Moonlight Banishes Shadows

by J. T. Wright

  He turned his attention to his left hand, the hand that was still wrapped in spider silk. Felicia had used Firebolt to burn the webs of lesser Beasts. He would probably need her to free his hand and…

  It was a low point in Trent’s life as he cast Spark, the first Charm he had ever learned, and channeled it into the blade of Strife. He increased the heat of the rudimentary Spell and watched as the webbing around his knife charred and smoked. His hand was free in moments.

  Gathering up his weapons, Trent eased his way off the Spider. His skin itched and tingled where the Beast’s hair had found its way into his clothing. Self-Clean was no help, and Trent began removing his armor to wash the affected areas with his waterskin.

  A Healing potion sealed the wounds on his shoulder. Trent poked at the new skin, grimacing. The cut was gone, but there was a lingering pain, the feeling of a deep bruise. Minor Healing potions were not as helpful for Trent as they once were.

  He dressed slowly. He was in no hurry to Harvest the Spider or rejoin his friends. Felicia would mostly likely yell at him. He was a little surprised that she wasn’t already here.

  He glanced towards the sealed entrance to the chamber and shook out his armor to dislodge any hair that might remain. The Guardian was dead, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t the door be opening? The Trial was supposed to have five floors. Was the Keeper separating him from the others until the Trial was clear?

  There was no passage to the next floor; the Trial at Bellrise only had four. Maybe he had to collect his loot first to reveal the exit. His gaze turned to the body of the Spider as he began to pull his armor back on. He wouldn’t touch the thing until the self-repair function of the Witching Hour set finished closing the gaps the armor. Cutting into the Beast was sure to throw hair up, and Trent wanted a fully covered body when that happened.

  “What are you waiting for? Get to work!”

  Although it seemed that while Trent wasn’t in a hurry, there were some who were.

  Chapter Forty-One

  “I didn’t think you were the lazy type! Who lounges in a Trial? I should revive the Guardian. That would teach you to stay on your toes!”

  The voice, terse and tinny, came from above him. Trent’s eyes widened and he swallowed in surprise, but he kept his gaze ahead. There was a quality to the voice that suggested it was talking at him, rather than to him. The Keeper probably wasn’t yet aware that Trent could hear it speaking, and Trent would like to keep it that way for now.

  Not flinching or reacting in any way when a small white spider with red eyes, suspended by a thread of silk, drifted in front of his face was a testament to how much Trent did not want to engage with the Keeper. He had had enough of Spiders!

  “Get to cutting already!” The Keeper complained. “Do you know how long I've been waiting for this? How many compromises I made to lead you here? Of course, you don’t!” The Keeper dropped to the floor and scurried to stand in the corpse of its Guardian.

  “It’s been a century since I last met the conditions for growth! At the rate you’re going, it will be another century before you get around to finishing your task. All my effort will be wasted if Fraktrilian wakes up and restores the standard settings! He is going to be extremely upset when he finds out what I've done, but it will all be worth it as long as you’re done before he catches me!”

  “What does that mean? What have you done?” Trent had to know what the Spider meant. His teeth clicked as he slammed his mouth shut and tried to stop the words from coming out, but it was too late.

  The Keeper, who had been busily clambering around on the slain Spider, paused as it reached the joint of one long leg. “You can hear me… That makes things even more interesting! Great things will come from this, I know it. Fraktrilian won’t chastise me when he sees the results!”

  “Who is Fraktrilian?” Trent rolled the unfamiliar name off his tongue.

  “Don’t say his name! You’ll wake him up! You shouldn’t even know his name!” The white Spider, hardly bigger than a pebble to begin with, scrunched down in an attempt to make itself smaller. “He’s going to be so mad.”

  “Why would… he… be mad?” Trent sidestepped using the forbidden name, his curiosity drawing him closer to the Keeper.

  “So many reasons.” It might have been his imagination, but Trent thought he saw the Keeper tremble. “Unsuitable obstacles, gold and equipment as rewards… that sword you've been using is enough to make him furious.”

  “But it will be worth it!” The Keeper continued, a gust of air carrying the Spider from its perch to hover in front of Trent. “You’re unique! And my growth conditions are unfair! A solo clear of the fourth floor Guardian by an Adventurer under Level 20? Do you know how unlikely that is?”

  Watching the Spider swirl and bob on unnatural air currents was making Trent dizzy. He held out his hand, and the Keeper landed on his palm. Once it settled there, he said, “I did it. It can’t be that unusual.”

  “You are you,” The Keeper said dismissively. “Most Adventurers who come here are timid little mice like your friends. I knew you were different before you stepped into the Moonlit Forest! That was frustrating to see, let me tell you! Imagine challenging that interloper’s Trial before you even peeked into mine! Rude, really!”

  The Keeper sounded hurt as it pointed at Trent with two pairs of legs. Trent cleared his throat and resisted the absurd urge to apologize. “You can tell what happens in other Trials?”

  “Not all Trials, just those that are near my domain.” One leg twirled in a circle as the Keeper corrected Trent. “We Keepers trade ideas and… you shouldn’t know any of this! It borders on breaking the rules! Please, Harvest the Guardian before you get me into trouble!”

  Trent suspected from what the Keeper had already said that it was too late to avoid trouble, for the Keeper at least. He set the Spider on his shoulder and drew his Harvesting knife. There had been a note of dread when the Keeper said trouble, and Trent wanted no part of whatever caused a Keeper to quiver with trepidation.

  “Eyes, legs, venom sack, and silk. This isn’t your first Spider! Do you really need to use Appraisal on each little part?”

  Trent did not tell the impatient Keeper that previous Spiders had not had venom sacks or that their eyes were worthless. He kept his head down, cut silently, and bit his tongue. He left the eyes for last. The unpleasant sucking sound the organs made when they popped out always made him retch a bit.

  His knife paused before digging out the eighth eye. A thought had occurred to him.

  “I need to get a decent spear,” he said offhandedly, tapping the tip of his knife between two empty sockets. “This fight would have been easier with a good spear. One seven or eight feet long.”

  “Then make one out of the legs! You have the Skills,” The Keeper jumped down and ran circles around the leftover eye. “What are you waiting for?”

  “I have Weapons Crafting,” Trent acknowledged, moving his knife farther from the last cut, which would make the Guardian’s corpse vanish. “I've learned recently that there are supplementary Skills and Spells that make Crafting more effective. Getting those would be as good as a spear.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would, but that’s neither here nor…” With such a small Spider, it was hard to tell where its gaze was focused. The weight that settled on Trent’s shoulders left no doubt in his mind that he had the Keeper’s full attention. “Are you bargaining with me? And not for the first time. All that talk before, the threats to go back if you didn’t find ore or moss… that wasn’t said for the benefit of your friends. You know about Keepers. You were talking to me."

  A mountain pressed down on Trent, and his legs shook as he fought to remain standing. The Keeper’s thin voice was solemn, striking at Trent’s eardrums with each word. “There are things you must not do. It’s worse for you; you have knowledge you shouldn’t. I can look past your quibbles for Quest materials. Their absence was my oversight. That being said, I am no merchant or trader. You accept what the Trial g
ives. There is no bargaining.”

  Trent was reminded of a sign he had seen in Agatha’s shop in Al’drossford. That sign had very explicit instructions for what those who thought to haggle with the shop owner could go do. He would willingly follow those directions right now to avoid the quiet anger that pushed at him until he could feel his internal organs quaking.

  “I understand,” Trent whispered hoarsely, “It won’t happen again.”

  “Good!” The Keeper peeped cheerfully, tapping the final eyeball. “Let’s get this thing out of here then!”

  In his rush to obey, Trent’s knife pierced the eye, ruining it and splattering goo up his arm. The Keeper didn’t care. Destroyed or removed was all the same. The corpse vanished, and the Guardian’s loot pinged off the floor as they dropped in an all too literal fashion.

  Trent’s reward amounted to just a scrap of black cloth and two coins that were not even gold. One was silver and the other looked like an oversized copper. There was no spear. Trent cast a slightly resentful look at the Keeper, who had dropped to the ground with the loot. He suspected he was being punished. He wisely kept his mouth shut as he reached for the scrap of cloth.

  “Press it to your cowl!” The Keeper advised as it ran figure eight patterns around the coins. “It’s an upgrade. Little stronger Defense, and the Self-Repair function. Also, a second form, a nice warm cloak which you’ll appreciate soon. The cold months are almost here. Let’s look at these coins, shall we?”

  The cloth vanished when Trent touched it to his cowl. A thought changed the hood to a full-length cloak, which was a dusty gray color instead of the cowl's deep black. His mask remained. Trent was grateful for that. The hood’s defense was alright, but it was Dark Vision that made the soul-bound equipment truly valuable. Trading that in exchange for a bit of warmth would have been a losing deal, especially since he had learned to use Fire Manipulation to keep away the chill.

  “When you are done playing,” the Keeper said irritably, “these coins are fascinating.”

  Trent did not think tossing his cloak over his shoulders, making sure it didn’t get in the way of his weapons was playing. He didn’t argue with the Keeper, though. Changing the cloak back into a cowl, he bent down and tapped the silver coin with a finger. It was money, the least exciting drop you could get. He wasted no time looking it over and sent it straight to Storage. He humored the Keeper by using his hand instead of his foot to collect it.

  When he touched the oversized copper coin to do the same, Trent received a shock, literally. His Mana wrapped around the object like it always did when he stored an item, but instead of making the coin disappear, the magic recoiled like a living thing and raced back up his arm, leaving pins and needles in its wake.

  Trent picked up the palm-sized copper disc that refused to be Stored. The disc felt less like a coin and more like, “A Guild Token? Is this a Quest item?”

  The Keeper snorted derisively at his question, an unusual sound for a speck-sized Spider. “Not a horrible guess, I suppose. Guild Tokens were modeled after objects like that. I wonder what it’s for?”

  Trent didn’t care for the tone in the Keeper’s voice that indicated it knew exactly what the disc was for, and it wasn’t going to tell him. The white Spider skittered to a nearby stalagmite and climbed halfway up. “Don’t you think this indentation is the same size as the disc? I’ll bet there’s a reason for that.”

  The spider climbed in circles, outlining a depression in the stone the same size as the Token Trent held. Wearily, Trent approached for a closer look. The image of a rat with a long tail lay at the center of the indentation. The picture carved into the stone had a similar looking style to the engravings on the levers from the previous floor.

  Trent started to press the disc into the depression and almost dropped the copper piece when the Keeper shrieked. “Lots of Trials have Rats! Don’t be in such a hurry! I wonder what you would find if you looked around?”

  Clutching the disc in his hand, Trent stepped away from the stalagmite and followed the Keeper’s vague advice. The Keeper floated behind his shoulder as Trent paced around the chamber. He alternated between wanting to swat at the Spider, whose presence pressed at him, and shivering at that very urge, which could only end with Trent being squashed.

  There were twelve stalagmites and twelve depressions, each with a unique carving. A Rat, a Skeleton, and a Wolf were among the creatures Trent recognized. The Keeper identified others, such as the Goblin and the Lizard. Some were not even Beasts, but designs that represented types of Traps and puzzles. Trent knew he was supposed to pick one and had it been left up to him. he would have shoved the disc into any random hole to be done with the task. The Keeper’s commentary was all that kept him from doing so.

  “Two other Trials in the area have Goblins, very over-done don’t you think…”

  “Puzzles can be good. So many give up on them, though. There’s a reason why combat Trials are the most sought after.

  “Slyhill has lizards. Would you like to be compared to that hole in the ground? I know I wouldn’t!

  “Now this one… It would probably bring Adventurers from near and far. A completely unique Beast! A new challenge! Do you like new challenges, Trent Embra?”

  After eleven disinterested and dismissive comments, Trent was compelled to take a closer look at the carving the Keeper approved of. The picture was almost crude. The face was blank, the lines of the body wavering and uncertain. The creature depicted wasn’t comparable to the skill of an artist. Trent felt a loathing for the image deep in his bones, and though he wanted to cover the carving, to hide it from sight, as much as he wanted to be finished, his fingers refused to press the disc home.

  “What is it?” Trent whispered. A growl gathered at the back of his throat. He wanted to strike the Pillar, to destroy the image in front of him.

  “I don’t know.” The Keeper sounded uncertain as it answered his question. “I should, but I don’t. It is related to you somehow. Most of these choices are generic; they are available to all Trials. There is always one tailored for the person or group which meets the conditions. That’s all I can say.

  “Doesn’t it sing to you?” The Keeper’s voice was soft, tempting, drifting into Trent’s ear like a lullaby. “A challenge just for you, one you won’t find anywhere else. How can you resist?”

  Because it doesn’t belong! It shouldn’t exist! The image taints the air and stone; what will the creature bring? These words pounded in his head and begged to be released, but only the growl that had been building in his chest came out.

  An instant before the Token in his hand clicked into place, Trent thought he saw the image in the indentation flicker and morph into an even more oppressive figure. Then the hole was filled, and the copper disc flared with a crimson light.

  The ground quaked beneath his boots. Adrenaline coursed through Trent’s body, and the stone ruptured around him. Eleven stalagmites burst into dust and scattered, and the twelfth swelled and opened, revealing a staircase that spiraled downwards. Trent felt a force beckoning him, a force as soothing as a Safe Zone. So calming, Trent hardly noticed the fetid taste of mildew and rot that tainted the air or the film like mist that swirled around his feet, grasping at his ankles like the hands of the dead.

  “This…” The Keeper at Trent’s shoulder jerked and spun in midair, it’s eight legs curled around its body. Briefly it grew in size, then shrunk again. The Keeper reached out a tiny limb to Trent, begging him to see what was happening. The leg shriveled, never coming near the shoulder it tried to touch.

  In a daze, Trent stepped onto the stairs, his senses ringing. He never noticed the black space that opened beneath the Keeper. He never heard the Spider’s screams as it was sucked into the rotating hole. He didn’t even think to check if the entrance had reopened so that the others could join him. He was a man separated from reality as he strode into a darkness that called to him.

  **********

  “How long has it been?” Kerry f
licked a gold coin into the air and watched it tumble as he nudged Felicia’s foot with his own.

  “Since Trent left or since you last asked?” Felicia’s return motion held a lot more kick than nudge, and Kerry dropped his coin as her pointed shoes connected with his ankle. “Not long enough for the second!”

  “And for the first?” Kerry slapped at the gold piece before it could roll away. “How long does it take to solo the fourth Guardian?”

  “How should I know? No one capable of it sticks around Bellrise to do it. It’s a pointless act!” Felicia turned a page of the book she was studying with a little too much force and swore as it tore. “Damn fragile junk! Where did Trent get this from anyway? How does a Spell tomb get burnt like this!?”

  “Don’t know.” Kerry scooted farther away from Felicia’s vengeful feet before flicking his coin into the air again. “He's alright, isn’t he?”

  “He’s alive,” Felicia smoothed the torn and rumpled page as she replied in a soft tone. “As for alright?”

  “You've got an awful lot of confidence in him,” Kerry muttered. “Where does that come from?”

  “If he were dead…” Felicia cleared her throat. She lowered her head closer to her book and tried to make her voice matter of fact as she continued, “We’re still linked together in a party. We would know if he were…”

  Felicia’s head lifted and her eyes widened. She stared at the sealed Guardian chamber in disbelief. “He did it!”

  “Did what?” Kerry stopped in the middle of a toss and followed Felicia’s gaze to the door. “He beat it? How can you tell?”

  “It’s obvious. You don’t pay attention at all.” Felicia ducked her head again, a blush staining her cheeks.

  Kerry scratched his jaw with the gold piece. “I don’t see any changes. What do you see?”

  Across the room, a pair of canine eyes glowered at the conversing pair. Dreq, like Felicia, had picked up on what Kerry had missed because like the Mage, he was studying his Status and had been since minutes after the chamber sealed itself. The sudden increase in XP was evidence that Trent had succeeded.