"Rising World 2", 1

Here's the beginning of a direct sequel to "Rising World"! I'm about 8K into this; here's 3K. (Still need to revise "Wings" some more.) This part contains a confusing bit about exactly who is entering/leaving when; will revise.

The audiobook of RW, by Podium Audio, comes out on the 29th. The book's still doing surprisingly well.

Have a good weekend!

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Vonn stood at the entrance to an unholy cavern with his tail bristling, his hands on an air rifle of his own design. Beside him a Kobold woman named Kura checked her knife collection. This evening's expedition was going to be short if at all possible. Followed by an enthusiastic jog past the airplane wreckage, through the magical alarm wards, and back to friendly territory.

Kura went first into the hillside tunnel. Her violet scales and black clothes and belts helped her be stealthy in the dark. She made no comment on how the entryway had changed from a simple mining passage with a holy symbol carved there, to a place of death. It wasn't just that they recognized the shapes of bones from at least three intelligent races, but that they were artfully arranged in some arcane pattern that gave off a scent of decay and a low thrumming like a heartbeat.

Vonn followed her, wishing he still had his enchanted night-vision goggles. The good news was that they needed only one little crystal as proof of what was happening here. Fixing it wasn't Vonn's job. Then again, neither was the scouting. He'd piloted his very experimental airplane here with the intention of dropping Kura off to play ninja, and flying away again.

The lizard-girl peeked around a corner and drew back, whispering. "Two skeletons. How noisy is that 'wind gun'?"

"It's not," he said. His nose caught the scent of dried blood.

She ushered him to take the first shot. Vonn crept forward. His knowledge of this dungeon was from its early days, outdated. The Y-shaped intersection ahead had enough space for two shambling skeletons of the Aves race, lightweight and thin. He crouched, took aim, and pulled the trigger. His gun loosed a burst of compressed air from a little crystal-based gadget, in a faint _whoosh_ that drove a bullet into the shoulder of one target.

The bone-beast rattled and staggered, alerting the other. Vonn didn't have the power to sense the numbers for the exact damage he'd done. But the mystical _System_ that governed reality here said it did 10 to 16 points of harm, an amount that couldn't kill someone like him in even three blows. The two monsters lurched toward him. Vonn backed off and pulled the lever that readied another bullet.

Kura held him back and took out a small club for blunt work. When the first skeleton rounded the corner she crouched, leaned back on her muscled tail, and kicked. Her target crashed into the wall and its fellow beast. Bones clattered. Vonn found an opening and took a shot. Kura kept low and swept her club around to shatter one bony leg. She used her compact mass to knock her foes down and keep them vulnerable. Vonn stepped closer to try smashing something with the butt of his gun, but Kura had finished things before he could do more than distract one foe. It'd all taken just seconds of near-silent combat.

Vonn said, "Let me tap your weapon first, next time. Forgot to use my magic."

Kura nodded, and handed him an intact femur. "Improvised club."

Vonn felt queasy. "I don't know if this was dungeon-created, or --"

She grabbed an expendable throwing bone for herself. "We're professionals. Put your personal feelings aside; the righteous anger team is waiting for us to get back."

He nodded and tried not to care about how the pond ahead smelled of blood instead of water, now. The ruling Baron of this area had defiled the place. Dungeons fed on the blood, sweat and probably tears of explorers trying to plunder them, in a symbiotic relationship, but this one's keeper had gone out of his way to glut its appetite. Vonn pulled a small cluster of glowing crystals up from his belt lanyard and shined it ahead, down each of the two unexplored passages. "I fought tiny bird-like things here, last year."

"You said so, yeah. I'm prepared."

They skirted the pond and watched for trapped floors. Down one passage they found only another skeleton, easily dispatched, and a few empty rooms in nonsensical, jagged shapes. One of these held a handful of copper coins that Vonn took mainly to have another improvised distraction at the ready. The other path ended in a trio of wooden altars with identical old stains. Copies of something that the people shaping the dungeon had left in here. Teaching it what to be.

About where Vonn remembered a trapdoor, they found a similar floor that was a grating. Dungeons needed an air passage between their entrance and their core. But he and Kura couldn't find any way to pry this metal plate open. He said, "Could there be a second path?"

They searched quietly in the dark. A heavy oak door had been set behind a curtain matching the red-brown walls. Vonn backed off in fright at first, having seen a hanging tapestry try to kill him once, but this one was inert. Vonn took it and wished for a magical inventory. He looked to Kura to check the door.

She examined the wood and then took out a forked tool he'd never seen before, to wave it slowly over the handle. She hand-signaled, "Not really locked. Ready?"

Vonn touched the club the Kobold held, and willed a mote of magic into it. His clawed fingers chilled as the iron-shod wood glowed with white frost, ready to smite something for an extra 3-5 damage. He did the same to his gun and the metal grew cold.

Kura opened the door. The hinges creaked. She winced. Beyond it stood a staircase leading into the depths of what had been an iron mine. There'd been only two floors to this place last year but Vonn expected many more by now.

Descending was tedious. Vonn joined her in examining the stairs methodically for traps but found none. Not a theme of the place, apparently. Instead, they spotted an abomination of mismatched bones patrolling a hall and scuttling out of sight.

"My show," Kura signed. She hurled one of her many knives to strike a wall, making noise, then used the distraction to creep ahead. She left Vonn hiding alone at the foot of the stairs, frozen as the bone monster crept by again on its seven or so legs. The spell charge on his gun faded over time and he waited until the beast was gone before restoring it, spending more of his Mana. He was recovering slowly but was still bruised from the crash, too:

[Health: 37/45, Mana: 36/45, Stamina: 45/55]

The information glowed in the corners of his vision when he called for it by reflex, like remembering a song. He glanced nervously up the crudely cut stairs, then peeked into the second-floor hall again. Just then, Kura appeared from an unexpected angle and beckoned him on. He crept toward her. She gestured for silence, then mimed a scuttling shape. The tapping of bony feet came closer, then paused. Vonn's built-in pelt of red fur prickled. Finally the creature's steps receded and Kura led him on again.

They came to a room where another skeleton lay broken. Kura whispered, "No luck at finding magicite yet."

"No prisoners, either?"

Kura shook her head. So we wait for one more pass of that thing, and then I look for more stairs." She pulled out a glass vial of inky liquid.

She left him to hide, again. Vonn kept watch, silently praying that the captive that was probably here, was still alive. He didn't dare mount a rescue operation on this trip. He was growing impatient when his ears flicked backwards and he heard a slurping noise.

He flattened against the wall and reflexively charged his gun with frost again. The sound wasn't growing closer. Probably. He started to regret not buying any enhancements to his Senses the way he'd upgraded things like Agility. With his attention focused on the strange sound he didn't hear Kura calling for him until she took a risk and tapped on the stonework beside her. Vonn turned and saw her beckoning.

The slurping started up behind him. He hustled. When she ducked, he did too. She dumped out the vial she carried and left behind a black cloud. They went around a corner, clambored above a stone coffin that blocked the hall, and reached a downward ramp. An altar glowed dim blue at the bottom with a Human man's body sprawled across it, his throat cut. The floor was flooded by several inches of what he hoped was mostly water.

"What the hell," Vonn whispered. It was either fresh, or another decoration that the dungeon had put here to mimic things.

Kura shushed him and gestured to the walls, a question in her eyes. Vonn studied the path leading down and pointed out a suspicious discolored patch of floor. Kura crept ahead, avoiding the spot, then motioned for him.

Vonn went down to the sacrifice chamber. This world didn't use pentagrams as ritual symbols. But when he tore his attention away from the dead man he saw a dark design worked into the altar, like a fourfold labyrinth joined by a crescent. Or maybe like a set of brass knuckles. In any case the design was abstract yet brutal.

Kura hissed. "Bastards."

"Onward?" Vonn said, trying to ignore the smell and the sloshing liquid around his boots and the fact that yet another passage led onward from here, deeper into the bowels of this corrupted place.

The room grew dimmer. Vonn turned toward the ramp they'd descended and saw a shape looming atop it, just darkness with a pair of glowing blue eyes that didn't stay next to each other. His twitching tail froze. After a long moment the shape moved on and Kura felt it was safe enough to shine a small crystal around for a better look.

The mad altar's symbol was repeated a dozen times all over the walls.

Vonn took a step back and his right boot clinked against something. He stopped, whispering, "Check my foot. Did I trigger something?"

Kura crouched beside the altar. "Thank Winter! Move." She nudged Vonn aside and pointed out a crystal shard beneath the tainted water, creating the altar's glow. In this case it gave off an unfamiliar shade like a blue-black bruise. She knocked it free with a knife.

Vonn now noticed a second one growing on the opposite side. "May as well." He reluctantly used his own knife on it and wiped the gem dry on his pants. Staring into its sickly light caused the System to display, [Lesser magicite shard.] No comment labeling it as special. He put it into an empty pocket for fear of it contaminating his other pieces, and couldn't do more than pray it didn't directly hurt him either.

Kura made the gesture for "done", and he nodded. But then she turned slowly toward the deeper tunnel.

Down that way, someone was talking.

They started back up the ramp, narrowly avoiding the trap. They vaulted over the coffin. She took out a mirror and used it to peek around the next corner, then pulled back and signed for that bony scuttling thing. _Wait._

People below were arguing. An arrogant Kobold lectured someone with an Elf or Human voice. Vonn couldn't make out the words but they were growing closer. He gritted his teeth and got Kura's attention.

She cursed quietly. Then she signed, _You and me, run, in three._ He nodded and tapped his gun and her club with another frost spell just in case.

They took off, feet thudding on the stone floor. Vonn lost track of the direction. Hopefully Kura knew. Around one corner, down a hall, and right into the face of the seven-legged thing. Its jaws opened wide.

She whalloped it with her club, making its jaw crackle with ice and a few teeth fly off. Then, insanely, she leaped over and around it in the corridor. Vonn had no good choice but to follow. His jump took him onto one outstretched spidery leg and only his enhanced Balance ability kept him upright. Some bony appendage lashed out at him and knocked him down, but he landed behind the beast and Kura helped him up while it was trying to turn around.

Something slurped from not far off on his left.

Kura tugged him off to the right. She'd misjudged the path. There was a loop and they now had to go around it while being chased.

"Someone there?" shouted the distant Kobold.

They rounded the loop, caught sight of that pair of bruise-blue eyes in the dark, and detoured under a stone bridge. In the clinging, chilly fog where they crouched, Kura signed, _"Guy you know?"_

_She must have some kind of enhanced sign-language power,_ thought Vonn.

That Kobold could be the prisoner Vonn was looking for, but the voice reminded him of the local Baron's man, a Necromancer. Vonn tried to convey, _"Probably not."_

Now, if they were lucky, the people here would pass them by. Vonn and Kura waited. Vonn imagined the mist was coiling around him to attack, but it scattered when he flicked his tail.

There was only the sound of the floor's wandering creatures now. Vonn kept their weapons charged. Kura used her mirror again, then beckoned to Vonn. They had to haul themselves up to the bridge's level. No threats in sight, but the Kobold kept wary for those that weren't. They made it to the stairs leading back to the first floor.

Sounds of struggle came from above. Vonn silently muttered something about "rush hour". He and Kura ducked to either side of the stairs, where shadows hid them. Before he was out of sight, Vonn glimpsed a man being forced into the dungeon by someone behind, while struggling with rope around his wrists. The captive had pointy ears. Elf. Not who he was looking for. Unless he was mistaken and it was a certain Human man. Vonn hated the fact that he was judging the value of this person's life by whether this was one of _his_ group. The secret world-travelers from Earth.

But, horribly, he knew he couldn't stop to interfere with the apparent sacrifice in progress. Several good arguments flooded his mind to support what he'd already decided, but he was still sick to his stomach. _Mission first_, he told himself.

The man came to the base of the steps, calling out for help and making Vonn wince. Behind him came the hooded Kobold he'd heard before, with a burly Human man with a sword. And shuffling along behind _them_ were two leathery, shriveled husks that had been Human. A ripple in the air connected them to the hooded one like leashes.

Vonn's claws dug into his palms as the parade passed by, deeper into the dungeon, toward the altar room. He had a shot at the backs of any of them. But his gun couldn't kill a man in one hit unless the System was feeling unusually biased today. He let them pass. Finally Kura poked out from cover and led him on, her eyes narrow and her tail twitching. They headed up the stairs toward freedom.

Another damn skeleton got in their way. Kura leaned back and delivered another spring-loaded kangaroo kick that sent it flying, then ran along without trying to finish it off. Vonn agreed.

Then they were back outside to the warm summer night. Kura crouched, looked around, caught her breath, and swore. "Our only chance to stop the killing is to get back. Can't take those guys on."

Vonn nodded, panting. Green light tinged his vision, the System's way of noting low Fatigue. They started walking east while instinct told him to run like a man's life was on the line. Even with his slightly enchanted boots, meant to channel the amazing hiking powers of a Human, he couldn't run several miles right now. Kura was pacing herself too but struggling.

They paused for breath somewhere down in the grassland beyond the slopes of the mining area. Vonn whispered, "The Necromancer is Baron Kolm's man. I don't think their prisoner there is the special target we talked about, but who?"

"There'd been talk of bandit attacks in Kolm's turf. People disappearing. And the miners had been shut out of certain areas, told not to stick their snouts in the Baron's personal business."

"I think I can say without getting arrested, that Kolm's a dead man."

"If we get back."

"What was that symbol?" he asked.

She hissed.

"Something against the Dragons?" Her people officially followed the state religion of the Triad gods, but their real beliefs -- some of them -- were no secret.

"Yes."

They hiked faster now. They'd passed the airplane wreck without seeing it. Somewhere ahead they'd reach a magical ward stretching across a good part of the land border, and they'd set off an alarm. Couldn't be helped.

Wait... they'd drifted off course, and now crested a hill. Below, they made out a signal lantern on a pole. Vonn pointed it out, then took out his bright magicite shards and waved them overhead while approaching. His arms trembled. His friends were down there, mostly keeping hidden in the dark.

Kura told him, "The plan was for me to warn them and wait for them to prepare, before I crossed the alarm ward. I can't see the exact spot; can you?"

He kept waving, and the lantern bobbed in answer. "No. Let's go."

They ran now. He gradually saw a group by the signal light, with more people lurking in the distance.

He got ferociously hugged by his sister Tazo, who trembled in his arms. "By the gods, what happened?" Her golden eyes shined in the dark and all her rust-red fur stood on end.

He brushed her ears backward with one hand and said, "Plane crashed. Tell you everything after. We need the Baron and a magic expert, _now_."

A quiet whoosh of bright feathers distracted him. A friend of his had just taken off and was rushing over to the Baron's group. Hoofsteps thudded on the grass and two Centaurs approached. Father and son, lightly armored but geared for war. The grizzled Baron Bogstep wasted no time. "Go on, talk."

Kura said, "Sir, there's folk sacrifice happening in the dungeon, and we passed a prisoner being led down there. We got these too." She took out the tainted magicite gem and Vonn fumbled his out of a pocket to show, too.