The Dragon's Wrath: Shadows in the Flame (6 page)

“LOCATION!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

Waiting a few seconds for the sound to travel as the blizzard had ceased, it wasn’t long before a faint call was heard in return. Repeating my call, each group returned a reply that became progressively louder. After five calls, they were here.

“Sir Sig- …wh-what is THAT?!” said a bewildered Astrid as she gasped and nearly stumbled onto it. Landing next to the creature, she placed a hand on it as she helped herself up. Then a second later the realization set in.

“OH MY GODS ITS STILL BREATHING!” she screamed hysterically.

All of my troops jumped back and formed a loose perimeter around the creature with their arms and hands held at waist-height in case they needed to quickly act. Scared, confused of what was before them, they hesitated. I didn’t blame their caution.

They were allowed to be wary.

Though the question remained, were they more scared of the creature… or of me?

“Form up in a firing line,” I declared calmly and with a deadpan delivery as I stared at the troll beneath me. “When I give the signal, I want you all to hit this creature with your strongest spell. If you don’t have a spell, then you use that bow on your back.”

Letting them all get into position first, I then leaned over and punched the troll in its face as it reacted to the hit and began to twitch. Nose wiggling first, then a crack of the jaw and a wince from an eye. Taking a step back and out of the firing path, I watched as the troll slowly woke up and started to get back to its feet.

Nervous faces surrounded me as they waited with bows drawn and spells held at the ready. I was waiting for it to face them though. I was waiting for it to witness its own demise, to react and roar and intimidate the NPCs that stood before it.

And then it roared.

“Fire.”

Sounds of electricity cracking the air, thunder splitting the sky… of quick projectiles whizzing past as lightning illuminated and reflected off arrowheads, all the while dark spheres of blackish-purple dotted the scene. An onslaught of varying degrees, deadly and brutal yet quick and efficient.

A one-second barrage.

And then it fell.

Haggard faces, heavy breathing and cold sweats accompanied the tense atmosphere as many an NPC stood by. Cautious yet patient, waiting for me to answer their questions. They didn’t speak but their eyes conveyed the message they so dearly wanted to ask.

What, why, and… how?

“All of you have now killed the strongest creature around these parts,” I started to explain casually. “The scariest local monster known to the North. A legend, a myth, a story to scare the children. Now, you’ve slain it, slaughtered it even, with your own hands.

“Let this be a lesson to you, nothing, and I mean nothing, can hamper or hold you back except for yourself. If you wish to progress, if you wish to succeed, then the burden is on you. When you first came to me, you could hardly feed yourselves.

“And now? Together, as a cohesive unit that works together, now, you can decimate a beast as strong as this one here in a single flash. One single flash. Alone you are weak but together, together you can achieve anything.”

Turning to look at the corpse of the troll, I felt a slight amount of pity for it as it met such a cruel end… but in the end, it was nothing more than a tool for my purposes. That was the design of the game, any game really. Creatures and monsters were nothing more than tools and objects to be used by players to progress towards that finality.

The finality of course, being whatever end the game had in store for us. For now, that end was nowhere in sight. The likelihood that I saw the mid-hundreds in levels before the end was high… and that might only be the end of my story. One could easily hit levels in the thousands. The only thing that mattered was time.

And as of now, time was on my side.

“Class dismissed,” I said quietly as I turned and started to walk away.

Chapter 79: The Cave

(Friday, November 26th Game Day /
Wednesday, April 21th Real Day)

I had left the NPCs to do as they pleased, to hunt as they saw fit or to return to base if they had grown weary of the trip. What they decided to do was no longer of any concern to me. The only thing that mattered to me, was that they be ready for the next raid.

They were adequately trained and could handle themselves so long as they stayed together. Cohesion was stressed from the very beginning, drilled into them daily for months in-game to the point that I wasn’t sure if they could function by themselves anymore. In a way that might be a bad thing but I didn’t want any heroes or individuals.

That type of suicidal behavior was better left to the undying me.

After killing the [Frost Troll] we continued to clear the forest while heading on an easterly course all the way until we arrived at the Rattanorv cave. Once we arrived, I let them loose inside it. The collective of rats weren’t much of a threat to a trained group of NPCs and the results showed.

The cave was cleared in record time.

I wanted to call my troops an army but they dabbled with the ocean-going vessels and performed beach landings too. They weren’t explicitly navy-types, so in a sense I guess they were more marine units. None of those terms really fit the image I had in my mind though. I could call them Vikings, I suppose.

That worked for me.

Alone in the cave, I had all the time in the world to explore every nook and cranny. The first time I was here my arrogance and the situation took hold and didn’t let go until it was too late. Then the second trip happened while I was emotionally compromised, too mentally disturbed to think clearly.

Sure, I was still a little angry.

I was probably always a little angry but at the very least, my emotions concerning Selene seemed to be in order. The loss of an artificial game character turned out to be a much more harrowing experience than I expected but in the end one moves on. She did exist, even if artificially. Maybe this was the acceptance stage after all. Hah.

This cave had some memories though.

One of the last memories.

The large open room when following the left path hadn’t changed any which was expected. The place still smelled but the open cracks in the ceiling that had been letting light in previously were now packed with snow, obscuring the amount of light that could shine through at any given moment.

Snow had also fallen to the cave floor with most of it having already melted into shallow pools. Wet and slippery rock floors… a natural slip and slide if one didn’t mind the butchered corpses of oversized rats spread randomly throughout.

Obstacles to dodge for points, perhaps.

Laughing lightly to myself, I turned back with the intent to head down the right path that I had always neglected. I did take a quick run through it the second time but I didn’t put any real thought or effort into exploring what was there. I knew it ended somewhat randomly. That was about it.

There probably wasn’t anything to that side of the cave, but despite that I wanted to check and make sure. This cave could be completely random and of little to no importance in the scheme of things. That was probably the most likely scenario. Nevertheless it could be something special. In this game it paid to be attentive to one’s surroundings.

Plus there was a clue, if I could call it one.

Why would there be a fork in a natural cave system that led to two distinctly opposite environments? One side led to nothingness while the other led to everything. Light, open space, and an abundance of life. Yet the other provided nothing but darkness and emptiness, void of life with only the faint trace of urine that most likely wafted in from the other side. It probably wasn’t anything… but my curiosity and intuition said otherwise.

I needed to check this cave thoroughly.

Standing at the fork and staring down the abyss of both paths, I knew that the left side’s darkness eventually disappeared. The right side though, that tunnel was pitch black and stayed black. The cold damp breeze that had been hitting me from the left as it continued on towards the entrance of the cave was a comforting thing as well.

That too, didn’t exist on the right.

“Well, it’s about time,” I muttered as I moved forward.

Leaving the gray rocks behind, I took my time as I stepped through and into the darkness. Entering a world absent of light, I was forced to feel my way as I honed my other senses to lead. Utilizing my ears, nose, and hands as best as I could, I continued on.

The whistling of the left path’s draft could no longer be heard as a still silent air replaced it. Now the only thing I could hear was my own shallow breathing. The further I walked the more I could feel the difference in humidity. It wasn’t necessarily a rainy day nor was there a lot of moisture about but here inside the cave it was incredibly damp. Condensation had accumulated on the ceiling as droplets of water served to spook me every so often yet in the end it only made me more curious.

There was no light here so there weren’t any large cracks or openings in the ceiling, at least that I could visibly see. Though a small crack could serve to bring water from the melted snow above. Continuing down the path the humidity steadily increased to a point far above the left side of the cave as I was left wondering why.

I could produce a flame to illuminate the way, however that would take away from my other senses and the dim light wouldn’t serve me all that well. My sense of touch and my hearing were what I wanted to tune into.

There was something here, it was in the atmosphere.

I could feel it in the air.

A few more minutes passed by as some sort of muffled noise in the distance became slightly audible. An underground stream perhaps, a tunnel beneath my feet maybe, somewhere between the rocks. Whichever it was, there was a body of water nearby.

A body of water… I was getting excited.

My heart had started to beat slightly faster as my mind began to imagine what was to come. Delusions of grandeur most likely, what with my way of thinking that everything was happening around me. Even so, I was thrilled at the prospects.

This was adventuring at its finest.

Anticipation spiking with my imagination running wild, I tried to keep my pace as my heartbeat had impacted my hearing. Taking a breath on a three-count and holding for three seconds then exhaling at the same pace, I repeated the process a few times until my heart rate had slowed to a manageable level.

Ready to continue, I resumed my slow trek down the black path where not even my hand was visible an inch away from my face. Twenty steps down and the noise of running water was partially audible. Another thirty steps and the reality that this had been missed the first time around baffled me.

To be so distraught that I couldn’t even recognize the sounds of running water within a cave. Hindsight told me everything, despite what my previous mental state thought it was capable of, there was clearly some lapses and miscues along the way.

“Test,” I said softly to see if there was an echo.

Lacking a distinct echo, I continued to walk until I hit the very end of the tunnel with my face. Reeling back from the impact of my nose on solid rock, my eyes watered but my vision wasn’t useful anyways.

“God damn,” I cursed under my breath.

Flicking my fingers, I brought a flame to the tip of my index finger as I waved it slowly around in a circle. Rubbing my nose with my other hand, I squinted in the dim lighting hoping to see something unusual. Scanning the five or so feet that I could see, there was nothing.

Nothing at all at the end of tunnel. False hopes and dreams. Listening intently, the sound of water was still audible despite not being able to actually see any water within arm’s reach.

“There must be a crack somewhere,” I said out loud to myself while scanning every edge and ridge along the walls. “It wouldn’t be so loud if it was covered in solid rock.”

I was convinced that was the case.

Backtracking with the flame still lit, I made my way towards the entrance one step at a time, ensuring that I exposed what little light that was available on every corner of the wide tunnel. Caves had levels and this was the lowest point, probably equal or at least around ground level with the outside world. Though that was only a guess.

Taking into consideration that caves were almost explicitly created by running water of some form, it made sense that the large hole on the left side had water pouring through it at one point and that water carved its way down and out through the main entrance along with this secondary tunnel here.

If my theory held true, then there was a second exit… of course this was only a game, and the likelihood that everything was accurate was slim. Eventually there would be cases of designer ingenuity taking precedent.

But I wanted to believe.

The small creek that we had originally followed to get here ended at the base of the mountain, continuing on beneath the rock walls beyond where our eyes could see. That creek ran roughly in the direction of this cave.

A subterranean creek or stream or river… or something.

It was here.

Flicking my other hand’s fingers, I created a second small flame and extended both hands towards the walls. Examining the walls while walking, I eventually came across a slight recess in the rock that wasn’t readily noticeable the first time by.

Angled in such a way that the open space was hidden by the overlapping thin edge of brittle rock, hidden both by the darkness and design… this was my doorway.

This was it.

Sticking my hand into the crack, I reached until my entire shoulder was inside with no end in reach. Turning my outstretched hand with flame still burning, I could see that the crack was rather large once you got past the extremely narrow entrance.

The narrowest part of the crack was hardly four inches across and that was right at the start. The sounds of running water were also the loudest here, slightly more so than anywhere else I had been to on this side of the cave. One plus one was two, right?

“Hah found you, you little bastard.”

Pulling my arm out of the crack, I gathered lightning in my palm and shot a bolt through the crack to see how far it would travel. Illuminating the darkness for a split second, the lightning bolt flew straight out and disappeared into what appeared to be an open room. Curiosity getting the better of me, I immediately reached for my hand-axe as I looked to chip away the edges of the rock wall and expand an opening large enough for me to fit. The four inch gap gave way to about eighteen inches after only a foot, meaning I wouldn’t have to break off much.

Then a second thought occurred to me right before I swung down. Stopping mid-swing, I brought my arms up again and began to cast another lightning bolt. A thunderous bang followed by an incredibly bright tail of electricity as my path was instantaneously illuminated for a blink of an eye.

“Flash Step,” I mumbled.

At the very tail end of the lightning bolt, right before the light had almost disappeared entirely, I zeroed in on a barely visible spot in the empty room and surged forth. Body dematerializing into pure electrical current as I traveled through the crack and out the other side in a literal flash only to rematerialize in an instant as I casually stood up.

The dissipating electricity lingered on my reformed body for a second, softly illuminating the darkened room enough for me to quickly glance around. Success.

Bringing another flame to life, I waved my hand around the room as I inspected the contents of the cold gray interior. Hoping to see something spectacular, I wasn’t entirely disappointed as a small pool of running water was visible on the far right.

Running towards the left, towards the entrance of the cave, it disappeared under the rock in what appeared to be a relatively large channel. It was a subterranean river after all… albeit a small one.

Glancing at the supposed source, the water was coming from above and to the right out of a few smaller holes, gathering together in this miniature pool and then continuing on through the rock tunnel or channel all the way out, presumably, to the outside world.

Emerging out and into the daylight… hah.

Having never been in a subterranean cave system, this was my first experience. Though the room was small, maybe thirty feet across in a rough circular shape with the pool of water taking up about a third of the room, it was still incredibly neat.

Another experience I probably never would have had in real life.

I was a regular explorer of the North, discovering caves and cave systems. In fact, I was kind of wondering if a title would be granted to me. Though after a minute with nothing having registered on my screen, it was probably safe to say that a title was not forthcoming. Oh well, it wasn’t a big deal anyways.

Standing at the water’s edge, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a strange feeling to the body of liquid that slightly reminded me of the time when I discovered the anvil.

That same anvil that was hit by lightning.

I could feel a certain power emanating from the water… a strange feeling that I would have ignored had I not felt it before. Coincidence didn’t exist in my lexicon. Pacing around the room, I carefully examined the pool as best as I could and failed to find anything of significance. The sources were far too small and despite sticking my hand into each hole, there was nothing there to grab except for the ice-cold water.