Warsinger James Baldwin (read this if TXT) 📖

the shit. Speaking of shit and shooting, though – you said we didn’t learn where the Warsinger was, right?”

“Nope.” I sighed. “I haven’t had a chance to properly grill Mehkhet yet, though. Jacob did tell us one thing that's important to the Great Warsinger Hunt of 2057, though. You're not just a descendent of Sachara. You basically ARE her, physically. Jacob and Nicolas kind of... meshed your personality and her body and cloned her.”

Suri blinked a couple times. “Huh. That'd explain why I can’t remember my parents. I mean… I figured I had ‘em. But I can’t remember their faces, their names… nothing like that.”

“You're taking this better than I expected.”

She shrugged. “Doesn't matter what they did or how they did it. I'm me, and they'll never be able to change that. Besides - if it's true, I’m guaranteed to be able to use the Warsinger.”

I offered her an arm. She smiled, and leaned into me. “I'm glad to hear that. Sad to say, there's a historical precedent of video game characters with big swords finding out that they’re clones, learning about their tortured pasts, and going crazy. Then they set fire to the hero's hometown and shamble around with the corpse of their dead mother giving people space cancer. It's a bad scene.”

“Sounds like it,” she said. “You know something, though?”

“What?”

“I’ve been thinking back, to the bad old days,” she said. “Reliving it. But something’s occurred to me… I think I might know where Sachara’s tomb is.”

“Really?”

“Really, though I only put two and two together after hearing what Mehkhet said about ‘the heart of the lion’. When I escaped Al-Asad, me and a few mates did it by levelling our strength up, then digging our way out through one of the cell walls,” she said. “First we broke out into some worm tunnels, and by following those, we ended up in these crazy ruins. There were a whole lot of buildings, and one that looked kind of like a big temple edifice. We didn't hardly stay there, because we weren't in the mood to fuck around... but I'll bet good money that's where we need to go.”

My heart sunk. “Oh jeez. Everything above and below Al-Asad is like… completely fucked.”

“Yeah, but I reckon those ruins are far enough away from the prison to have survived,” she said. “They aren’t directly underneath. I don’t remember how far, but I remember the walk taking forever.”

“The sandworms are probably still stirred up. And if the fortress collapsed in on them...”

She laughed. “Then we're a bit fucked, yeah.”

“I got a look at the Sandworm Queen before we teleported out of Al-Asad. That thing is Level 100.”

“Yeah. But if I could sneak out, we could sneak in.” She rolled her head to look at me. “Besides, if the Warsinger's in there and we stir up the Sandworms, maybe we can use it to fight ‘em. And if so… I guess we’ll be able to see if the thing lives up to all the hype, won't we?”

Chapter 45

Suri and I went to bed early, but got to sleep late. It was the first time we'd shared a proper bed in actual privacy since Taltos, so we took our time with each other. By the time we passed out, it was close to dawn. I left her sleeping in the huge four-poster in the Count's quarters, and went to slumber the day away in my bathroom sandpit.

There were a lot of little loose ends to tie up before we returned to Al-Asad to explore the ruins. The first thing we did was organized a vid-meeting with Rin. Suri and I both knew there was a lot of specialty equipment we couldn’t afford to be without on this expedition, most notably things like harnesses, pulleys, belaying rope for rappelling, zip-line cable and – in our dreams – hookshots. We forwarded her a thousand Olbia for materials and made a wishlist: climbing equipment, armor reinforcements, weapon repair, and gas masks. She agreed to all of it – on the provision that if we found any ancient ruins, we screenshot everything and loop her in on voice and/or video.

Taethawn had successfully finished liberating Vyeshniki, and needed to return to Karhad to rest a minimum of three weeks before the Orphans Company could be deployed on other quests. The players I'd contracted to find the missing noble children had returned mixed results. They’d found most of them, but had lost a battle against a Yanik slaver and his pet T-rex and three of the kids were now MIA. Thanks to Ur Gehlan, refugees were now being settled in the regions we needed help with the harvest. Every success had increased our Renown: both my Renown, as Voivode, and the Renown of the region as a whole. That bump in fame was attracting the attention of NPC heroes and one more group of players, a trio of Meewfolk who called themselves the Mews Brothers. Based on the name alone, I was willing to give them every quest they could handle.

There was some levelling to do, as well, and training. I had two Mark of Matir abilities to choose from and a couple of points to spend. Karalti was only 746 points away from reaching Level 15, and there was zero reason we couldn't immediately go out and earn that EXP. Karalti and I made an early afternoon hunting trip to the hills. Three hours and ten [Violent Ordogs] later, she had levelled up, we had chosen her new spells – Painfeeder and Shadow Wave – and she’d gained her next Path of Alacrity ability, Death From Above.

Painfeeder

While this spell is active, convert half of any damage taken into Stamina. Burns 1 MP per 5 seconds.

Shadow Wave

Rippling shadows disorient enemies and inflict moderate damage. Causes one or more of: Confusion, Blindness, Deafness, Rage, Nausea to living enemies.

Death From Above

Expend 100 MP to immediately teleport a short distance above or behind an enemy and deal a powerful non-elemental sonic energy attack that