The Adventures of An Afflicted
Part 3: Gates to Madness
After barely escaping from the horde of Grentches that had been sent to get me and Dokk, we were at a loss of what to do. Dokk had insisted that there was no power in the land now capable of fixing his gateway so we were stuck to more old-fashioned means of transit.
"What about a boat?" I asked the Asura.
"Finding someone who is going our way could be a problem my large friend," Dokk told me. "It is many days from here to the shores of the Tarnished Coast and my homeland."
"Got a better idea?"
Dokk looked at me again like I was an intolerable fool. "Of course I have," he told me. "We head north."
"Why?" I asked.
The Asura ignored me again and started walking off in the direction of Kaineng Centre. "We're going to get a boat," I said, answering my own question.
Our arrival at the Centre was greeted surprisingly well. Lots of people congratulated me on the excellence of my costume, but wondered what Dokk was supposed to be. His answer to that was simply, "Asura!" with the occasional "Bookah!" thrown in if he was being generous.
In honesty I was glad, even though the people were misled in their belief that I was wearing a Afflicted costume, that people were talking to me. I was thoroughly sick of Dokk and his abuse and I'd known him less than a day.
We spent the rest of that day socialising with everyone you could hope to meet. Many of the students from the Monastery that I had studied with were there celebrating the victory over Shiro.
"There's something familiar about you," a monk in white robes said to me as he stumbled towards me in a drunken stupor. "He killed my best friend you know," he said as he stroked my arm.
"Who did?" I asked as I shuffled away slightly.
"I've got a place in the city if you want to go back for some refreshments," he told me with a wink not answering me. I smiled, as much as possible and moved quickly away.
Later on I noticed him staggering out of the party with a girl on each arm holding him up as he walked away. Distantly I heard him shouting something about Shiro and his oldest friend being dead.
I found Dokk lurking around by some storage chests. "What are you doing here?" I asked him.
"Keeping away from that monk Bookah, he kept offering to take me home with him," Dokk told me.
I laughed. "Well, he's gone now. And I think it's time we found ourselves a ride out of here.
"Agreed entirely, at last you've said something worth saying Fishman," he told me and we hustled towards the docks behind the buildings.
Sure enough there was a boat sat waiting for us.
"Quickly," Dokk said. "We can hide in the cargo containers."
So we hoped aboard and threw out a lot of expensive looking trinkets from the boxes, then squeezed in and prepared for the journey.
Two days, by my guess was how long we were at sea. I'd been thrown around in my little crate and I was tired and hungry.
Just as I was beginning to think that I couldn't take any more jostling around I heard a commotion. The crew were shouting about something that I couldn't quite make out through the box.
Suddenly, I heard a high-pitched noise and instantly realised what the trouble was. They'd found Dokk.
As I pushed the lid off of my box and was briefly dazzled by the bright sunlight. I heard Dokk cry out. "Help me Fishman."
The crew turned about almost as one, following the eyes of the Asura and when they saw me…well…
The first two jumped overboard into the sea and the other four screamed first, then jumped overboard.
I waddled over to Dokk who had been dropped on the deck forgotten in the panic. "You okay?" I asked.
Rising in as dignified a manner as possible, Dokk sneered at me. "Of course not," he yelled at me, rubbing his left arm feverishly. "Those brutes could have damaged me permanently. What took you so long?"
"Well, I was having such a good time in my crate, that I thought I'd stay there as long as possible," I started irritably, "but then my blissful reverie was interrupted by some stupid thing screaming its stupid head off. Does that answer your question?"
"I don't recall hearing any of the crew screaming," was all Dokk said back to me, before he turned his back on me and sulked by the steering wheel of the boat.
After about an hour I decided to try talking to him.
"Listen Dokk…"
He cut me off. "No, you listen Bookah. I'm far from happy with this situation. My luck has been off ever since I came to the tunnels beneath Cantha. I am far from my home and I don't need every decision I make criticised by some Afflicted Bookah. Especially when said Bookah has no better idea's than getting us chased by a bunch of Wintersday obsessed Goblins."
I was stunned. "You're blaming me for that? After you upset the Reaper?"
"Let me ask you something Fishman…"
Dokk didn't get to ask me his question. As we were talking, the boat had drifted very close to some rocks that jutted out from a headland I had failed to notice. Just as he was about to ask his question, the boat smashed into said rocks dashing us both into the waiting sea.
As I emerged from the water, I was even more irritated than the last time. Still I called out to Dokk anyway. As the waves washed over me, I got a glimpse of the boat sinking slowly a little further away. And there are no prizes for guessing what was being dragged down with it.
"Dokk," I cried out, swimming as fast as possible towards him. I began to feel the extra pull of the current around the boat.
Throwing out a limb in the direction of the Asura, I hoped that we weren't both doomed already.
He managed to grab hold of my arm and I pulled him towards me.
"The rocks," I shouted and pointed with my free hand. The rocks that had sunk our boat would turn out to be our salvation I hoped.
We struggled more and more against the current that the failing boat was creating, but made slow progress and eventually I grabbed hold of the rock that we had ploughed into not more than a minute previous.
With a scramble, we managed to get out of the treacherous water. The waves crashed around us and we could do little but watch as our only hope of getting back to Dokk's homeland sank to the depths of oblivion.
"You were saying about things going badly," I said prompting the Asura.
He thought on it for a moment. "Yes," he began, "perhaps I was unwise to upset that Shining Blade girl after all."
A minute or two passed and the ship disappeared altogether. Not even my crate had floated out of the wreckage.
"Well," Dokk said, "once again we find ourselves in a problematic situation Bookah. I guess there is nothing for it, but to head towards land. By my calculations, we are still some way off of the Tarnished Coast. In all probability we are looking at the coastline of Elona."
Turns out that it was Elona.
A bloody shame really because Elona is mostly desert and within a short walk we were in a part a desert which had a poisonous yellow sulphur sand everywhere.
I was immune to its effects, but Dokk burnt his toes pretty bad on it and wouldn't shut up about it for days.
With no sign of plant life, water or food, I carried him under the gaze of a baking hot sun across an acrid land of death.
We saw creatures, strange undead looking things. They tried to kill us. We saw big monstrous things that turned into stony squares when we looked at them. They tried to kill us. We also saw massive worms, which tried to swallow us whole. Basically everything we did encounter, tried to kill us.
None of them managed to though. Dokk was actually pretty handy with his staff and knew some lethal spells. I learnt maybe not to upset him so much if only to avoid the fire he could summon at will.
So it was, an Afflicted Ritualist, carrying an Asura with a large fiery staff arrived at the Ruins of an ancient town called Morah after three days fumbling through what I later learned was called the Desolation.
Thankfully the town was mostly empty, apart from a sales man called Souske, selling water and sandwiches that he claimed were almost as good as those made by the great Sandwich Maker Olias.
I'd never heard of either of them to be honest, but the sales man did make us some damned fine sandwiches while we were there so I guess that Olias must be pretty good at it too.
We managed to stay there a couple of days before an army of Kournans burst in and took the place over. The leader, a woman, wondered at Dokk and me.
Surprisingly, she listened to our story with interest, rather than just killing us outright. She seemed nice. We had some Charr meat sandwiches while we told her what had happened to us.
When we were finished in the telling she told us some excellent news. Her God Abaddon had brought back Shiro Tagachi from the ether. Not just that, but she actually promised to help us get to him.
We went with her into a ceremony to open up the portal to Shiro and Abaddon. She got most of the way through when she was interrupted, irritatingly by some aggravating 'Sunspear' people. Anyway, before they could stop us she managed to open up the portal.
"Go ahead, the Sunspears will only try and kill you my friends they are an intolerant bunch," she told us as we looked into the portal.
"We will stay and fight with you," I offered, stifling Dokks protests that we should just leave her to it.
"I've got a surprise for these Istani fools," she told us and bid us to go on. "See you on the other side," she said with a wink, before nudging us through.
That was last we saw of Varesh.
So anyway, we walked through the dark lands beyond the portal until we came to a place called the Gate of Madness. To be honest, thinking back on it, some of the names of the places behind that vortex were a bit on the dodgy side. Gate of Pain, Gate of Madness, and Realm of Torment...not really names for nice places.
Nothing really bothered either of us while we were there though. None of the creatures there seemed to care about Dokk and me at all. Even the Titans let us by without a second glance.
Eventually in the Gate of Madness, we found the place where Shiro was camped out with his mate some kind of Lich.
"Master Shiro," I said as I reached him.
He looked at me with surprise. "An Afflicted? How did you get away from Cantha? And indeed all the way here?" he asked in his gravely voice. So I told him the story same as I'd told Varesh.
When I was finished, with various interruptions – sorry, corrections - from Dokk, Shiro put a hand on my shoulder and I'm sure a little tear ran down his cheek. "My poor Ritualist," he began.
"You know ever since I spoke to that fortune teller, nothing I have done has turned out right. First the Emperor, then how many lives ruined by the wickedness that turned you and the others into the Afflicted?"
"Ah," I said shrugging. "It's been an education. You learn a lot about people from their reactions to you when you've got this kind of problem."
"You are very kind," Shiro said to me, "but I cannot begin to imagine how it has all been for you."
"Lucky, he has had me to keep things straight for him," Dokk spoke up. "I cannot imagine how things would have gone had I not saved you from the Jade Brotherhood."
I just smiled at him and Shiro did too. "I'm glad he found you my Asura friend," Shiro said and laughed. "Now, then lets get this Affliction sorted out shall we?"
"Yes please," I said.
Just then the Lich burst in. "Shiro, Shiro, they've killed Varesh. The damned Sunspears have killed young Varesh," he shouted.
Shiro looked distraught. "No, how can this happen? They can't have killed her. We had a date planned for tomorrow after the Nightfall. I bought Jade Crab sandwiches from Olias, her favourite."
The Lich shook its head. "I'm sorry Shiro, but it's true. They killed her in cold blood. I needed to tell you first. It's that Kormir, she's come to throw down Abaddon and steal a place amongst the Gods." Then he ran out the door, looking around nervously.
"Okay, okay," Shiro paced the floor and we could see he was angry. "Derek, Dokk, wait here and I'll sort out this mess, then get you fixed up okay?"
I was about to offer assistance, when Dokk prodded me with his staff and shook his large eared head at me. "We have to focus on getting back to Rata Sum."
"Ah yes, of course," Shiro said. "I'll open a portal to the Asuran lands." With a chanted command, a portal opened and through it we could see green fields and rolling hills.
We gaped in amazement at Shiro's power. "Incredible," Dokk drooled. "If we Asura had such power…"
"One day you might," Shiro told him. "Now, one second to fix you my friend, this is a little more complicated," Shiro added turning to me and he began another longer chant.
Suddenly the Lich came staggering back in the door looking pained, interrupting Shiro's chant.
"Lich?" Shiro asked worried. With an unexpected lurch, the Lich fell forward on his face and revealed a host of arrows sticking out of his back.
"LICH!" Shiro screamed. "Oh that's it, they're dead," he added drawing his monstrously long daggers. He ran towards the door yelling something about impossible odds.
Within a minute he too was filled with arrows and came staggering back in the door. "Run you fools," he said as he fell dead before our feet.
So we turned and ran through the vortex, just as a party of Sunspears entered the room and their arrows started to fly in our direction. I had a funny twisting feeling in my guts as we span through the wormhole.
In pain we landed on the grass in a place I could only assume, Dokk called home.
To be concluded…