Amanita (Chapter 22)
Template:Amanita nav After I left the village, I didn't see many Flayers -- just a pack or two hiding in the leaves, nothing serious. It wasn't a long walk before I saw the outer walls of Kurast. The wall was made of some white stone probably meant to symbolize purity, and used to be pretty high. Letting trees grow next to your protective wall is a bad idea anyway, but letting the trees get big enough to knock over pieces of your wall is even worse. I guess the jungle is the city's wall now, or the Zakarumites don't care anymore.
The first gap I found was big enough to march an army through. I can see that they might let their wall fall, but I didn't think they'd leave a hole this big. Not unguarded, anyway... ah, some bramble-men standing in the trees, quiet and still. I picked them off at leisure. They were a tough bunch: the leader took two shots. No one was on watch inside. Kurast was overgrown with greenery -- I know, big surprise, but there were still recognizable buildings here. Most were wood and wicker, but a few had stone foundations and were in better shape.
I looked around in the first few buildings. Each had at least one human corpse, tied to a post or splayed out in the middle of a room. From what I could tell, most died of blood loss due to torture, though they looked like it had taken hours, not days. While I was knocking around, a pack of big lizards ambushed me from where they'd been lurking in the trees. They looked like relatives of Aranoch lizards, but were very fast, hit really hard, and had magical help: a fiery orange aura. They were hard to target, and whenever I tried to get some distance, one or two would leap to cut me off. It was good pack tactics, but they were only animals and didn't know from a false retreat. A quick fade back a few steps would get them in the air, and I could nail them when they landed.
There were some black apes too, big spiny things that made great targets, and more demon vultures. One of the vultures had a magic aura too, a blue misty one. I couldn't tell what power it had, probably because I killed it before it got close. I'd heard of Zakarum's paladins having auras like those. They describe them as a blessing from Heaven or something. Looks like Hell blesses its minions too. Either that, or these are the paladins and I'm being fooled somehow... no, they've got hateful little demon minds. Pretty weird, but I haven't seen a human being yet. The place hadn't even been looted, there was plenty of gold and jewels and stuff still tucked away in people's houses.
Hey, Natty Hey, how's going?
Visiting scenic downtown
Kurast. Food great, hotel
great. Wish you were here! Found anything good?
Nope. How's Ormus? Same as ever
While you're there,
see if you can find the
Tome of Lam Esen
Uh... which one was... You know, the Black Book
... Didn't you read our history?
Oh! The one with the order's code in it, written by the sage and
prophet Lam Esen. You got it
It's in Kurast? Why? It prophesies the downfall
of Kurast, so they were kind
of interested in it.
Yeah, all right. It'd I want to know how the
be good to get it back founders put together the
martial arts system
That was mostly Butu Dahed Yeah, she was damn good
I didn't know you knew glyphs It's written in glyphs?
All those damn old
prophets wrote in glyphs
to confuse everybody Oh, yeah. Most of them
were wizards or mystics
Or both Yep
Lam Esen was an alchemist-mystic
Better spacing-out
through alchemy! Anyway, we should have
the book, not Zakarum
Anybody here read glyphs? I dunno
I'll ask around
"Hey Hratli, what do you know about glyphs?"
"Absolutely nothing, as it should be."
"Neglected your dead languages, huh?"
"My life is devoted entirely to insuring my own survival, and material wealth. Neither would be improved by the study of linguistics. For purposeless command of facts from the distant past, your friend Deckard Cain would seem the ideal source."
"Cain, right. Anybody else who might know?"
Hratli paused for about a heartbeat. "If Cain does not know, I cannot say who in the world would, excepting possibly Alkor. His life is one of continual study and endless dissipation, and his constitutional liking for useless information is well known."
"Ok, thanks."
Cain probably knew how to read glyphs, but would be my last resort. Giving him a new book, then getting him to focus only on what you want, is a nightmare I wouldn't wish on anyone. Alkor was in his hut, sitting on the floor and staring into space. His eyes were deep crimson, pupils fixed and dilated.
"Is this not a good time?" I asked.
His eyes tracked around the room, lids fluttering like dying butterflies. Eventually he gave up and closed them. They probably hurt. "For you, there is never a good time."
"I don't know, I think I can be a pretty good time. I want --"
"As though what you want is important," he quickly cut in.
"Never mind, I'll ask Asheara. I don't think you'd know."
"Asheara will not see you. She has made her weekly purchase, and will see no one for the rest of the day."
"Weekly purchase?"
Alkor blindly showed a freckled grin in my general direction. "Asheara buys a potion of manliness from me every week. She is an excellent customer."
I cocked an ear. I could hear vague thumping sounds from her place. "Ah, ha. So, is she a moaner or a screamer?"
"It depends very much on who has the stud detail this week. It pains me to waste time with you, so get to the point. What will make you go away?"
I like reasonable men. "Can you read glyphs?"
"Ask your friend Cain."
I snorted. "Why does everyone think he's my friend?"
"Because he is, stupid girl. How obvious must it be to everyone but you?"
"Ah..." I mulled that one over a few seconds. "He's all right. Ok, he's not bad. Couldn't ask for a nicer old fart to follow me around. Anyway, I need someone who can read the Black Book of Lam Esen. It --"
His eyes darted open, and somehow found me instantly. "You have found the book?!"
"No..." I smiled. "Not yet. Do you know glyphs?"
"Should you find the book, I know glyphs. If you do not find it, I know nothing about anything and you will never bother me again!"
I nodded. "Fair enough."
Past another wall I found more of Kurast, better constructed than the wicker-work down below. Some of the buildings had stone walls, and two pyramids stood a short distance from each other. The trees hadn't knocked everything over, but they were trying. Some of them had even walked in to do it. Along with bramble-men were vultures, and living swarms of mosquitoes just like the ones in Aranoch. For whatever reason, Diablo brought a lot of his helpers over here with him. Either that, or he'd developed some bad habits during his stay in our world.
This section of town was even richer than the first. Obviously, I was moving up in Kurast society. I still hadn't seen Zakarumites, or any human who wasn't long dead. I couldn't see what a lot of the buildings were for, so they were probably temples or ceremonial causeways or something like that. Most of them had big, red-eyed skulls with gore spattered on their teeth for decoration. Several times, I had to tell myself the gore must be just paint, and not to look too close. There was a waypoint there, which was good, and a couple of basement entrances, maybe sewers.
The pyramids were topped by small rooms, each with a tiny stairway going nowhere. It was obviously symbolic of something, probably a ceremonial ascent into Heaven or something. I doubt anyone from around here will be going to Heaven anytime soon. Then I noticed the button, to one side on the lowest step. When I nudged it with my foot, the steps dropped and turned into a stairway down, into the body of the pyramid. The sewers can wait. I'm getting tired of sewers anyway.
The instant I walked down the stairs, the world broke out in flame. I could barely see the giant blue spiders jumping from the corners. I rolled in, took one shot I think might have hit something, and grabbed the katar. I was in a small room with two entrances to either side of the stairs. Vampires were in the doorways, at least two at each. Four big blue spiders were untangling themselves in a pile at the bottom of the stairs, between me and the way out. Rolling in may not have been a good idea.
I targeted a Vampire first. He took the first few hits smiling (hard not to) then turned and floated away. The spiders were on top of me by then, so I hit their tiny minds as hard as I could and made the second Vampire in the doorway my new special friend. While the spiders were trying to eat him, I scooted around the wall to the other batch of Vampires, who were coming into the room. There were three of them, and they kept their distance, so I hauled out the bow and gave them one each. It would be enough, eventually.
The first Vampire came back as the spiders realized the error of their ways. The whole room was on fire. There were even rocks exploding around me: neat trick, I couldn't see how they were doing that. I got my back to the wall and thought as hard as I could at the spiders. It almost overloaded their minds, and put a serious strain on mine, before they got confused again and started attacking each other. Vampires started dying while I sniped the survivors, and the firewall died down just as the last one fled and died. Then it went quiet... a good thing for me.
The pyramid was probably a major temple, and had a lot of ornaments. It also had a lot of those red-eyed skulls. The red stuff wasn't painted on. I cleared it and left fast, going over to the other pyramid -- this time with the katar ready. The entrance room was small, with side doors and a big archway leading to large inner chamber. There was no ambush waiting, there or in either of the side chambers. The temple couldn't be empty, but I felt safer switching to the bow now that I knew I had room and some places to run to. No place else to look, so I poked my nose into the main chamber.
The first thing that tried to kill me was a group of three Bigfoot-type guys. Somewhere, I'd heard they were supposed to be rare, and reclusive. I shot them, waited a few seconds, and poked my nose further in. A naked woman with a wicked-looking dagger and a homicidal snarl on her face scampered into view. My first human! So what if she was nude, smeared with blood, and down on all fours like an animal? I held my fire as she and about half a dozen friends came out into view, looking... hungry. I stunned them and gave them a quick once-over. Then I shot them. Believe me, it was the best thing I could do.
The inner chamber was big, probably taking up most of the pyramid. A blue spider with a weird greenish aura was hiding in one corner, and a pack of Vampires was in the other. I had a good chance to watch the Vampires in action. They somehow pulled their exploding rocks from the temple ceiling without damaging it. I'd heard the Vizjerei recently discovered a spell to summon exploding rocks from the sky, but that shouldn't work inside. It probably wasn't the same spell, Vampires usually only know old spells. Whatever, the rocks hurt a lot worse this time around.
At the end of the inner chamber, by an altar with a butchered human being laid out on it, was a lectern with a book. A black book, interestingly enough, and written in glyphs. I woke Natalya and gave it to her, saying Alkor could read it to her if she wanted. I'm going to bed without a story.