’s happiness and curious, too, about the strange lighted world above. But Aiken was also agitated—by the very openness that soothed Kyran’s spirit.
“Sorry for subjecting you to this, brother,” Kyran said apologetically. Space, light, wind—the very things Kyran craved—were anathema to a bear that had lived his entire life in a sunless world of twisting tunnels.
But Aiken, brave fellow, rejected his apology, refusing to mar Kyran’s joy. The bear projected the rightness of his companion’s excitement and his own determination to endure and overcome his trepidation.
“Let us share this moment together,” said Kyran, urging Aiken outside. “There is nothing to fear,” he assured the bear. But he still did not know this for certain, he realised. Distracted by the beauty of the sky, he hadn’t scouted the area—as had been his original intent. Careless, Kyran, very careless.
“Hold one minute, Aiken, Gaesin.”
✽✽✽
A scruffy elf appeared.
Mirien frowned. What was an elf doing in the labyrinth? Concealed in the shadows, Mirien held herself to trained stillness while she took in his appearance. Battered and half-destroyed leather armour, untidy long hair, and multiple layers of dirt.
Has to be a scout, she thought. The elf slipped between the groaning doors and squinted up at the night sky, seemingly dazed by the sight. He had not noticed her. Though she was less than thirty metres from him.
Not very good, is he.
She was pleased. The longer she went unnoticed, the better. Dismissing the begrimed scout from her thoughts, she returned her attention to the gates, waiting to see what would follow. A lone elf was the last thing she expected to emerge from the gate.
Others had to be following on his heels.
✽✽✽
Kyran lowered his gaze from the stars and turned his attention to the landscape. Show hostiles was active—and had revealed no enemies—yet he no longer trusted in it completely. He swept his gaze across the pools of shadows and rocks strewn across the entrance.
Empty. He breathed out a sigh of relief. After their abysmal luck in the labyrinth, he was relieved to find no ambush lurking outside the gate. Perhaps our fortunes have finally improved.
“Gaesin, Aiken, come through. All clear here,” he projected telepathically across the party’s battlegroup. Pacing forward, Kyran took in the entirety of the mountain. Not unexpectedly, the gate was set within a south-facing slope. To the east and west, the Skarral range marched off towards the horizon.
Looking back and craning his neck upwards, he saw that above the gate, the mountain rose higher still in a series of sheer cliffs that ended in snow-covered peaks. He swung his gaze forward again.
Heading south, the mountain angled downwards, the rocky slopes giving way first to gentle hills and then, in the far distance, an endless stretch of grassy plains. He shivered involuntarily. From what he remembered of Zarr’s map, that i
nnocuous-looking ground was part of the Wazrak plains.
Xetil’s domain.
Definitely not where I want to go, he thought, remembering his encounters with Lesh and the trolls. From where Kyran stood, he could discern no route east or west. The southern slopes appeared navigable, and a few hundred metres to his right there was a sliver of darkness winding north through the mountains. That had to be the pass leading into Crotana. Although he wasn’t sure it was wise to head back into the mountain kingdom, especially considering Gaesin and Adra’s tales of their horrific journey through the Elder Forest.
Yet south or north seem to be our only choices, and given those options, Kyran would much rather risk the uncertain danger of Crotana’s wilds than the almost certain danger of Xetil’s domain. There is time to decide, though, he soothed himself. Adra’s injuries were severe, and she would be in the grip of a deep healing sleep for some time yet.
His eyes flicked back to the dusty slopes around the gate again, searching for a suitable spot to locate their camp. The mountainside was barren. Luckily, the party carried enough supplies that foraging for food would not be necessary.
His eyes picked out an ideal spot—a ledge overlooking the southern approach. Perfect, he thought.
A patch of black, darker than the night, floated upwards from the ledge. His brows furrowed. Is that…smoke?
Another curl of darkness slithered around the encroaching boulders. It is, he thought, hand dropping to his sword. Poised to draw, he scanned the pooling shadows again, this time with more care as he searched for other oddities.
Aiken sensed his sudden alertness and sent an alarmed query. “Something appears off, brother,” Kyran admitted. “It may be nothing, or—”
He broke off as his eyes finally fell on the elven maiden standing not ten metres from him.
✽✽✽
Mirien felt as if she had been crouched in the shadows for ages, but no more than a few seconds could have lapsed since the elf emerged. She kept her gaze fixed on the gate. Nothing else had appeared yet.
Sovereign Rising (The Gods' Game, Volume III): A LitRPG novel Page 3
