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“WHAT HAPPENED in there?” I could sense unfeigned concern in Pinebogey’s voice. As for who the woodsman was really concerned about, I was not especially deceived. But considering the fact that dozens of serpentine eyes were staring maliciously at me out of every nook and cranny, even that kind of support was welcome.
I glanced at Pinebogey and Dobbess standing next to him. The Goblin was clearly not enjoying the hostile attention from the serpentine guard. He was constantly looking all around, as if preparing to deflect an attack at any moment. And it didn’t much look to be a game. He really did consider himself part of our team. Hm... Our team... As a matter of fact, we were gradually starting to take shape as a fighting unit. Sure, I wasn’t completely clear on all of my allies’ end goals but the simple fact that I would not be fighting alone – it was hard not to be happy about that.
“I failed the induction and unification,” I answered curtly, then made up my mind to add: “The spirit keeper tried to subjugate me so he could use me to escape from the citadel.”
“And your Will was able to withstand that?” the goblin asked with admiration.
“Not exactly,” I responded in a near whisper. “They awoke and just about devoured the keeper spirit of the citadel.”
“They?!” Pinebogey and Dobbess asked almost simultaneously.
“The seeds,” I rubbed the back of my head. “I actually have more than one. The Great Tree gifted me three. And now they’re the size of chicken eggs.”
While Pinebogey gasped for air like a fish out of water, Dobbess said, dumbfounded:
“So that’s why the citadel has been in such disarray the past few days!”
“What do you mean days?” Then came my turn to be surprised.
“You were gone for three days,” the goblin answered and added: “Ahem, boy. I haven’t seen this kind of turmoil around here in a dog’s age. I think as soon as your time is up, the magister will sic all the hounds on you. And I’m not just being colorful. They say another pack of shapeshifters is coming to the citadel. And they’re nothing like those milk-fed whelps you took down in the labyrinth. A dozen seasoned werewolves. The best fighters from the Eviscerators clan. Ulf is mad at you. And I won’t even mention the snakefolk.”
“Well, what about this thing?” I asked, pointing at the Friend of Chaos amulet.
“Take a gander at its expiration date,” Dobbess gave an oblong smile. “Didn’t you notice what they slipped in there?”
I quickly opened the amulet’s description and clenched my teeth. So, the spirit was able to make a mess of things in the end. And I was surprised at the fact the magister had given me a day precisely.
Meanwhile, the goblin continued:
“For now, you’re off limits. But as soon as that time limit is up, the hunt will begin.”
“What if I leave the citadel before that?”
“You’ll lose your immunity,” the goblin responded.
“Is the magister going to be taking part in the hunt as well?” I asked with a frown. If she’s as powerful as her sister, we’ve got a problem on our hands.
“Thank the gods no!” Dobbess said with a smile. “Although I’m certain she’d be all too happy to flay you alive.”
Seeing my incomprehension, he started to explain.
“Luckily for you, the Labyrinth doesn’t allow magisters inside. No one knows why it’s setup that way. There’s a theory that it’s a way of maintaining balance between the factions. But that’s just a guess...”
“What does the labyrinth have to do with this?” I asked in surprise.
“Well, how else were you planning to escape?” Dobbess answered with a question. “Going by sea is not an option. Even if we did have a ship, the surrounding waters are teeming with high-level monsters.”
“Through the portal on the observation platform,” I responded. That was how I wanted to leave this place at first.
“Forget about it,” the goblin brought me down to earth. “It is part of the citadel’s energy structure, which means it’s controlled by the magister.”
“But then...”
“The labyrinth has two different modes,” Pinebogey finally chimed in. He knew what I was trying to ask, so he started to explain. “We call them Dream and Awake. You’ve been in Dream mode already. But there is also Awake – an ancient cavern swiss-cheesed with a confusing tunnel network.”
“And are there anomalies there?”
“There are,” the goblin tossed his two copper in. “But the thing is, these anomalies are not locations like in Dream but entities which, ghostlike, are able to appear and disappear without warning.”
“The factions use Dream more often,” said Pinebogey. “Awake is only for edge cases.”
Seeing a question in my eyes, Pinebogey said:
“There are a few portals inside the labyrinth, which we use from time to time.”
“So, the labyrinth is currently in a mode we can use without the magister’s permission. Am I understanding this right?”
“Exactly,” Pinebogey confirmed. “And that is precisely why we need to hurry before the labyrinth ‘falls asleep’ again.”
“Great,” I nodded. “I just have one more piece of unfinished business. Despite failing the test, the spirit generously provided me full access to the contents of the citadel’s armory, where I wanted to spend all my chaos tokens.”
“Ha!” Dobbess exclaimed admiringly. “The more I learn about you, the more I’m convinced I made the right choice!”
“Let’s go!” said Pinebogey, nodding toward the nearest hallway. “Just don’t get too excited. The Armory Master here is a real cheapskate.”
Dobbess confirmed that with a crushed sigh.
“I’m sure when that orc was learning to talk, his first sentence was: ‘No way!’“
“What about the troll?” I asked when we were walking down the hallways.
“No one has seen the Gatekeeper for a few hours,” answered Pinebogey. “Is that somehow connected with what happened?”
“I think so,” I shrugged. “And he isn’t the Gatekeeper anymore. The Spirit set him free. On my, ghm... request.”
Dobbess and Pinebogey exchanged significant glances. Based on their happy faces, they liked that news. I didn’t go asking them what I may have earned for taking matters into my own hands there. If I ever saw the troll again ― I’d know. But something was telling me I didn’t have much chance of finding the former gatekeeper now. That big old goon was probably halfway back home by this point.
* * *
“NO WAY!” THE OLD ORC shot out unequivocally when I asked yet another question.
“But I have full access!” I exclaimed yet again.
“I know!” the Armory Master answered like a windup toy. “But your access does not apply to the citadel’s strategic reserve. I cannot simply give up the last of our mana and energy crystals to some Johnny-come-lately! They are reserved for faction members only and exclusively with the magister’s permission!”
Dobbess was right. The old man was a tough cookie. I had already wasted a whole hour trying to buy something worthwhile at the armory, but so far all I’d gotten was a nervous tick.
“Alright,” I sighed, trying to calm down. “Then what can you sell me?”
“All this,” the orc eagerly made a half turn and pointed at a long set of shelves weighed down with all kinds of junk.
It would be easier to say what wasn’t there. Flasks, phials and bottles of various shapes and sizes. Some differently colored little rocks and crystals. Bags, roots, dry grass, claws, feathers and other trash like it. There were lots of cutting and piercing “tools” of abysmal quality as well, and still the lowest level among them was five.
“But I’ve already looked at all that!” I exclaimed, losing the last shreds of my self-control. “None of this works for me!”
The orc just threw up his hands indignantly and started telling me about all his “treasures” in a monotone voice. About their use and consequence.
In my mind, I understood that I was being treated this way due to lack of reputation with the chaos faction. And that the spirit’s amulet, which I handed to the old armory master, was worth about as much an anti-rheumatism balm. But I didn’t give up:
“Got any growth spheres?”
“Never heard of ‘em,” the orc answered right away and added mockingly: “Anything else?”
I understood that the old man probably knew about my conflict with the magister. He was just drawing out the clock.
“Well alright,” I said, clenching my teeth angrily. “I’ll take another look. Maybe I really will find something useful.”
“I’m sure you will,” said the orc, throwing up his wrinkled old hands with a false kind-heartedness in his voice. “There are a lot of valuable specimens there!”
“Sure,” I muttered, walking past the shelves of bird bones and feathers. As if it wasn’t enough that they were useless to me, nothing was below level seven. Little bastard!
Wait... What’s that? I stopped dead in my tracks. Between the shelves and racks, I saw a wall peeking out with strange features.
“What’s back there?” I asked.
“Where?” the orc kept trying to play the fool.
“Behind the racks,” I didn’t give up.
“Ahhhh,” the old man drawled. “That’s a wall.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” I answered. “I don’t think it’s just any old wall. I’d like to take a peek.”
“But...” the orc tried to object.
But I cut him off:
“Let me remind you I have full access. You have the right to refuse to sell me something, but you have to show me everything. Right?”
“Yes...” the tricky armory master rasped out despite himself.
“Then show me,” I nodded at the shelves.
“If you say so,” the orc shrugged and suddenly said in a totally decent tone: “Even the magister cannot access what’s behind that door.”
“All the more reason to show me,” I hurried him along. In the meantime, I was surprised not to hear the old song and dance about the citadel’s strategic reserves.
Despite his scrawny and somewhat frail constitution, the old man made pretty quick work of the heavy racks and didn’t even break a sweat.
“Well, go ahead and look,” the orc invited, his arms crossed on his chest when the stone door in the wall was cleared of junk. “But fair warning: I don’t have the keys to that door and I never did.”
Then, not wasting time, I hurried to avail myself of the invitation. Walking right up close to the wall, I started looking. I tried to ignore the orc’s unhappy murmuring and sighs. Not even a minute later, I’d found what I was looking for. A small cavity at chest level. I swept a bit of the dust off it and looked closer. Inside the oval indent I could make out a curious symbol shaped like three parallel wavy lines.
“That is the ancient symbol of chaos,” the orc commented pompously on my discovery. “No one has ever...”
Before he could finish, he trailed off. The thing was that at that exact moment my finger completed the familiar blood-droplet procedure. The system informed me that my blood had been tested and the result was positive.
The contours of the door in the wall flickered with a light blue glow and I got approval to step inside.
“See, and you were grumbling,” I said calmly to the orc, who was thunderstruck, and walked through the doorframe.
Inside was a small room of twenty-by-twenty feet with a hexagonal marble column in the middle. From floor to ceiling it was lined with honeycomb-shaped compartments. Most of them were empty, but a few of them contained scrolls, dark lilac crystals and fiery red pearls.
Feeling a squadron of ants start marching up my spine, I started looking. I decided to start with the pearls... There were just twelve.
When I took one of them in my hands, a message appeared before my eyes to say that, as a carrier of the Friend of Chaos amulet, I had been given the opportunity to purchase this pearl for five hundred chaos tokens.
Chaos Pearl.
― Type: Magical transformation.
― Concentration: High.
― Rarity: Epic.
― Description:
― A Chaos Pearl, harvested from the depths of the Great Ocean of Chaos. For several centuries, it stored up the magical energy given off by the waters of the ocean. Those who dare to use this pearl can raise the level of one of their transformations by 10 points at once.
― Warning!
Always keep in mind that excessive and unchecked use of Chaos pearls has consequences! Beyond transforming external appearance, the Chaos energy contained within the pearl can overwhelm the conscious mind.
― Pearl disappears after activation.
― Weight: None. Takes no space.
My first impulse was to buy the whole dozen right then and there, but I got myself together. I needed to take a peek at the other scrolls and crystals first. There were just five of the former and eight of the latter.
While I read through the description of the first scroll, I breathed a loud sigh. How nice that I didn’t waste my six thousand tokens on pearls. Every scroll was worth two thousand tokens.
Chaos Talent “Quick Reflexes.”
― Type: Magic scrolls.
― Rarity: Epic.
― Description:
― One of the Chaos Talents from the Quick Reflexes branch of the Mind characteristic.
― Effect:
― Reduces the cooldown time for chaos spells/magical abilities by 3 times.
― Reduces the cooldown time for other schools’ spells/magical abilities by 2 times.
― Requirements:
― Mind – 15.
― Note:
― Scroll disappears after activation.
― Weight: None. Takes no space.
The other four scrolls were also talents. Two from the mind branch and two from strength. There wasn’t enough time to read and make sense of them so, without thinking, I dropped ten thousand tokens on them right away. Furthermore, the crystals proved to be confinement crystals, which I could transfer chaos spells into. And more precisely Chaos Shield. The “confinement” came at a cost of two thousand mana points while using it later would run me another four. In the end, it was a thousand more than if I had activated it without a crystal. But that wasn’t the cool part. With seven such stones all containing shields, I could activate them one after the next without worrying about cooldown time between usage. All that mattered was having enough mana.
Each of those crystals cost a thousand tokens. I considered it briefly and decided to buy them over the improved transformations. The memory of the huge boulders crushing in on me from all sides in the Queen of the Draks’ lair was just too fresh. Being able to use eight chaos shields in a row without worrying about cooldown time would bring up my survival chances a good deal. All that remained was to figure out whether it would be possible to activate them at once and whether they could all work cumulatively.
I used the remaining two thousand tokens to acquire four pearls and headed for the exit. Time to get going.
When I crossed the threshold, I just about slammed into the orc. He was clearly groping around on the wall with his hands to try and figure out how to open the strange door.
“Well, what’s it like?” he greeted me with a question.
“Not too interesting,” I waved it off and headed to the armory exit.
“And what, don’t want the mana crystals anymore?” the orc tried to pressure me.
“Nope,” I responded, trying to make my voice sound casual.
“Perhaps a trade then?” the orc made his final attempt. “I give you crystals and you give me what you took from that room. I promise it will work out in your favor! What do you say?!”
Once at the exit, I turned around and looked the old swindler right in the eyes. Had he forgotten about the citadel’s strategic reserves so quickly?
As I stepped through the doorframe, I gave a smirk and shouted over my shoulder:
“No way!”
Outside, Pinebogey and Dobbess were waiting for me with smiles on their faces.
“I don’t know what that was,” the laughing goblin said. “But I liked it something fierce.”
“Ready?” Pinebogey asked me, adjusting the straps of his backpack.
I glanced at the goblin. There was an impressively large leather knapsack on his back as well.
“What about you?” I asked. “Are you ready? And I don’t mean have you packed enough changes of underwear. You do understand, after all, that as soon as you step through the portal with me, there will be no going back, right?”
From an outside perspective our conversation probably looked comical. A little kid, a zero, talking to a Primordial and goblin mage like they were a couple of brainless adolescents. And in their turn, they were not mad at the boy for his impudence. In fact, with grave looks on their faces, they were hanging on his every word with important nods.
“Ever since we saw the Heart of the Forest, our world changed,” Dobbess said unexpectedly and, proudly raising his head, continued: “If anyone asks what’s better – to take part in creating something truly great or to vegetate on the edge of the world for decades – I’ll always choose the path of creation! I can see you’re surprised, Highlander. Heh... You’ll have to bear with me! Dobbess, Shadow of the Swamp Fox Clan has more surprises in store for you!”
While we walked to the portal, we were followed by malicious looks, but they were in no rush to attack.
Surprisingly, the portal room was empty even though I was expecting someone to try and stop us until the very last second. When I finally stepped over the line, I was most worried that my allies would be brought somewhere different than me like last time. But the Labyrinth accepted us with no surprises.
In the middle of a huge cave, we traded glances. Dobbess sneered and showed us his wrist. The Chaos mark was missing. He made his decision. Pinebogey’s marker meanwhile was glowing with a pure emerald light. Not like last time. I took a fleeting glance at the woodsman and surprisingly realized that he had also changed a good deal over the last few days. He looked several years younger. He definitely had less gray hair.
He wanted to say something, even raised a hand, pointing down a tunnel but wasn’t fast enough. A sudden mishmash of wolf howls wailed up from the bowels of the Labyrinth.
