The Savage Realms

by Willard Black

  Cheryl, Allison’s neighbor in the next cubical over, cupped a hand over her microphone and said, “Had a live one, huh?”

  Allison nodded. “I’m thinking of becoming a stripper.”

  Cheryl laughed. “You haven’t got the boobs for it.”

  Allison tried to smile, but the muscles in her face weren’t up to the task. She said, “I need a five. Can you cover for me?”

  Cheryl held up a finger and spoke into her mic. “You can roll that over, but there are associated costs.” Then she muted the mic and told Allison, “Sure, sweetie, take all the time you need.”

  Allison dropped her headset on the desk and crossed the office to the bathroom, where she locked herself into a stall and sat down on the toilet for what she liked to call a breathe break. Smokers went outside to smoke. Allison stepped away from her desk to breathe. Of course, try explaining to your boss that smokers weasel an extra thirty to forty minutes break time every day and nonsmokers should be entitled to the same. Allison had tried, and it didn’t cut muster. So instead, she had to take her breathe breaks in the bathroom, smelling the odor of industrial cleaning agents and pine-scented Lysol. The smells weren’t nearly as bad as the sounds. You wouldn’t believe the noises some women make on a toilet. Cheryl was one of the worst offenders, a one-woman brass section. She could fart her way through a Glenn Miller tune.

  Allison reached into her pocket for her phone and brought out the crumpled napkin instead. Her eyes traced the string of digits. She could solve it, she felt sure, but why bother? She didn’t know the first thing about the Savage Realms or how to play. She stuffed the napkin back into her pocket and, as was her custom, ended her breathe break by taking one last puff and stabbing out an imaginary cigarette on top of the dented metal toilet paper dispenser.

  When she got back to her desk, there was a sticky note on her monitor from Mr. Ratcheck. Allison recognized his untidy scrawl. It said, I need to see you in my office, Ms. Bowers.

  She plucked the note off and glanced over at Cheryl, who shrugged and covered her mic. “Sorry, sweetie, I told him you had to make wee-wee.”

  She said it just like that, make wee-wee, like they were ten years old. Allison crumpled the note, shot it at the wastebasket, and then went down the hall to Ratcheck’s office. She felt like a woman walking to the gallows. Her stomach lurched, and her legs felt wobbly, like her knees would buckle. She didn’t know what old Ratface wanted, but it couldn’t be anything good. When he wanted to chew you out, he did it in public where all the other employees could watch. The fact that he wanted a meeting behind closed doors sparked a tiny fear in Allison’s gut.

  She knocked, and Ratcheck barked at her to enter. His office was a cheerless grey cube without affectation. Florescent lights made an audible buzz that felt like a mean little bee in Allison’s ears. He pointed to a chair, and Allison sat.

  “I’ve just gotten a complaint against you.” Ratcheck rapped keys on his computer and consulted the screen, squinting to read the small lines. “That makes four complaints this month, Ms. Bowers. What have you got to say for yourself?”

  “I’m on the complaints hotline,” Allison pointed out. “People who get routed to my switchboard are already upset.”

  “And your job is to make them happy,” Ratcheck said. “Customers are the lifeblood of our business, Ms. Bowers. If we don’t keep them happy, they’ll go invest with another firm.”

  Allison sank down into the chair and clasped her hands together between her knees. “We can’t make everyone happy.”

  “That’s not the type of attitude we look for here at First National Investments and Loans, Ms. Bowers.”

  Allison inspected her scuffed flats. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ratcheck. I’ll try to do better.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not good enough,” Ratcheck said with a frown of parental displeasure.

  Allison felt a hot lump of lead drop into her stomach and looked up. “What does that mean?”

  Ratcheck sucked his teeth, leaned forward, and propped his elbows on the desk. “With the downturn in the economy and lower than expected earnings for the second quarter, the branch is having to make cutbacks. Between your constant tardiness and your poor performance, I’m going to have to let you go.”

  A wave of dizziness struck. It was a good thing she was sitting, or she would have toppled. She gripped the arms of the chair and fought back a hot spill of tears welling up in her eyes. She tried to make words, but her throat got stuck. She had to swallow and try again. “You’re firing me?”

  “We don’t refer to it as firing,” Ratcheck said and laced his fingers together. “The official term is separation. You’ll receive your final check in the mail.”

  Chapter Four

  Three figures took shape in the dark mouth of the cave, their boots scraping over the cavern floor. Mercer slipped his heavy battle axe from the loop on his belt. It was too late to find a hiding place and spring an ambush. The three were already at the opening and had spotted Mercer’s group almost at the same time. Mercer thought he recognized the voices, and the faces that materialized out of the shadows confirmed his suspicions. It was Hardin, along with Sparrow and Kid Creole. All three were battered and dusty. Cobwebs clung to their armor and hair. The Kid looked especially bad off, like he had taken more than his share of poison and was still getting over the effects. He was green around the gills, with dark bags under his eyes. The trio stopped in the opening and laid their hands on their sword hilts.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mercer and his buddies.” Hardin inclined his head. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Mercer returned the nod. “Hardin.”

  Trix took a step to her right, putting space between herself and Mercer. Her hands rested on a pair of throwing knives at her hips. Drake fell back a step, giving himself room to cast if it came to a fight. Mercer caught the sound of him muttering an incantation under his breath and felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Whatever spell Drake was warming up, it was pulling a lot of power and made the air around him smell like ozone.

  “Still holding onto your record?” Hardin asked.

  “Keeping score?” Mercer asked.

  Hardin shrugged. “There’s a pool going.”

  “Put me down for another three years,” Mercer said. “I’m good for it.”

  Hardin grinned. “Your luck is bound to run out sooner or later, Mercer. I’ve got you down for the end of the month. Sparrow here don’t think you’ll last the week.”

  Sparrow grinned. He was a small man with a face like a weasel. A shock of black hair fell across his forehead. Beady eyes stared out of deep sockets, and he had a mouth full of yellow teeth.

  “I hate to disappoint,” Mercer said.

  Trix had her daggers halfway out of the scabbards. “Maybe Sparrow wants to make sure he doesn’t lose the bet?”

  Sparrow bared an inch of steel and Kid Creole pulled back on an arrow already notched. Hardin locked eyes with Mercer, sizing him up. He was a big man with a chest like a keg of beer and a stout wood shield covered with notches and claw marks. Both men had been playing the game almost from the start. They had crossed swords on more than one occasion and, just as often, fought side by side. They traded shots between drinks, or drinks between shots, depending on how you looked at it. Hardin’s eyes bored into Mercer, and the moment stretched until Mercer felt sure Hardin would charge. He waited and watched, telling himself to stay calm. If it happened, it happened. He had no desire to fight Hardin, but he wasn’t backing down either. He returned Hardin’s gaze with cool indifference.

  Finally, Hardin gave an uneasy chuckle that dispelled the tension. “No sense killing each other,” he said. “Not with ten million Byte out there just waiting to be picked up, right boys?”

  His friends agreed with silent nods.

  “We’ve got no quarrel,” Mercer said. “Just here to check out the cavern.”

  “You won’t find the money here,” Hardin assured him. “We’ve been through this hol
e top to bottom. Found nothing but creepy crawlies.”

  “Then you won’t mind clearing out and letting us have a look,” Mercer said.

  “Be our guests,” Hardin said.

  Everyone eased their weapons back into their scabbards, but they didn’t take their eyes off each other. The air behind Mercer still hummed and crackled with electricity. It raised goose bumps on his arms and made his teeth feel like they were electrified. Mercer and his group moved to the side of the path, making room. Hardin’s crew gave them a wide berth.

  “From what I hear, it don’t matter anyway,” Kid Creole said on his way past.

  Mercer said, “What do you hear, Kid?”

  “I heard somebody found the loot the very first day they announced it and Sandstorm Entertainment is covering the whole thing up.”

  “Why would they do that?” Trix wanted to know.

  He stopped. “You know how good this treasure hunt is for business? The population of the Savage Realms has doubled in the last two weeks. That’s a lot of new players mining and minting ByteCoin.”

  Harding said, “Come on, Kid.”

  Kid Creole hurried to catch up with his crew.

  Hardin called back to them, “Hey, Mercer! Try not to die in there. I’ve got a hundred ByteCoin that says you’ll make it to the end of the month.”

  Drake waited until they had disappeared through the trees and then released his uncast spell. The ozone smell faded and the charged feeling in the air evaporated. It was a little like being dunked in a cold bath. Drake muttered a curse. “Wasted my only Brimstone spell,” he said and added, “Told you we should have been searching the Scorching Wastes.”

  Trix said, “Think it’s right? What Kid said about the money?”

  Mercer shook his head. “Kid Creole believes every wild story he hears.”

  “Makes sense though,” Drake said. “There are a lot of new players. Lot of wealth being created.”

  “Won’t argue that,” Mercer said. The towns and trading posts were bursting with new players. All of them had some theory about where the money lay hidden. One silly bastard was caught trying to dig up the basement of the Laughing Badger in Tanthus, convinced the money was buried under the tavern. Gamgee, the old potbellied salt who built the pub, took a nasty head wound trying to stop the lout digging up his cellar. In the end, Mercer and Trix had been forced to go down there and work the noob over good before tossing him in the street. Gamgee had rewarded them with many thanks and free beer the rest of the night.

  Trix turned her attention to the dark opening in the earth. “No sense crawling this dungeon now. If the money was in there, Hardin and his crew would have found it.”

  Mercer turned his head to the side and spat. “Hardin couldn’t find his own ass with both hands, a map, and a magnifying glass.”

  “You still want to check it out?” Drake asked.

  “Might as well,” Mercer told them. “We’re here. We’ll at least make enough coin to cover our time and maybe pay a few bills.”

  Chapter Five

  Mercer and his cohorts spent the next half hour scrambling over damp rock and ducking their heads to avoid cracking their skulls a good one on the jagged roof of the tunnel. They each carried a torch soaked in tar pitch. The light threw grotesque shadows, which danced and cavorted on the cave wall. Oily black smoke stung Mercer’s nose and made his eyes water. Up ahead, there was a steady drip-drip-drip in the cool darkness and the stealthy scuttling sound of hairy legs. They passed a chalk arrow on the wall pointing toward the exit.

  In the early days, when players were still discovering the Savage Realms, brave adventurers had crawled these dungeons with nothing but candles to light their way and etched directions along with messages on the walls. The arrows were sacred in a land where few things are considered sacrosanct. To wipe one away would get you kicked out of a group, if not outright killed.

  Other explorers would sometimes leave traps for the unwary. Mercer wouldn’t put it past Hardin to rig a trip wire, so they went slow, checking their footing.

  Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, Mercer told himself.

  Drake had cast an armor spell on them before entering and Mercer could feel the effect, like pins and needles all over his skin. It would save him from minor cuts and scrapes, but it also made him more sensitive to heat. Try fighting in a desert with an armor enchantment. Sweat leaked from every pore in your body. Still, it was better than losing an eye or a finger.

  Smaller side tunnels branched off to either side, but Mercer stuck to the path. The high-pitched clicking of mandibles caught his attention. He stopped and held up a hand for the others to wait. Trix switched her torch to her left hand, gripped one throwing knife in her teeth and another in her right hand. Mercer got Drake’s attention and motioned down the tunnel where he had heard the clicking. It could have been dripping water, it was hard to be sure in the dark, but why risk it? Drake nodded, reached into his wide sleeve and scattered a handful of dust down the side tunnel. He uttered a few arcane words and seconds later, the dust started to glow with an eerie green light. Glittering black eyes scrambled away from the sudden illumination. There was a chattering of pinchers, like angry voices.

  “Here they come,” Mercer said, and put himself between Drake and the spiders. He eyed a crevice, wedged his torch in the crack, and adjusted his grip on the battle axe. Trix was on his left. She quickly found a fold of rock where she could seat her torch, and then gripped a blade in each hand. Her brow knitted tight in concentration.

  Drake gripped his staff in both hands and started to chant. Mercer felt the air come alive, like the feeling before an electrical storm. He said, “No explosions. I don’t think this cave is stable.”

  A second later, a swarm of hairy black shapes emerged from the shadows, scrabbling over one another to get at the intruders. They were the size of large dogs, with eight legs and a collection of beady eyes above a pair of pinchers dripping with venom.

  Three knives flashed, blades winking in the dancing light of the torches, and buried to the hilt in the closest spider. The creature’s eyes popped in an explosion of green ichor. It gave an unearthly shriek, tumbled over onto its back, and its legs curled up. The others swarmed over it without slowing down.

  Mercer counted six, then eight, then twelve. They scuttled along the floor, the walls, and one of them clung to the ceiling. Chattering mandibles made an unsettling racket that set Mercer’s heart galloping in his chest.

  Drake threw his spell. It felt like a strong wind gusting through the tunnel. The ring of metal, like invisible blades clashing together, cut through the horde of oncoming beasts. Hairy legs and tufts of fur went spinning away. Green ichor sprayed the cavern walls. More of those unearthly screams filled the tunnel, like nails on a chalkboard. Four more spiders tumbled over onto their backs and curled up. Mercer gritted his teeth.

  He met the first of the hairy demons with an overhand blow from his axe, dashing the spider’s head into a pulpy mass of burst eyes and green blood. It was replaced by another and another. Mercer swung his broad axe with wide sweeps of his powerful arms, slicing through legs, mandibles, and hairy pulsing bodies. Trix danced around him, her short swords flashing, piercing eyes and deflecting stinging pinchers with expert skill. Where Mercer was all strength and power, Trix was speed and agility. Several times she batted aside a set of venomous pinchers just before they could clamp down on Mercer’s thighs. The breath exploded from her lungs in gasps, and Mercer knew she was getting tired. He turned and flattened one of the buggers as it tried to jump on her. It smashed against the cave wall in an explosion of blood and stinking guts.

  Together, they hacked and slashed at the hairy bodies pressing in around them. The spiders were trying to get at them from all sides. The muscles in Mercer’s back and arms strained with the effort of swinging the hefty battle axe. Ask any boxer and they’ll tell you, two minutes in the ring is an eternity. But here in the Savage Realms, down here under the earth, there was no bell. No
breaks in the action. The spiders gave no quarter and asked for none. Down here, it was kill or be killed.

  Mercer felt something sharp rake his forearm and booted it away.

  Behind them, Drake was warming up another attack. “Eranu athule xotyl ure!”

  Ghostly blue flame sprang up in front of Mercer, forcing him back a step. The heat was so intense it singed the small hairs on his knuckles, but he wouldn’t notice until after. Sweat sprang out on his arms and forehead. Several spiders were caught in the sudden conflagration, their wiry hair igniting with orange fire. They let out high-pitched screeches of pain and raced away down the tunnel into blackness, trailing thick plumes of smoke until their wretched shrieks dwindled.

  Trix chopped the front legs off a reaching spider and then drove her blade through the creature’s back, pinning it to the stone floor.

  Mercer swatted another off the ceiling and hacked at it with his axe until it was a puzzle of severed legs and spongy guts. He straightened up from his grisly work, breathing heavy. Green ichor dotted his chest and puddled around his boots.

  Pointing to his arm, Trix said, “They got you.”

  He glanced down at his arm and found a shallow scrape where one of the spiders had snuck past his defenses. He hadn’t felt it until he saw it and then, as if seeing made it real, the pain set in. He winced and closed his hand over the wound. It would leave a scar, but Mercer’s body was covered in those. He turned to Drake and said, “You nearly took my eyebrows off with that wall of flame.”

  “Did you get burned?” Drake asked in a defensive tone.

  “No,” Mercer admitted.

  “Alright then,” Drake said, as if that settled the matter.

  Trix palmed spider guts from her cheek and then used her short sword to point. Mercer and Drake glanced down the passage where a faint flicker of light leapt and danced. One of the spiders was still burning, and the light winked on something shiny and roughly square. Definitely man-made.