The Cursed Princedom (Realm of Arkon #2) Read online

  "You can kill me, you ape," I hissed at him like a snake, my left arm bearing a shield, the tip of my sword pointing right at the deity. "You can kill me all you want, but then you will never see your wife's diadem. And I'm no thiefling to you—call me 'master mage!'"

  An imperceptible motion knocked me right back down to the ground, my sword flying aside and my health bar plummeting to less than thirty percent. Fighting through unbearable pain, I struggled back to my feet and put the shield back in front of me.

  Attention! You have once more garnered the attention of a higher being. Ingvar the Warrior God is intrigued by you.

  "The cub's balls are dropping?" the god's voice dripped with irony as he sized me up with his deep blue eyes. "You look like a mage no more than Leede looks like a streetwalker," he chuckled. The dark elf female standing behind him—bearing a diagonal scar on her right cheek, and armed with twin sabers radiating a green mist—gave me a skeptical lookover, as if pondering her likeness to a common whore. Seemingly pleased with her assessment, she crinkled her nose in disgust and turned away. "But you don't much look like a thief, either. Now, what were you saying about a diadem?"

  Ingvar nodded at the human female. With a subtle motion of the wrist, the woman fully restored my HP. A warrior cleric? That's new. The heavy two-handed sword resting on her shoulder looked nothing like your typical priest staff. As the cool wave of healing washed over me, my rage abated along with the pain.

  "Your kinsman insisted that if I summoned you, you would help me get to the vault," I grumbled. Paying no mind to Ingvar's companions' curious glances, I picked up my sword and set about gathering all the scattered vials off the ground. "It was him who gave me the reagents for the summoning, and mentioned that you would want the diadem."

  Looking over my poor belt whose durability displayed a big fat zero, I sighed and stuffed it in my bag, along with the vials. Then I looked up at the deity.

  "You can see what's hidden behind the Nameless' seal? You can see the vault?"

  "There it is, hanging over the chasm," I gestured at the hovering box. "I don't know if I can enter it, but Leeque seemed to be certain of it."

  "Leeque?"

  "The one who gave me the reagents to summon you."

  "That's my brother all right—that old fox always gets others to do his dirty work," said the black-haired giant with a smirk. "But if he's certain of something, you can bet it's true."

  You've accessed the quest: Returning the Diadem.

  Quest type: unique.

  Bring Loaetia's Diadem to Ingvar the Warrior God.

  Reward: experience, unknown.

  "So you will take me to the edge of the cliff?" I asked after accepting the quest.

  "Aye," Ingvar nodded. "We know the way—this ain't our first rodeo. I never thought I'd be back here. Well, let's finish what we started," the mallet crackling with electricity reappeared in the warrior god's hands. "Stick with Ulissa," he shot over his shoulder and, nodding to his companions, started toward the ramshackle citadel.

  Somehow I had thought that gods in this world would look somewhat different. After all, they were the all-powerful beings in the game, and none should rival their might. And yet... when you see a higher being that looks exactly like an ordinary human, the stereotype cracks, if not shatters entirely. Most raid bosses in the game, though far less powerful than the warrior god, were many times his size, with some reaching truly inconceivable proportions. Then again, every god probably had some kind of special form of their own, transforming into some colossal monstrosity when needed.

  In the meantime, Ingvar's companions had spread out some, following their commander in a strategic semicircle, like on a hunt. Bringing up the rear was the fair-haired human woman with an athletic figure and penetrating blue eyes. Turning to me, she winked and made an inviting gesture.

  "Fear not, handsome. Stay behind me, and you won't get hurt," she said with a smile in a voice that was surprisingly pleasant for her build.

  Ulissa's short cloak swayed in the breeze, and I couldn't help but stare at her firm rear end that made her heavy chainmail skirt, reinforced with metal sheets, look like a pair of short summer shorts. The heavy two-handed sword seemed tailor-made for the woman's shoulder, and the way she moved—with the grace of a large predacious feline—I found myself unwittingly admiring the warrior maiden. Take that massive two-hander away and her image would seem incomplete. I pictured to myself the young woman standing before a mirror, choosing precisely the sword that would match the design of her armor, and chuckled. Most women picked out purses to match their shoes, but hey—to each their own.

  There was the sound of numerous dull chopping blows—the warriors had engaged in combat. Then again, calling the engagement "combat" was a real stretch, as the Reapings crumpled to the ground after two-three strikes, often without countering even once. The acoustics here were really odd—Ingvar and his group were cutting down the Reapings some fifty yards away, but the sound made the battle seem as if it were happening right in front of us. Perhaps it was the three-foot high layer of mist blanketing the ground? Ulissa was staying out of the fight, gazing around herself with a bored expression—she hadn't even bothered equipping her helm. So much wasted XP... I thought woefully, watching Ingvar's companions demolish level 380 Reapings. The loot was just an unavailable to me as the experience. When I nonetheless tried to touch one pile of bones in the warriors' wake, I was swiftly reprimanded by a pop-up system message—alas, the game was unimpressed with my clever attempt at scavenging.

  "Was it you who laid waste to the stronghold?" I asked my guide, motioning toward the ruins—we were no more than three hundred yards away at this point.

  "Aye," the woman nodded. "But the bastard still slipped through our fingers. Lately that tow-headed son of a whore has been making enemies left and right. All it took was twenty catapults and a two-week siege. Now, his main fortress would take some effort... If only we could find it," she concluded with a sigh. I walked in silence for a while, trying to imagine the catapults that had managed to wreak this kind of destruction.

  Meanwhile, the moon had vanished entirely behind the clouds, and it had gotten considerably cooler. Nobody tried to enter through the ruined gates—the warriors simply kept moving past the crumbled walls.

  "You're a lucky guy, you know that?" Ulissa broke the prolonged silence. "I was pretty shocked Ingvar didn't kill you. Can you guess who it was that stole his wife's crown and passed it to Vill?"

  I had already been suspecting as much, so the question didn't really surprise me. The gods had their own affairs, it ess usually best for mortals not to meddle in them. Alas, I was never given that choice.

  Chapter 2

  The far edge of the rift was hidden by the gray mist. The goal was right there before me, no more than three hundred yards away, but those yards would need to be traversed over a narrow path woven of some unknown substance, overlooking a chasm whose bottom was cloaked in impenetrable darkness. A warm air was rising from the bowels of the gargantuan crack that smelled of cinders and ash. With the moon fully obscured by the clouds, the blue glow illuminating the trail as it extended past the cliff at an upward slant appeared even more illusory.

  I had always been scared of heights. Back when I was twelve years old, I bet a friend that I could jump into a pool from a thirty-foot diving board. The wager was witnessed by a girl that I had a crazy crush on at the time, so losing was never an option. Courage is often the consequence of not wanting to look cowardly in others' eyes. Back then, twenty years ago, I learned one thing for sure—just take the first step. It doesn't matter if you're on a diving board or at the edge of a cliff—just take that first step toward your fear. I removed my helm, looked back at my companions who were watching me carefully, winked at Ulissa, and stepped onto the trail woven of the translucent blue mist...

  It took me no more than three minutes to reach the vault. The cubic space hovering in the air had neither doors nor windows. I reached out and touched t
he gray wall—the material felt odd to the touch, but somehow similar to plastic. Now, how the hell was I supposed to get inside? I removed my right gauntlet and scratched my head in confusion. There must be a way in! I tried knocking on the wall, but my hand ended up falling right through—exactly to the point where a steel bracer covered my forearm. That explained it! The armor belonged to this world, and I was but a puny bug. Therefore, all I had to do was undress and walk right in.

  I gazed at the dark abyss yawning underfoot and let out a heavy sigh. If anything went wrong, the fall would be long, and losing all my equipment would certainly sting. The hell with it—I had no other options anyway! If the trail held my weight, it would hold my stuff. I took off my bag and put it down carefully. Then I removed my armor and clothes, and put it all away in my inventory. I paused for a moment, then tossed my loincloth in as well. Shivering from the cold, I stepped inside the vault.

  And found myself in a room, its walls radiating a soft jade luminescence. The glowing trail underneath ran across the center—a single misstep would mean an express ticket to the Urcahnta graveyard. I'd spotted what I was after right away—Loaetia's diadem and the Star of Hittara rested on a shelf by the right wall, amid other things whose purpose I couldn't quite ascertain: a scrap of some animal's hide bearing a strange symbol that looked like a Chinese hieroglyph, inscribed with what looked suspiciously like blood; a ball of twine on a bone spool; a strange phosphorescent fluid the color of violet in a transparent flask; a piece of light metal engraved with tiny lettering; a broken knife with a wooden handle; and a yellowed skull of an unknown animal. I couldn't begin to fathom the purpose of all these things. I picked them up one by one, examining their attributes carefully, but none of them gave me any quests—hell, even the items' names were hidden from me. My intuition was screaming that the vault of the god of tortuous death couldn't possibly contain any random junk. The problem was that my bag had remained outside, and I could only carry one item in each hand in addition to wearing something aroun my neck—this world operated by the game's rules, and, alas, I couldn't just gather it all up in my arms.

  There was a perceptible rise in temperature. Damn, it was time to split! I grabbed the Star of Hittara, which was a large ruby on a silver chain—your typical quest item without any stats—and hung it around my neck. My right hand was awarded Loaetia's diadem, and my left a tiara set with a huge emerald and myriad small gems after briefly glancing at the item's stats.

  Loaetia's Diadem

  Head; leather.

  Durability: 15,785/20,000.

  Epic item from the goddess Loaetia's set.

  Minimum level: 600.

  Armor: 600.

  +500 to intellect,

  +300 to spirit,

  +400 to constitution,

  +50% to all healing spells,

  +5% to critical effect of healing spells.

  Weight: 2 lbs.

  Part of Loaetia the Blessed's armor set.

  Great! Yet another nuclear bomb in the hands of an ape. Level 600—that was incredible! What level was the goddess herself? I suddenly found myself struggling to breathe, as the walls' luminescence switched from green to yellow. Traffic lights, even here, the thought flashed through my mind. Without thinking twice, I snatched the piece of metal with the lettering with my free left hand and... fell into darkness.

  A full moon hung in the sky. Rickety shutters croaked in the wind as it swept scraps of paper and various materials across the cobblestones, carrying scents of rot and decay... I was sitting in the center of a small square space, leaning against the cracked pedestal of some statue of which only the feet remained.

  I'd come to about five minutes ago, wearing strange armor and wielding a dark blade. My character menu was inactive, so I could see neither my own stats nor that of my equipment. In my bag was a noob flask of water and four crackers; my belt was totally empty and without a single pocket. The zone was called "The Warped Loop," and its level range was 66-67. Well, at least it wasn't 370+...

  The city around me was dead. Dilapidated wooden houses gaping with hollowed windows, rusty streetlight poles hunched like old men, holes in the pavement with cobblestones scattered all over. The house across had a wagon parked next to it, the wood decaying seemingly in real time. The square branched out in four directions, the streets teeming with packs of undead: skeletons, zombies, ghouls, vampires and the like.

  And how do I fit in? I thought, rising to my feet. There was no point in continuing to sit there; besides, my back was starting to ache. I wasn't going to catch a cold or anything, but neither was I making it out of this jam alive. I knew all this divine questing business was a bad idea. Oh well, no use crying now—at least I have some equipment on me. Let's look around this place, I thought with a shrug, then started toward the wagon remains.

  When I made it to within five-six feet of the rotting frame, three huge rats popped out from under it, startling me. Inside the actual wagon lay a mostly devoured, decomposing corpse of a cow. How did the cow end up here? What possessed it to climb into the wagon? Why hadn't it turned into a skeleton yet? These were valid questions, but I really didn't feel like looking for the answers. Besides the cow there was a broad axe, a broken bottle and two rotten and hole-ridden sacks with some kind of dark mass inside.

  Frowning from the stench, I walked around the wagon, my shield held in front and my blade at the ready, then walked into the door frame of the nearest two-story house. It was in total ruin. The first floor was littered with overturned dressers and chairs, and shards of clay dishes; leaning against the wall, next to a fireplace filled with bricks, was a bent cast-iron poker. Upon ascending a creaking winding staircase and startling a dozen or so bats that had made a home there, I squashed some nasty millipede with the sole of my boot, and at that moment realized that there was nothing here that may be of interest to me.

  The ambiance resembled some B-rated horror flick, the kind they used to film in the last century. Such movies would often show some old cabin deep in the woods, its walls lined with heads of various animals, candlesticks filled with molten wax, and a pentagram drawn in blood across the floor. Oh, and a disfigured children's doll—that was another staple. And in nearly every case, a cellar filled with zombies or the walking dead thirsting for human blood... Or brains... Or some such nonsense.

  Disfigured doll—check. The ugly little thing of yellow clay in decaying fabric was found on the second floor, back leaning against the wall. I snorted derisively and shook my head, but decided against checking the cellar—the fiends walking the streets were quite enough for me, thank you very much. One thing that hurt was not having access to the menu—I was stuck with only those skills I'd put on the action bar, and unable to enchant my weapon to boot, which cut my damage output by almost fifteen percent.

  Further disconcerting was the fact that I had no idea where I was. Then there was this Nameless creature whose seal had apparently been used to seal the vault of the god of tortious dearth. What was it with these stupid seals, anyway? The seal of Bel, the seal of the Nameless... I doubted the Nameless was RP-17 himself, since that one had, you know, a name! More likely, it was one of the game's many unfinished projects. I couldn't begin to try and count them all! Some had been abandoned by the devs, others had been blocked by the governing AI itself. Could it be one of those game pockets? Or was it something else? Alas, I wasn't a programmer. But the absolute worst thing was that I couldn't shake the nasty feeling that if I died here, I wasn't going to respawn at any graveyard in Urcahnta. Or anywhere at all, for that matter...

  The search of three more identical houses on the same square turned out equally fruitless. Well, when you've got nothing to do, do something, I thought with a shrug. I stood still for a moment, trying to listen to my inner voice. Unfortunately, it was either silent or asleep. Oh well, when you don't know where to go, go north!

  The first pack comprised two skeletons, one of them a mage, and two ghouls that looked like a pair of orangutans. Truly, the ga
me's illustrators didn't want for imagination. I remembered the joke about a student who got an F in art class for drawing an alien because his teacher claimed aliens didn't look like that. Since no one had ever seen a ghoul in real life, you might as well take a large ape, draw it like a rotting corpse, add some fangs and claws, and voila—a perfectly fine ghoul. And for anyone too stupid to realize what they're looking at, there was the legend right above the mob's head.

  My combat tactic hadn't changed: I bound the two ghouls and a skeleton with the one-handed sword to the ground with Earth Shackles, and cast Silence on the mage. Dodging the bonehead's staff as he rushed me, I struck back with Ice Blade. I landed two more blows before the skeleton could follow up—one down. Then I retreated inside the nearest house to create a choke point for the enemy. The first to appear in the doorframe was one of the two orangutans. I opened up with Ice Blade, then blocked the mob's sharp-clawed paw. Holding my breath against the stench, I executed a combination of Tongue of Flame and Ice Blade. Another block and two more outgoing attacks. Wheezing out a cloudlet of poison, the walking corpse collapsed to the floor, forcing me back into the house to keep from breathing in the noxious fumes.

  What idiot drew these houses?! While the ceiling at the entrance was over six feet high, allowing for execution of chopping attacks, for some reason it was lower deeper in, restricting my arsenal to piercing attacks only. Thankfully, that had no impact on the damage dealt.

  Tripping over his fallen comrade, the second ghoul exposed its sore-ridden side, and I wasted no time plunging my blade into it. Freeze procced, and I proceeded to finish off the immobilized foe, ignoring the skeleton's attacks. When the second ghoul dropped, I slipped out of the house, creating a tactical gap. My HP had gone down by about a third—my shoulder ached, but the pain was bearable.

  I waited for the skeleton to run up to me, then settled into my usual rotation: Ice Blade, block, Tongue of Flame... Before long the skeleton crumbled down to the ground. Whoa, what the hell? Suddenly there were yellow digits in front of me: 29:58:14, 29:58:13... It was a countdown of some kind that seemed to have been activated by my first attack. What was it about? I looked at my quest log—no changes. Did I need to get somewhere before the time ran out? Was everything going to disappear in thirty hours, and I would end up in Arkon? I doubted it was the latter—that would be too simple. I pondered the matter as I checked the mobs' corpses, but none of them dropped any loot.