Back in the Game

by Christopher Keene

  I looked up at the second stories of the surrounding buildings, keeping an eye out for gun barrels poking out from behind pulled curtains.

  Chloe raised her brow at me. “You like that movie?”

  I shrugged. “A western reinterpretation of Yojimbo, a much older Japanese film.”

  Chloe snorted. “I knew that . . . I was just wondering if you did.” She stopped and looked up in confusion.

  I followed her gaze to the end of the road. At the distant end of town was the silhouette of a tall gunslinger wearing a poncho, his shadow stretching along the dusty carriage track.

  “Is that . . . ?”

  She nodded. “The Man with No Name himself.”

  “This must be the only dungeon where you see the boss before you see his minions.” I looked around, seeing no sign of anyone in the houses. “Doesn’t look like Dice is here. We should message the others.”

  “Doesn’t look like anyone’s here but him.” Chloe gestured to the man and smiled. “Come on, Noah. Let’s at least test this guy out before we head off. This is a Tertiatier dungeon, and if this is it, this gunslinger has to be pretty badass, right?”

  I inclined my head. “Let’s find out.”

  Eager to test out my new weapon, I equipped it with a flash and aimed the barrel at the lone gunman. I then selected Wildfire in my Key Triggers and fired. The entire end of the street burst into flame, burning the edges of the houses surrounding the gunslinger black. When the momentary inferno vanished, he still stood there, untouched with smoke billowing from the ground around him.

  Huh . . . nothing.

  That’s when I noticed his shadow shifting on the ground. Like the hand of a clock, it turned in our direction as the man removed his hand from his poncho. Recalling the many western movies I had watched, I suddenly realized what was about to happen.

  “Chloe, run!”

  It seemed I didn’t need to tell her for she bolted for one of the houses at the exact same time as me. We moved behind one of the first wooden houses, put our backs to the wall and gasped.

  The town suddenly came to life, and the double meaning of why it was called Ghost Town became inescapably clear. The ghosts of townsfolk, mothers, fathers and their dead children, began to walk out the front doors. They all wore vests, dungarees, and cross-patterned shirts, as you would expect from townsfolk in a western.

  “Can we go now?” I asked.

  Chloe didn’t answer. She just peered around the side of the building, drew her dual revolvers and began firing. Granted, her aim was dead on, but it was like shooting . . . no it was shooting at ghosts. The bullets passed right through them, their translucent forms parting and stretching away to avoid their trajectory. After she had emptied her guns and spun back to reload, each of the ghosts she had shot at suddenly turned in our direction.

  “Looks like you got their attention!” I called.

  Chloe sat back and reloaded. “The gunslinger at end of the road is obviously the conjurer of these ghosts. We kill him, we take them all out.”

  “Are you just guessing or do you actually know that for sure?”

  She shrugged. “Got any better ideas?”

  I lifted my Boomstick and grinned at her. “Good point.”

  She grinned back and we both rushed around the other side of the building, moving away from the ghosts to encircle the gunslinger. His shadow followed us as we moved until we stopped behind him. The ghosts had turned in our direction and were slowly beginning to amble our way.

  “He’s not turning around!” Chloe called.

  With a start, I noticed a barrel of another of the gunslinger’s revolvers poking out behind him in our direction. On instinct, I rubbed my hand in front of me and summoned a wall of ice just in time to block his bullets.

  Ice shot out in front of us as Chloe looked out from behind it and fired her own guns. There were the pinging sounds of bullets bouncing off metal as they hit him. I then recalled how, in A Fistful of Dollars, the Man with No Name had tied a piece of metal to his torso and taunted the villain to shoot him only in the heart.

  “Aim for the head!” I yelled.

  She fired her last two rounds, and this time we saw him stagger.

  So he can only be hit by physical attacks and only if they’re headshots. What a pedantic way to beat a boss!

  I looked over the crumbling ice to see the ghosts begin to crowd around the gunslinger, passing through him on their way to us.

  “I can’t see him properly; the ghosts are getting in the way of my sight!” Chloe called as she reloaded her revolvers.

  “I’ll see what I what I can do!”

  I reinforced the Ice Wall, and as I did, the gunslinger fired two more shots toward us, causing ice to explode around where I had poked my head out. As he did, the edges of the ghosts moved as if to avoid the sonic boom of the air that went around the bullets. I then remembered what had happened when Chloe had fired at them.

  They phased around the bullets like the air repulsed them. These ghosts must be weak against wind magic.

  I lifted my Boomstick and took aim, selected my Cyclone spell and shot it directly at the gunslinger. Once again, the magic had no effect on the boss himself, but it did cause the ghosts around him to stretch and shift away, as though caught in the wind. It gave Chloe a clear shot.

  She unloaded on the gunslinger, each one a headshot. I assumed that Range fighters used the same targeting system for both guns and other projectile weapons because there was no way she could have been that good right from the get-go. Chloe reloaded and we repeated this strategy several more times, the ghosts continuing to get closer as I blew through them again and again with my Cyclone spell before running out of Mana.

  After two more shots from Chloe, the gunslinger staggered again and finally fell to his knees, dropping his own revolvers onto the dusty road. The ghosts around him then simply vanished. The two of us sighed with relief and sank against the wall of ice next to each other. Seeing how similarly we had reacted after the rush of the battle, the two of us couldn’t help but laugh. We laughed until our lungs burned and all we could do was catch each other’s eyes.

  Like last time, Chloe’s kiss was sudden, like she was trying to steal it from me before I could notice. However, this time I let her, reaching around her waist and pulling her closer. Whether it was the heat going to my head or the adrenaline pumping in my veins, just being able to do this made me feel alive again.

  “Only if you don’t go for Chloe during your time here, either. I won’t have you putting her through something that will hurt her just because she can’t communicate her feelings as well as I can.”

  Keri’s words during our time at the Tranquil Grotto made me pull away. Chloe looked at me panting, her cheeks flushed.

  She stood quickly and turned away from me. “We should find out how the others are doing! You can check and I’ll grab the Resource Item.”

  I nodded speechlessly and checked my messages. There were two waiting for me.

  The first was from Frank: “We located Dice, but Siena decided to rush in and fight him instead of calling for backup. He got away.”

  Typical.

  I frowned, wondering if getting the message sooner would have made a difference. However, the second message caught my attention even more, making my breath catch in my chest.

  It was from Data: “We need to talk. Just the two of us. Meet me where you unlocked your first spell. Tell no one.”

  Where I unlocked my first spell? I know where that is, the Penance Mines, but why be so vague? My brow furrowed. Is he afraid Wona is reading his messages? But why? Did he do something to get them suspicious? And why just me?

  I rose to my feet and Chloe turned to me, her face concerned.

  “The Resource Item was just gunpowder . . . ” She drew closer to me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Meet up with the others.” I moved around her, heading back to the horses. “There’s something I have to do.”

  Chapter 16: Forgive
ness

  Why did I say I would be fine with any dungeon?

  The Cobra’s Den was a horrible place, but Frank would have easily waded through a den of snakes to spend some time with Siena_the_Blade. Would have if she wasn’t afraid of snakes, which she was. So she was relieved when they left the pool of hissing monsters and came across the redheaded Dice fighting a massive Cobra.

  Of all the dungeons we had to choose, it had to be the one we chose that had the player we were looking for.

  She could see why, although there were hundreds of different snakes in the dungeon, this was called the Cobra’s Den. The boss’s fangs were larger than the Ruby Edge Dice was using to fight it. However, it was obvious who Siena was honing in on, and Frank had to use her large body in an attempt to hold her back.

  “We have to message Brock and get him to bring some back up!” she pleaded.

  Siena shoved her arm down. “What are you talking about? I can take this carrot-top by myself.”

  “That’s not the point, he’ll just—”

  “Whatever!” Siena jumped, using her massive shoulder as a fulcrum to flip over her and charge head first into the fight. “You call the others, but he’ll be dead long before they get here!”

  She was about to say that he would just run away, but was too busy messaging everyone to get a word out. She managed to annotate: “We located Dice, but Siena decided to rush in and fight him instead of calling for backup . . . ” Then there was a flash and a swing from Siena’s Reaper’s Scythe that hit nothing but air.

  Dice was gone and Frank decided to finish the message with: “He got away.”

  In her anger, Siena had finished off the Cobra with two quick slashes of her scythe and walked back to her with a sheepish grin on her face.

  “Well, that didn’t work out as I’d planned.”

  Frank nodded with wide eyes. “You think?”

  “Don’t worry, Efty! We’ll get other chances!” She turned with a flourish, her scythe vanishing from her hands. “I have the item tracker after all!”

  “Why do you keep calling me Efty?”

  “Efty. F . . . T . . . FranktheTank! It makes a lot more sense than calling you Frank.” Siena began moving back through the den. “Frank’s a boy’s name. At least Efty sounds a little more androgynous.”

  Frank sighed, not knowing how she should feel about such a nickname. “I guess I should be flattered.”

  Despite the nickname not sounding very flattering.

  “That’s the spirit!”

  She followed her through the dark tunnels. Siena equipped her scythe again and began cutting through the snakes slithering along the ground like she was mowing through grass, grass with fangs that hissed and bit you when you passed. Frank was just glad she didn’t have to deal with them.

  A message popped up in her notifications, and hoping it was a reply from one of the other teams, she brought it up. It was a message from Tessa.

  She still hadn’t talked to her since she had given her the instructions to meet with Dice, instructions that turned out to be a trap. After reading the message, however, she began to think she was either ignorant of who Dice was, or had more nerve than she gave her credit for.

  Her message read: “Did the trade go well?”

  Does she not know?

  She found it suspicious that she was messaging right after Dice had been attacked by someone she had been seen with.

  While she continued to follow Siena, she wrote back: “How well do you know Dice?”

  Her reply appeared immediately: “Why? Was he rude?”

  “You could say that. His team showed up and stole my orb, then killed me and took my armor.”

  Tessa’s next message confused her even more: “But how? It was a Secotier dungeon! He had more than enough to buy it from you and still have Moola to spare! He showed me the numbers!”

  The memory of being in the Broken Clock Tower hit Frank like a freight train. The person who had tricked her into giving away the orb was not Dice. It had been the one they called Data. It had all gone wrong after that. Maybe Dice had planned to buy the orb off her honestly and it went wrong after they showed up.

  But no, they chased me before he took it! Were they trying to make me panic so I would give the orb to Data freely?

  From Siena’s response to his betrayal, it seemed she knew Data better than most. Frank decided to postpone her grudge until she knew more about what was going on.

  She messaged Tessa: “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “I seriously didn’t know anything!” was her last message before Frank put away the message window.

  “Siena, what kind of person is Data?”

  Siena shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought I did, but now I’m not so sure. I thought he had a moral code he followed, but now he’s either turned his back on that code, or he’s a lot cleverer than any of us thought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know! Ask someone else.”

  Frank nodded and decided she would. It seemed there was more going on between this little group of friends than she’d first thought. The night light shone down upon them as they exited the cave, coming to the Gateway that led out onto the Onjira Barrens.

  Siena moved toward the Gateway. “Alright, let’s meet back up with everyone.”

  And let them know how badly we screwed up.

  Chapter 17: Hope

  The Penance Mines were mostly the same as when I had first visited them. I moved into the cool shadows, hearing the clanging of chains and hammering of stone further down the shaft. The Gold Farmers were working as always, using earth magic to pull up big piles of dirt as their partners would begin sifting through it. Of course, this wasn’t why I was here.

  I picked up my pace along the soft soil as the wall torches began to light my way through the darkness into their depth. The last time I had done this Basetier dungeon, I had just started playing and was being shown the ropes by Data and Siena. Now I was a Wanted ranked player who could take down a party on my own.

  Unless they can respawn right after they die, that is.

  Up ahead I noticed a pair of boulders with wiry arms and grouchy faces. They were Rock Demons. Waddling over to each other, they would hoist their brothers above their heads and toss them at any passerby. I cast an Ice Coffin at them both and shattered them with the staff-end of my Boomstick.

  I took out the Rock Demons and Lantern Spirits, a new addition to these dungeons I hadn’t seen before. The fires of the lantern hanging above us would float down and try to hit me, but like the flames they had emerged from, they were weak to my Water Hose spell. Once I had cleared my path of them, I could hear water dripping from the rocks and soon realized that it wasn’t from my spell

  As I had remembered, there was an inside waterfall that dropped through the gap in the cave’s ceiling. As I approached the end of the dungeon where Siena and I had fought the Golem, I saw a figure sitting by himself between two puddles at the dead end. Having already defeated the Golem, Data was waiting for me by the rock pools.

  “I’m glad you remembered.” He nodded as though satisfied by this. “I think this was the second dungeon we did together.”

  “And I’m sure my parents paid you well for it. Why did you message me?” I asked, not wanting to waste time.

  He shook his head, as though both amused and ashamed of himself. “I was so sure I was right, Noah. I was sure that Wona couldn’t have covered up something like that . . . I wouldn’t listen to you.”

  I suddenly realized what he was getting at. “You watched them, didn’t you? The videos of the beta testers overdosing. You saw them before you handed it over!”

  Data dropped his head in agreement.

  “Then why?” I shouted. “Why did you give them the orb? That was the only copy, our only chance to make them pay for what they did!”

  “Tsh, I didn’t . . . it wasn’t . . .”

  He shook his head again and stood up. He held hi
s hand up and a Transfer Orb appeared in his grasp, glowing in the dim light of the cave. My brow furrowed in confusion, but what he said suddenly made sense to me.

  “You made a copy?” My eyes bulged as I looked down. “That’s why Bitcon’s team were still after Frank even after he’d had it stolen; they didn’t know that you were the one who had it! That’s why they didn’t stop until you messaged them! Giving you just enough time to . . .”

  He nodded and I couldn’t stop the grin that spread across my face as he finished for me. “To watch the videos and copy them onto another item. I thought a Transfer Orb would be fitting, all else considering.”

  “And by handing over the original, you got to save face, leaving them ignorant of what you did.” I laughed out loud, but my frustration quickly returned and I shouted, “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”

  “I had to think about it.” His voice remained solemn. “Noah, this is some heavy stuff. Having the evidence to take down the biggest gaming company in the world is not something to act rashly on. I feel that, after all you went through, you deserved to decide what would happen next.”

  Data handed me the orb and . . . I had it. The thing I was trying so hard retrieve was actually in my hands. Brock was going to freak out when he saw it.

  That’s right, Brock!

  “I guess you and Brock don’t have any reason to be angry with each other anymore?”

  Data looked down. “Tsh, I was wrong. I’ll have to apologize to him for that, but that’ll need to wait. For now, I have to keep up the facade that I work for Wona. After what I did, I’ve been offered a more technical job that will give me more power over what goes on in the game.”

  “So you can help us from the inside?”

  He inclined his head and it suddenly made sense to me why he had spoken so vaguely about where to meet up in his message. It was so no one could track him and find out what he had done.

  “Whatever comes next, I don’t want to be anyone’s scapegoat. I was asked if I wanted to join Catastrophe after what I did, but I couldn’t . . .”