End of an Era (Project Chrysalis Book 2) by John Gold (always you kirsty moseley .TXT) 📗

credits. I could use a hobby to relax my brain, however, and music is a great option. Four times a week, I show up and study with our teacher.

Surprisingly, the kids like classical music from the pre-space era. Two dark-skinned boys who came from the same orphanage play the trumpet and the guitar. The twins, May and Li Quan, play the piano and the violin. I squeeze into the noisy room to play the piano. I’d listened to the psychologist playing during our conversations, after all. That’s when I learned to love the instrument. “Mr. Bork” sent us money for the music room and the instruments, and then Malcolm found us teachers and a part-time music supervisor. Music is one creative avenue where you still need a teacher to give you the basics, not to mention an understanding of the whole thing.

Lots of the children in our orphanage have practically come to life, becoming more open as they grow in a much better environment. The Arpa government is sending us additional premiums and donations thanks to the personal growth we’re showing.

The piano calms me, helps me relax, and engulfs me in the music. Music is actually a bit like a battle. You have a kind of rhythm when you’re fighting, too, a leader and a follower, key moments, and more fighting going on in the background.

When I get back to the game, Fem is already on the beach. It’s noon, there are no mosquitos, and we make for the Radaam coast. A crowd of undead forms a barrier around the forest, though we’re able to fight our way through to where we’re met by the elves.

The pointy-eared bastards stop us from going through the forest, and they even try to arrest us for using items created with the help of the dark arts.

“Surrender or die! You’re not coming through this forest, servants of darkness!”

“Mister elf… I didn’t say anything to insult you. Are you sure you want a fight with me?”

He spits at my feet. But that’s okay - I’m not squeamish, and I’m used to being treated like dirt.

“You little nitwit! How dare you threaten me?”

Elves can shoot accurately from a long way off. I see some people in with them too, as there are apparently joint patrols guarding that part of the forest. Under the barrage of arrows, we mix in with the crowd of undead before dashing off toward the dwarf mountains.

Elves are nasty creatures. They must have a ton of patience, free time, strength, and arrows to keep up their fire at us from the forest for almost thirty hours in a row. Do they have nothing better to do? And what’s with the inquisition here? I’m not even sure how they found out that we have forbidden items on us.

After putting the Summer Forest behind us, we find ourselves in kobold swamps. They cover a huge area bordering the ocean to the east, the Summer Forest to the north, and the human empire of Darin to the west. We need to head south, to the dwarves’ Targ Mountains. The mountain range cuts a diagonal across the entire continent, separating the tropical lands at the equator from the cold southern lands. This is where mountain climbers like to go, to the highest mountains in the world. That’s not why we’re here, however. We need to find out about Miridia’s cult, the goddess the dwarves all despise and turned away from more than a thousand years ago. There was a reason I read those forbidden books on mysticism! There’s very little information openly available about Miridia, as the gods did their best to hide any mention of her. It’s just in two forbidden books that I was able to find information about the renegade goddess leading the undead on the other side of the Targs. She was once the patron of all dwarfish craftsmen and miners, though they renounced her about a millennium ago. I wasn’t able to figure out why.

We’re on our way to Drag, the heart of Miridia’s cult and the capital of the dwarfish kingdom of Radaam.

The kobolds are wild, and their culture is barely embryonic. Undead and swamps don’t go well together, so we only have to deal with a few ghosts and different animals raised as zombies. How do the kobolds even live here? Do they feed on carrion?

We get to the swamps at night, so another cloud of mosquitos comes after us.

Insect, Swamp Mosquito, Level 21

 

Their level is well below the level of their dead man cousins on the island. And they even look… Sweet mother! They’re as big as my head! Mutants! I’m pretty sure I know what the kobolds eat.

Current location: Silvana Bog, Lizara Hissing’s Fortress

 

We spend the night in one of the abandoned fortresses built clearly by someone other than the kobolds. The workmanship is flawless, the brickwork even better, and it’s just a different level of civilizational development entirely.

In the basement, there are frescos with draconids, beasts with the head of a dragon and the body and arms of a human. Below that, they’re just large lizards. Their bodies are covered in dark scales and the drawings distinguish the males from the females.

We end up sleeping on the top floor of the tower. The stairs are broken down, and nobody besides us can get up there.

The next day, at noon, we find ourselves surrounded by undead as soon as we log into the game. They’re crowding the lower levels and the area around the fortress.

“Sagie, the undead in the basement must have come with the invasion. They weren’t part of the dungeon.”

“In that case, we’re going to cut ourselves a path out of here,” I laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking how you and I haven’t once spent time leveling up like everybody else does. And here we have