The Adventures of An Afflicted
Part 2: Monumental Misjudgements
The city streets of Kaineng were deserted before us. Where I had expected to find hustle and bustle, there was little more than the blowing of the breeze. Towards the City Centre lights flashed in the sky as the celebrations continued over the defeat of Shiro.
Dokk, my new Asura friend and I had been travelling together now for a few hours. We had seen no more of the purple clad Jade Brotherhood and had arrived at a near empty Marketplace, where one blind trader, who hadn't realised I was an Afflicted, had told me of the terrible price that Shiro's fall had exacted. Master Togo was dead.
I remember the last thing Togo had said to me, "Hello, young Derek the Haunted! You are fast becoming a favorite student of mine." I don't know, maybe it was just something he told everyone who completed the basic training at the Monastery, but it had seemed sincere enough and had always stuck with me. Poor Togo.
"You're in dream land again Fishman Bookah," I was told by my new companion, who to be honest, I was beginning to find a little irritating.
"Listen," I began, realising the futility of arguing against this strange little creature, "I don't know what a Bookah is, but I do know that I'm not a Fishman. So drop it ok!"
The Asura didn't break its stride. "This way Fishman," it said disregarding me entirely and walking on through the streets.
As we walked I asked for the fifth time what we were looking for and for the fifth time I was ignored, well I say ignored, I heard him mumble something about a 'fissure' and more grumbling about "half witted dwarves."
All at once the Asura stopped and turned to me. "You know something, it's the Dwarves fault. Digging around the place, leaving caverns and tunnels under the earth, from one side of the world to the other," Dokk said in that annoying tone.
"Uh huh," was all I could think of replying.
The Asura snorted contemptuously. "My fault for expecting a Bookah to understand so simple a premise. I come from a far away land Fishman. A land where my people bend great magic to our uses! We made the Gates that brought the dwarves to these shores so far from their mountains in the north."
I didn't bother replying, but if I had I would have said "uh huh."
"My gate is gone, because of the Destroyers that those Dwarves aggravated." the Asura announced. "And now I am stuck here in this city of rejects who are all suffering some childish Affliction, no offence intended of course. But if we were at home, I could cure this nonsense in a day."
"What," I said astounded by his – I think it was a he – claims. "Your people know of a cure for this?"
"Of course not, they've never seen you," he laughed at me. "But given a few minutes they will have it figured out..."
"Then we have to go there," I broke in before he got on one of his rants about his superior brethren in the North.
Dokk laughed at me again. "Impossible I'm afraid," he said with a blink. "To open the broken gateway would take a power source that could generate 1.21…well, the amount is rather irrelevant. Suffice to say that no such power exists in this stinking rat infested city."
My mind raced ahead of the Asura, for the first time and indeed probably the last time in all the time I came to know him. "I know where we can get the power from," I told him.
He looked dubious.
"Grenth!" I exclaimed.
Dokk stopped walking then. "You think that you can make the God of the Underworld listen to you talking about opening up a temporal distortion gateway through Tyria?" he asked.
Fair question, I thought. "No my little friend," I added, really thinking on the move. "I think I can get him to listen to you talk about temporary gate things. He's my God after all. I've spent my life devoted to him, that's got to count for something."
A sort of panic seemed to cross Dokks little face as he pondered whether or not I could be right.
Eventually, reluctantly, he said, "I concede to you on this Bookah. The Gods are the only ones in this land with the power to perform what I seek. And if the Gods owe anyone anything, then it is probably you my large companion. It is probably you!"
"Thanks, I think," I replied. "Now, we just have to find a shrine to Grenth."
"Not a problem, we shall use this map," the Dokk told me confidently and produced a map of the city from his robes.
"Where did you get this?" I asked.
"From the trader where else? He was blind after all, what use has he for such a map? Our need was much greater. We must take the road to Tahnnakai Temple, then proceed on through to the Zin Ku corridor where the Gods have their shrines."
With his sentence complete and his theft unforgiven, the little Asura slipped the map away and began a steady march in what I could only guess was the direction of the Talaki Temple place.
We marched straight on until we eventually came to an underground section of city, where massive drains spewed fetid water into huge gullies.
"What sort of creature lives in a place like this?" asked Dokk. It was a question I couldn't begin to answer. Walking through the Sanjiang District was like walking through an open drain.
But despite our complaints about smell and scenery, there were people living down there, the Am Fah mostly.
A band of thieves and criminals, the Am Fah would set upon anyone foolish enough to cross their paths. So it was, we met them:
They appeared from nowhere, dropping out of the very sky. Six of them there were and they had a mean look about them. "What've we got here boys?" one of them said.
"Listen," I started, "we don't want any trouble, we are on urgent business to Tanjaki Temple. Ok?"
"Oh, that's fine," the same one said, "but unfortunately people don't go through without paying the toll. And the toll doubles if you're an Afflicted with a little freak thing in tow. What the hell are you anyway?" he asked pointing at Dokk.
Dokk spoke up, "I am an Asura you stupid man. Step aside as we are on important business that would simply be incomprehensible to your unworked mind. Our path through this slimy mudhole is disgusting enough already, step aside."
The Am Fah looked to each other. Trouble was coming I was sure of it. "Slimy? Mudhole? That's it!" the leader shouted. "Am Fah, attack!"
And with that they were on us. I tried to call spirits, but was suddenly blinded by a flare from Dokks staff.
As my vision cleared, Dokk poked me hard with his staff. "Time to beat a hasty, but well contrived retreat Bookah."
Staggering half blind, I followed Dokk as he wound his way through the blinded Am Fah, stretching out, to knock the legs out from under each of them with his staff as he went.
"Why didn't you do that to the Jade people when we first met?" I asked him as we moved quickly on.
He didn't look back but his shoulders sagged a little. "I ran out of energy," he said with a beaten tone in his mildly irritating voice. "I was using my staff as a glow stick to amuse myself, when they surrounded me. I was being a Bookah you might say."
"What is a Bookah?" I asked, realising that my relationship with this Asura was fast turning into just a series of unanswered questions and not sure that I wanted the answer to this particular question anyway, considering how often he had used it in reference to me.
He answered, "Let it suffice to say, that it is not a term that the Asura ever point at themselves and that I have shown a supreme humility in my previous sentence, thus once again proving my superiority over all but my fellow Asura."
See, told you I didn't want the answer.
"Whatever you say, little freak," I answered.
"Indeed, Bookah, whatever I say. I'm impressed, you can learn after all."
And so we reached Taranki Temple and quickly passed through, scaring a few of the resident spirits, who apparently had seen my kind not too long before. I tried to explain, but only Vizu seemed to actually listen.
"Carry on through," she told us. "But hope not that Grenth will show compassion for the living, even in your condition Derek the Haunted."
With her words of encouragement we carried on through to the Zin Ku corridor, where sit the monuments to the Gods.
We hustled past the temple acolytes and moved down to the stairs to the monument of Grenth. With some difficulty I managed to bend my bulbous knees to kneel before the shrine. Eventually the image of a reaper appeared beside us.
"I am the Voice of Grenth," it declared in a deep tone. "What do you pledge to the God of the Underworld?"
"Uh, listen," I began uncertainly, "Could we, um, talk to the big man."
I got the feeling that the reaper was staring at me, though it seemed to have no eyes beneath its hood. "The big man?" it asked, clearly angered.
I tried to back-pedal a little. "We need help with something and only the God himself has the power to grant our favour."
More staring from the eyeless reaper!
"You seek the God of the Underworld for a favour? You come here, with no offering and insinuate that I have not the power to help you. Insult me on my own monument…"
"Enough of this," Dokk spoke up. "We need your master to generate a force of 1.21 gigawatts to reopen the gateway to Riven Earth so that I can cure my Bookah friend of his plague. Go fetch your master," he added dismissively.
The reaper said nothing and I knew, as the seconds ticked by, that Dokk had just bought us permanent visitation rights to the Underworld.
Suddenly the reaper began a slow chant and a portal began to open slowly. Dokk got the wrong idea and said, "See Bookah, you've just got to know how to talk to these jumped up door guards…"
His sentence broke off as a little creature, clearly not Grenth-sized, popped through the portal. Then another one broke through, squat little things they were, smaller even than Dokk. Little green things with sharp pointed ears on top of which sat a little red hat that I had seen briefly on one Wintersday.
"Run," I shouted to Dokk who was trying to fathom out the new arrivals, a group which was getting bigger by the moment. Within a few seconds there were ten of them.
"What is the meaning of this?" Dokk asked, as I plucked him up under one arm and ran as fast as my limbs would carry me.
"Grentches," I shouted back. "Servants of Grenth, they normally don't come out unless it's near Wintersday."
And so I departed Tamaki Temple, pursued by a host of Grentches with Dokk secreted under one arm and complaining about the smell. We came at speed, to the place where the Am Fah had ambushed us previously and true to form, they appeared again.
"Oh you must be more stupid than you look," the leader said as they stepped out in front of us.
"Get out of the way," I yelled and barrelled through their ranks, turning briefly to watch in a kind of twisted amusement as the Grentches rounded and corner and ran straight into the Am Fah.
The thieves were overwhelmed in seconds, but that was all the time Dokk needed. "I was never sure of the purpose of this until now," he said and threw a small disc on to the floor.
Where the disc landed, up popped a snowman. The Grentches stopped instantly and made funny little squeaking noises at the snowman.
"Don't slow down, Bookah, it's just a trick, it won't be there long," Dokk told me. I redoubled my efforts and we shot out of the underground into daylight.
"I would suggest that we hide," I told Dokk, whilst looking around. I found a shop that suited our needs and burst in and hid behind the counter. The shopkeeper looked bewildered. "Shhh," I said to him. It was unnecessary really as the shock of seeing an Afflicted burst into his shop had killed him. He fell to the floor with a thud.
"Dammit," I said.
"Silence Bookah they will find us," Dokk told me. With a sigh he added, "I don't know how I let you get me into this mess."
I looked in amazement at the Asura, but decided that the argument I had on my lips would be wasted.
I hate you, I thought at him. Little freak!
To be continued…