Dragon Royale 2: An Urban Fantasy Adventure Page 19

  “I think our best bet at this point is to play dumb,” I said while bringing them into a huddle. “He’s dressed in dragon casual, like us. Maybe he’ll think we belong around here.”

  Anton scratched his beard roughly. “That is a long shot. We should attack in overwhelming force before he can raise the alarm.”

  “Or, we could go around him.” Tex pointed to the far end of the toilet paper warehouse. Since we’d made it on this side of the river, we were free to cross to an adjacent building, away from the guard. It might get us closer to our destination, but another river blocked the way, and it did not go over any buildings to give us easy access.

  “We have to see what’s inside there,” I said while pointing to the central warehouse. “Somehow, four magic rivers are pouring out of that place, and one of them is blocking us. We have to go in and hope we can get across. Then we’ll be free to walk to the red pin on my map.”

  Banger responded from close by. “I would like to investigate evidence of fish in these rivers.”

  I cracked up, which made Anton look at me crookedly.

  “Sorry, Banger wants to go inside. He smells fish up that way and wants to check it out.”

  The general clapped his hands quietly. “This is your mission, but please decide quickly.”

  It was Tex’s turn to laugh. “Are you late for something, General? Got a hot date? I bet she’s coyote ugly.” She pointed to Raven.

  Anton gave her a blank look.

  “Because of your wolf?” She turned to me. “It makes sense, right?”

  I shook my head like I was ashamed of her. It was small payback for tricking me into thinking she was a virgin after our overnight romp.

  “I bet the general has a stout woman waiting for him back home,” Jo added to pop the pregnant pause.

  That got Anton animated. “Aye, if I had a Guardian woman like you back home, my day might have gone differently. But, alas, a general is married to his army. Save for the occasional bitch in heat, my bed has always remained empty.”

  “I’m sorry.” Jo was mortified, like she’d mistakenly ripped out his heart and used it to lube down her shotgun.

  “We’re going right up to the guard,” I said to head off whatever awkward thing Echo was going to add to the conversation. “Keep your weapons slung and pretend we’re glad to see him.” I’d used this tactic several times in games, but I was glad I didn’t have to roll a d20 to check for success. This was going to be all me.

  I hesitated only long enough to ensure everyone stowed their weapons, then I strode around the corner like I was at the end of a death march.

  “Ah, there’s help!” I called out to the man in red. “We’re fucking lost as shit.”

  The guard’s stance became robotic when he saw us, like he was about to lunge away, but I kept going toward him.

  “We came from the amusement park. Things are a mess there.”

  “They are?” the man replied.

  “Yeah. We need to talk to someone, so we know where to evacuate.” I figured at some point in the recent past there had been local residents here. As long as it was more recent than a year ago, it seemed like a plausible excuse.

  “I heard there is an invasion. Is it true? Are we going to be rescued?” The man was soft-spoken and clearly frightened. He stood near a door to the inside of the building, and still leaned that way like he was going to go in. As I got close, I noticed the rope around his ankle went through the mostly-closed doorway. He had enough slack to come out onto the loading dock, but not much else.

  “You’re tied up?” I asked despite myself.

  He held a plain wooden staff, which was probably the worst weapon for a guard tied to a wall. He wouldn’t be a threat to anyone more than six feet away. Still, I stayed at the bottom of the loading dock and looked up at him.

  “I’m a slave,” he said in a glum voice. “Aren’t you?”

  I looked at my clothes. “Oh, because I’m dressed like this? Yeah, I’m not a slave. I’m just a local lost in the woods.”

  “Well, you’re lucky. I’ve got to keep watch, or they’ll throw me in.”

  “What are you on the lookout for, darlin’? Maybe we can help.” Tex smiled her mile-wide country grin, missing tooth and all.

  “Lady Merkur put us guards on this building so we could tell her if any of the knight royals tried to interfere with the—” He pointed to the water flowing out of the warehouse about halfway down the row of garage doors.

  “That makes sense,” I said. “Hey, I’m Matt.”

  “I’m Chris. You don’t have anything to drink, by chance? My predecessor stuck his face in the flowing red river and got sucked in. I only get water on my shift change, which isn’t for another four hours.”

  I pulled out the small bottle of water from the backpack. “Here. Help yourself.”

  Chris seemed to notice Jo for the first time. “I didn’t think Guardians liked us Leftovers.”

  She swished back her black bangs. “My broom is broken. These fine people helped me out of a jam.”

  Chris struggled to hold the bottle and not drink it, but once he had his answer from Jo, he tipped it into his mouth. He sucked hard for a few seconds but held himself back. “Sorry. Can I have the rest?” The bottle jiggled in his hand with anticipation.

  “Sure. We’ll get more.” Once we were safe from prying eyes, I’d have Echo steal some of the water from the stream, like she’d done before.

  As the guard downed the remainder I thought how easily I could have put sleeping powder or even poison in the bottle. Maybe we needed a second bottle for that purpose.

  “So,” I said nonchalantly, “how many guards are there?”

  ***

  I didn’t think he’d reveal the details, but he didn’t seem to care.

  “Four. One on each corner.” Chris pointed to our right, far down the wall of doors, well beyond the flowing red stream. “Tim is around that corner. Matthis and, I think, John, are on the far side.”

  “Not much of a defense,” Anton remarked. “There must not be much to defend.”

  Chris stood near the corner of the building, away from the water and the open garage doors. I tried looking inside to figure it out, but from my perspective there was nothing to see but slivers of darkness, because the openings were too far away.

  “We’re expendable,” he said as more of a hoarse croak, than a man’s voice.

  “We could cut you free.” I searched around us before looking back up at him. “Unless your boss is watching.”

  Chris glanced toward the nearest garage door. “I’ve been here since winter. Someone is always watching, in this warehouse.”

  “So, you do have a boss?” Jo asked, always serious about our security.

  “All of us are slaves, but some are more in charge than others. The night shift is at camp.” He pointed to our left, around the nearest corner. It was in the same direction as my red push pin, marking the Wellspring Encampment.

  I stepped over to Tex and twirled her sideways to show her staff to Chris. “Do you know where we can drop this off? We’ve been asked, well, guided here to return this.”

  “Oh, fuck!” Chris blurted out as he fell to one knee. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  Tex and I shared a bemused look.

  “Why did you say that?” I asked in a friendly voice. “It’s not ours. We’re returning it.”

  Chris mumbled to himself but didn’t cast his gaze on us. “This is a test. I know it. This is a test.”

  “No,” I assured him. “It isn’t.”

  It wasn’t our test, but I thought of his statement about always being watched and realized maybe it was a trial of some sort. Perhaps someone let us get this close, so they could check the loyalty of their guard.

  I went over to the staircase at the end of the dock and slowly made my way up to Chris. At the same time, I motioned for the others to follow.

  “Hey, bud. I assure you we aren’t testing shit. We really are kind of lost.”r />
  “But you have a Lord Staff. Only the lords and ladies are allowed to touch them. We have a container of them back at camp.” He got seriously quiet. “It is off limits to our kind.”

  I chuckled, ready to blow his mind. “We killed Lord Bart and took this as compensation for our time.”

  Chris broke down into quiet sobs. “And I fell for it. The Guardian is standing right there. The lady is going to fucking toss me in the water. I let a Lord killer come right up to me. They’ll never let me live.”

  “Whoa!” I said as I tentatively put my hand on his shoulder. “No one has to die. We’ll cut you loose.”

  I waved to Jo and motioned for her to cut the soggy old rope.

  “All we need is some intel on what’s inside, and where we can find the Wellspring Encampment. That is where we must go to return this.” I chucked him on the shoulder. “It really isn’t ours, OK?”

  Chris looked up. “I don’t know what the Wellspring Encampment is, but your staff came from where we keep all the others. That is our living quarters because we must always be there to receive Lords and Ladies when they come up.”

  “And what’s in there?” Jo asked, pointing to the warehouse.

  “The Endless Elevator,” he whispered.

  “The elevators are links between my world, and yours,” Anton said dryly.

  “Yes,” Chris replied with terror in his voice. “And I must get away from you or she’ll kill me.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  Chris frantically shook his head as he crawled toward his door. Now free of his rope, he could run anywhere, but he seemed to be going back to his master.

  “Jo, give him an order,” I said on the private link. “Tell him you are using Guardian powers and he should gather the other guards and meet in some random warehouse far from here. He seems like he’s going to crap himself if he doesn’t report in, and I don’t want to hurt him or risk other guards coming.”

  “Please don’t kill me,” Chris blubbered.

  Jo held out her hand to him. “Take it.”

  Chris allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, but his eyes remained downcast.

  “I am the Guardian assigned to this area. I order you to gather the other guards, including your night shift, and wait for me in the last warehouse in that direction.” She pointed to our left, which would be out of our way.

  The red-suited guy nodded but didn’t say a word.

  “Do you understand?” Jo asked in a commanding tone.

  “Yes. Yes. Gather the guards for you. But, Miss, they might not come on my word.”

  Jo looked at me in a meaningful way, and then dipped her hand into her ammo bag. She pulled out a red-cased shotgun shell.

  “Take this. If anyone doubts your word, toss this to them and tell them I’m coming to collect it. That person better be at the assigned warehouse. Or else.”

  She tossed the shell to him and he almost jumped in fright.

  “Go!” Jo ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am. I w-will.” He stuttered as he backed through the doorway to the warehouse.

  “Hurry!” she hissed.

  I almost felt sorry for Chris as he stumbled over the rope and went through the door.

  After a few seconds, Jo smiled like she’d just nailed a school play. “And that is how you get someone to do what you want.”

  “It sucked having to chase him away,” I said, “but it is for his own safety. I don’t know what to expect, here, but it sounds like bigwigs frequent this place. We really need to get in and out without causing a scene.”

  We stood on the dock for a minute or two discussing whether our plan worked. If an alarm sounded, and more guards swamped the place, we would know it failed.

  Judging by the look on Chris’s face, I didn’t expect him to turn us in, but when a small piece of the wall exploded and sprayed us with debris, I figured I’d been wrong after all.

  A split-second later, the gunshot cracked from the far end of the loading dock. My first reaction was to look to the source of the noise. A shape moved at the distant corner, a hundred yards away, but it was difficult to see them in the twilight.

  “Down!” I yelled when I realized I was a standing duck.

  I propped myself up and glanced toward the shooter, hoping to confirm their identity, but I couldn’t see them clearly because of the stream between us. The red water was a couple of feet tall as it went through the constriction of the two garage doors, and the splashing created a small spray that also obscured the view a bit.

  More shots echoed in the dusky shadows and I realized they didn’t need to see us. We were lined up on the narrow loading dock and I had no idea if bullets could cut through twenty feet of water.

  “We’ve got to go inside,” I said to everyone as I got my rifle off my back. “Then we can defend ourselves.”

  We followed Anton and Raven through the same dark door Chris had gone through. Once everyone got inside, I pulled the nasty old rope to get it out of the door jamb, but paused in surprise as Banger scuttled through. Then I pushed it shut.

  “I guess he turned us in,” I said matter-of-factly as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  “No,” Anton replied, “It was the same gun that fired on us before.”

  “How can you tell?” I asked.

  “Lots and lots of war, Sir Matt.”

  ***

  After being outside in the multi-colored sunset atmosphere, it felt like we’d walked into a dank cave.

  A couple of little spotlights were attached to a small generator, and they did their best to illuminate the giant space. The lights were closest to the yellow river fifty yards to our left, so the glow reflected from the stream made the exposed beams and ducts of the roof seem green and wet, like the inside of a cavern.

  “I don’t know what I expected, but this wasn’t it,” I said.

  The giant building reminded me of a Sam’s Club or Home Depot on steroids, but cleared out of all the shelves and crap. It was divided into quadrants by the four streams flowing out of a massive pit right in the center. A bunch of scaffolding encircled the hole, like a curved walkway had been built to cross the rivers or look down into the abyss. Four giant girders stretched from roof to floor, one in the middle of each river, as supports for the bridgework.

  “There’s where your stream begins,” I said to Echo.

  The red waterway flowed out of the pit and went out the doors fifty yards to our right. A yellow river also came out of the hole and flowed through the doors half a football field away on our left. Additional lights on the far side of the vaulted chamber illuminated a lime green stream across from the yellow, and a purple stream opposite the red.

  “What did your people need all this space for?” Anton said as if impressed. “We never built things this large, not even castles. I could fit an entire army in this one room!”

  “People ordered a lot of shit through the internet, back before Conflict came,” I replied.

  “And they stored it all in places like this, so it was ready to ship in hours,” Tex added.

  I felt tiny inside the mega warehouse. The huge expanse of concrete floor was empty in our corner, except for the occasional girders supporting the roof, as well as a lone pickup truck with clothes stacked high in its cargo bed. It had been parked by one of the sealed garage doors on our right, and the great volume of space seemed to swallow it, too.

  “I’ve got to confess something, young knight,” Anton said as we all watched the spring. “I have seen something like this before, and perhaps I should have recognized it from the tree line and warned you. I mean, the rivers are the clue.”

  “I don’t understand. You knew what we’d find in here?”

  “My brain is burned to cinders, my friend. I didn’t think of it until the guard said an elevator was inside. Now, seeing this metal bridge over the headwaters, I’m positive.” He pointed to the scaffolding. “I believe you will find long metal poles up there with rope loops on the end.”

 
“Used for what?” Jo asked.

  “Come. I will show you.” Anton grabbed Raven and coaxed him forward. Raven had almost stopped limping on the makeshift brace. I followed and was extremely proud of how I’d taken care of the man’s wolf.

  My magic began to spark as we walked the forty or so yards toward the dark hole in the ground. The roof above the pit was almost black because none of the lights were focused up there. It gave the illusion of a second pit on the ceiling.

  “Be on the lookout,” I said to my girls on the mental link.

  I’d learned to trust Anton over the course of the day. He had plenty of opportunities to hurt us, or even kill me, but he’d been nothing but helpful. I thought back to the one brief moment I’d considered Raven as responsible for beheading those other players, but I still didn’t believe this was all some elaborate trap designed to relieve us of our heads.

  However, I admit, I did have my gun at the ready with the safety off as I walked behind my new friends. The gamer in me was always ready for trouble.

  When we got close to the walkway built at the edge I immediately saw what Anton was talking about. Someone had tossed numerous long poles on the grating of the circular structure, so they were available for people walking up there. But I also noticed a bunch of loose clothing lying next to each river near the steps, as if carelessly tossed there by teens anxious to go skinny dipping.

  Anton strode up to the wide stairway that allowed access to the upper decking, but he didn’t climb it or turn around to the rest of us. His shiny toaster looked totally out of place on his hip.

  “This is how I came to your world,” he said in a loud voice. “This is how my fellow generals arrived for battle in those early days.”

  “You came out of the ground?” I replied with disbelief.

  “It didn’t feel like it at the time,” he went on. “I stepped into the water back in Endless Imperium and woke up with one of those things around my neck. I’d been plucked from the waves.”

  Echo stepped close to Anton. “Like a fish?”

  The tired-looking general turned and smiled at the fresh-faced water woman. “Yes, lass. They pulled me out of the water at a place like this, and then put me in a covered wagon. I was disoriented and it was dark, so I didn’t make the connection with the waterways, here.”