// SYS : Flee if you can, for the Imposthume of Korgoth awaits! Behold this hellish wasteland, where the very earth festers with molten wounds, and rivers of fire snake through a blackened plain of soot! The air is oh so thick — heavy with the horrid stench of sulphur and ash, and every breath sears a reminder onto your throat that life such as yours does not belong here! Lo! the jagged crags rise like broken teeth, spewing plumes of choking smoke into the sky, blotting out the heavens! And ohhh, the fiends! They crawl from the cracks in the earth, their fiery eyes glowing through the swirling ash, ever-eager to hunt those foolish enough to trespass in their dark domain. Step not too close to the pools of bubbling magma, for even they hunger to devour you whole! //

I miss the forest already. . . . These introductions are just getting more and more dramatic. Do you come up with these yourself?

// SYS : We have a few bullet points to hit each time, but we've a lot of room for personalisation.

You clearly have a lot of fun coming up with them.

Dark as it was, each step was perilous under the pine canopy, especially when I tried to use small bursts of [Vigour] to save my pride. I told Alator I regretted not buying a torch, at least to see where my feet were going, but he told me that in such a fraught place it would only attract the worst sorts of predators — I sort of shrugged at that.

I had crossed over a very dark portion of my life before eventually deciding to step into the New Worlds, and had in that time decided to turn over a new leaf, to grab life by the horns. Alator had quickly become part of that resolution:

I will utilise your seeming limitless energy and power as often as I can, to any extreme necessary. . . .

How little I knew of the extremes of Barbican!

It was full gloomy night by the time we broke out of the tree-line, leaving behind the briar, pines and snow. The ashen wasteland of the Imposthume of Korgoth was no better. At multiple points my sandalled foot fell hard six inches or so onto sharp rocks, or slipped on a pile of settled ash, and each time I tripped and fell sprawled over, grazing my bare knees and palms. The Windbloom I had chewed on had closed the fang pin-hole in my palm, but it was still a shining patch of frail new skin and each time I fell it shocked pain.

One time, when it took me more than a few moments to right myself, Alator came to my side and dragged me to my feet. He turned aside and pointed a finger.

“We will make it to high ground, and if we can find somewhere hidden, sleep until first light.”

I nodded, clicking my teeth.

There were certainly no stars visible, but even if there was a moon shining behind the clouds (I actually wasn’t sure there was one . . . or two?), it was (they were?) entirely imperceptible, and only the faintest of faint sheens of dampened light guided our way. The horizon, however, glowed with this dull red light which, as we stamped up the incline of the volcanic mountains, was revealed to be slow-creeping runnels of magma which bubbled out of the earth at one point then tumbled slowly a few hundred yards and disappeared into another point in the earth.

After the first few scant ones, which we avoided, the place quickly became a criss-crossed roadmap of these lava-streams.

“We’ll have to leap this one,” Alator said as he glanced left and right. Then added, “If you’re up to it.” I knew he wouldn’t have stopped to think even for a moment if I hadn’t been so weak.

Irritation pricked me. My throat was parched. We had drunk from the snows in the pine forest, but the last three or four hours of the journey had been thirsty and dry, and now the air was hot and growing thin. I took off the Stonebear Cloak as soon as it heated up, but I found that the +1 Constitution it gave made the walk more comfortable than removing it, so while it looked a bit mad, I kept it wrapped around my shoulders and accepted sweat from every pore.

“I’ve only been in this World two days, you know,” I scowled.

Alator blinked, for a moment misunderstanding my spite.

“I know, me too.” Then he added, with a thin, supportive smile, “You must have lived as some lord of a metropolis in a previous life, to be so unready.”

Not helping. I shouldered past him, took a running start, and vaulted the magma. Heat licked my ankles as I sailed over, curling the hair on my calves, and I landed heavily on the other side, skidded, a knee buckled, and I dropped for the twentieth time.

“My arse!”

Alator leapt over to me softly and held out a hand, a cruel grin on his face. I reluctantly took it with my good palm and he lifted me to my feet easily.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Don’t,” I said, forlorn. “Let’s just get to the high ground.”

From there, we went out of our way whenever possible to avoid the fires and lava-flows. At some point a nauseating stink of sulphur came on and made me gag, and my thighs burnt with the uphill effort and my calves ached for moving over the soft ground, like when walking on sand.

Further on, Alator threw his hand out and indicated a specific place we were aiming for. I just grunted and kept forcing my quickly-failing thews onwards. But, feeling in myself a few fresh uses of my Skills were available to me, I decided it was as good a time as any to try to farm for some upgrades.

Whenever there was another magma stream that we absolutely had to cross, or else a rift in the earth like a deep crevasse, especially if the gap was more than a couple yards across, I jumped with [Vigour], soaring through the air and landing quite comfortably on the other side. I decided I probably couldn’t get away with [Battle Tactics] in any clever way, and didn’t want to draw on any more exhaustion or discomfort in an attempt (nor any further insult from SYS), but I did manage a few uses of [Weapon Mastery], using my spear to pole-vault over a few high boulders, which seemed to work.

SYS, is there any way of knowing how close I am to levelling up a Skill?

// SYS : Not really, but you'll know when one improves.

By the time we reached the steepest part of the slope, I was entirely spent. Alator hopped up a near-sheer shining, black ledge like a mountain goat, then leant his body down so that he could give me a hand up.

As I lay fully splayed on the ground, listening to the faint grumbling of the earth and the growing and popping bubbles from behind us, trying to ignore the stench, a little butterfly landed on my arm — a pleasant little green body with fine, gossamer grey wings. It made me smile, and I watched as it shook off some soot and flapped a couple of times, a little ticklish.

Then it gave me a sharp pain like a needle as a spiked proboscis shot into my skin.

“Bastard!” I slapped hard and crushed it, a spurt of dark blood — my own — smeared on my arm. It left a pale patch of skin that started to itch instantly.

Alator started and looked over. Grumbling, I reached into the pouch and drew out the jerky, tossed some to Alator, and chewed and swallowed a few large mouthfuls. In the dry air, my mouth was parched, and the jerky did not go down easy. Then I half-grunted that I was tired, turned over onto my side, and struggled to sleep.

Sometime later — I didn’t know how long, but I did feel a modicum of rest — Alator woke me with a stab in the shoulder with two fingers.

“Sorry to do this, Talbot, but we might have company.”

We crawled over to the edge of the ebony-black ridge and peered down the hill. Far below us was a flat, wide, darkly-armoured creature, reminiscent of an armadillo that had been scorched and then compressed. It was perhaps six-foot tall and twice that wide. I fingered the Analysis Card in my pocket.

Fiend :

Cinderback Armadrax, Level 14

Stats :

Str 16, Dex 4, Con 18, Mnd 2

Attacks :

Burning Roll, Fiery Claw, Searing Smother

Loot :

Cinderback Claw, Molten Carapace, Inferno Heartstone

Weakness :

Distracted by noise

XP :

105

I sent a little probe to my extremities and was pleasantly surprised with what came back — I’d had enough rest. I probably couldn’t take the armadillo thing by myself, but even 52 XP would put me well above what I need for Level 4.

Easy decision quickly made, I nudged Alator and whispered:

“I’m going to give that beast my best shot. Be nearby, but out of sight. When I call for you, howl as loud as you can. Then give it a moment, if after that, you see me in imminent death-peril, please jump in and save me.”

A little perplexed, he nodded.

“Rash, Talbot — hopefully not too rash.”

I stifled a giggle at the almost perfect pirate film quote that Alator definitely had no idea about.

This won’t be any use, I thought, laying my shield down on the ash. Then, with the trusty Bronze Spear in my hand, we both slid down the obsidian and silently made our way over the ashen ground. Parting, we kept to what shadows we could, or shards of rock, or hazes of fiery air, and through the discomfort and the pink glow of first light, made ground on the thing.

The fiend stood on four keg-thick accordion-like legs, slow-moving and undulating, each tipped with a row of fiery claws. Once or twice it gave an enormous shake and shudder, its scales like blackened iron shifting and clacking together, contracting and expanding over the strange, wide body it had, but didn’t seem on edge. Its long snout, ending in a circular disc of iron with two unmoving nostrils, snuffled and moved the ash about in front of it.

As I moved closer than perhaps twenty yards, I peered into the gentle stream of power within me and easily found [Battle Tactics] waiting within reach, to ensure there was nothing I was missing. My mind was peppered with a few different final routes to take.

Choosing one, I blew out my lungs, gripped my spear, heart POUNDING, and tore from hiding towards the thing. I’d always wondered why people seemed to holler while rushing towards an unassuming foe — surely it just alerts the enemy to your presence, or worse, tells them the name of the attack you’re using. . . . Anyway, that’s what I did: yelled bloody murder, and threw my body towards mortal combat!