The Crisis of Power (Alpha LitRPG Book 9), page 21
“Ahem, Chuck…” Beko said. “As much as I hate and despise this unscrupulous rascal…”
“Yeah, yeah, Beko, I know,” I nodded, thinking of something else. “Just shut up for a moment, will you?”
“So what is that mysterious thing?” Paxus asked, pointing at the long, bony object that still remained on the floor. “It looks strangely obscene.”
“Oh, it’s nothing special,” Scown Drell winced, finally crouching to spirit the thing away and out of sight. “It belongs to a… ahem… friend. I’ll make sure he gets it back, don’t worry.” He quickly got up and beamed at the rest of us. “Isn’t it marvelous that we now have one problem less? All the missing property has been recovered and accounted for. And it wasn’t even the southern spies as we feared. Surely, we can deal with one misbehaving little goblin, huh? Qash'Shak, you need to do a better job of controlling your little friend here.”
Admiral Yassen, who had theretofore been dozing peacefully in his plush chair, stirred.
“It’s the goblin, I knew it!” he mumbled without opening his eyes.
And then he was quiet again.
Chapter 15
In Pursuit of Artistic Advancement
The Regus Staff. A family heirloom. A magical artifact weapon. Crafted using late-period artifact technologies and an ancient range strac. Primary materials and components include gold, a large red spinel crystal, a range strac of unknown origin, small zircon, garnet, and diamond crystals.
Two functions: focusing and amplifying.
Focusing
In its current configuration, the staff increases the active range of most applicable skills by a hundred and sixty feet. Not compatible with every skill. Requires no energy recharge, although prolonged use may cause the staff to overheat.
Amplifying
Once every sixteen hours, the artifact can increase the power of an elemental magic attack skill. Requires prior charging with the mage’s own energy.
Item durability: 81/85
Current mage energy reservoir: 54/54
Durability can be restored using primordial essences of the medium grade or higher. Failing to restore durability on time may reduce the reservoir capacity, which will detract from the amplifying function’s efficiency.
Needs to be held in hand for use. May conflict with items that have similar functions.
Very few magical trinkets or weapons in Rock came with “user instructions” like that. In fact, I’d never seen more than a handful of items where ORDER would provide more than a couple of brief lines of description. The all-time word count champion was the Destroyer accompanied by a positively sprawling text. Reaper came second and had far fewer words, albeit still many more than most other such things. The Regus Staff ranked a proud third. And it was the only one of the three that was reasonably modern—meaning it wasn’t entirely a product of ancient rune-based technology.
Why “entirely”? Because on close inspection I spotted a strange little detail embedded in the staff’s shaft.
Range strac. Part of a strac set. Removed from a harmonized set of stracs and a carrier matrix. Used in an artifact construct. Due to the artificer’s crude work and removal from the carrier matrix, most of the original capacity had been lost.
That particular piece was without a doubt a product of some ancient runic technology. I may not be much of an expert on such things, but Necros Scrutiny clearly showed me distinctive chains of intricate symbols that I knew were runes. But what was a strac, anyway? Other than that it seemed to be a part of something larger, I had no idea. I’d never come across any mentions of those in any book. However, it seemed that the Regus family’s artificer had somehow managed to get hold of this ancient component and jam it into the staff in a fairly crude manner. The result was a mix of forgotten ancient technology and cutting-edge craftsmanship of the time that apparently killed most of the piece’s original functionality. Now, was there a way to unlock or restore more of it?
For a moment, I thought of my own rudimentary artificing skills that I had to drop altogether ages ago to improve my ailing Balance. Now I’d be like a blind man figuring out the workings of a mechanical watch if I decided to try and fix the job someone botched to bring the staff to its true potential. But at least I could still use the piece in its current condition, couldn’t I?
A whopping one hundred and sixty feet of extra range? I absolutely had to test the thing to see if it worked with my newly acquired lightning skills. If it did, my combat potential would jump way up without burning through my rarer loot or aggravating my precarious Balance even further.
Testing such destructive abilities within city walls would hardly be prudent. I could sneak out at night and stage a nice little fireworks show, all the more so since I was also curious about the staff’s skill amplification capacity in addition to range extension. However the noise from such test firing would carry for miles and leave everyone wondering. It was probably not worth it, I decided. Judging by the device’s stated energy cost, the skill boost was not going to be huge, and the city had been on edge as it is. I could wait until a more appropriate occasion presented itself.
On that note, I left the mission’s library that served me as an office and headed back to my room. Hero of the Night let me go a long way without sleep, but tomorrow was going to be a long and hard day. I’d do well to catch a few hours of shuteye before that. However, before I could even reach the stairs to the second floor, there was a servant coming my way.
“Sir, everyone’s already assembled in the small hall,” he said.
“Everyone? Assembled?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Aren’t you going to join the other noble lords at that little party?”
Oh, yes! Now I remembered Dors mentioning an informal get-together—something to help loosen Paxus up for finally losing his cherry. Why was that big oaf suddenly so keen on playing matchmaker? And the timing for such a distraction was unfortunate without a doubt. That said, I was now curious. Maybe taking a quick peek wouldn’t hurt so much?
I could hear Paxus’s mournful voice inside the room when I was still a few yards away.
“…and he cut off his head as well. Having committed yet another atrocity, the Scarlet Dragon laughed triumphantly, then burned twenty-two villages and three cities. The dishonored heir of the house drove her sword into the sleeping giant’s heart. And when the giant awoke, he, too, died of great sorrow. Black clouds begot black rain, and those lands became known as the Lands of Mourning. Thus ended the greatness of a once-glorious house. Nowhere in the world is there a drop of their pure blood left. The clan cannot be brought back now.”
I immediately knew that missing the beginning of that story was no big deal. Even if the narrator wasn’t as hopeless as Paxus, such dreary schlock could hardly be of any interest to someone with a brain. Me, I outgrew fairy tales in second grade two lifetimes ago. However, people in Rock were much more innocent in certain respects, and it was not like there was any TV or Internet to keep them busy in their moments of leisure. One mostly had to entertain oneself, for which reason folks often spoke for the sake of speaking, and others listened, if for no other reason than that they had nothing better to do.
There were no books either, other than scientific and philosophical treatises written in a hifalutin and pretentious language not even educated nobles found easy to understand. As a matter of fact, there was no such thing as easy reading in my new world. At some point, I even toyed with the idea of adapting some of the Earth’s favorite classical stories to Rock’s reality and becoming the planet’s first author of fiction. But I had so many other things going, I reckoned, that literary fame would have to take a step back in my long list of priorities. Perhaps, when I retired—if I even lived long enough for that.
Finally opening the door, I was surprised to see the entire complement of my subordinates there. That in itself was unusual, to say the least. My Fingers didn’t exactly get along with one another. Kimi and Paxus gravitated towards me and mostly ignored the other Fingers who paid them back in the same coin. As a result, everyone treated each other with polite coolness, keeping their personal lives and “office lives” distinctly separate. Dors remained his own best friend. The man tended to be so full of himself and abrasive that no one liked spending any time with him if they could avoid it. Arsai wasn’t particularly bright and could hardly be engaged in a meaningful conversation on any topic, other than dying heroically in battle. Ears and Mouth was a loner by nature and also a fairly devious schemer. His demeanor could vary at different times, but in the end it was always him against the rest of the world, it seemed. Now getting to see all of those poorly compatible personalities in the same room, in the midst of an apparently social function, made me wonder if perhaps I had been missing something. And then there was Scown Drell, smiling and pouring wine, and Beko who wasn’t quite everyone else’s equal in the social sense, and Missy the “governor’s daughter” cozying up to Paxus and having a seemingly good time. Even Crapster’s cage was there, tucked away in a far corner. What was going on?
“Oh! Lord Gedar, you’re the only one we were missing!” the mission head greeted me warmly. “Come, sit wherever you like. Wine, or would you prefer a stronger drink?”
“I’ll pass, thanks. May I ask what the occasion is?” I said, pretending I had no idea what was going on.
“Well, no special reason. I took the liberty of sharing some episodes from my colorful life with Lord Dors who happened to stop by. Then Lord Paxus and Missy joined us, and before we knew it we had ourselves an entire little soirée. So here we are, sharing stories over drinks. Like good friends should.”
“And what’s Crapster doing here?”
“Crapster’s sad, no one offered him a drink,” came the mournful reply from the cage.
“Qash’Shak Bhayil left him here,” Dors explained. “He asked me to keep an eye on the little beast. He said he’d be back soon with a new lock for the cage. The kind the little rascal can’t pick. Yeah, right….”
“I don’t think any lock can hold a goblin,” Ears and Mouth said. “They are too sly, all of them. Qash'Shak should have actually put the cage on the stove and been done with it.”
“So much hatred in such a young heart, ay-ay-ay,” said the thin voice from inside the cage.
“Oh, I have just remembered a story,” Dors said. “About how a pair of twins were burned to bloody ash in an iron cage over a volcano.”
“Everyone knows that one,” Ears and Mouth waved him off. “Tell us something new.”
“Maybe Lord Paxus should tell us another one instead?” Missy suggested, batting her lashes and sliding even closer to her target. “He tells them in such a captivating manner.”
“Oh, captivating my foot!” Ears and Mouth snapped. “He can’t string two words together, and it’s the same old stuff anyway.”
“I never pretended to be a master storyteller,” Paxus barked back, edging away from the girl. “You said you wanted a story, and I told you one. How about you, Gedar? Perhaps one of those Chuck Norris stories you told us back in school?”
“I want a long and scary one,” Missy pouted, sidling up to Paxus again. “Like the one you just finished, about the Scarlet Dragon and the hundred misfortunes that had befallen a great house. I’d even listen to the same thing again if you told it just as beautifully.”
“Oh, no, Chuck’s so much better at it,” Paxus shook his head. “He knows tons of them.”
“I’d like to hear one,” Kimi said, speaking up for the first time.
“Yeah, me too,” the goblin squeaked. “And a drink wouldn’t hurt either.”
I suddenly remembered my old aspirations to become Rock’s first ever fiction writer. I had stories to tell all right.
“Fine,” I said. “You asked for it. It’s a long one too.”
“Great, we are all ears,” Kimi said.
“In one far-off waterless wasteland, two younger sons of a great house—born to a beautiful noble concubine—were hiding from the vengeance of a spiteful and envious imperial favorite. With no other means of survival, they took a small community of tenant commoners and bastards under their protection, helping them eke out a living from the barren land.”
What followed was a loose retelling of an old sci-fi movie, Tremors. There weren’t any dragons in the original, but I made the underground monster worms into a good stand-in. After all, it was my story, and I could do whatever the hell I wanted with it. Who was going to say no?
“An astonishing artifact belonging to the runaway heiress spelled out the words ‘We are all doomed,’ foretelling the advent of terrifying underground dragons—graboids. Those monsters had been hiding in the depths since the Great Cataclysm of the ancient times. Clinging to the flagpole of the signal tower, the poor sod quickly succumbed to thirst and hunger. His dead body froze in place and remained up there, out of the graboids’ reach. And they were not smart enough to know to fell the flagpole itself…”
“The slave struck again. His pick went in between the ancient cobbles and nicked the neck of an underground dragon. The enraged beast broke through the pavement and out into the open, determined to kill its attacker…”
“The elder brother kept digging with his bare hands until there was suddenly something solid and glowing in the pit. He realized he had found the edge of an artifact lantern, still attached to a coach that had somehow ended up deep underground…”
“A foolish child struck the ground with a stick to flush out a gopher. A graboid lurking there, all gung-ho and ready to go, picked up the vibrations and surged towards its prey right away. The child did not yet know that the beast’s cunning brothers were waiting for her near the farm stand…”
“Buying costly graboid body parts from unsuspecting country bumpkins for mere pennies, the shrewd Thessarian began reselling them, charging their weight in silver and gold.”
“Tearing through the wall of an old torture dungeon, the underground dragon had no idea that certain death awaited it there. The ancient fortress belonged to a couple who had sworn to fight to the death if Chaos ever returned. For that purpose, they had equipped the place with artifact ballistae and fortress crossbows, as well as stocked a variety of other weapons…”
Finally, the story reached its end.
“Only the graboid leader remained—the fiercest and most cunning of all the underground dragons. Its dreadful aura carried it through where all its kin had perished. No matter how fast the younger brother’s oct galloped, the beast was faster. Knocking down boundary posts as it tunneled forward, it shot through sand and stone, wide-open jaws lined with long, curved fangs. Death itself breathed down the rider’s neck, and that breath was rank. Another second, and the mount and its rider would be no more. The monster hurled itself forward, smelling its prey. And then the oct jumped. Only the noblest of octs can jump this way. Pushing off from the edge of a volcanic chasm, the wonder steed soared above the flaming maw and landed confidently on the far side.”
“The graboid, moving underground until the last instant, realized it had been led into a trap, but it was too late. Unable to stop, it blasted out of the cliffside wall and plunged into the lava-filled abyss. There it met its death.”
“That was the end of the graboids. The underground grew quiet, peace returned to the wastelands, and the commoners and the bastards returned to resume their lives as before. As for the brothers, they appropriated the skills and powers of the slain graboids and set out for new lands and new great deeds.”
Almost a full minute passed in absolute stillness. Everyone seemed to be in a trance. Even a pesky fly on the wall stopped buzzing. I knew the story was a major hit.
Then Ears and Mouth finally spoke.
“I don’t get it… When that brother lured the monster towards the chasm, it was chasing him underground. How could it be breathing down the fella’s neck?”
“It was an underground dragon, remember?” Scown Drell said, clapping his hands. “It could do anything it wanted. Lord Gedar, I’m truly stunned. You are a real treasure trove of talents. I can’t wait to hear what great deeds the noble concubine’s sons accomplished next.”
“Yes, yes! I want to know too!” Kimi said.
“So they just picked up stakes and left? After such a glorious victory?” skeptical Missy asked. “What about marrying the runaway heiress? In fact, you should have given each of them a princess. You can’t just end the story with them riding into the sunset.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” I chuckled.
“Lord Dors, you’re bleeding,” Missy said. “You have a trickle of blood on your chin.”
“Oh, I must have bit my lip by accident… All that suspense!” Dors said, wiping his face with his sleeve. “The ending was scary, I have to say. But I knew the underground dragon was not going to catch the best oct in the world.”
“I’m still scared,” Paxus said. “I can still see those huge curved fangs in my mind’s eye.”
Other voices quickly rang out,
“Me too!”
“Me too!”
“Me too! I don’t know how anyone can sleep after that!”
“By the Great ORDER, I need to hear about that wedding,” Missy said.
“And about the brothers’ new feats too,” Scown Drell added. “Or does anyone think it will be of no interest to anyone?”
“I’ll strangle anyone who says so!” Dors shook his fists.
“I’ll help,” came the voice from the cage.
“Gedar, these graboids, are they really dragons?” Arsai suddenly asked.
“What difference does it make?” I shrugged.
“Big difference! If I die fighting a dragon, that’s one thing. If it’s just some underground worm, well, I don’t know…”
“They are dragons,” I said. “Certifiable. Rest assured.”
“Best story of my life,” Scown Drell said. “ORDER is my witness.”
“There’s room for improvement, but it wasn’t bad,” Ears and Mouth conceded.
