City of the Dead Page 15

  The mage himself did his best not to move. He’d had no idea why the lix had suddenly lost it and jumped forward, pulling him out of the tunnel, and the column of fire exploding out behind them had scared the boy to the point that he’d just held onto his partner even tighter. And when the lix threw him into the niche to hide him from the black monsters, Tailyn had stopped breathing altogether. That was the moment the god had decided to tell him what was going on.

  You happened across the metro control room.

  Mission update: Look for Coordinates. You found the control room, though the stash Lavr Nalin left here is gone. Someone stole the equipment and everything else, including the ancient’s book. Judging by the bodies of One’s inferior minions (appearance recorded in the Creatures section of your journal), they were able to overcome the ancient traps and possibly get everything to their lair. Check Lavr Nalin’s backup copy to get the coordinates of the stash.

  ***

  You took the first step on a difficult journey and earned a reward.

  Your group receives a reward: +1 to a random skill.

  Card saturation +1 (2).

  “So, this is the control room?” Ka-Do-Gir guessed when he saw the god’s message. The lix didn’t care much for the skill—he was a warrior, not some worker, and picking up +1 to his crystal gathering skill didn’t do much for him. It was useless, in fact. Strength or agility would have been much better.

  “Yes,” Tailyn said with a heavy sigh as he jumped down. “Only the inferior minions stole everything.”

  “Inferior? You found out what those black things are called?”

  Tailyn recounted the mission update as he overcame his disgust and began touching all the bodies lying there one after another. There was potentially loot to be had.

  “You don’t need to touch every body, little mage,” the lix said. “If there were something here, the god would have given it to you as soon as you touched the first one. Let’s go. We need to find out how to get out of here. I saw an incline, so let’s check it out.”

  Peeking out over the doorway, Ka-Do-Gir couldn’t see any of the inferior minions. They’d all headed farther on. The incline wasn’t visible from the wall, so the lix headed up and stopped at the boulders. There were plenty of them packed in tightly. And all his new weapon did was spark when he slashed it against them—the god’s gift wasn’t designed for digging. It was there to take lives, not burrow through rock. No, they needed a pick, a shovel, and something to muffle the noise.

  “We need to find a different passageway,” the lix said, though he stopped and stared at the mage in surprise. The boy was pointing back at the enormous cave.

  “We have to find the backup copy.”

  “The god was pretty clear—it’s in the city.”

  “In that case, we need to get into the city.” The boy was resolute. “We haven’t come this far only to give up now, have we?”

  “We’re not just going to give up; we’re going to beat a retreat,” Ka-Do-Gir replied firmly. “Remember, little mage, the most important thing for warriors, and for mages, too, is to stay alive. The longer you can do that, the more enemies you can kill. There will always be plenty of time for dying later. Grow, build your strength, and come back. Maybe, with an army. There’s nothing the two of us can do here.”

  Tailyn’s face fell. His partner was making too much sense to ignore. However, the boy wanted so badly to get into the city that his mind refused to listen.

  “Let’s go,” the lix said, interpreting the mage’s silence in his own way and pointing toward the passages the led off ahead. “We’ll see where those go. Maybe, the way out…quiet!”

  Grabbing the boy, the lix dashed down the incline in an effort to get to the control room as soon as possible. The black monsters were coming back, though they weren’t what had him so nervous. It was the strange voices.

  “So, what are we going to do?” asked the first.

  “Prepare the victims. Lirhart was wrong—there’s nobody here. We just wasted the card,” the second replied.

  “But someone had to kill twenty of the inferiors, no?”

  “The boss can worry about that. Our job is to take care of the prisoners!”

  Tailyn was shocked to realize he could understand what the pair was saying. They were gruff and broken, suspiciously lix-like. Letting go of the boy, Ka-Do-Gir crept cautiously over to the door. Tailyn followed him. And as he looked out, he barely muffled a gasp of surprise—there were two lixes walking along surrounded by the beaked creatures. Both were twice as tall as Ka-D-Gir and three times as powerful, with the kind of muscles even the city guards couldn’t boast of. Clad in strange clothing that covered their body but left their limbs free, they walked around on two legs rather than four like the lixes Tailyn was used to. Both upper pairs were used as arms. But the strangest part was that the pair’s skin was as black as the monsters with the beaks.

  The group quickly made its way to the end of the path and jumped down onto the level area the city was on. The inferior minions followed them, staying right with them and making no move to attack. In fact, it was the opposite—they were afraid of the lixes and did their best not to get in their way. The black creatures all got to the city and leaped right over the walls. Tailyn had to doubt his partner was capable of the same.

  “We’re staying,” Ka-Do-Gir said in a voice that was strangely not his own. “You wanted to get into the city? Well, we’re going to. We’re going to find your backup copy.”

  “Who was that?”

  For a long time, Ka-Do-Gir didn’t reply, his gaze fixed on the city. A fire was burning inside him. He wanted to tear and throw, hurl himself into battle in hopes of revenge, but he showed restraint. There would be time for that. Finally, his emotions under control, he replied.

  “Black lixes. They enslaved my tribe. They killed my family…”

  “Can you tell me the story?” the boy asked, looking over at his partner.

  Seven years before, a tribe of black lixes had swept in from the far mountains. And while they’d previously been thought of as weak and helpless, not worth the time of day, everyone was surprised to see the enormous warriors headed up by a very young leader by the name of Halas. The god had given him just a single name the way it did for all lix mages, the only problem there being the fact that the black lixes didn’t have any mages. He was a terrifying foe answering to nobody but himself. One after another, the lix tribes were enslaved, with many of them, Ka-Do-Gir’s parents among them, killed outright. The green lix tribes, in fact, were required to deliver two thousand slaves to the blacks every year, and they had to be human. When they couldn’t come up with them, a quarter of the lixes in all tribes were killed at random. That’s why the raids had grown so frequent—the greens didn’t have a choice. Fighting back wasn’t a choice, either, as any attack on a black lix resulted in half the tribe being tortured to death. And the other half was forced to watch it happen. In fact, the green lix who killed the black was left alive and handed over to their tribe so the survivors could take their grief out on him. The blacks ruled harshly, with no thought given to anyone else. All they cared about was the will of their leader. And there, Ka-Do-Gir had seen two of the fighters that had attacked his tribe. There, in the land of the humans. If he killed them, nobody would know it had been a green who had done the job. Nobody would threaten his tribe.

  Mission update: Ancient History. You learned that there are different types of lixes: green, black, red, and brown. However, they all come from the same ancestor. You need to find out why the split happened.

  Ka-Do-Gir hadn’t said anything about the last two types, so the god must have dug around in Tailyn’s memory to round out the description. Mistress Valanil had explained something about them to him. Mistress Valanil, who’d been kidnapped by the green lixes and…

  Wait a second.

  “The black lixes were just talking about prisoners,” the boy said in alarm. “Do you send humans to them immediately or once a year
?”

  “First, to the shaman, then to them,” Ka-Do-Gir replied, unsure what the boy was so agitated about. “We have to run the numbers—how else are we supposed to know how many more we’re supposed to hand over, and how many we can keep for food?”

  The boy shivered. He hadn’t needed to hear that explanation. Still, he continued.

  “Could the ones you kidnapped from my city be here?”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” the lix replied, even scratching his head as he thought. “It hasn’t been enough time.”

  “But they could be?”

  “Sure. The blacks have really lost it recently, always asking for more and more humans. They might have sent yours over as soon as they counted them…”

  “Okay, then we have to free them! Have you already figured out how we’re going to get into the city?”

  Ka-Do-Gir just sighed—that was the weak link in his plan. With all the inferior minions there, they weren’t going to get across the open area with the boulders undetected. But the lix wasn’t about to just say that. He needed to think it over. Perhaps, when they fell asleep…

  “Not so fast, little mage. First, we need to wait for nightfall. The blacks may have all kinds of stamina, but they need to sleep, too. That’s when we’ll get in.”

  “Nightfall?” Tailyn replied in surprise. “Does that happen here? The lamps are on all the time.”

  “Sure,” Ka-Do-Gir said. “Black lixes also need sleep. Okay, we need to get some rest, too. This is going to take all the strength we can muster.”

  The lix turned statuesque, closing his eyes and lying down on the stone ground like a dog. A couple moments later, he was already asleep and preparing for the coming battle. Tailyn looked at him enviously. With so much on his mind, and everything that had happened to him recently, the boy didn’t think he was going to be able to sleep. Still, he laid down next to his partner and stared up at the ceiling. There wasn’t much light filtering in, but his eyes had long since grown accustomed to the dark.

  Suddenly, all thoughts of sleep were gone. The ceiling wasn’t all one piece. It was made up of tiles placed one on another that had passed the test of time, and Tailyn noticed that one of them had been edged to the side. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to pique his interest. There was something there.

  Tailyn jumped up into the niche he and the lix had hidden in and stretched toward the hole. No, he wasn’t going to reach it that way. His gaze fell on the next tile over, then the one after that, and so on, finally reaching the one over his head. Following his instinct, he pushed it up. The tile budged unwillingly, but that was all. Tailyn wasn’t strong enough.

  “Move over.” Ka-Do-Gir had woken up right when the boy had climbed into the niche. When he saw what his partner was reaching for, he snarled in annoyance, frustrated with himself for missing that. And for a while, he laid there quietly, aware that they were going to need a boulder to stand on before they could reach the tile, though he perked up when the mage started working on the tile above his head. He leaped over to the boy and carefully lifted the tile ever so slightly—it banged up against the next ceiling. Instead of going higher, he was forced to slide it over to the side so he could stick his head into the hole and look around. There was definitely something over there.

  “Let me,” Tailyn said, and the lix moved over to give the mage a hand up and get ready to catch him if one of the tiles broke. But the mage clambered up quickly without him. A couple seconds later, and he already had a hand on whatever was over at the other end.

  You found a stash hidden by level 193 Shurvan Mortus Gar.

  DR-III drone received.

  Item marked for immediate disposal.

  Last Statement recording received.

  ***

  Partners was compensated for the item removed from circulation.

  Ka-Do-Gir receives Summon Bukamonster rare card.

  Tailyn Vlashich receives Last Statement recording.

  ***

  Well, that’s that… It’s the end of the line for Shurvan Mortus Gar in this release. Robbed blind… And it was all going so well—I had so much! Damn marauders. But whatever, I’ll get them back! First, let me tag the drone and hide it so I at least get something when the release ends. There aren’t many humans left. They’re miserable little cockroaches you can’t get anything from. One is going to regret setting up its lair here—there’s a service tunnel that leads toward the castle. I’m going to take the bastard out! That’ll teach it to come after a free player!

  ***

  Mission update: Ancient History. You found out that humans weren’t alone on the planet. Right before the cataclysm, there were other races, too, one of which was called Shurvans. You need to find out why they showed up in the world. Also, you learned a new word: “release,” or the current era. The ancients called themselves players. You need to find out why.

  Tailyn was barely listening to the recording. He’d already figured out they were stored in the audio section, where he could go listen to them whenever he wanted to. Instead, the boy jumped down to the floor and couldn’t pull his eyes away from the blue sparks coming off the card Ka-Do-Gir was holding. That was the real prize.

  The lix was also confused, turning the card around in his paws. He was well aware of how valuable it was. But why had the god given it to him, someone who very much wasn’t a mage? Presumably, it had its reasons. The rare status was all he could read in the description—everything else was hidden. And so, for the moment it was useless, if something to put away for later. He was pretty sure his shaman would give him two levels, maybe more. Noticing his partner’s gaze, the lix dropped the card into his virtual inventory, happy to finally have something to stick in it. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the human. It was just better to be safe than sorry.

  Tailyn could tell immediately that he wasn’t going to get a look at the card. And that irked him. He knew well enough that the lix couldn’t use a rare card without the wisdom attribute, and the boy just so happened to have it. Not only that, he had his up to level two, the requirement for rare cards. Only instead of handing it to Tailyn, the lix had hidden it in his inventory even after the boy had given him a thousand gold without thinking twice.

  Frustrated and upset, Tailyn walked out of the control room and froze, staring at the scene in front of him. He’d found out the area spreading in front of him was called a platform, not to mention that it included a service tunnel leading into One’s city. A real, honest-to-goodness service tunnel. One of the rocks in the middle of the platform flickered as if to announce that the tunnel started beneath it.

  “Lix,” the boy said quietly, “I know how to get into the city, but I’m going to need your help. I can’t pull it off myself.”

  “The blacks aren’t asleep yet,” Ka-Do-Gir replied, though he came over.

  “What if they don’t sleep at all? What if they’re killing the prisoners right now? No, we can’t wait. See that slab by the column?”

  “There are slabs everywhere. Care to be more specific?”

  “The second one next to the column. There’s an entrance to the city under it—I found that out in the last statement.”

  “Great bit of loot,” the lix replied seriously, which made Tailyn feel even worse. “Now I get why the god has its eye on you. Appreciate that.”

  The boy was so frustrated by everything the lix had just said that he wanted to burst into tears. The damn creature was laughing at him. And all after stealing the card that should rightfully been his.

  Ka-Do-Gir slipped noiselessly over to the slab the mage had pointed out. It was no different from the rest, but the lix made a habit of trusting the god’s gifts. Claws found their way into a crack; the slab lifted easily. There really was a tunnel opening up under it—the mage had been right.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ka-Do-Gir was surprised the boy was just standing there. The thick columns hid them from the city, so they didn’t have to worry about being spotted. “We need to try this ou
t, so go ahead and jump in.”

  Tailyn threw a withering glance at the lix, though he obeyed and ducked into the tunnel. All he wanted to do was find out who the prisoners the dark lixes were holding were. After covering up the entrance to make sure the inferior minions didn’t come across it accidentally, Ka-Do-Gir headed after the mage. The slight incline ended in a narrow tunnel leading in the direction of the castle. A light glimmered—that had to be the way out.

  As Tailyn made his way forward, he muttered under his nose all the curse words he’d learned from the cards. But the closer he got to the light source, the quieter he got, to the point that he fell completely silent when he got to the end of the tunnel. He listened carefully, but it was quiet. Too quiet.

  The passageway ended in a small shimmering film that separated the little tunnel from a small empty room. Tailyn crawled over to the very edge and touched the film. There was no lightning, no explosions, no cold, no wild howling. Nothing at all. Gathering his wits about him, he stepped through and found himself in the room.