The trouble, Josh realised, was that the haunt wasn’t really Queen Halina, and therefore it would only know things about her that had been written in the book it had taken the assassination scene from. It wouldn’t know, for example, what Prince Rupern’s favourite toy had been at the age of five, the sort of thing the real Queen Halina might remember and use to ascertain the identity of her son.
Josh couldn’t make his claim factually convincing. Instead he needed to make it narratively convincing. The haunt was born out of a story after all.
In Spiralia, Queen Halina had been a wise and fair monarch, concerned with dispensing justice and ensuring the best for her people. Josh knew very little of Tylas the Undying—he had never appeared in the game—but he sounded like the typical Prometheus-style villain archetype, whose ambition would inevitably cause him to overreach and thus visit tragedy and disaster upon everyone. From what the haunt had said, he was also underhand and scheming.
Therefore, Josh had to be the opposite of that.
While his mind was rapidly flickering through these thoughts, the moth haunt lost patience. The spell ball of moths hovering above its palm began to grow and spin faster.
“Tylas wants you to attack me!” Josh shouted. “It’s all part of his plan!”
“How so?” demanded the moth haunt. It sounded disbelieving, but the ball of moths stopped growing again.
Good question. Why would Tylas want Queen Halina to kill her own son? What advantage would that have given him? Because would remove the succession and destabilise Celespire, obviously.
“He seeks not just your death, but the destruction of Celespire itself!” Josh declared. “He struck at you, and at your loved ones, to make you angry and vengeful. To make you forget that you are the Queen of Celespire.”
“I do not forget,” the moth haunt said. The spell expanded again, the moths circling around the shrine. A wind was picking up, rifling through Josh’s hair. “I protect what is mine!”
“Then why does Tylas want you to kill me?” Josh shouted quickly.
The moth haunt hesitated.
“You are Tylas!” it said, but this time it sounded uncertain.
Josh pressed his advantage.
“But what if it is a trick? Does Tylas not work through deception and trickery? I am Rupern, your son! You would be doing what he wants!” Josh needed to push her towards the ideal of the heroine who would ultimately realise that revenge was futile, and whose personal story would be to choose justice and honour instead. "He wants you to be like him! He wants to corrupt you, to make you kill!"
Was it working?
The moth haunt hesitated. It glided forward.
“You seek only to confuse me!”
“Tylas seeks to confuse you,” Josh gasped out. He realised he should reinforce his role as Rupern, and added, belatedly, “Mother.”
The band of moths that had been circling around the shrine shrunk, swirling closer to Josh.
“You killed my Tigerlily,” the moth haunt said. It was now standing directly before Josh, who flinched away from it. He realised he was sitting on the ground, trying to cram himself as far back against the cliff as he could. The moth haunt towered over him, dark and terrifying.
“Tylas killed the Tigerlily Knight!” Josh cried. “Um, Mother. Now he wants to destroy Celespire. He wants you to be the hand … uh … of destruction.”
The flying moths approached closer, lighting on Josh’s skin and crawling up his arms and onto his face. He nearly screamed in horror. He wanted to brush the moths off him and crush them, but the moment he did that he thought the moth haunt would see that as an act of aggression and kill him instantly. Letting them crawl over him was the hardest thing he had ever done, harder than trying to steal eggs from the broodmother, and harder than walking into the ruins of Aileth-Mair after a nest of scourge.
The moth haunt wasn’t buying his story. What would convince her? What always made the heroine turn aside from vengeance?
“Would the Tigerlily Knight want you to do this?” Josh cried desperately.
The moth haunt paused again. The moths crawled over Josh and he lay there, hyperventilating, closing his eyes and flexing his hands to prevent himself clawing at the moths blanketing his skin.
“Tigerlily…” the moth haunt said on a long exhale. “Tigerlily the merciful. Tigerlily the kind. Tigerlily the forgiving.”
The moths withdrew. Josh gave one long gasp and finally couldn't stop scrubbing at his skin, rubbing his hands over his face and his arms, and raking his fingers through his hair.
“Rupern, my son,” the moth haunt said.
Josh abruptly came back to himself. He was lying curled up in a foetal position on the grass at the back of the shrine. There were no moths on him. The moth haunt was sitting in a cross-legged position on the grass nearby.
“I am dying,” the moth haunt said.
It took several breaths before Josh could recover himself enough to reply. The danger was past, but he should complete the scene.
“We can look for an antidote to the poison,” he said. “We’ll scour all four corners of the world—”
The moth haunt interrupted him.
“Alas, my son, it is too late. Even now, I can feel myself failing. Soon I will be no more. Now, it is up to you.”
To do what?
“You must call upon the remaining heroes, those who were once seven, and are now five. You must send them against Tylas the Undying.”
“Who are the five heroes, mother?”
“Ahh,” the moth haunt sighed fondly. “Oft as a child, would you beg for stories of the seven. Now you will take my mantle. Have them swear loyalty to you, for they are your greatest defence against the evil of Tylas.”
Josh was relieved to hear that he was making a convincing Rupern. He waited patiently.
“First,” the moth haunt said, “Came my beloved, my tiger of the lily, so fair and shining. Also came Sir Owain, the righteous one, strong of arm and undefeated in battle, and Sir Doug the faithful, he of the merry laugh and giant heart. With them was the Lady Selene, skilled in all the ways of the arcane, and Lord Shadow, he of the hidden arts. Steadfast against the darkness was Sir Wayland, he of the iron forge. And lost long ago, but living ever in our memory was the sweet and gentle Gwynifer.”
Were these outlanders? Or indigenous heroes?
Josh silently recited the names to himself—Tigerlily, Sir Owain, Sir Doug, Lady Selene, Lord Shadow, Sir Wayland and Gwynifer. Many of those names were pulled from different Earth mythologies, almost as if they were player names. Honestly, what kind of hero called himself Shadow? Sir Owain and Gwynifer sounded Arthurian, or at least Welsh, and Wayland was some kind of Germanic smith. Tigerlily was a fictional character, although Josh couldn’t remember from where off the top of his head. Back home he could have just looked it up on his phone and he would have known instantly.
“I will seek out the five heroes and win them to my cause,” he told the moth haunt, even though he knew that Tylus the Undying had been defeated long ago, and bound in some kind of magical chains forged by Wayland. Josh tried to remember the story Elder Tharn had told. Tylas had escaped, and somehow made a link to Earth using an entity called the Dreamer, and summoned the outlanders.
The moth haunt gave one long, last exhale.
“Farewell, my son,” it said, and then the moths making up its form scattered, lifting up into the sky in a whirring of tiny wings.
Josh wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. That had been so close. He had nearly died again. He stayed in the shrine for some time, until he realised that his hands and feet were cold, his clothes were damp, and it was completely dark. He needed to find his way back to his campfire and his backpack.
He checked his character sheet, and saw an update.
[ACHIEVEMENTS
Like A Boss I: You like flying solo, huh? This one is for the adrenaline junkies out there. Congratulations for soloing a boss. Reward: 500xp (apply).
QUESTS
The Haunted Library. Defeat the book moth haunt in the library of the druid’s grove in Whortleberry Woods. Reward: 4,526 xp.
--> Progress: you have temporarily dispersed the book moth haunt. Reward: 1,509 xp (apply).
He nearly choked when he saw the experience. That would put him up to level 9. He applied it all immediately, and got the pending level message on his main character screen. It was only then that he reminded himself that, if he had died, he would just have resurrected. But when he thought of the sheer, visceral terror the moth haunt had inspired, he shivered. It was sensible to fear death, and he shouldn't get out of the habit.
Stolen novel; please report.
It took a long time to find his way back to the grove, which involved retracing his footsteps through the forest. Luckily the moon was out, and at least partially lit the way, but he got himself tangled in several thickets, and his ankle was sore where he had turned it coming down the stairs behind the waterfall.
By the time he had gone back through the waterfall—getting wet again in the process, it had never occurred to him before how stupid and inconvenient this kind of secret entrance was—and felt his way up the steps in the darkness to the grove, the night was well advanced.
He found his backpack, with its precious try tinder, and the first thing he did was make a campfire. He put on his less wet clothes, hung his now very wet clothes on the branches of the apple tree, roasted another couple of carrots and a parsnip, and then finally tried to sleep
That night he dreamed of thousands of wings coming to smother him.
When Josh woke again at daybreak, he was stiff and his eyes were scratchy with tiredness, but nevertheless his heart lifted up. The moth haunt had been vanquished, and today he would see what was in the druid cavern below.
He checked his character sheet to apply his pending attribute points while eating breakfast, and nearly choked on a raspberry. His A Nest of the Scourge quest had updated too.
[QUESTS
A Nest of the Scourge. Clear the scourge from the ruins of Aileth-Mair. Quest status: Complete.
--> Progress: you have defeated Shuriken. Reward: 539 xp (applied).
--> Progress: Varian, Mistrz, Frenxy and Wook have not returned to the ruins of Aileth-Mair for 14 days—the ruins have been successfully cleared. Reward: 9,813 xp (apply).]
If he applied all that experience it would take him to level 11 or 12, and he would no longer be able to hide his player status. On the other hand, if he didn't apply it, and he died, he would lose it all. But death was only temporary. If the Order of the Unyielding, or the Church of the Common Covenant realised Josh was an outlander, or if Varian’s gang got hold of him, they would harvest his player core and he would die permanently.
[BASIC INFORMATION
Name: Josh Armstrong
Profession: Apprentice Plumassier
Level: 8 > 9 (pending)
Total experience points: 3,358
Experience to next level: 3,409
Player rank: #863
Kills: 1 / Deaths: 0
Gladiator rank: #486
PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES
Constitution 32 | Strength 55 | Agility 27 | Speed 19 | Endurance 28 | Resilience 27 | Manual Dexterity 63 | Vocalisation 34
MAGICAL ATTRIBUTES
Power 1 | Chi 32]
MESSAGES
You have gained 1 point of Constitution, 1 point of Strength, 1 point of Endurance, and 1 point of Chi.]
His player rank had gone up by two points. Did that mean that he had gained more experience than the Assassin and the Demon outlanders? Using bard tactics seemed to be the right strategy for him. He should keep doing it.
His gains in most of the attributes were now coming every second or third day, instead of every day, as if he had already got all the easily obtainable points. It would probably get slower from now on, and require greater effort, which made him wince internally. The last couple of weeks hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park.
At last he stood up, kicked soil over the campfire, and went to the library. He had been a little apprehensive that the moth haunt would be back, but it seemed to have disappeared. The quest log said he had only temporarily dispersed it, so presumably it would return at some point. He wasn’t keen to experience another conversation with it.
He trod carefully through the mulched and mildewy piles of paper—what a waste of books!—and eventually came to another door on the other side. This would lead down into a cavern below the grove, if he remembered correctly.
The door gave him a little trouble, but the wood was infested with dry rot, and splintered easily, allowing him to squeeze past into a narrow stone stairwell spiralling down. He held his hand around the candle to keep the flame safe, and carefully went downwards.
Josh had been poised to run at the slightest sign of monsters, or any kind of movement at all, but the stairwell was utterly silent. It culminated in a circular room with shelves, and three passageways leading in different directions, one left, one right, and one straight ahead. He hesitated, trying to orient himself, and chose the larger, central doorway, as that seemed more likely to lead to the cavern he wanted.
He took several deep breaths, because the flickering candle seemed thin protection against the silent darkness. The grove had been abandoned for some time. Anything could be down here.
He followed the central corridor, which opened out into a much larger cavern. His tiny candle was lone island of light, and he wanted nothing more than to turn tail and go back to the relative safety of the overgrown garden above. But he had to check for the druid sigils on the foundation stones. He couldn’t just turn tail after all this effort.
His mouth was dry as he took a few steps into the cave. Yes, there was one of the stones! The candlelight danced teasingly over the sigil, which was a complex glyph carved into the surface. He crouched down beside it and trying to make out the intricate curves when he realised that spaced around the chamber at regular intervals were metal braziers.
That would make more light.
An hour later, having harvested and carried down as much wood as he could from the broken door at the top of the stairwell, he had six braziers going. He'd considered leaving the door to try and block against the moth haunt, but he planned to be gone long before she came back.
He would need to keep feeding the braziers fuel if he wanted light, but they burned cheerfully for now, and he would be able to see well enough to copy the sigils. He could feel a slight breeze on his face, which suggested that fresh air was being drawn into the chamber, which therefore meant that having the braziers alight wouldn’t use up all the oxygen.
The cavern was a large one, perhaps thirty feet high at its apex, and shaped like a dome. Rough pillars bearing the braziers had been carved out of the walls, and the six foundation stones were spaced at even intervals in a circle, halfway towards the centre.
In the very centre of the room was a circular pedestal, rather like an altar. It was about waist high, and there were scenes of happily cavorting animals carved onto the outside. That seemed to be about right for the druids, who in Spiralia had been represented as hippy-ish tree-hugging sorts. Set into the top of the altar was a great bronze dish which contained the remains of ashes, although Josh had been wary of lighting a fire there, in case there was a druid god of some sort involved, who might take exception to his trespassing.
He adopted a respectful expression just in case, and focused on the first sigil.
It took him three tries to transcribe it laboriously to paper using a quill pen he'd imbued with magic and the ink he'd bought at that last farmhouse. Most of the effort was simply getting used to writing with a quill, which made him long for a nice, ordinary ballpoint. Maybe he should invent one after this. He’d make a fortune.
On second thoughts, if there had been thousands of outlanders in the world before him, likely there were loads of Earth inventions here. Although if that was the case, why hadn’t he seen any of them yet?
He forced himself to focus on the task at hand, and in a fairly short time, he had his first sigil. He could feel the tingle of magic on the paper—it was very faint, but it was there.
Josh hadn’t been sure how he was supposed to cast the spell he had drawn. In Spiralia you put it on your hotbar and clicked on it, or used the associated key bind. He had no idea how that worked here. But it turned out to be pretty simple. All he did was hold up the piece of paper, and concentrate on the tiny trickle of magic he could feel embedded in it, and then suddenly a wave of warm air hit him in the face, and the paper turned instantly to ash.
He'd done it! He’d cast a spell!
From the rush of warmth he’d felt, Josh was sure it must be Heat or something of that nature, which would be an enormously useful spell … oh wait …
He realised he was feeling faint and dizzy, and abruptly sat down. It was the same sensation he’d got when he’d imbued too many feathers in a row with magic that first night, or when he’d tried to sense the prickle of magic in the sealing wax on his papers.
He’d thought his magical stamina, if that could be considered a term, had increased a lot, but the spell had really taken it out of him. If he’d tried to cast something like that on his first day in Six Spires he probably would have passed out. He was a lot stronger now, and his Chi was higher, but it obviously needed to be higher still.
These spells would be an amazing way to increase Chi. He would have to keep practicing, no matter how much ink or paper he used up.
Speaking of which, he had more copying to do, because there were five more foundation stones to check. No matter how much he was tempted to focus solely on the sigils, he kept a wary eye on the braziers, and went regularly upstairs to make sure it was still daylight.
How soon would the book moth haunt come back?
Josh was able to work out four of the six sigils just from a single cast of the spell, although it got harder each time, and he had to sit and rest for longer after each one. In addition to Heat, there was Water, which summoned several droplets of water; Hide, which had made the skin of his hand adopt a camouflage effect, like a chameleon, which was really unsettling but amazing; and something he decided to call Force Field.
This was more of an aspirational name than a description. It wasn’t really an actual barrier, but after Josh cast it, and then walked forwards, he could feel a slight invisible bump in the air. If he threw a stone through it, he felt a tiny little mental blip. It would make a really good alarm spell if he could work out how to make it bigger than about six feet in diameter, and also make it last longer than an hour or two. And maybe, one day, he would work out how to make it repel physical objects too, and then it really would be a force field.
When Josh cast the sigils from the last two foundation stones, the spell paper vanished, which meant the something had activated, but he wasn’t sure what. After accidentally giving his skin a camouflage effect, he had ended up casting the spell on various spare bits of wood. If there was an effect, though, it was too subtle for him to detect, so he decided to wait until tomorrow to do more testing. He went round the chamber and made double copies of each sigil, thinking about what he could do with each one.
Hide was going to be amazing. If he could get enough feathers together, he could use it to make a sort of camouflage cloak. Heat was obvious—he could use that to dry his clothes and his shoes, what absolute bliss, or keep his hands warm. Water might be useful if he couldn’t find a water source, or didn’t want to trust the local water, although he hadn’t had any issues with that so far.
And all this testing meant he could finally decide on a plumassier skill. He still had to decide between Glow, Hide, and Extinguish. The druid grove had given him Hide, so it wouldn’t make sense to choose that. Extinguish would probably have a lot of utility at higher levels, but for now the most useful skill would be Glow. Not only would Josh have an instant light source, he might even be able to make glowing feathers as decorations and sell them. Maybe he could claim it was due to a cantrip, and not some innate magical ability that would bring all sorts of oversight crashing down on his head.
When it got to mid-afternoon, he reluctantly put the spell papers away, and stood up.
He hesitated, because he had another decision to make. He had noticed earlier that the braziers sucked a steady breeze into the cavern. The braziers nearest the spiral staircase, where the breeze came from, flared and guttered the most. However, on the opposite side of the cavern, the two there also seemed to respond to a draught of some sort.
Was there a hidden passageway?
It would be stupid to investigate now. The book moth haunt might be back tonight, and he didn’t want to be anywhere near the druid grove when that happened. He had several hours of daylight still, and he shouldn’t waste them.
But it wouldn’t take long just to check, would it?
He went to the opposite side of the cavern and studied the rock wall there. He couldn’t see anything obvious, but when he lit the hated tallow candle it immediately blew out, such was the strength of the draught. He tried again, cupping his hand around the tiny flame, and eventually was able to use it to trace an invisible seam in the rock wall. He put his hand on the seam, and even though he couldn’t see it, he could feel a narrow crack, and cold air against his palm.
A secret door!