Patch 17 (Realm of Arkon) (23 page)

"Shit... Is this your doing, light one?" he looked at me intently. "Who buffed you like that?! And how did you even survive? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that you did... But it's kind of hard to believe!"

"Don't pester him. Look, he's pale as a ghost," Lirrak chortled, his friendly smile—framed with protruding fangs—resembling a wolf's scowl. A fellow of considerable bravery out for a stroll late in the day wouldn't hesitate to cross the street at the sight of such fangs. Everyone else was guaranteed a visit to a psychiatrist—in the best case scenario. "Here, a gift of gratitude from me and my people," he put a ring of silvery metal into my hand.

"And this one's from me personally," the mage smiled. The ring was joined by a gold trinket shaped like a silvery crescent.

You've completed the quest: Rescuing Companions.
             

You have gained a level! Current level: 74.

You received:
Band of Dancing Grass.

You received:
Earring of the School of Restoration.

You have 4 talent points to allocate.

Racial bonus: +1% to resistance to dark magic, +1% resistance to light magic.

Class bonus: +1 to intellect; +1 to spirit.

You have 12 stat points to allocate.

You have gained a level! Current level: 75.

You have 5 talent points to allocate.

Racial bonus: +1% to resistance to dark magic, +1% resistance to light magic.

Class bonus: +1 to intellect; +1 to spirit.

You have 15 stat points to allocate.

Band of Dancing Grass.

Accessory; ring.

Durability: 470/470.

Rare item.

Minimum level to equip: 70.

+60 to agility.

+40 to constitution.

+1% to critical hit chance with a physical attack.

Weight: .01 lbs.

Earring of the School of Restoration.

Accessory; earring.

Durability: 450/450.

Rare item.

Minimum level to equip: 70.

+50 to spirit.

+50 to intellect.

+1% to health regeneration.

Weight: .005 lbs.

There, my first truly earned levels. My leveling speed was just incredible! Say what you will, but spending some time in high-level zones certainly had its uses.

All of a sudden there was a flash, and everything in reality changed. The inn's walls disappeared, there was a lapping of water, and we found ourselves mired in a swampy lowland, at the edge of the same ravine, forty or so yards off the road. The bog squelched nastily underfoot, ankle-high in the place where the demons were sleeping; the wheels of wagons parked twenty yards away were mostly submerged.

There was a string of cussing all around, as the shift in reality quickly brought everyone to their senses. I couldn't hold back a chuckle watching a legionnaire—and one of the two night sentries—shaking water out of his helm while spitting whatever filth had gotten into his mouth. The animals were reacting far more tolerably to the change of environment: yaks and horses simply lowered their heads to the water, and only the land-loving croc was kicking up a fuss, spraying mud and water all around as it rushed to its owner and butted him in the side. Lirrak patted the creature's muzzle and gave him some kind of treat. How was he not terrified, I wondered. I wouldn't have the stomach for the risk—give a beast like that a tasty morsel, and it could easily bite off your entire arm!

There were squeals of awed delight from the direction of the road, as a dozen legionnaires riding by outright roared with laughter looking at us. And who could blame them? Here we were—a bunch of grimy, bewildered caravaners trying to find our bearings, our wagons nearly floating on the water. All signs pointed to a wild party the night before. Lirrak shouted something mild at them, provoking yet another fit of raucous laughter.

It took about an hour to push the wagons out of the mud. We then grabbed a quick bite to eat before the caravan got back on the road. Driving our wagon was a pensive and uncharacteristically taciturn Rioh. Harn was sleeping in the corner, letting out the occasional loud exhale and bristling his mustache in a rather amusing way. Ylsan, who had decided to ride with us, was sitting across from me, reading some book. His forehead was always creasing, and he would occasionally mouth phrases soundlessly—a veritable first-grader who had picked up a primer for the first time.

I decided to wait until I got to my private room to allocate stat and talent points. The scenery didn't particularly interest me, so I immersed myself fully into reading the wiki.

A skhiarta was a creature from the Gray Frontier whose larvae first drained their victims' life force, and then devoured the corpse. The larva's proboscis could penetrate even the thickest armor without damaging it, assuming the armor didn't have special protection. Hmm, it had seemed to me that the worm had pierced right through my boot. I examined my bootleg—no, not a scratch. A portion of the life force siphoned from the victim was transferred to the mother, and each larva had to devour at least fifty victims in order to develop into a full-fledged skhiarta. I seethed at the thought that we were merely a light snack for those fiends. The monster's blood was an ingredient for blacksmiths, leatherworkers and tailors to boost the durability of their crafts. The eyes could be used by alchemists.

I didn't find out anything new about misty rifts. Not a word about what they were, where they came from or when they appeared. In fact, information on Demon Grounds on the whole was extremely scarce—a few pages' worth at the most. Chronicles on the other planes were inaccessible to me, save for the bestiary in which I looked up the monster that had nearly dined on us. Almost everything else was useless nonsense, with the exception of the talent tree and talent calculators. From the side it looked like I was lounging on a bench, reading a book in a black binding. A small icon toward the bottom of the page caught my eye. I focused on the sign underneath the icon: Add to Chronicles. Interesting. I tapped it, and a standard entry field popped up: time, location, subject and so on. Below that was a message that I might receive some experience for the added information. I took out a quill affixed to the back of the book and got to writing. It wasn't like I had anything better to do. I described the misty rift, then moved on to the bestiary, adding all the information on the karriga and the skhiarta. The letters and words were coming out in crisp and beautiful calligraphy without any blots, as though I were typing on a computer.

This was how I spent the next several hours—fueled by a trailblazer's zeal, eager to pass essential information on to the posterity. Upon saving my oeuvre for the final time and closing wiki, I noticed that my experience bar had increased only slightly. Apparently, the art of writing wasn't very much appreciated in this world, but at least I'd managed to kill some time. What else was there to do? Ah, there we go. I removed the action bar for want of necessity: I wasn't playing behind the computer anymore, so I didn't need to mash those buttons.

Take a boxer in a ring, imagine he's got access to an action bar with eight buttons. He's not going to be thinking, "OK, next I need to throw a right uppercut, that's this button, pressing..." His movements are almost automatic, and the same was true in this case. The skills you put out on the action bar became second nature. It was no guarantee that you would execute them perfectly and in a timely fashion every time, but activating them happened automatically, without scrambling as to which buttons to push.

Now I could see my HP, energy and mana out of the corner of my eye.

I also needed to figure out my next moves. The first stop was obviously Gerid, Kort's old mate, who apparently had his own inn. It made sense to stay there while I got my bearings. From there, to the traders' guild and the lord's second wife, whatever her name was. Finally, I needed to find out the location of the secret door behind which the knights and mages awaited their awakening from slumber. Of course, finding the actual door was on me, but I wanted to narrow down the search area to no more than a few square miles... Ugh, my idiocy never ceased to amaze. There was a fount of knowledge sitting right across!

The landscape around us had already changed, as the road had led the caravan to a large lake, which we were presently rounding along a steep bank. I could smell the moisture and slightly rotting weeds coming from our left. The picturesque view of the lake was complemented by a castle of gray stone looming from the opposite shore, and several fishing villages.

"Listen, Ylsan, I'm looking for some information. Can you help?"

"Sure thing," the mage put away his book, threw back his hair with a fluid motion of the head, and looked at me. "What do you want to know?"

"Well, you see," I began. "Three hundred years ago, in a castle around here somewhere, give or take a thousand miles, one of the lords was opening portals to our lands. His minions drove humans here by the thousands, cutting them down like cattle as part of some ritual." I paused for a moment, wondering how to weave Ahriman into the story. "Long story short, the king of Erantia—that's the human realm—sent an army here that destroyed the lord and all those who took part in the ritual. Then Ahriman turned up and attacked the humans. I don't know how it all ended, but I'd like to locate where it happened." And, preempting any further questions from Ylsan, I added, "Someone close to me was part of that battle." Let him think it was some grand ancestor of mine.

For a while the mage kept a pensive silence.

"Is this somehow connected to why you're here, Krian? Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be nosy," he shook his head, "but simply trying to understand. After all, traveling between our respective realms is far from simple—only gods and those close to them are capable of such a feat. And you don't strike me as either. Ancestral memory is sacred and all, but..." The demon's face was awash with doubt.

I sighed and looked at him, noting to myself that I was no longer surprised by the horns, the vertical eyelids or the reddish skin.

"This isn't about ancestral memory. I fell asleep near that temple," I stuck my finger upward, "and woke up here," I repeated the legend. "Then I had a vision..." I complimented myself mentally on the fib—was I really a monk at heart? "The events I told you about, they were shown to me in that vision. I realized then that it was somehow connected to my ancestor, and that therein lies the key to my returning home."

It wasn't that I liked lying, but I'd worked enough in sales to make it look natural. And in this magical realm, filled with gods, demons and a netherworld, it was rather a useful skill.

"It sure is a strange story. I'd like to help, but history is not my forte," he said sheepishly. "I took a history course once, but at the time I had a thing with Itala and, well..." completely abashed now, the mage fell quiet.

"Sure, I'd cut history for a girl," I echoed my support. "But maybe you know someone who can help?"

The wagon jumped on a pothole, and I nearly bit my tongue.

"Warn us next time, will you?" Ylsan griped to Rioh, rubbing a bruised hip.

"The sun is in my eye, I can't see for Hart," the coachman mumbled apologetically.

Only Harn kept sleeping peacefully, without moving an inch—so clean was the demon's conscience.

"My father would definitely know, but he's, um," Ylsan drew an ambiguous gesture in the air, "one of a kind. He rarely crawls out of his lab. Even his food is brought there most of the time. Occasionally my mother loses patience and drags him out, but it doesn't last long. He leads a normal life for one week at the most, then holes up in the lab again. He's an alchemist. With his lifestyle, it's a marvel he's had time to have a single kid, let alone three—I've also got a brother and a sister," the tifling laughed cheerily. "We're arriving tomorrow, you should stop by the day after. I should be able to drag him out, but the only one who can bother him in his lab is mother. For the rest of us there are all sorts of booby traps to keep us out. They're mostly harmless, but one time my brother and I mustered up the courage to sneak inside to see what he was up to. And, well..." Ylsan grabbed the end of his tail, as if demonstrating it. "My tail turned green. Some kind of stupid hex, my father didn't even remember how to remove it. I had to hide my disgrace under a cloak for a month before it went away on its own."

"Think maybe this will catch his interest?" after laughing at his cautionary tale, I fished out a vial with the skhiarta's eye from my bag.

"Oh!" the tifling's eyes grew round. "Do you have more? I'd buy a few myself... if you're selling, that is. I've got to brew a complex potion to get my degree, and this is one of the ingredients," his tail grazed the side of his neck—an unusual variation on a customary gesture.

"It's yours," I smiled.

The mage didn't bother with false modesty, taking the vials, then holding them up against the light. With a contented grunt, he put them away in his bag.

Your reputation has increased. Mage Raey Dar Ylsan considers you a friend.

"Why didn't you put on the earring? It will dull the pain if you're wounded."