I shoved the gun down my bag for future reference and opened my private messages. Zena was spamming me, anxious to find out how I'd done it and furious because the moment she'd ventured after me, she'd been peppered with arrows until she resembled a porcupine. Women and their curiosity!
I had to play the man of mystery, explaining it away with some class quests and my personal charisma. Zena didn't sound convinced, too desperate to get to some new unexplored lands. I felt uneasy. Trust that little fool to walk right into a dragon's den—literally. That could complicate everything. So I warned her against trying to ram her way through the skull where she'd be stuck, spread-eagled, in one of the numerous clever traps while her teammates stormed the castle trying to get to her shriveling frame.
I closed the chat windows. Finally I could have a good look around. The inner court of the fortress had been marked with the imprint of the dragon's enormous wing bones. If you looked at it from above, you could see clearly the position the dragon had been lying in when his heart had ceased beating.
The undead stopped ambling around and began gravitating toward me, even though they didn't dare overstep some invisible line that only they could see. They would come close and stop dead in their tracks, their empty eye sockets staring at me. Should I summon my zombie to keep them company? Having said that, I'd rather not. I could be the proud mark-bearer thanks to my secret supporters, but I couldn't predict the local skeletons and Liches' reaction to my humble pet.
I walked through their ranks, expecting the strong stench of dead flesh, but time must have picked their bones clean of meat, so they didn't smell at all. I kept going until I'd left the piles of bones behind me. Here the canyon split, revealing a rather green valley specked with wild flowers. Whatever monster inhabited it apparently didn't lay claim to the green bit. I glanced at the white expanse of the map which was rapidly filling with schematic hills, brooks and other special signs.
Then I saw the first specimens of what passed for the local fauna: a level 160 zombie grizzly bear and a mutant reindeer, his antlers glowing the same acid green. He wasn't radioactive, surely? A Geiger counter would have come in handy: I didn't wish to share the dragon's fate.
The reindeer noticed me and froze just like the skeletons back in the fortress, apparently unable or unwilling to flee. Gingerly I approached him, running my hand along the beast's warm side, as he snorted, shuddering, his berserk bloodshot eyes squinting at me. I reconsidered and stepped back. No need to upset the critter. His upper lip rose, exposing some definitely non-herbivore canine teeth that added conviction to my decision.
I walked along a barely discernable road reduced to a trail by earth deposits and a riot of greenery. Occasional ruins studded my path: watch towers atop of some strategic high points; the crumbling shells of inns and taverns clinging to the roadside where they'd once promised shelter and food to tired wayfarers. All the buildings were in various stages of decay. And if you shook your head, switching from high-fantasy mode to today's realities, you could discern the stitches of automatic weapons that had once ripped through the walls and the petals of shrapnel left by every caliber shell under the sun.
I walked over to the pockmarked ruins of a tower and rummaged through a heap of rubble at its base. Soon a piece of shrapnel lay in my hand, silver and purple, its edges ragged and incredibly sharp. It didn't look as if time had any power over this once-deadly piece of metal. Once I had rubbed it free from dust, it glistened in the sun just like it must have done eons ago. I attempted to read its stats.
Mithril Ore. Metal content: 8%. Weight: 0.22 Lbs.
Jesus. May I have two, please? So those steel invaders used depleted mithril to knock up their missiles? That was rich! I thought I knew why the Titans hadn't been back yet: they must still be sitting next to a mithril Everest even now, smearing the desperate tears from their greedy faces knowing they couldn't stuff it all in their pockets.
If you remembered that mithril was ten times the price of gold, my little find could easily cost anything up to eighty gold. I liked this kind of math. I stood on the hilltop, looking over the unfolding panorama of several busted ruins and a few promising shell holes, long collapsed and overgrown with grass. For all I knew, it could have been a tree uprooted a hundred years ago, having shifted a good dozen cubic feet of earth in its fall. Then again, the bottom of the hole could conceal the mithril tail fin of a five-hundred kilo bomb...
The gold rush got the better of me. I spent the next half-hour crawling on all fours at the foot of the tower. Finally, I slumped onto a cleaner strip of grass and poured out my finds in front of me. Eight glistening fragments, sharp and angular, weighed in at about six hundred grams: a Klondike times Eldorado. They didn't happen to have a fifty-ton tank buried here somewhere, did they? Had I had a dozen diggers complete with spades, I'd be driving a Ferrari by this time tomorrow. Having said that, I wouldn't have changed Hummungus for any kind of Rolls Royce. But then again, there had to be some mithril bear item recipes around, surely? It was about time I got myself a cool set of purple armor, too. Having said that, it all depended on the resulting item's stats. Probably, I'd be better off finding some way to use mithril to upgrade the already existing items. In any case, with my negligible forging and enchanting skills, I'd have to pick the experts' brains.
I carefully poured my finds into my bag, added a placemark to my map, cast a concerned look at the sun and started out for the valley below.
After another hour of watchful walking, I climbed another hill. A breathtaking view opened out before me, revealing a huge fortress, apparently very ancient—older than the dragon and in about the same state.
"Holy cow. Stalingrad, January 1943," I muttered.
The outside walls formed an octagon three stories high, each of its eight sides about half a mile long, studded with towers every two hundred feet or so. I estimated the total length of the walls at about two miles, times the density of the soldiers needed to defend the fortresses' seventy towers under attack. The resulting figure made me feel sick. This fortification had been designed to accommodate one hell of a crowd. That's not even counting the second row of walls that showed behind the first one, while the third and final line of defense loomed up at the heart of the castle.
The road snaked downhill toward a small fort that arched over the once-busy trade route, covering the access to the main gates against any potential enemy. At close range, the fortress turned out to be in an even sadder state: the proverbial Reichstag building after the storm. The once-unscalable walls grinned through their missing teeth exposing dark gaps and crumbling drops. I passed the fort and dived into the gateway. The walls' sheer thickness was astounding.
Congratulations! You have discovered a castle!
Class: Super Nova
The capture of the castle is impossible due to irreparable damage to the Control Room.
I paused, imagining myself to be the proud owner of that behemoth. The Black Lord in his gloomy citadel. While it sure tickled my vanity, I had my doubts I'd be able to keep such a juicy morsel. I dreaded to think of the sums the Admins would demand just for buying out the land and buildings.
The road took a ninety-degree turn, taking me to a littered passage between the two walls. That was clever: in case the attackers did break through, they would have to cover another few hundred feet under crossfire, losing speed, manpower and enthusiasm. Did I say a few hundred feet? I had to walk well over a mile tracing the 180-degree curve of the wall until I finally saw the gates which led inside the second line of defense.