by A. J. Markam
Nope.
Hard pass.
The black tentacle mirage turned into a female elf who gestured with her hands – at which point jagged spikes thrust upward from the ground.
“Or you may choose to become an elemental warlock, with dominion over earth, water, fire, or air.”
That had been Zali’s specialty. When I’d fought him in the undersea kingdom of Fathmos, he’d used water spells to attack me.
The female elf changed to a hunter, a human male armed with a bow and arrow.
“You may also choose the House of Plague.”
Green lightning zapped the hunter, and giant pustules broke out all over the poor guy’s skin. He dropped the bow and began to claw in agony at the egg-sized bumps on his face – which then broke, oozing green slime and leaving cavernous holes. He finally collapsed on the ground, at which point his body burst open into a tidal wave of goo.
“These powers are self-explanatory.”
Ugh.
Gross.
No thanks.
I didn’t want to vomit every time I cast a spell.
The unfortunate hunter suddenly caught on fire, which turned into a sparking, burning ring.
“Finally, you could become a wielder of the Hell’s Pont, a mystical bridge into the Seven Hells. With this power, you can travel anywhere you have ever been – even it is halfway across the world.”
That had been Hritch’s ability. He’d teleported all over the place when I’d fought him, which had been a pain in the ass to counter.
The ring of fire disappeared, leaving behind only the cold marble floor.
“Choose,” the elf commanded.
Plague was out.
The Ung’aroth was out. Didn’t care to become a servant of the Dark Side, although Darth Ian did have a nice ring to it.
And my whole ‘thing’ was setting my demon servants free to do whatever they wanted. Nobody but Stig and Alaria had stuck around.
What was the point of summoning more if I just let them all go, only to have them desert me?
So ‘Demon Army’ was out.
Elemental could have been cool, but… I just wasn’t feeling it.
Which left Hell’s Pont, which was fine by me. It was certainly a useful power.
And if you weren’t into building a demon army, selling your soul, playing Aang from The Last Airbender, or making people erupt with oversized zits, then it was really the only choice.
“I’ll take Hell’s Pont,” I announced.
A window appeared.
Are you sure?
This choice cannot be altered.
Great.
Way to help my ‘choice anxiety,’ guys.
But I still selected ‘Yes.’
Congratulations!
You will now be inducted into the School of the Hell’s Pont.
30,000 XP
“Oh, good,” the Revenant shopkeeper said in relief.
I looked up at him. “Why ‘good’?”
“Becaussssssse I don’t have to teach you.”
I frowned. “What’s your specialty?”
The Revenant leaned over and put one bony fist on the armrest of his marble throne. His entire body language was basically, Are you KIDDING me?
“What would you guesssssss?”
If he were one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, he would definitely be famine. He still had leathery skin on his body, even if it was more of a slipcover for his skeleton than anything else. But he didn’t have the full-on, bare-bones look required for Death.
But ‘famine’ wasn’t a warlock power. So maybe –
“…Plague?” I said.
He gave me a mocking little golf-clap, a soft pat pat pat of his palms together. “He winssssss the prize.”
Of course, he pronounced ‘prize’ like ‘prisssssssse.’
I looked at the others. “So each of you have a specialty you teach?”
In answer, the troll grinned evilly and held out one hand. A tendril of Venom’s symbiote goo burst out of his palm, then cascaded into a flood down the throne, forming pulsing, H.R. Giger-esque steps to the floor. He walked down them, each one squishing under his feet.
When he reached the bottom, the black mass retracted into itself until it finally disappeared in one tiny point in the middle of the air.
“Enjoy your tutelage,” the troll said sinisterly as he walked past me.
Suddenly there was a burst of fire. I looked over to see a 20-foot-tall purple demon with massive pecs and biceps lifting down the female warlock and setting her on the ground.
She walked past me, too, and smiled. “Good luck.”
The female gnome levitated off of her throne, supported by massive gusts of wind, and flew out the temple.
Which left only one option.
Oh no…
I looked up at the elf, who stared down at me coldly.
Great.
I got Professor Stick-Up-His-Ass.
The elf twirled his hand, and a spinning ring of fire appeared in the air before him. He stepped off the throne into it –
And immediately appeared to my right through another spinning ring of sparks.
Cool…
“Come with me,” the elf growled. “We shall begin your training now.”
He started walking away from the thrones.
Suddenly, a familiar voice called out behind us.
“Hey, guyssss? Guy-yyyyysssssss…”
I turned back to see the Revenant stuck atop the throne.
“Are you just going to leave him up there?” I asked the elf.
“Yes,” he said without so much as a glance over his shoulder.
Well, I had training to attend to, so I just followed the elf.
Bet the Revenant wished he was teaching me now. At least then I would have gotten him a stepladder or something.
The last thing I heard him muttering atop his throne was, “Yaggoth’ssssss taint, I hate thisssss job…”
7
The elf led me to the rear of the temple, where we looked out from between the pillars down on Exardus. Multiple plumes of smoke were still rising into the air across the city.
I pictured using my new powers to rescue people down below – which led to the obvious question. “Can I take other people with me through the portal?”
Something I probably should have asked before I’d chosen.
After all, if I couldn’t take Alaria and Stig with me, what good was the power to travel anywhere?
Although Hritch had certainly been a pain in the ass by teleporting back and forth during our battle, so even if I couldn’t take Alaria and Stig, the ability would still be useful in a fight.
The elf nodded. “You can take an unlimited number of people and things, as long as they can fit within the diameter of your portal and pass through it while it is open.”
“How long does it stay open?”
“Ten seconds to start, although it can be shorter if you wish.”
“How big can I make the portal?”
“Ten feet in diameter.”
“That’s it?”
“You are an apprentice. Your powers are weak.”
Okay, okay…
“I’ll eventually be able to hold it open for longer, and make the portals bigger, as I get more powerful – right?”
“Eventually.”
Even more reason to level up.
“So how do I do it?”
“First you must decide on your destination. You can go anywhere you can physically see at this moment in time – or anywhere you have traveled in the entire world. If you want to go to a faraway place, picture it in your mind’s eye.”
Suddenly a new computer menu appeared in the air before me. It was small and bordered by purple, which set it off from the others.
I normally had a menu bar for casting spells – although these days, I did it automatically by thought. I usually hid the spell bar so as not to clutter my field of vision.
I also had a men
u bar with little pictures for all the demons bound to me. Alaria and Stig were in the first two spots, followed by Meera (by virtue of her wearing the Collar of Gorbolik).
Then there was a bunch of demons I hadn’t seen in quite a while.
Dorp, my blue Illusion Demon, with his watermelon-shaped head…
Blutus, the hairy brawler who had helped me grind my first dungeon, then ran off to art school the second I freed him…
Fugly, the tiny gargoyle who had fought alongside me in Vos before darting away after a flying fish…
Followed by the various demons I had summoned as I’d leveled up in the game.
After all those demons came Krug, who had become the captain of the Revenge after I’d freed him from Tarka’s control.
There were actually tons of submenus with all the crew members of the Revenge, too – around 50 of them. There was no way they could fit on the main menu, so they appeared in cascading windows I could pull up at will. I hadn’t looked at the submenus since I’d last seen the crew in person. There was no reason to. The pirates were gone now, living their own lives.
Incidentally, none of them had died, or I would have been notified – at which point I could resurrect them wherever I happened to be at the time.
Until then, I just let them be.
This new purple menu, though, was much simpler. It only had two buttons on it: an icon of a ring, and one of a tiny globe with continents on it.
The button with the ring had a small ‘3’ in the corner.
I was guessing the globe was the game’s version of picturing ‘anywhere I had ever been,’ so I pressed the icon.
Immediately a map appeared – a map of all of OtherWorld.
A thin red line traced through everywhere I had ever been, with bigger red dots over cities or towns where I had spent more time.
There was Fernburg, where I’d first entered the game and met Stig and Alaria…
Exardus, where I was now currently residing…
Asterwaite, where Krug had dropped us off to find Orlo…
The Plains of Mor-El, where hundreds of human players I had befriended had come to my aid against an Orcish army…
The volcano where Daidonia, Orlo, and Shyvock had died…
The city of Vos, now turned into a pit ravaged by a rogue dungeon…
The forested area where the fairies lived…
And the seaside cliff where we had relocated Deek the dungeon core.
There was even a big red dot out in the middle of the ocean: Fathmos, which encompassed Zali’s underwater abode and the kingdoms of the nymphs and Naga.
It was astounding being able to see my progress through OtherWorld so clearly.
What was even more incredible was the realization that I’d only traveled across maybe 0.01% of the surface area of Otherworld.
However, one thing struck me as I looked at the map: it was so big that it seemed impossible to use it with any sort of precision. My fingertip could cover an entire city, so there was no way to pick a specific spot to teleport to.
Hmmm…
On instinct, I reached out and touched the map with two fingers, then expanded my fingertips outwards. It was the same gesture you would make if you were zooming in on a picture you’d taken on your smart phone.
Immediately the map whooshed in to just feature Exardus. With all that detail, I could see how much of the city I had traversed – from Meera’s apartment, to the shipyards, to Peenocchio’s compound, to the temple, and much, much more.
There was even a sub-map I could access for the Underneath, since it was underground and technically ‘below’ the regular map.
“So I just pick a place?” I asked the elf.
“Yes – anywhere you have already been.”
“Can I go somewhere I haven’t been before?”
“One day. Those are advanced and arcane spells.”
So I would be able to teleport places I hadn’t been before – but only after I had leveled up some more.
Fair enough.
Just for the hell of it, I decided to go back to Fernburg where it had all begun.
Hunting wild pigs with Stig…
Getting pelted with apples by farm children…
Battling a bad guy with only 540 hit points…
Man, things were a hell of a lot simpler back then.
And stupider.
After all the amazing adventures I’d had, the quests I’d done in Fernburg now seemed like the most boring things ever.
I zoomed out the map, found Fernburg, zoomed back in, and chose a spot near the chapel where Alaria and I had killed Jastoth, her first ex-master.
“Do you have your destination in mind?” the elf asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. The next step is to cast a Hell’s Pont to one of the Seven Hells. As an apprentice, you can only cast the spell three times a day, so use them wisely.”
Aha. So that’s what the ‘3’ was on the menu.
“Is that ‘day’ as in ‘while the sun is shining,’ or is that three times every 24 hours?”
“Twenty-four hours.”
“If I don’t use all three in one 24-hour period, do they build up?”
“No, they expire. You get three per day and that’s it.”
I remembered how Hritch had buzzed around the farmyard, casting portals without care. He must have done it 200 times during our fight.
“Will I ever get more than three?”
“Yes. As you grow more powerful and gain more experience, your ability to cast more portals will increase.”
So as I gained more XP and leveled up, I would get more portal spells per 24-hour period.
With only three jumps per day, I really would have to choose wisely.
“What’s the maximum I can get? In the future, I mean.”
“When you become a master, you will be able to cast an infinite number of spells per day.”
Hritch had been a Level 100, so either he had reached Infinity, or a whole hell of a lot.
That’s the technical term for it: ‘a whole hell of a lot.’
Speaking of ‘hell’…
“When you cast a portal,” the elf continued, “you must choose which Hell you wish to journey through.”
“How do I do that?”
“There are Seven of them: Acheron, Astoroth, Gehimnon, Ikisat, Narakos, Tamak, and Zarkon. Choose one.”
I figured I should touch the ring icon to choose which Hell.
But before I did, I asked, “How fast will it happen? I mean, am I just going to disappear?”
I didn’t want to press the button and get whisked between different dimensions without expecting it. Who knows what that would feel like.
As Quicksilver says to Magneto in Days of Future Past as he’s about to transport him out of his Pentagon prison:
Whiplaaaaaaaaaaash…
“After you choose one of the Hells as an intermediate, you will still have to step through the ring. Eventually you will learn to manipulate the portal to envelop you, but that is an advanced tactic.”
Okay, so we wouldn’t just disappear.
I had a few other questions, though.
“If I died in Hell, would I go back to the last Gravesite I created in OtherWorld, or would I resurrect somewhere nearby in whatever Hell I was in?”
“You will resurrect wherever the Gravesite is, no matter what world or realm.”
“So when I go to a new destination, I should establish a new Gravesite – or I could get killed and wind up 3000 miles away.”
“Correct.”
With all my questions answered, I punched the ring icon, and a drop-down menu appeared with seven options in alphabetical order.
Acheron
Astoroth
Gehimnon
Ikisat
Narakos
Tamak
Zarkon
All the different Hells the elf had mentioned.
“How do I know which one to go to?” I asked.
; “Different Hells have their own properties, which you will eventually learn to harness as you gain experience. For now, I would suggest you choose one of the realms more hospitable to humans. Have you ever journeyed to one of the Seven Hells before?”
“Yes. I can’t remember the name, but it’s the one with a city called Abaddon.”
“Astoroth.”
“Yeah, that sounds familiar.” I smiled proudly. “Ever heard of the Liberator of Abaddon?”
“No,” the elf said, deflating my balloon somewhat.
“Well, I freed thousands of demons, overthrew a guy named Malfurik, and established a democratic government I handed over to the demons I’d liberated.”
“Oh… that was you,” the elf said in disgust, like he was hearing about a guy who’d dropped trou and had explosive diarrhea at a wedding reception.
I frowned. “I thought you hadn’t heard of me.”
“No one in our academy calls you the ‘Liberator of Abaddon,’” the elf said disdainfully. “More like the ‘Fool of Abaddon.’”
“Hey!” I snapped.
“I wouldn’t go around telling other warlocks that you like freeing their slaves, either – they’re liable to kill you.”
Sigh.
Point taken.
“Astoroth is an excellent realm to begin with,” the elf said. “Use it as your destination for casting your first portal.”
I thought back to all the demons I’d freed, and how I’d given them my half-assed version of the United States Constitution… or at least what I could remember from my 10th grade American History class.
“Can we go to a specific place in Astoroth?”
“Of course.”
“Do I have to have already been there?”
“Not in the Seven Hells. Only in our world.”
I thought about going to a completely new spot, but decided against it. There would be plenty of opportunities to explore in the future.
“Could we go to Abaddon, then? I’d like to stop in and see my friends.”
The elf rolled his eyes. “As you wish.”
Jerk.
I selected ‘Astoroth,’ and another submenu appeared with a keyboard below it.
Search locations.
I typed in ‘Abaddon,’ and the name appeared on a long list.
Once I selected it, the ‘3’ on the ring icon turned to ‘2.5’ –