Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3) by John Gold (novel24 TXT) 📕

first time. That was in Airis Castle, in the herbalists’ biggest greenhouse, one of the ones the Golden Hand built. Lira, this beautiful blonde girl, worked there. Her body was slender, her face was perfect, her wonderful hair was soft, and she had the personality of an angel. It took me almost a month to win her favor, and I dreamed of marriage. She said we’d have the wedding after the war with the undead. In the meantime, we just lived together in the house I bought. For a whole month, we lived in heaven. We went to cafes and theaters, listened to the bards sing in the best taverns, swam in the lake. I remember the romantic dinner we had the night before the battle like it was yesterday. Her red dress was made out of lace, and she had a wreath of white roses in her hair. The smell of her perfume and the taste of homemade pudding…I remember it all.”

Kirk takes a sip of tea and wraps himself tighter in his blanket.

“Nobody knew when the final battle would start, and there were new warriors making their way to the fortress every day. Then, the battle started, and the mana storages were emptied in a matter of seconds. Just a minute later, an enormous meteor demolished everything. The only people to survive were Rachel’s squad—they were guarding the control room, and they used a bubble to survive the strike and the shock wave.” Silence falls, and Kirk closes his eyes. “I didn’t know what to do when I found her body buried under the rubble. I just sat next to her in disbelief. All day, we buried the dead, and I wasn’t the only one to lose someone. That’s why I had to make sure you weren’t Sagie.”

He certainly has reason to hate me, though it would be a stretch to say that he knows even half the story.

A week goes by, and Kirk shows up at the tavern where I spend all my time. He’s nervous about something he wants to tell me himself. My orphanage experience kicks in, and the first thing I think is that it’s a setup. But it’s actually much simpler.

One of the seeker spirits came back with an answer: Femida is in Karpi, a dwarf city in Ovidius. We’ll be able to find out exactly where she is when we get there.

This time, I don’t have to run halfway across the world. After the war with the undead, a global network of portals was built to make moving around much easier. It’s all about the way the continents and cities were laid out. Small channels separate Ovidius from Kongul, and Radaam from Katain. Those channels can be crossed in eight hours on one of the ships with a magic engine, and the continent pairs are also connected with Ferengar, the planet’s South Pole. That’s where they built another portal chain to make getting from continent to continent easier.

The remainder of my money goes toward paying our way via the portals to the south of Radaam, then via Ferengar to Ovidius. By the time we find ourselves in Karpi, I have just a thousand gold left. Still, my spirits are high—I’m about to see that peevish little girl again.

The city itself is deep underground, though the seeker spirit told us Femida is deeper still. One of the guards tells us where exactly “deeper still” is.

“The old road from Ferengar to Ovidius is below us. After the war with the undead, some of the empty buildings were repurposed as warehouses, and then we found a road leading down almost two kilometers. There’s a Level 4000 monster down there, not to mention the kind of beasts you’ve never seen before. But there’s also a peninsula in an enormous lake of lava that none of the monsters dare touch. They built a prison there for especially dangerous criminals.”

Kirk’s face sours, though I finally understand why she hasn’t been answering me.

“How do we get there?”

The guard gives us a look that tells us exactly how stupid he thinks we are.

“They put a portal stone there. It’s easy to get down there, but you’re not coming back alive.”

Kirk says nothing for a long time. His emotions mix, rage, disgust, devotion, and sympathy playing across his face. I ignore them all.

Actually, he doesn’t take much convincing. Burning with curiosity, he wants to see the legendary prison he’s heard so much about, plus the terrible monsters of the underground world that nobody has been able to kill. It’s a boyish inquisitiveness, in a word. Soon, however, he’s going to have to grow up, and I’m going to help with that.

The portal stone takes us to the bank of a lava lake so enormous that it lights up everything around it. Monsters, the likes of which I’ve never seen, roam the edges, all deadly dangerous.

Monster, RokhAlei the Mountain Dremora, Level 4968, local boss

With fauna like this, they don’t need guards. A red shroud hangs over the lava, a warning about the enormous fire damage it does. The large peninsula is enclosed by two active force shields. A wide path from the portal leads right to them, across a kind of isthmus that connects the shore to what is mostly island.

The area around the portal rock is safe.

Kirk smiles and looks around. It’s time.

“Kirk, start a video recording. We need to get this historic moment down on tape.”

The camera pentagram appears above the mage’s head, and I feel a wave of malice practically overwhelm me.

I’m no longer wearing LJ’s costume. All I have on is the simplest clothing money can buy.

***

Kirk turned on his camera and checked the box to set up an online feed. On the official Project Chrysalis site, the feed showed up on one of the channels specializing in reporting from little-known areas.

“Hello,