The Citadel (Mirror World Book #2) (23 page)

"But the detective seems to be more practical," Tronus nodded, laughing. "He only stores what he really needs. How entertaining! Heh! I'm actually a bit like him too! Now I understand what you mean."

"Which is why I try not to overload my brain with useless information either."

"I wish our priests could hear you," Tronus leaned back in his chair. "But I assure you, the Obelisk isn't some useless worldbuilding detail you can easily forget. If we continue your detective friend's analogy, I might agree with him on most accounts — most but not on all. Obelisks play an enormous role in our world."

"Did you say 'obelisks'? Are there other ones?"

"But of course! No one even knows how many of them there are. I only have reliable information on two but I've heard about two more. I think there must be lots of them around."

"How interesting."

"You could say that, my friend. You definitely could say that."

"And these obelisks, what do they do?"

Tronus took a sip of hot tea and began,

"If ancient legends are to be believed, our world was once inhabited by gods. Lots of them. Not the nicest of creatures, I have to admit. Constantly quarreling between themselves, plotting and allying against each other. Not that different from us mortals, if you ask me. These gods were divided into several ranks and classes. Each mortal race had its own patron god in the heavenly pantheon. And it happened one day that these quarrelsome creatures took it too far. They started a war. This is how Mirror World was split up into factions..."

"Of Light and Dark?" I helpfully suggested.

"Not only. There were many of them."

"Oh really?"

"Each god had his or her own followers, temples, statues, sacrificial altars and other religious props. And as you can well imagine, gods are highly selfish creatures with an overblown idea of their own importance, for which reason the number of factions mushroomed with an incredible speed."

"I think I know what happened next."

"Exactly. The divine war couldn't but affect us mortals, each of whom sided up with their own patron god, defending him or her. As a result, war was waged both in heaven and on earth."

"Did they really live in heaven?"

"Not exactly. The gods' world was connected to this one by an enormous portal. Our ancestors used to call it the Mirror of the First God."

"Aha. The Mirror! I thought I'd heard that word before."

"The richest of the countries started wars, throwing the strongest of armies into battles over whose god was better. For several centuries, the mortal world choked on its own blood. Then a new force entered the conflict."

"How interesting," I said.

"I wouldn't even call it new. They were still mortal — but different. Let's put it this way: they were my colleagues."

"I see. Wizards and mages."

"Exactly. Only their powers were ten times greater than mine. I'll tell you more: not every god could take on a mage like those."

I shivered. "I dread to think."

"Hah! So do I."

"And what about this new force?"

"Oh! You had to give them their due. They proved much wiser than gods themselves. In the name of peace keeping, they developed a cunning plan on how to stop the war. Their solution was simple and quite elegant. Assuming that the absence of gods would mechanically stop the war, they decided to destroy the Mirror of the First God."

"Sounds easy enough."

"Easier said than done. I'm not going to bore you with a detailed description of their undoubtedly heroic actions. Let's just say they brought their plans to a successful conclusion."

"And these obelisks, do they have something to do with the portal?"

"Exactly, my dear friend. You're very insightful. The obelisks are nothing other than the fragments of the First Mirror. By breaking the most powerful portal in the history of this world, the wizards were left with a vast number of mirror fragments of various sizes and, simply speaking, various magic hues. With that, the Era of Gods was over. The mirror fragments were dispatched to all the corners of the world, as far from each other as possible — because someone had come up with an appropriate prophesy, as was the habit in those bygone days. Which said that when mirror fragments reunite, the gods will return, furious with the mortals' treachery."

"I see. Funny story. Did you just say you knew of two other obelisks?"

Tronus nodded. "I do. Apart from the two known ones, I heard of two more: the Azure Obelisk and the Twilight one. The first is supposedly located at the bottom of the Scyllian Ocean. The other is somewhere in No-Man's Lands.

"How interesting," I murmured. "Wonder why they're called so? And what have they got to do with the Powers of Light and Dark?"

"Simple," the wizard replied. "In our world, magic comes in different hues. Our power shimmers with every color of the rainbow. Have you noticed that our races don't differ from those of the Darkies? You really can't tell the difference."

I nodded.

"The only difference between our two sides is the hue of our power. Of our magic, if you like. This is yet another curse: the more we fight, the fewer are the chances of the gods making a comeback. Actually, there're rumors that the ocean dwellers have managed to locate the Azure Obelisk. In which case we might soon hear of the arrival of a new political force on our map."

Oh wow. That was some food for thought.

"That's basically it," Tronus concluded. "And now I'm dying of curiosity to find out how your trip to No-Man's Lands worked out for you. Did you manage to get anything nice?"

"Well, it's a bit too early to-" I stopped mid-word as my gaze alighted on the charm around the wizard's neck. Wait a bit... But of course! This was...

"Olgerd? Are you all right?" Tronus' face betrayed concern.

"I am," I reassured him. "Don't worry. I just thought about our earlier conversation."

He chuckled. "I thought you might."

"Do you remember telling me about some complex No-Man's Lands quests you might have for me?"

His eyebrows rose in surprise.

I was pleased to see his reaction. "Let's see what you say when I tell you how many Crast stones I have in this bag of mine."

Chapter Twenty

I
took a day off today. I needed a break.

Apparently, Drammen was bubbling and boiling like the proverbial magic pot. From what I'd heard, it had been the first Darkies' raid in quite a while. Which provoked the arrival in Drammen of not only the expected loot hunters, but also of lots of regular tourists as well.

I had to stop flying for a few days and use portals instead. My mine had become a major tourist attraction. If it didn't stop soon, I'd have to find some other farming location.

Liz sent me a few pictures and videos of the town street with a caption saying,

They did a nice job of our damp little town! Finally our backwater has its fifteen minutes of fame!

Depends on what she meant by it, of course. Burned houses, collapsed brickwork; stone fences that had melted away like candles. Once again I commended myself on not having gone there last night. I could understand Liz' excitement. She must have received plenty of Valor and this, for her, was the only thing that mattered. For adventure seekers like herself, moments like these were in the same league as major raids to smoke a location boss. If anything, they were more important.

Uncle Vanya sent me a line too,

Hi dude,

How do you manage to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time? This is crazy. He never leaves his mine and still he's always in the thick of it! Me and my guys had a chat and we're going to give you your cut of yesterday's spoils.

Oh, and one other thing. You didn't notice anything strange in their camp, did you? By the time we got there, the Darkies had their hands full with other things. I'll tell you later.

Go get yourself some sleep.

See ya!

Uh oh. I could sense their questions coming from miles away. They even offered me a cut, just to stay on my good side! I had to urgently come up with a convincing cover story. Last night I'd already spun Uncle Vanya a tale about my supposedly lucky escape from the camp and the subsequent hike across the Wastelands to the Citadel with the help of some high-level dudes. It looked like my story had failed to satisfy him.

"Never mind," I said out loud. "We'll think of something."

Hearing my voice, Prankster turned his head from his nest on the wardrobe's upper shelf. Now that Tronus knew about my little menagerie, I could safely let the Grison out into the tower corridors for a bit of a trot. He cost me next to nothing Energy-wise, so let him have his fun.

Talking about Tronus. Last night I'd thought he'd have a heart attack when I'd told him about Crast stones. They turned out to be a very important resource for him. Then again, which of Mirror World's resources wasn't important? Everywhere you turned, you could find something valuable here.

Oh, yes. The wizard had been ecstatic to see the stones. Why would I complain? Not many can boast results like mine in this respect. Unfortunately, what Tronus had offered me for them hadn't lived up to my expectations. To say the least. My account just wasn't up to it.

It felt like I was having my wings clipped. I could still fly after a fashion but it wasn't the same thing, of course.

If the truth were known, I'd counted on the Crast stones to get a bit more Rep. But what Tronus had offered me was completely different. Better in a way but unavailable to Grinder accounts.

Firstly, when I'd handed the twenty Crast stones over to him, I'd received a new system message closing yet another hidden quest. This was turning into a habit.

Secondly, this latter development had improved my and Tronus' relationship to Brotherly. Or something like that. I didn't quite remember how the message had been worded.

And thirdly and mainly... I'd received access to the tower's
sancta sanctorum
: Tronus' lab. You couldn't even imagine the amount of stuff he had there — portal scrolls, elixirs and runes, tons of useful goodies. Crast stones served as some kind of exchange currency, allowing Tronus to swap his inventions for rare No-Man's Lands resources. Which was the catch.

Grinders had no right to own them. Our type of account had some sort of "do-not-touch" policy on rare resources. Like some freakin' museum. In my case, this was a disaster. The thousand-plus Crast stones that I had in my bag would have allowed me to stuff my inventory stupid with all sorts of goodies. Actually, Tronus seemed even more upset than I was.

I slumped onto my bed. Prankster turned his curious little head to me.

"Wait up, Speedo. I'm not going anywhere. Let's do some Engineering. Time to level it up a bit."

So, what did we have here? I opened the Engineering Designer tab. Assembling the Replicator had brought my skill level to 200. Plus the two blueprints I'd studied, each more useless than the other. And the completed Replicator, whatever that was. Now I could start on the Unworked Charm of Arakh. Let's have a look.

I activated the blueprint.

In order to build an Unworked Charm of Arakh, you will need:

A fragment of Blue Ice

Warning! Building an Unworked Charm of Arakh will deprive you of 100 pt. pure Energy!

Would you like to build it?

Accept/Decline

Well, compared to assembling the Replicator parts this was a good deal. I pressed
Accept

Congratulations! You've just built an Unworked Charm of Arakh!

You've received +1 to your skill.

Current skill: 201.

The maximum skill limit for your current profession level: 400.

All right. What did we have here?

I took the item in my hands. It vaguely resembled a rune made of a murky fragment of blue glass. Or ice, rather. I could see some scribbles at its center. What was I supposed to do with it? It had no prompts, no activation messages — nothing.

And if I studied another recipe, would that help me solve this mystery, maybe? But I might not get such an opportunity until I leveled up some more. Four hundred points sounded like an awful lot. And I only had 69 fragments of Blue Ice left. I might need another trip or two to No-Man's Lands.

In any case, I could forget new adventures for the time being. For the moment, my priorities lay elsewhere. The bank. I had to make sure I came prepared. I needed to do some math. Tomorrow morning I'd have to go to Mellenville.

As I was finishing the seventh Unworked Charm, my mailbox pinged. Uncle Vanya just couldn't give it a rest, could he?

I opened the letter. No. Not Uncle Vanya. Weigner. What might he want with me?

Hi there, O brave defender of the Realm! Are you guarding our frontiers well? Good for you! Why I'm writing, do you remember the bigwig guy who wanted to talk to you? The one you failed to meet?

Did I ever! That was Lady Mel's representative who'd wished to see me earlier. Later, Weigner had written me an apologetic letter saying the guy was terribly sorry but something had come up and he couldn't make it. He said the moment he got business out of the way, he'd contact me. At the time, I'd been even happy it had gone the way it had: I was too busy throwing my solo raid together. So now I had every reason to believe this "bigwig" was going to schedule another meeting. Very well, let's take a look.

So basically, this guy is over there now, in the Citadel. He's apparently dying to meet our valorous warrior. Between the two of us, his desire to meet you has only increased. He was very insistent I contacted you.

I'd really appreciate it if you could write back at your first convenience.

Weigner

Surprise surprise! Let's write back, then.

I jotted a brief note saying I could meet him straight away. Weigner replied at once.

Ten minutes later, I strode down the Citadel streets to meet Lady Mel's impatient representative.

* * *

"So how do you find Mirror World?"

Tanor — which was the bigwig's name — sipped the fragrant coffee from a tiny bone china cup. He didn't look as if he enjoyed it. From his greeting I'd understood that he was my immediate boss who supervised all the mines in the area. Or rather, those of them which were Lady Mel's property.

I shrugged. "Takes some getting used to," I studied him out of the corner of my eye. Because, let me tell you, taking stock of a character and their appearance can tell you a lot about the player himself lying motionlessly in a capsule.

Take me, for instance. I often asked myself: why Ennan? What had prompted me to have chosen this character and this type of appearance? Because of his characteristics? Please. At the time, I'd known very little about the game. You see, my Ennan was a generalized idea of a gray, mousy little person, quiet and inconspicuous. Few notice him, leaving him alone with his thoughts. To tell you more, I was even happy in my solitude. That's what I'm actually like, to a point. Gray. Silent. Reserved. The only ray of light that made it worth my while were my two girls: Sveta and Christina, my wife and my little daughter. Without them, my life would indeed have been sad and dark.

Likewise, I could tell a lot by looking at the man in front of me. The first thing that caught your eye was his neat appearance. Buttoned-up even. It showed in everything: his meticulously clean clothes; his well-calculated movements; the unsmiling, non-committal absence of any unnecessary facial gestures; calm speech that gave you the impression that he'd rehearsed his every line in advance.

It wasn't for nothing he'd chosen the Alven race for his character. It suited his intentions like none other: sophisticated and highly adaptable, unlike the cumbersome awkwardness of a dwarf or a Horrud that would have failed to communicate his human traits.

His account was another surprise. He was a Grinder like myself. His Profession and other stats were hidden. He must have been using some rare and costly settings. But I still could glean quite a bit from his clothes. He was dressed like a lawyer. Well, everyone couldn't be diggers and herbal doctors.

"If you don't mind me asking... what are your plans for the game?" he asked matter-of-factly. The guy seemed so cordial and laidback. Still, every word he uttered seemed to add to my doubts of his real intentions.

"I'm here to stay," I replied curtly.

That's how you should speak to these guys. No word mincing. No trying too hard. Not giving them a leg to stand on. The longer he was sitting there next to me, the stronger was my desire to show him the door.

"Excellent!" he exclaimed.

"You think so?"

"But of course! Workers like yourself are very important for us."

"Eh... I did say I was here to stay, but I didn't mean I was planning to stick to one particular employer."

"Ah! Of course," he waved my response away. "This world may be virtual but it still has to comply with the principles of democratic society. Am I right?"

"This is exactly my point."

"I see. You want to put the record straight right from the start."

"Exactly. No promises means no responsibilities. Apart from the contractual ones, of course."

He nodded. "Only the facts."

"Yes. Including all the possible legal ways of canceling the contract."

"Well, I hope it won't come to that."

The more he smiled, the less I liked the whole situation. This may have looked like an ordinary conversation. Still, I had a hunch that something wasn't right.

"How do you like your working conditions?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Same as everywhere. Farming stones, then scrambling out to declare them. That's it."

"This I understand. But there're other places one might go to in order to farm resources. Should I say, more-" he looked over the tavern, "more
comfortable
ones."

I shrugged. "Makes no difference to me. A mine is a mine."

"This I doubt," he said. "I can't see your gear's stats at the moment but I'm pretty sure that you have humidity protection installed on all your items."

Cold protection too, Mister Smart Ass.

"My job has made me a good judge of character," he continued. "Now my gut feeling tells me that your gear's protection is above average. Am I right?"

I shrugged again. "You won't find many people who don't have it. It would be penny wise and pound foolish. Skimping on these little things might cost you."

"That's right, of course, but... we come back to where we started. Wouldn't it be easier to work in a mine situated somewhere with neutral weather conditions?"

I nodded. "Sure."

"Then why?" he squinted at me. "Why would a professional of your caliber make his own life difficult? Do you really need all these unnecessary risks, facing Dark raids and such? Spending your hard-earned money on elemental protection? You can't even imagine the number of people who've been playing for over a year and are yet to leave their locations!"