Tartila Mine (The Alchemist Book #5): LitRPG Series Read online

  “What, are we just ignoring me?” Valanil exploded. “I need answers! I want everything that bastard knows about the Carlian clan. How did he know I became a duchess?! Your terminals aren’t going anywhere!”

  The herbalist’s outburst had everyone taken aback. They’d gotten used to her as a beacon of reason, and Tailyn made one more attempt to get the conversation back on track.

  “Through the mountains is better since we’ll stay away from lixes and imperials. There’s no reason for monsters to be up there, either, so Valia and I can head out today to—”

  “I’ll burn all this right to the ground!” An absorber potion appeared in the crazed herbalist’s hand. “There’s no way I’m letting anyone stay in the city when they’re a security threat!”

  “Would you care to explain what threat information about the Carlians could possibly pose to the city?” The reptiloid was having a hard time holding back his own sarcasm—he’d gotten the attention he’d been looking for, even if it had been a bit of a journey getting there. Finally, Valanil was in the palm of his hand. And while he had no idea how he was going to use her, a lifetime was quite a while, and one never knew what might happen down the road. Three thousand years before, Valrus wouldn’t have thought he’d be dropped all the way down to level one, stripped of all his parameters, and required to stand guard over some human kid. When the game played a joke on you, it went all the way.

  “Why don’t I hazard a guess?” Valia asked suddenly. Valanil, who was gray with rage, whirled around, not expecting that turn of events. “I’m Valia. You’re Valanil. He’s Valrus. Too many ‘Vals,’ wouldn’t you say? It strikes me that he might have something to do with the clan, either as the founder or someone who was closely related to it. That’s simple enough, no?”

  “That’s absurd! He’s no human. A reptiloid couldn’t have founded the Carlian house,” Valanil shot back, unexpectedly finding herself defending her erstwhile hated relatives as if she, and not Valia, had been the one who’d grown up in the palace.

  “Liubor Tevor, the founder of your clan, was my student,” the reptiloid said with a chuckle as he turned an intrigued eye on the girl. He appreciated the thirteen-year-old’s quick wit. With the proper guidance, she could turn into a serious player, though the priority in that moment was fostering Valanil’s interest to get her completely under his thumb. Valrus continued.

  “Right after the exodus, the System was still pretty faulty. The humans were scared, not sure where to run, and those of us who remained on the planet got to work teaching you all everything you needed to know. Even how to use a spoon—it was that bad. We needed groups with something holding the members together, and that was when the Carlian clan was formed. To satisfy the game’s requirements, Liubor guaranteed that all girls would be named in line with a set criterion. It was silly, but, again, the game in those days was imperfect and even ridiculous at times. Liubor took part of my name and three letters from his last name so girls would have at least some variety. And that’s where the ‘Val-evo’ came from. Thirty years after the exodus and before I was taken captive, Liubor was made duke, so I can only assume the clan still holds the title. It probably didn’t make it any higher—there was plenty of competition. Anyway, it’s perfectly natural that I’d be able to guess that about you, Duchess. There’s no way you could have received that name other than being born with it. Does that answer your question?”

  A deflated Valanil plopped down onto a chair. Her rage had dissipated, an emptiness taking its place that demanded to be filled. And the herbalist suddenly realized who should fill it: the reptiloid next to her. With his incredible stores of knowledge, there was so much he could teach her, especially since the clan was going to be hers to lead once her father died. There wasn’t a better teacher than the alien bound to Tailyn.

  “Tailyn and Valia will leave today,” Forian said, wrapping up. “We need another builder!”

  Preparations didn’t take long, and it was just a couple hours later that a very happy lizard trotted out of the city. It was getting a chance to stretch its legs. Having made the decision to head into the mountains by the granite quarry not far from Mean Truk, the pair found that Cloud had come to grips with its position. Not even the dragon flying around could shake its spirits. Every once in a while, it sped up to chow down a lithe snake or lizard, but otherwise the trip through the mountains couldn’t have been more comfortable. Spots where humans would have taken quite a bit of time were conquered in a matter of seconds as Valia’s companion clambered up sheer cliffs almost without noticing. Throughout the rest of the day, the pair clung to each other on Cloud’s back, though they decided to set up camp as soon as it started getting dark. Tailyn set up the mage’s travel tent, activating the protective field even though they hadn’t come across anything more dangerous than a miniature snake the entire day, lit a fire, sat down, and froze. Valia kept a nervous eye on him. As he was acting unlike the way he did when he was tired, she wasn’t sure what to make of him.

  “Is something wrong?” The girl sat down next to her betrothed and held out a delicious-smelling piece of meat. The cook at the Mean Truk tavern worked miracles, making scrumptious meals even with her culinary skill at just level five. Unsure of how to thank the heads for investing in her, she’d put together an entire sack of treats for them to take on their journey. But Tailyn was having none of it. His gaze remained fixed on the fire.

  “Tailyn Vlashich!” Worry gave way to indignation. “Stop ignoring me! What happened?”

  “This,” Tailyn replied, and a frost enveloped his hand. A stone a few meters away began to quiver, several moments later turning into a small chunk of ice.

  “So what? You’ve done that plenty of times before. Oh!”

  “Exactly—oh,” Tailyn replied, still not looking away from the fire. “You’re not helping me. I’m doing it myself, and without cards. All it’s taking is force of thought and all kinds of mana. Still, I’m doing it on my own!”

  “But how... And how long have you been doing that?”

  “Since I got back from the provost’s office. My portal cards had run out, and I just jumped back to you. Myself. Since then, I’ve tried it a few times without your help, and it works, more or less, though I haven’t told anyone else. What if something’s wrong with me? This would turn the story of the ancients on its head, at least, the story we know. That was when the god got rid of magic and replaced it with cards.”

  “Could it have given you magic back? It deleted enhancement, so maybe this is how it’s restoring balance.”

  Valia herself wasn’t buying what she was selling. The god wouldn’t have brought something like that back into the world just for some kid from the provinces, even if he was Tailyn, especially since it hadn’t offered anything in the way of training or preparation. That wasn’t how the System worked.

  “You and I were able to do it before the attributes were deleted, so it isn’t compensation,” Tailyn replied. “Really, it’s strange. What if something’s wrong? It’s great, but what if you don’t live long with something like this? I wouldn’t want to give Halas the pleasure of seeing me die from something this ridiculous.”

  “Well, there’s no need to panic.” Valia was feeling nervous, too, though she decided to focus on the positives. “Why don’t you just show me what you can do? Is it only ice? Or fire, too? Water? Absorber?”

  The girl figured the best way to distract the pair from getting down on themselves was by thinking about something else, and Tailyn was only too keen. The excitement hid the fear. Once more, the boy’s hand was covered in frost, and the long-suffering rock completed its transformation into a miniature iceberg.

  The thickness of the ice you can summon depends on your Intellect. Current value: 52 centimeters.

  You spent 5% of your mana on the Ice Blockade ability.

  “Oh, wow,” Tailyn exclaimed when he saw the messages pop up. That was the first time they were being shown, which meant something had happened. But what
? Could it have been that he just wasn’t thinking about it? Suddenly, he felt more at ease—the god had accepted what he could do, and it wasn’t going to punish him. The fact that he was spending resources meant the whole thing was happening according to the will of the System.

  “That’s a lot of mana for that tiny wall of ice,” Valia said in disappointment. “Do you think there’s any way to reduce the percentage?”

  “I imagine that’s a question for Valrus. He probably knows the answer.”

  “Although, you’ll have to explain why you’re asking. Are you okay with that?”

  “No,” Tailyn replied frankly. “This one’s mine. Ours. And I’m not about to share it with anyone... Okay, we’ll figure it out ourselves. Let’s see... How about fire? Maybe, it won’t cost as much...”

  The Tailyn in the real world closed his eyes and let the Tailyn in the virtual world take over. The latter reached into the fire, stretching for the mana coals, and attempted that time to absorb the heat instead of the magic. His palms immediately warmed. One tingle later, and the real Tailyn opened his eyes, pointed his palms at the iced-over rock, and felt immense freedom rush over him as he watched the ice melt away.

  Your heat summoning parameters depend on your Intellect. Current values: 5.2 seconds. Temperature: 520 degrees. Damage radius: 52 centimeters.

  You spent 5% of your mana on the Heat Strike ability.

  “It works!” Tailyn cried as he leaped to his feet in delight. “I can feel fire and ice!”

  “Heat,” Valia said, bringing her betrothed back down to earth. “Spending 5% of your mana for each use... Should we keep going?”

  “For sure!” The happy excitement had total control of Tailyn, who had forgotten completely about his “disfigurement.” In addition to heat, he was able to summon water, a fireball, earthen spikes, and even an element, though the latter lasted just 5.2 seconds and took so much mana it might have been a thousand years. A whole 15% of the boy’s mana bar for a transient if powerful creature was overdoing it.

  But there were problems, too.

  Attempt to use magic failed.

  You spent 5% of your mana.

  Tailyn decided to experiment with summoning both water and fire. The System wasn’t sure what he wanted, so he just earned himself that disappointing message, one which he received with frustrating regularity. Any time he stepped away from the norm, using something besides the abilities he had cards for, it didn’t work. And Tailyn wasn’t sure what that depended on—was it his inability or the fact that he was missing some parameter or other? He needed a teacher, though calling Forian so he could speak with the reptiloid was out of the question.

  The next four days were spent in similar fashion. While the sun shined, the children headed relentlessly toward their destination, though Valia stopped Cloud the moment the sun touched the mountaintops. And that was when the experiments began. Each evening, Tailyn spent two or three flasks to restore 100% of his mana. If his tight-fisted treasurer had been aware, he would have surely voiced his disapproval.

  It happened on the fourth day, once it felt like everything had been studied, tested, and tested again. They were still a few days away, the mountain trip was going well, Valia had headed wearily into the tent, and Tailyn had polished off another mana potion and was getting ready to go to sleep when an odd thought struck him. He’d gotten away from the provost using teleportation. No matter how many times he’d tried afterwards, he hadn’t been able to jump to Valia even when she was just a hundred meters away. Apparently, he had to be on the edge between life and death to use the ability. But was teleporting to someone the only way to do it? What if he’d jumped to the virtual smithy or Mean Truk rather than to Valia? Perhaps, he needed to try jumping over to a stone rather than to Valia.

  The excitement of discovery rushed through him once again. Tailyn checked his logs, doing his best to remember every detail of the event. As he’d been talking with Valia, she’d begged him not to die, and he’d just stepped toward her... Or toward where she was standing? Perhaps, he’d gotten to the virtual workshop and used the girl to get to Mean Truk. In that case, there was no need to focus on making the leap to the stone since it couldn’t reply. But if he made a temporary projection of it next to the smithy, something like what he’d done with the statues of the Mean Truk team, the plan could work.

  To ensure success, Tailyn even went over to the rock and took a close look at it from all sides, doing his best to remember every nook and cranny. Then, back at the fire, he materialized it in his own world. That didn’t turn out to be difficult. The hefty chunk of stone appeared next to the entrance, and the boy reached out for it with all his soul, every thought fixed on how he simply couldn’t live without it. Suddenly, all that existed for Tailyn was the stone and the distance between them that he needed to overcome. His concentration was so intense, in fact, that he didn’t even notice taking a single step forward that nearly dropped him splayed across the cold stone. His foot hadn’t landed where his eyes were expecting. Instead, it ended up in a small dip next to the stone twenty meters away from him.

  The length of your leap depends on your intellect. Current maximum value: 52 meters. Your destination must be within your field of vision. You can only leap to objects you know.

  You spent 35% of your mana.

  There was a fluttering in Tailyn’s stomach. He wanted to scream for joy and dash over to Valia, but there was going to be time for that later—he needed to try again. Bending over and picking up his new favorite stone, he hurled it away from the fire, closed his eyes, and repeated his trick. A pleasant sensation ran down his spine when he took a step forward and found himself right next to the tent. He was twenty meters away from where he’d been a moment earlier.

  The thirty-five percent cost was hard to swallow, though that just hardened his resolve to figure out what he could do about cutting it. But in the meantime...

  “Valia! Wake up! Come here, I have to show you something. You’re not going to believe this!”

  Chapter 4

  TWO DAYS LATER, Tailyn and Valia were staring at the once-great city of Grivok, unsure what to do next. Their plan for dropping by quietly and trading the remote terminal for a builder was as ruined as a colossus with feet of clay dashed by circumstance. Spread out in front of them, where the ancient city should have been buried in dirt and stone, there stood a stone fortress with creatures bustling around to and fro. And it wasn’t the local humans in charge—they were sitting in cages. It wasn’t lixes, either, most of which were running around the outskirts at someone else’s bidding. Instead, it was white creatures looking like blown-up sacks with eight appendages, somehow having earned a pair of red eyes and beaks instead of mouths. Tailyn’s insides tensed. Back in the city of the dead, they’d come across the same creatures, only there they’d been One’s minions, and they’d been busy annihilating humans as energy sacrifices for their master. But One was dead. Why hadn’t the god gotten rid of those monsters, too?

  “The black lixes are in charge,” Valia said. “Look—the other colors are either working or following instructions, but the blacks are at the top. After the eight-legs, I mean. And there are so many...”

  “The map says the terminal is ten meters to the right.” Tailyn stepped closer to the edge of the cliff and looked over it. More than two hundred meters straight down, the cliff ended in a few buildings, though they clearly didn’t contain anything of value. That meant the terminal was below ground. And they were going to have to figure out how to get to it. Raptor couldn’t reach that far, so it couldn’t build a three-dimensional map. From the outside, Grivok looked much like Mean Truk, the ancient capital also nestled in among the mountains. Its designers were apparently cut from the same cloth as Forian, too—the wall only covered one side, protecting the fortress from the Gray Lands. It hadn’t occurred to anyone that an attack might come from the mountains.

  And what made Tailyn so sure of that? A hundred meters away, there was a lix outpost, a rock
formation obscuring its vision of the mountains. That meant they were only there to spot attackers coming in from the steppe. There was no other point to their being in that spot.

  “We’re not turning around, are we?” Valia asked.

  “Mean Truk is doomed unless we can get to that terminal.” Tailyn glanced around the city once more before sighing. There were so many creatures milling around that Valkyrie’s entire arsenal wouldn’t have been enough to take them out, and that was with his spare clips. “But first, we need to find out what’s going on here.”

  The decision to capture the spotters was a spontaneous one, but Tailyn thought it seemed like the way to go. As Valanil always said, getting mixed up in a fight without first studying your opponent was never the right move. Only the execution was the hard part. Without hacking, the boy was forced to bring out his inner acrobat to make sure he got over to the outpost without alerting the guards to his presence. He activated his Talarii, flipped upside down, and grabbed hold of some rocks, moving himself along and also making sure the wind didn’t blow him away. As he edged his way closer, he kept a close eye on Raptor. All he needed was for the lixes to catch wind that something was up.