The Lag (The Game Master: Book #1) (18 page)

"I know," Beast whispered. "They are Drow. Can you see the way they move? I think I know the tall one over there. He has to be Battlemaster, or so he calls himself."

"Have you known each other long?" Wayfarer asked. "What kind of person is he?"

"He was a legionnaire like myself. But he soon left. He said it wasn't his thing. He's just a Drow. He's all right. It's only his nickname... sort of posh, if you know what I mean."

"Do you know the others?" Attila asked.

"I don't think so. It's too dark to see. I only recognized Battlemaster because his left shoulder is higher than the right. Can you see? That's where a zombie dragon clawed him in a raid, giving him a Poison of a Dead Dragon debuff. And you need some powerful spells to remove it. You can buy them but they're terribly expensive. Or you can swap them with the Black Frontier's necro mages for karma points. Basically, it means he's been walking around crooked like that for the last three months."

'Let's get closer," Attila suggested. "Just be quiet. You never know what they might be doing over there."

They crouched behind the collapsed stone wall.

Beast nodded. "I see. Look: the slow fat one is Meatloaf. He's constantly eating something. The third one I don't know. But both Battlemaster and Meatloaf are all right. Just regular players. Should we go and talk to them? The place seems safe. They might help us, you never know."

"How?" Wayfarer asked.

"Dunno. They might go with us. It would be better than hiking all the way to River Castle, the three of us. The Drow are good sword fighters — and damagers, too. They might actually be heading there themselves! They must have received your message and-"

"Why would they stop here?" Wayfarer interrupted him.

Beast shrugged. "Why not? They just did."

"Because there're no portals in this area. And behind that hill lies an impassable aberration field. This place is a dead-end. You either have to walk all the way around it, or..."

"Why did you take us here, then?" Attila asked.

Wayfarer didn't reply. Instead, he said, "We need to get to that elevator over there."

"What, that thing on top of the hill?" Beast stood up. "What kind of elevator is that?"

"The place is a Dwarven mine," Wayfarer stepped into a gap in the collapsed wall. "I don't think the elevator still works but we don't need it to get underground. Below the hill lies a system of tunnels. We can use them to get to Deadville.

Attila and Beast followed him. Just as they were scrambling across the ruins, another Drow appeared from the hut with the chimney. He said something to Battlemaster who threw his hands in the air and began arguing with him. Finally, Battlemaster gestured the Drow to go back into the hut. All that time, Meatloaf had stood indifferently nearby. Battlemaster turned to the third Drow. "...can't do it on his own..." Attila overheard. "Go help..."

The third Drow disappeared inside the doorless hut, leaving Battlemaster alone with Meatloaf.

Both turned their heads to the sounds of footsteps.

"Battlemaster, it's okay!" Beast shouted. "It's only me!"

Battlemaster whipped out his sword. Meatloaf was looking at their late-night visitors without saying a word.

Battlemaster grinned as he recognized Beast. Lowering the sword, he nodded at Wayfarer and Attila. "Hi there! Who's that with you?"

Wayfarer stepped forward. "Have you been here long? How many of you are here?"

Battlemaster shook his head. "You're too quick, dude. I don't even know your name."

Attila could hear rustling and thumping noises coming from the hut with the chimney. He looked into the doorway. A bonfire cast its light on six bare-torsoed Drow who stood up to their waists in the ground, digging away. Sweat glistened on their gaunt dark faces. Their weapons lay next to a wall: narrow swords, a couple of bows and quiverfuls of arrows, crossbows and knives. Their clothes were piled up nearby: shirts, leather jackets and chainmails.

"So who are those two with you?" Battlemaster repeated his question.

"People call me Wayfarer."

"Wayfarer? No! You can't be! Beast, is it true?"

"Sure," Beast nodded importantly.

"Then it's you we've been waiting for!" Battlemaster exclaimed.

At that moment, Meatloaf came back to life. His stare focused on Attila and the other two, pinning them down. The voices inside the hut stopped. The place grew silent.

Battlemaster shifted his feet. "Don't you stop!" he shouted at the hut's door. "You hear me?"

"Whatcha diggin' for?" Beast asked. "Buried treasure?"

"No. We're making a tunnel. The mine's exit on the hill has been blocked with rocks. We want to get to the tunnels that lead to Deadville. You tell them," Battlemaster pointed at Meatloaf, "you brought us here when we received the message in the old chat. Did you see it? All of a sudden, it was working again. We received a message and then another one with more details in it and the directions to this mine. It marked this hut as the place to start digging. I didn't see the map very well, though. All of a sudden I had such a terrible headache."

Two messages? Attila frowned. Why? What map was the guy talking about? What directions? Wayfarer hadn't given them any directions and he definitely hadn't attached any maps. What did this mean? Had Alpha sent his own message following theirs just to bring the Drow here? Were they the only ones to have received the second message? If Alpha knew that the Drow were the closest ones to the old mine, he might have directed them here on purpose... why?

He didn't get the chance to say anything. Meatloaf raised his crossbow. The Dark Elves liked these powerful little weapons. Wayfarer ducked aside behind Battlemaster's back, reaching into his pocket for his Book. Attila took cover by the hut. Beast alone stood where he was, not realizing what was going on.

Battlemaster stared at Meatloaf. "Whatcha doin'?"

The crossbow clicked. The bolt hit Battlemaster in the shoulder. He collapsed, yelling with pain. Ducking, Beast lunged at the aggressor and rammed him in the face with his helmet. Bones crunched. Meatloaf's throat made a gurgling noise. He collapsed onto his back.

The six Drow ran out of the hut, silent and efficient, their eyes glittering, their spades ready to take a swing. Identical build, choreographed movements. Noiselessly they went for Wayfarer.

Attila was hiding next to the doorway. He tripped the last Drow; the one before him swung round like a robot and went for Attila. Attila promptly whipped out his sword, parrying his spade. Without thinking, he kicked the Drow, then swung his sword through the air, chopping his head off.

Only then did he realize: this wasn't an NPC, this was a player. He'd just killed a human being!

Or had he? Was it really a human being or one of Alpha's puppet henchmen like those two Forest Vagabonds next to the portal?

A fireball flared up, throwing reflections of light on the ground. Shadows flickered around.

"What's going on?" Battlemaster yelled. "Whatcha think you're doing?"

Wayfarer whipped out a small pouch from his bag. Ripping the string off its neck, he hurled it at the approaching Drow. Something flashed inside it. The air shuddered. A loud popping sound echoed amid the two huts. Their attackers were thrown back; their bodies dropped to the ground like bowling pins. Grazed by the blast, Beast collapsed to his knees, swearing.

"Follow me!" Wayfarer commanded, running up the hill.

Attila helped Beast back to his feet. Together they ran up the slope. Meatloaf staggered back to his feet like a robot and raised his crossbow, aiming at Wayfarer's back. With an indignant yell, Battlemaster buried his sword between Meatloaf's shoulder blades sending him back to the ground, face down this time.

"Come with us!" Beast shouted to him.

Casting wary glances at his ex-companions, Battlemaster followed them up the hill. "The entry's blocked with rocks!" he shouted. "We saw it, it's completely-"

"Watch out!" Wayfarer interrupted him. The top of the hill resonated with the already familiar popping sound.

Rocks rumbled. A few bigger ones volleyed out like cannonballs while smaller ones whizzed past them like shrapnel. Attila thought about his round shield that he'd left on the shelf by the tavern's entrance. It felt like ages ago. He ducked, covering his head.

When he finally made it to the hilltop, the strange machine listed to one side. One of its legs had been pulled out of the ground. A hole gaped below it. Attila could see a row of steel rungs going down.

Wayfarer climbed down first. Beast jumped after him. Attila followed.

A crossbow clanged behind, then another one. Battlemaster cried out as he ran. He stumbled, reaching out to Attila, and rammed him as he fell, throwing him down the mine.

Y
anna took her time over her noodle soup, chewing her way through each spoonful forty times as diet gurus suggest even though there was nothing in there worth chewing. As if to spite her, time refused to cooperate, slowing down ever further. She had about forty minutes left to kill. No amount of soup could last her that long.

When she finally finished her plate, Avtik generously ordered some pork chops for both of them, giving her another excuse to linger as they waited for their food. Finally, the barman brought the plates in. Avtik didn't eat much. He kept looking into Yanna's face with a seductive smile.

"Is it good, my lovely?"

"Yeah," she mumbled, struggling with the tough meat. She glanced at Baboon Face, then at the clock. Fifteen minutes till their arrival. Time to act.

She nodded to Avtik, lay her knife and fork onto the plate and pushed it away. She reached for the napkin and blotted her lips with it delicately like a proper lady should. Even though a proper lady wouldn't have lounged around railcar bars in the company of strange men and tough pork chops.

Avtik craned his neck and moved closer. She too drew near. "Can you see that man by the bar?" she whispered into the sharp cloud of his aftershave. "Don't look at him, just nod."

Avtik frowned and nodded carnivorously.

"He's been hitting on me," Yanna went on, ad-libbing as she spoke. "When you left for a smoke. He said you were one of those Caucasian migrants and that it's high time to cleanse Russia of all foreigners. He said he'd teach you how to pick up Russian girls. He's probably one of those Moscow skinheads. A damned neo-Nazi. I nearly walked into them back at the station."

The Caucasian tensed up, his nostrils flaring. Come on, she prayed silently, teach the bastard a lesson! Still, he didn't seem to be in a hurry. Had he turned chicken?

Avtik didn't disappoint. He set his heavy clenched fists onto the bar and slowly turned to Baboon Face. "Excuse me, buddy, do you mind looking at something else? You're ruining the young lady's appetite."

Baboon smirked. Yanna stared at his short fat fingers covered in prison tattoos.

"What's there to grin at?" Avtik rose. "Mind stepping outside for a talk?"

Baboon's face froze. Yanna watched both. Avtik was quite fit but Baboon could be an experienced streetfighter. An ex-convict, probably. Most likely, the fight would be short and its outcome was unlikely to be in the Georgian's favor. Then again, what did she know about real-life fights?

Moscow high-rise suburbs flashed behind the window, interspersed with patches of wasteland. Baboon drummed his tattooed fingers on the counter. Without saying a word, he climbed off his stool and headed toward the glass door. Avtik, high on liquid courage, gave Yanna a meaningful nod — as in,
don't worry, babe, your man will take care of everything
— and followed him like a fighting cock.

Not waiting to hear the noises from behind the door, Yanna slung her bag over her shoulder and slid off the stool. Ignoring the barman's cry of indignation, she picked up Avtik's phone and ran through the car to the opposite exit.

Two car attendants were lounging by the entrance to the next car.

"Please," Yanna managed, breathless, "call the police! There's a fight in the bar! They're gonna kill each other!"

One of them gasped. "Why? Who is it? Where?"

"In the bar! Come quickly! One is Georgian and the other is probably a skinhead, I saw a gun tucked under his jacket! What if he's a terrorist? Please!"

The other attendant proved quicker on the uptake. He reached for a large plastic cover on the wall, opened it and pressed a button.

"Police unit to car four," he said into a speaker. "ASAP."

Before they could come round and ask her more questions, Yanna ran. Behind the window, the patches of wasteland had already disappeared. The train was slowing down.

By the next car entrance she stopped and, numb with fright, reached for the emergency brake. She broke the seal and pulled the handle. The train shuddered, screeching to a halt. The doors hissed. Yanna waited for the train to stop, forced the doors apart and jumped out, landing on her hands and knees. It was a good job she was wearing a pair of jeans and not a skirt with tights.

It was drizzling. The tracks smelled of fuel oil. A tall concrete wall followed the railroad. Yanna jumped up and ran along the train, paying no attention to all the curious and worried faces behind the train windows.

She was in luck. After she ran past a couple of cars, she discovered a hole in the wall. She forced herself through, only to find more tracks behind it. How weird. Beyond them she could make out a low steel fence.

Yanna cast a look around to ensure there were no trains coming either way, then ran toward the fence. She climbed it and headed for a few blocks of flats rising nearby, casting wary glances behind her as she ran.

Was Baboon following her? The road seemed to be empty. He and Avtik were probably busy sorting it out in the bar... either that, or the arriving police was busy sorting
them
out.

Finally, the houses... a playground... a few benches... Yanna slowed down and rearranged the bag slung over her shoulder. Time to catch her breath.

She headed for a building entrance and took cover from the rain under the canopy. Reaching into her bag, she produced both phones and swapped the batteries, then opened Skype.

A large avenue bustled in front of her. Cars roared. Glistening its windows in the sun, the tower of RussoVirt reached for the sky, humbling the buildings around it.

"Phew, he's alive!" an orc's broad mug loomed out of the darkness, complete with knotted beard. "I was getting worried."

Attila raised himself on his elbows, looking first at Beast leaning over him, then at Wayfarer who stood with his back to them. Wayfarer lifted his staff, casting a weak scarlet light at a tunnel and a rail track disappearing within its depths.

A rail track? Why? Weren't they supposed to be in a fantasy world? Having said that... Attila scratched his head. Of course. The Steam Tunnels. The Dwarven clan of the Engineers Under the Mountain were the only people who tried to practice technology — or rather, some basic mechanics — in the Canyon. According to the story, the Engineers had set up their settlement under Deadville. Then after some time, something terrible had happened to them. Other players told all sorts of stories about the caves and tunnels. This was one of the Canyon's most mysterious and perilous locations, second only to the Citadel.

The air was dry and stale. He sat up and coughed a little. His throat rasped; he struggled to breathe. He rubbed his chest and cast another look around. "Where's Battlemaster? I thought he was with us?"

Although he spoke softly, a thousand echoes picked up his voice and carried it down the dark tunnels. Beast sighed, shaking his head. Attila frowned. He remembered the snapping of crossbows and the wide open eyes of Battlemaster collapsing on top of him...

"I got it," he said, climbing to his feet.

Wayfarer turned around and motioned for both to follow him, then hurried down one of the tunnels.

"Can you walk?" Beast asked. "No bones broken?"

Limping, Attila followed Wayfarer. "Why did they attack us?" he asked. "I understand that there's no love lost between the orcs and the Drow, but still..."

"It's not that!" Beast interrupted him hotly. "Besides, I knew Battlemaster and Meatloaf too. They used to be all right."

From a distance, they heard Wayfarer's voice, "Alpha took them over."

Attila tried to walk faster but a stabbing pain in his side stopped him. He slowed down, but the pain wouldn't go. "Does that mean they've become part of him?" he said through clenched teeth. "Like the clerics and the mobs? But they're human, not NPCs. Does that mean that Alpha can control players too?"

"I know!" Beast perked up. "When we all had a headache — it was probably Alpha trying to take over our minds," Beast knocked on his helmet top. "We probably had stronger brains than the rest. I don't think he can control everyone. It didn't work with Battlemaster, either."

Attila gave it some thought. "I think," he said, "that it's not us Alpha needs. He needs Wayfarer. That's why he planted those Drow in our way. I don't think anyone needs us that much. But he — hey, do you hear us, we're talking about you! I wonder why Alpha considers you a threat?"

They received no answer. Wayfarer's staff kept tapping on the rocks and rail sleepers, its crimson light sliding along the walls and the low ceiling. The tunnel was gloomy like the devil's rectum, Attila thought, smirking sadly at the simile.

A small railcart loomed up out of the dark. Wayfarer stopped.

"I love it!" Beast exclaimed. "Never seen anything like it in the Canyon before! And what's that behind it... it can't be a steam engine, surely!"

"If it is, it's cold and useless," Attila said. "How are we supposed to start it?"

Wayfarer crouched next to it and reached under the cart's bottom. Something clicked and began rattling, then stopped.

"The Engineers under the Mountain knew elemental magic," he said.

"That's right, I remember reading about it in the guidebook," Beast crouched next to him and looked under the cart, then opened a small door at the back. "Aha, you see? That's the boiler! I absolutely love all these steampunk gadgets. Basically, here's the furnace, but... ah, I know! You can rekindle the coals with a special spell. And this is an automatic feed... excellent, no shoveling the coal by hand. The coal is fed through this valved pipe into the furnace."

Wayfarer said something to him; Beast objected. Listening to them argue, Attila climbed onto the bench in the cart's front section, facing all sorts of pedals and gear sticks. His sheathed sword clanged as he sank on the bench and closed his eyes, gasping. He struggled to breath. Something seemed to be pressing against his chest, constricting his ribs. The sharp pain in his side didn't go. His heart began to hurt.

He sat there listening to the clanging sounds from behind him. The cart shook. It would be a good idea to start the Eye, he thought, and check its settings to make sure it didn't play up again like it had in the marshes. He could launch it to check out the tunnel in front of them. But no, he wasn't up to it at the moment. He was too weak. All he wanted to do was sit there in silence resting with his eyes closed.

A fireball flared up behind him, humming and crackling. Attila could smell something burning. He heard a long clanging sound, followed by Beast's excited voice.

The bench shuddered under him. Slowly the cart moved, shaking, going faster and faster. A large lamp hanging on a hook in front lit up on its own.

Attila looked back. Wayfarer climbed the cart and walked over to him, looking in front of them. Beast scrambled up in the back and rubbed his hands.

"There we go! Do you think this tunnel can take us right to Deadville?"

"Probably," Wayfarer answered. He sat next to Attila, stood his staff between his knees and reached for a long gear stick. He yanked on it. The cart rolled faster.

"And what if we..." Beast stopped. They heard a far-off clattering noise echoing in the depths of the tunnel, as if someone was bashing a hammer against a steel gate.

"What's that?" Beast demanded. "Are you sure no one's waiting for us there?"

No one replied. Not that he needed an answer. All three of them stared into the dark, tensing up. Attila's hand closed over his sword handle. The cart kept gaining speed, rattling them down the Steam Tunnels.