The Lag (The Game Master: Book #1) (11 page)

The moat ended with a round iron trapdoor in the ground. Far behind they could hear the shouting of the legionnaires and the popping of combat spells.

Beast dug his heels in, braking. "How d'you open it? There's no lock here! Not even a handle!"

"You don't," Attila snapped, helping the girl to climb up the slope. "No one has ever managed to open this door. Up you go!"

They scrambled out of the moat, finding themselves at the foot of a vertical rock drop. They could barely see the tower and the top of the cyclops' statue far away at the center of the Valley.

A deep thump resounded in the air, similar to the sound of a boulder starting a rockfall. It was followed by a jaw-wrenching screech. The cyclops' statue stirred. Cracks ran along its surface, dropping pieces of rock like a dry crust.

Yanna gasped. "He's coming alive! Vlas is coming alive! The Legate must have summoned him!"

The cyclops struggled to turn around. His legendary hammer rose high in the air and crashed down with a thunderous clatter. An aberration wave ran from the impact spot in large circles. The earth shuddered; their ears popped. The powerful ancient warrior shed his rock shackles and marched away from the tower, brandishing his hammer. His only eye glinted with primeval fury.

"He shouldn't have done it," Attila said. "The cyclops can't tell friend from foe. Now he'll trample everyone indiscriminately."

"Where do you want us to go?" Yanna asked. "The slope's too steep."

The ogre's bellowing now sounded very near to them, from behind a crop of rocks not fifty feet away. To the other side of the slope a large mercury lake glistened its dull steely surface, emitting tiny silvery runes that melted in the air.

A metallized human torso was seen at the center of it, its arms reaching out for the sky. On the lake's far shore, the shape of a kneeling Elf glistened silver; and some distance away, they could see a shiny metallic body of yet another unfortunate.

"This is a Steel Mirror," Attila said. "A very rare aberration. You can't go there."

"We can't go back to the tower, either!" Beast cast a desperate glance around him. "Talk about a rock and a hard place. There he is, there!"

The ogre loomed up from behind the cliff. He wobbled toward them on his crooked legs, his shoulder continually brushing against the hill slope, causing rockfalls. Although not particularly tall, he was fat as a drum and hung with crude necklaces and bracelets made of bones. In Gryad, the ogres were very much like orcs, only even uglier. And stronger. And much much taller. They weren't considered a sentient race which meant you couldn't play an ogre although shamans could summon them as pets. Next to the ogre's enormous club that he was now grasping in his beefy hands, Beast's mace looked like a matchstick.

Yanna jumped up and clutched at a small ledge higher up the slope, trying to pull herself up. Her hands gave out; she dropped to the ground.

"Where can we go?" she exclaimed.

At the center of the Valley, Vlas the Cyclops kept plodding through the sea of mobs advancing on him, then receding. Once again he struck his divine hammer, sending a concentric wave of aberration. The earth shuddered; mobs' bodies went flying.

The ogre grew ever more furious with the scene. He bellowed, as if challenging anyone to attack him. His beady black eyes searched the slope until they landed on the three friends. Raising his club, he wobbled toward them ever faster on his short crooked legs.

Yanna rattled off arrows like a machine gun but they dropped impotently to the ground, unable to pierce the giant's thick hide. Beast reached out, twisting his wrists, and hummed through his closed lips. A fireball escaped his hands and broadsided the ogre's chest, exploding. The giant didn't even stagger — if anything, he walked faster.

"We gotta get back," Attila crouched on the edge of the moat. The others stood right next to him. "That's the only way."

The iron trapdoor in the moat below his feet opened up. Caught by surprise, Attila lost his balance and very nearly tumbled down the slope into the opening. The other two gasped, recoiling.

A man appeared in the opening. He was clad in a leather cloak. In his hands he held a staff topped with a bright red crystal.

"Get down here," the man said calmly.

His voice sounded weirdly lifeless, as if he was speaking through a synthesizer. Attila didn't get a chance to see his face as the man stepped back and disappeared into the darkness.

Attila rolled down the slope. "Follow me!" he shouted to the other two, waiting for them to descend.

A group of basilisks raced along the moat toward them. Beast jumped in, followed by Yanna. Seeing his quarry escape, the ogre bellowed and wobbled after them.

Yanna stepped down the opening, followed by Beast.

"The walls are all covered in glimmering mold!" he exclaimed. "Who are you, dude?"

"Just follow me," they heard from the depths of the sloping passage.

"Attila, shut the door!" Yanna screamed.

The basilisks were almost upon them. The ogre stopped at the moat's edge, raising his club. Attila jumped down the opening and pulled the heavy trapdoor. Before it closed, he caught a glimpse of the cliff on the opposite side of the valley.

The Dark Paladin, the leader of the great Silent Brotherhood, stood atop it with his arms crossed, watching the massacre below. Behind him, the Silent Brothers lined up, motionless like unplugged robots.

Thoughts rushed through Attila's head. What was going on? What were they doing there? Could the Black Clerics have anything to do with what had just happened in the Valley? What if they had directed the stampede onto the legionnaires' meeting in order to prevent them from working out what had happened? To prevent them from taking the situation under control?

Slowly the Dark Paladin turned his head toward the moat. A chill ran down Attila's spine. He had the feeling that the man had looked into his mind, thumbing through Attila's thoughts like the beads of a rosary.

The basilisks were right in front of him. The ogre began lowering his club. Attila clanged the trapdoor shut and forced the heavy bolt bar into place.

W
ater splashed underfoot. The sounds of screams, the mobs' bellowing and the pops of cast spells had distanced, muting into a dull background noise.

In the darkness, a spot of reddish light danced on the glittering mold that covered the walls, offering a glimpse of Beast's broad shoulders, Yanna's slim outline and the figure of the stranger far in front. Attila caught up with Yanna and walked next to her.

"I've just seen the clerics on the cliff," he said. "And their Paladin."

"The Nazgul?" Beast turned to them.

"The Dark Paladin, not Nazgul. Yes, I saw him there. I think he saw us go down here. He might send his clerics after us."

Mechanically, Yanna and Beast quickened their pace. The tunnel wasn't wide enough to walk side by side. Attila fell behind them. The stranger strode in front. His thick leather cloak swayed around him; his staff tapped on the ground. The knob on the staff's end emitted a bright red light. It looked unusual: elongated and angular, which made the staff resemble the letter T on a long spidery leg. On his back the stranger carried a capacious leather bag with its strap wrapped around his forehead.

They'd left the trapdoor far behind. It didn't look as if anyone was trying to force it open but then again, they might simply not hear. Attila kept casting wary glances behind him, then stared at the back of their mysterious rescuer. Who was he?

He wasn't the only one asking himself this question, of course. Yanna was the first to lose her patience.

"Hey, you! Who are you?"

"Just follow," his indifferent mechanical voice echoed in the tunnel.

Attila couldn't even work out whether he was a mob or a player. And he had an eye for these things, too: once you had enough gaming experience, you could immediately tell who you were dealing with even if their name tag was missing. But now somehow he couldn't do it. If he could only get a better look at him...

Attila walked faster, overtaking both Yanna and the panting Beast. Slowly he began catching up with the stranger in his long cloak.

The tunnel took a smooth turn and forked away. The man in the cloak stopped at the entrance to a side tunnel. The glass knob of his staff glowed scarlet.

Attila stopped next to him. Now he could take a better peek at the man. He was middle-aged, with a narrow face and a goatee. The cloak's hood hung loosely over his head. His dark eyes betrayed an otherworldly depth. Attila had the feeling that if he stared into the man's eyes long enough, they might reveal some new world within.

Who was he, really? What class was he supposed to be? Probably a Paladin, Attila finally decided. But not a warrior of Light. Could he be a Dark one like the leader of the Silent Brothers? No, he didn't look like one of them. That was weird.

Once the other two had caught up with them, the man said, "This way."

He entered the side tunnel. The air echoed with the sound of footsteps wading through water. Attila entered the tunnel first, followed by Yanna with Beast at the rear.

"Hey, mister," she called out. "Mind giving us your name? How are we supposed to address you?"

Attila caught himself thinking that if the stranger was indeed a player and not an NPC, he wasn't really young. This was a grown-up man. And he looked as if he had his fair share of secrets.

"Wayfarer," they heard from a distance. "That's what they call me."

Oh. Attila missed his footing. Wayfarer himself! The legendary neutral player possessing, if rumors were to be believed, some extraordinary skills and abilities. But from what Attila had heard, Wayfarer had never helped anyone. Then again, he'd never hurt anyone, either. Not many people could say they'd seen him at all, come to think of it. A few had crossed paths with him somewhere deep in the woods; he'd sometimes put up a presence in a tavern or an inn, but that was all. Some Lake Swords clan members assured everyone that they'd encountered Wayfarer just when they had completed a brain-numbing raid instance dungeon known as the Horror of the Dead Titan. Of their fifty-strong raid, there'd been barely a dozen men left standing after their underground battle with the undead and the zombie titan himself. And whom had they seen in the perfectly sealed final cave buried deep under the tectonic plate than Wayfarer himself! He was rummaging through the prize chest, the one that was supposed to drop the legendary Continental Drift artifact. Only it didn't. Either Wayfarer had already pocketed it or it had just disappeared all by itself. In any case, once Wayfarer was finished with the chest, he simply walked through the wall, leaving the Lake Swords empty-handed.

No, Attila thought. He wasn't going to ask Wayfarer anything. He could always tell them himself when the time was right. He'd already taken them out of the Valley, saving them from sure death — that was good enough. But somehow Attila didn't think that he could stop Yanna and Beast from questioning the stranger.

Only now he noticed that Wayfarer wore black gloves. He had no weapons that he could see. But the staff... even though you couldn't read an item's stats in full immersion — all those bars, boxes and interface menus — you could still see this was one hell of an item. A murky cloud swirled within the knob filled with a scarlet haze, resembling the blurred image of a tiny far-off galaxy or nebula. Not just swirling: something was struggling inside, seething and bubbling, trying to break free.

If you believed the legend, mobs never aggroed Wayfarer. They never seemed to notice him nor those who happened to be with him. Was it true or just another tall story? It could be that he simply had stealth maxed out.

The reason why the man looked different was because somehow he looked more
real
than everything around him. He seemed more tangible, more three-dimensional. He appeared
heavy
— as if he squashed reality around him a little.

Attila also realized one other thing: if you stared at Wayfarer long enough, your eyes began to water.

Who was he, then? Or
it
. He definitely didn't look like an NPC. But he didn't look like a player's avatar, either.

Once they turned off into the side tunnel, the sounds from the Valley didn't reach them anymore. Attila couldn't even hear the noisiest spells. They were surrounded by the sounds of their own footsteps and the loud splashing of the water dripping from the damp ceiling.

"Listen, mister," Beast ventured, concealing his timidity with a cocky tone. "Mind telling us where we're going?"

"There is a place not far from here where you can lie low for a while," Wayfarer said in a level voice.

"Yess!" Beast leapt over a large puddle of water. "And this tunnel is an access route! I've been to the Valley loads of times but I'd no idea there was something like this hidden here."

"This is a very old tunnel," Wayfarer replied. "It serves no purpose. This is an undocumented empty location that connects two others."

"And you, who are you?" Yanna asked unceremoniously.

"Yeah, man," Beast agreed. "Mind telling us-"

Wayfarer turned his head to them. The scarlet light fell on his face, revealing deep black cavities in place of his eyes. Attila sensed the man's gaze studying them.

Wayfarer turned away. "If you want to live, you must follow me," he said. "If you don't, you can stay here. We don't have much time."

He sounded matter-of-factly, and still his words sent shivers down Attila's spine. They continued in silence. They didn't raise the subject anymore.

Finally, Yanna spoke, "Did you guys notice the change after the Storm?"

"I did," Attila agreed. "I told you already. It looks the same only sort of colder. And gloomier. And, how can I say, more
real
. Like in real life."

Beast waved his words away. "Don't make it sound worse than it is, man. Nothing has changed. We can't log out, that's all."

"The sky
is
different," Yanna insisted.

The tunnel ended abruptly. Wayfarer stopped and lifted his head. His staff illuminated a short vertical shaft fitted with steps. Without uttering a word, Wayfarer began climbing them. A hatch creaked open. A ray of daylight fell onto the tunnel floor.

Attila climbed out next. He peeked cautiously out of the opening, then scrambled out, casting curious looks around.

He stood in the center of a small platform made of a light-colored marble. Seven statues on short pedestals surrounded it: a human, a High Elf, an Elfa without a head, a bearded dwarf missing one arm, a Dark Drow, an orc and a fair-haired Assur. The latter race was considered extinct, or rather, "gone to the Star Fields". Currently you couldn't play an Assur although Attila was pretty sure that sooner or later the game developers were going to re-introduce them, coinciding the event with the discovery of a new large area — a new continent or something.

The Assurs resembled the Drow in many respects but were slightly shorter with slanted Asian eyes.

The room was light and warm. It also sort of soothed you. Attila recognized the Sanctuary Aura. A broken wall gaping with breach holes surrounded the statues. Next to it stood a round stone hut with a pointed roof.

Beast climbed out of the traphole and looked around him open-mouthed. "The Sanctuary of the Seven! Man, it's awesome! A holy location! It must be packed with ancient magic! This place can restore you. So who do we have here now..."

Yanna's head showed above the traphole. Beast began turning in place slowly, pointing at the circle of statues and repeating their ancient names,

"Magriv, Ashileth, Nea, Eschaton, Gromir, Varik, and Jaar."

Yanna closed the trapdoor and began looking around. She glanced up at the sky and froze. Attila raised his head. The sky
was
different, you could see that. It was gloomy; the occasional openings between heavy thunderclouds gleamed crimson. The interesting thing was, the sky was definitely darker and gloomier in the direction of the Citadel.

Beast shrunk his head in his shoulders. "D'you think it might be a new Storm brewing? We should probably get back into the tunnel."

"This isn't a Storm," Wayfarer said. "This is something else. Follow me."

He walked between the statues of the great human alchemist Magriv and the Assur sorcerer Jaar.

"Can you hear that?" Beast whispered.

Attila pricked up his ears. The wind brought the far-off howling of blind wolves mixed with the bellowing of monsters. The Valley wasn't very far from here, after all. What if the stampede headed in this direction? It was unlikely, but if it was indeed controlled by the Dark Paladin...

Attila wondered if the leader of the clerics knew where this tunnel had taken them. Then again, why would the Silent Brothers need them? They had absolutely no reason to hunt them down. Having said that, the three of them were the only ones who'd escaped the Valley of Death massacre and had seen the clerics prowling around so far from their Citadel.

Wayfarer turned toward the stone hut but stopped, peering into one of the gaping holes in the wall. He drew back, nearly knocking Yanna over, then nudged her back onto the platform.

They took cover behind the statue of Varik, the mighty orc shaman and one of the greatest disciples of elemental magic. He towered above them, his arms crossed on his chest, one foot in an enormous fur boot outstretched by his side. Attila knew that the Conclave had very nearly divided because of the confrontation between Varik and the Drow rune mage Eschaton. Their mutual hatred had been triggered by their races' hostility which had started in the long-forgotten times of Kromik's war on the House of Twilight. Only when the other Great Wizards intervened, including Varik's close friend Jaar, had the two rivals reconciled.

Attila and Yanna peeked out from behind one corner of the pedestal; Wayfarer and Beast, from behind the other. The Sanctuary stood in the middle of an open woodland. A group of spotted gnolls ran past the breach in the wall, wearing leather armor. They clutched triangular shields, axes and flails in their clawed paws. Their leader headed their ranks in a scaly chainmail shirt, his spine and the root of his tail studded with iron spikes. Their bodies stank of musk.

Attila reached for his sword, Yanna for her bow. Beast raised his hands, about to cast a fireball. Could they be
werehyenas
? If they were, then the four of them were toast.

"Don't move," Wayfarer mouthed, reaching under his cloak. He didn't wear any armor at all, only a light jacket and pants made of supple leather.

The world around them blinked and faded. Everything blurred. Beast jerked his head; Yanna shifted her feet.

"Quiet," Wayfarer said.

The gnolls stopped and raised their narrow muzzles, sniffing the air. Their leader stared at the Sanctuary. No, these were regular gnolls, Attila realized. They couldn't be werehyenas. But even so they were very dangerous.

Wayfarer and the others froze. Attila could have sworn that the beast could see them... but somehow it didn't. The leader of the pack stared at them long and hard. Then he twitched his head and sneezed, turning away. The others followed in a single file.