by Dante Steel
Two days. It took them two days of searching, of wandering around that barren wasteland and killing a ton of various-shaped sand animals and humanoids, but they found their proof. A group of superheroes were running away from the northeast, in the general vicinity of where Gary had seen that dark castle in the distance.
“What happened to you guys?” Olivia asked.
“A horde of vampires?” Elena guessed.
“No. It’s that guy. Smaug. He’s back,” one of the superheroes said. He was muscular, too much so. He looked more like a cartoon than man. His neck was invisible, and he wore a vest without nothing covering his chest. Stupid in Gary’s opinion. The whole look and the clothes. All of it.
“It’s worse than that,” one of the females in the group said. She was muscular too and basically looked like she didn’t have boobs.
“He killed Harrison,” another guy said. Gary couldn’t tell which one was speaking. A few had masks that covered their entire faces.
“So he’s back ten levels,” Elena said.
“No,” the overly muscular man said. “He went after him again and again. We told Harrison to not come back into the game so he wouldn’t be there, but he couldn’t. It must’ve been a glitch or something. He kept dying and dying, going back ten levels at a time, and then, he just disappeared for good.”
The muscular female grimaced. “Once we made our escape and ran away, I logged off real quick and called Harrison. His avatar is gone. He has to start over. His character is dead.”
“No way.” Gary let out a breath. “That’s not right.”
“No,” Elena breathed.
“What are you guys going to do?” Nicoletta asked.
“Honestly, we might head back over to the first issue,” the muscular female said. “We don’t want to be around for Smaug. He’s not worth it. He takes all of the fun out of the game.”
“Might be smart,” Nicoletta said.
“Or you should stay,” Olivia said. “If you fight the vampires, you level up quickly. You can have your revenge.”
Gary gave Olivia a look. She just shrugged. He could hardly believe it. She was trying to use these gamers for their own gain!
“I don’t know,” the muscular guy said. “Trin’s right. He takes all of the fun out of the game.”
“But Harrison, think of Harrison,” Olivia said.
“We are. He’s not gonna want to face vampires, not after this.”
The group walked off.
Olivia held up her hands. “I know what you’re thinking, but let me explain.”
“Go ahead,” Elena said coolly.
“I did it for you and Gary,” she snapped. “There aren’t a lot of gamers here in the expansion pack, right? Not yet. When word gets out about Smaug, even less will come. You know what’s going to happen then? It’ll be real easy for Smaug to find us. For Smaug to kill you and Gary. So, you’re welcome for me trying to save your lives because I don’t want to have to face Smaug again. I will if I have to, but I don’t wanna.”
“You’re right,” Gary said. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“He will focus his attention on us,” Elena said softly.
“Yes,” Nicoletta said. “He always hunted down the groups who went after him before, and we fought him, and he didn’t kill any of us. He will not be happy to realize we’re here.”
“We really should go back over,” Elena said. “I wonder if that’s possible.”
“I sure hope it is,” Gary muttered. Not that he had much hope about it because he knew Haru, and he knew there would be a glitch or hiccup or snag that would render it impossible.
Chapter Seventeen
Sure enough, that night, Gary learned that was the case. It took him begging and yelling for an entire hour for Haru to show up.
“I told you I am not going to come when you demand that I do,” Haru said grumpily.
“Are you hungry?” Gary asked.
“No.”
“Tired?”
“No. Why?”
“No reason.” You’re just being more of an ass than normal, that’s all. “I want to get back to the first issue of the game. My friends and I. You know my team.”
“I do know your team, but I am afraid that isn’t possible.”
“Why not?” Gary demanded.
“Well, I might be able to for the flying girl and for the fire, but not for you and Elena. I’m afraid that the portal will not bring you back. There is no more portal.”
“Oh, but I bet Samuel August can go back and forth at will, am I right?”
“I do not know that.”
“Has he done that?”
“Not to my knowledge, no.”
“Well, damn. You do realize your knowledge is finite, right? There’s no chance in hell that you know everything.”
“Unfortunately, you are correct on that matter, Mr. Johnson.”
“How is it that he’s so much smarter than you?” Gary demanded.
“Intelligence is a matter of—”
“I don’t need you to explain that to me. I need to know why you haven’t gotten the best and the brightest minds working for you. There are other geniuses in the world, aren’t there?”
“Yes,” Haru said begrudgingly.
“Oh, but you won’t ask them to aid because you don’t want the world to know that it’s possible for someone to enter your game. That you willingly put a person into the game. That you can’t get them back out. Is that it?”
“Mr. Johnson, you constantly ask me to come, and then you only yell and berate me. That is not a productive use of my time nor yours. Allow me to go so that I might return to work.”
“Any of the tests working out?”
“Not as of yet.”
“Did you send an animal here?”
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
“No.”
“So these tests, then, what exactly are they?”
“They are not being run while I am here. Goodnight.” Haru bowed to him and walked off.
Gary had half a mind to storm after the Japanese man, but he didn’t. It wouldn’t accomplish anything.
The next morning, Gary woke in a foul mood. The girls were talking while he and Elena were supposed to be eating, but he just picked at his food.
“What’s wrong?” Olivia asked.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“With…”
“With the game. With Smaug. With my life. With whether or not I’ll get back to my life. With everything.” He threw up his hands.
Nicoletta gave him a sympathetic look. “I know what you’re going through.”
“You don’t. No one does.” He glanced at Elena. “Well, you do.”
“Yes. It’s impossible. It’s horrible. Nicoletta, Olivia, I know that playing the game is wearing on you two, but it’s nothing compared to actually living it. Yes, it’s great to have the superpowers, but it’s frightening. It’s terrifying. I wish I hadn’t told Haru yes.”
Gary winced. “I’m sorry. I wish you hadn’t.”
She shrugged. “Then Nicoletta or Olivia would be here instead.”
“None of you should be here. It’s not safe. Haru crossed a line by asking you. It wasn’t fair of him to use you like that.”
“I said yes.”
“Did you sign any paperwork?” he asked.
“No. Why? Is that a good thing?”
“It’s a bad thing in my opinion.”
“Why?” Elena asked.
“Because there’s now no proof that they did anything to you,” he pointed out.
“Shit. You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. Everything happened so fast.”
“I’m sure that was done on purpose. Do you know where they took you?”
“No. They had me in a dark car, and the windows were tinted. I couldn’t see the outside world clearly. I hadn’t really thought about that until now. I was too worried about you.”
“They used your
feelings for me against you. They were using you.”
“And they pulled my strings to get me here.” She hesitated. “Why do you think that is?”
Gary rubbed the back of his neck. “Remember what Olivia said? You and I, we’re the strongest.”
“They want us to take out Smaug.”
“That’s the only thing I can come up with.”
“Do you think they can take us out and are just dilly-dallying us along?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me one bit,” Gary grumbled. “I never liked Haru from the start. He’s always… I wouldn’t say he gives me the creeps because he doesn’t—”
“He gives you the creeps.”
“Fine,” Gary allowed. “There’s just something off about him.”
“It is his avatar,” she said.
“I know, but there’s something else, too. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just frustrated. We might be completely off base.”
“If we take out Smaug and they let us go home, we’ll find out real quick if our theory is right.”
“You want to do that? You want to try to take him down? We weren’t able to last time.”
“I know.”
“And the stakes are higher this time. You and I both are in the game and alive. If he kills one of us, it won’t be an avatar that’s dead.”
“I know, but we have to try.”
“I agree.”
Nicoletta cleared her throat. “Ah, guys? You do realize all of us are here, right? And if we’re gonna do something as stupid as go up against Smaug again, don’t you think all four of us should have a say?”
Gary blushed, embarrassed. “Yes, of course. Are you saying you don’t want to?”
“I didn’t say that,” Nicoletta said. “I just said it’s stupid. You can’t deny that.”
“No, definitely not,” he mumbled. “Olivia?”
“It won’t be easy at all to face him,” she said. “We might want to see if some of your new friends want in, Nicoletta.”
The Hispanic shook her head. “They aren’t really friends. They aren’t the best of players. They’re in it for the stats, pure and simple. They won’t dare risk losing ten levels. Are you kidding me?”
“There has to be other good players,” Olivia mumbled.
“You don’t think we’re enough?” Elena asked. “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, Olivia.”
“I’m not a coward if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
Gary cleared his throat. “No one thinks you’re a coward, Olivia, and honestly, I prefer it to be just the four of us.”
“Of course you do,” Elena said.
He ignored her. “I think we work well as a team—”
Nicoletta snorted.
“We do!” he protested.
“Yes,” Olivia said. “We do. We’re the only group to go up against him and survive without anyone being stripped of levels or dying. But as you said, the stakes are higher. I don’t want anything to happen. This isn’t just a game for you or Elena. It’s not for Smaug either. If we make a play against him, if we’re powerful enough now, do you realize what he’ll do? He’ll be desperate to kill us all, and there’s a good chance he’ll succeed.”
Everyone fell silent at that. It was such a sobering thought that Gary didn’t want to consider it. He just wanted to go about his business. Not that he had a business.
“Do you think it matters that we aren’t superheroes in this issue?” he asked suddenly.
“I doubt it,” Elena said. “We need to lure a trap.”
“A trap is a good idea,” Nicoletta agreed. “Gary, you know the lay of the land more than anyone.”
“I do, but I honestly think we might want to become superheroes. Take the time and—”
“Give Smaug time to find us and then we won’t have a trap or a plan and be killed,” Elena said.
“Or we can go the quests and still have a backup trap and plan in place,” Gary argued. “It’s the best of both worlds. It’s possible that we’ll have even more power once we become superheroes in this world. That could be the difference between life or death for you and me.”
“That’s a good point,” Olivia said.
“Of course you would agree with him,” Elena snapped.
“Actually, it is a good point,” Nicoletta said.
Elena grimaced. “Fine. We’ll do the damn quests, but we still need that backup trap and plan. Two plans. One in case we’re found away from the trap.”
“Second plan—race over to where the trap is so Smaug will follow.” Olivia beamed.
“Maybe we should figure out the trap first,” Nicoletta suggested.
“Yes.” Elena shook her head.
Olivia turned to Gary. “Well? The lay of the land?”
“It’s mostly a barren wasteland. I did see a dark castle. Now that I think about it, the castle makes me think of Dracula.”
“Maybe we are in Transylvania,” Elena said.
“Is that in Europe?” Nicoletta asked. “Or based on it?”
“I vant to suck your blood!” Olivia said her a rather dramatic vampiric voice.
Elena shrugged. “Not bad I guess if you want to act like a seventies porno vampire.”
“I never watched one. So glad I can bring back memories for you.” Olivia winked.
“I also saw the lost ocean,” Gary said to halt them before it could turn into a real fight instead of jabs, “but that’s not an ocean anymore. Barely even a river.”
“Anything else?” Olivia asked.
“There’s the fire god’s volcano.” Gary nodded slowly. “That could work. Smaug might want to blow it up, but maybe we could have it blow up in his face!”
“He’s fire, like me,” Nicoletta said. “He might be able to control it depending on how powerful he is.”
“So we don’t have him or us cause it to erupt. Instead, maybe we could trap him in it.”
“How?” Elena asked.
“Think about it. If this is supposed to be Europe far in the future after a nuclear war ruined the landscape, there should be buried bits of old equipment. Metal. If we have enough piled on top of him—”
“He’ll just use his wind to knock it away,” Elena said.
Nicoletta shook her head. “No. The heat from the volcano will cause the metal to all congeal. It’ll be one massive mass of metal on top of him. Even if he’s powerful, he might not be able to blast through. Maybe if he’s in the fire of the volcano long enough, he might actually die.”
“Die die?” Olivia asked with a frown.
“Yes, that’s the whole point,” Elena said.
“I don’t know. It’s one thing if it’s creatures of bats or vampires. That’s part of the game, but to knowingly go up against a human for the sheer point of killing him… That just seems like murder,” Olivia said.
“It’s not,” Nicoletta said. “He will be trying to kill us. He already has on more than one occasion. That’s called self-defense. We’re allowed to do this by law even outside of the game. It’s not murder.”
“See? Lawyer,” Gary said, and Nicoletta reached over and swatted him.
Elena leaned close. “Olivia, we have to. He’s ruining people’s lives.”
“So he’s upsetting a bunch of gamers.” She shrugged. “That’s not a criminal offense.”
“He killed his mom, remember?” Gary asked. “And he did harass a bunch of women.”
“So you’ve been told by that programmer guy.”
“Developer,” Gary corrected, although he wasn’t sure if there was much of a difference between the two terms.
“What if he’s lying? What if he’s covering something up?” Olivia asked.
“I guess that’s possible, but you can’t deny that he’s dangerous,” Elena argued.
“Dangerous? Yes. Should he be stopped? Yes. Killed? That’s where I’m not so sure.”
“He might not die,” Nicoletta offered. “I think the trap is a good idea.”
“First, we need to locate metal hidden in the sand,” Elena said, rubbing her metal hands together. She hardly wore her gloves now unless she was out there fighting. “Gary, do you think you can find them?”
“I can try to use my telekinesis, sure.”
“I don’t know, guys,” Olivia said. “This feels wrong. Something isn’t right.”
“Olivia,” Gary started.
But Elena cut in. “I understand. We aren’t going to go after him today. I promise. We have a lot to plan yet and set up, and we need to become superheroes. We agreed to that. We have time for you to do some detective work on the internet.”
Gary nodded. “You’re right. We don’t need to take Haru Sato’s word for it. Look up Samuel August. He was supposed to have killed his mom when he was fifteen. He’s thirty now.”
“While you’re at it,” Elena added, “look up Haru Sato too.”
Olivia nodded. “I will. What happens if I don’t find anything about the mom?”
“Then, either there’s a conspiracy theory, and Samuel August is being swept under the rug because the gaming company is trying to hide him from existence,” Elena started.
“Or else Haru Sato is lying,” Gary said. “Either way, if that’s the case, we’ll reconsider our options.”
“It’s also possible that Smaug isn’t this Samuel August guy either,” Nicoletta said. “We’re only going off of what Haru Sato has been telling us, but you’re right. He could be lying.”
“I almost want to go and check now,” Olivia said.
“Go ahead. We’ll only be looking for metal today. We won’t start a quest until you’re back,” Gary promised.
Olivia nodded and blinked out.
“That’s still creepy to see,” Gary muttered. Shrugging, he finally dug into his breakfast.
Once outside, the sky seemed maybe a little more gray than black, or maybe that was only wistful thinking. Either way, Gary went about, reaching with his mind, trying to find any kind of construction equipment or old buildings, anything metal.
Nothing. He felt nothing.
He widened his search, walking away from the underground town entrance, but still, he found nothing. A few bones here and there, but that was it. Nothing else.
“How can that be?” Elena asked angrily. “These developers are really dropping the ball. If this landscape is supposed to have been Europe at one time, there’s no reason why there shouldn’t be buried metal all over the place.”