Tournament Lord

by Felix Craft

  Jesus, Danny, I thought. Did you have to be this much of a dweeb?

  Leesha, apparently seeing the same prompt. “Ouch. They’re usually cringy, but that one was worse than usual.” She shook her head. “But never mind that — time to come on. There’s a river just down the hill, we’ll wash up there. I’ll even let you see my character’s underwear.” She winked back at me, then set off down the hill.

  I tried standing, and my slashed thigh barely cooperated. I groaned as limped after her. “I’d love to ogle you,” I called after her, “but I might be a bit slow in coming.”

  “Better luck next time!”

  Even though we’d killed and looted the highwaymen, I somehow felt like I’d been robbed. I made my painful way down the hill for the river, ready to rinse off and get a moment’s peace for once.

  8

  Camp Out

  Leesha was already done washing up in the river by the time my sorry ass made it there, so there was no peep show for me. Which suited me fine — it wasn’t what I was there for, anyway. My shoulder and leg had finally healed as my HP creeped back up to 110, so I was antsy to keep going as soon as we could.

  I washed fast while Leesha puzzled out the bandit hideout location, then I redressed in my pilfered leather armor. Clean-ish and dressed, I approached my companion, a resolution forming in my mind. “We’re not going after this loot. We’re going to Mythgard to get me the hell out of here.”

  Leesha didn’t even deign to look up from the map. “Oh, yeah? And I suppose you’ll make it past the next band of highwaymen you come across all by yourself, is that right?” She glanced up. “Mythgard is miles and miles from here. Trust me and my caravan-guard experience — you don’t want to walk it alone.”

  I gritted my teeth. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth or just wanted to take advantage of my glitch, but she was right. I didn’t know what I was doing. “Fine. Can we just go, then?”

  “Fine.” She folded up the map and put it into her satchel.

  She started walking with me, wearing a grin-and-bear it smile, on her heels.

  The map had us leave the road we’d been on — the High Way, ironically enough, though I should have expected nothing less from Danny at this point — and follow the river through the woods. Then we forded the river by a big boulder and went deep into the forest. I gripped my battle-axe in both hands as we went, the wounds from the bandit still on my mind.

  “Nervous, noob?” Leesha smirked over at me.

  “Nah. It’s just a game. Just not keen on getting hurt more.”

  “Ah. So, a pansy then. Isn’t that what you called the bandit back there?”

  I felt my face getting hot, and my temper rising with it. But I could be cool when I wanted. I made one last attempt at diplomacy. “It looks like we’re stuck together for the time being. Either we start getting along, or this is going to be a long, painful journey.”

  Leesha was quiet for a moment, and I thought I’d gotten through to her. Then she glanced over at me and gave me a tight smile. “Painful for you, maybe.”

  I sighed. So much for diplomacy.

  Leesha suddenly stopped and her eyes unfocused. “Ah, shit,” she said, shoulders slumping. “That’s my cue to leave.”

  I stared at her. “Cue to leave?” I repeated, disbelieving.

  She nodded, looking truly dejected for the first time. “I’ve been in for thirty-six hours. At forty, you start getting lag. GS put in a latency wall so players don’t stay on too long. Past forty, and it starts getting dangerous, even fatal.”

  Forty hours. How long had I been on? Not that long yet. But would it be that long before I found a way to log off? Fear unlike anything I’d faced with the bandits or wyrmlings cut through my gut.

  “Stay here,” Leesha instructed as her hands dove into her satchel. “When I log back in, I’ll be at this location. Then we can keep on our quest of ours.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’re telling me you just want me to wait here patiently until you get back? Just wait, when I urgently need to log off so I don’t, I don’t know, die?”

  She shrugged. “You are the sidekick, aren’t you? I expect they do a lot of that.” When she saw the outrage on my face, she laughed. “But don’t worry, I wouldn’t just let you be bored. There’s an in-game wait feature that will make it seem like no time passes at all. You can find the command for it in the menu. Once I log off, my avatar will make a camp here, then you can wait for, say, twelve hours?”

  Twelve hours. She thought I was just going to let twelve hours go by and not do anything. “Sure,” I said with a forced smile.

  She eyed me, looking as if she suspected me of something. “Just remember that you need me.”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you when I get back, Zane.” She gave a tentative smile, then said, “Command: Log off.”

  It was strange watching someone else log off, like a light switched off behind her eyes. Even though her avatar immediately kicked into action setting up camp, just as Leesha had said would happen, it was nothing more than a machine at work, even if all the same fluidity of motion was there. I waved my hand in front of her face just to check, and got no reaction.

  9

  Sisters of Evenfall

  I straightened up again and looked around. One thing was certain — there was no way I was just going to be Leesha’s little lap dog, waiting around for her to get back from sleeping and eating and whatever else she was up to.

  Because I’m a slow learner, I tried logging off one more time. When that was a bust, I perused my menus as I thought about what to do. A new tab had popped up since I’d last checked called Party. I pulled it up and saw I could see more of Leesha’s stats than before.

  Name: Leesha_22

  Level: 10

  Profession: Caravan guard

  Faction: Sisters of Evenfall

  Runecoins: 3687

  - HP: 120/120

  - SP: 170/170

  - MP: —/100

  …

  It listed out the rest of her stats below, her affinities and abilities and the like, but none of that much interested me. I was mildly curious about that faction of hers though, the Sisters of Evenfall. The tutorial video had mentioned something about guilds and factions. “The building blocks of MythRune,” I think it was. Did it mean anything to me that she had a faction?

  I pressed my hand into the projection, an alternate way of navigating the menu from voice commands, and brought up information about the Sisters. What I saw wasn’t promising. It turned out they were a troupe of thieves and rogues, famed — according to the guidebook — for conducting long-cons and robbing the gullible of their hard-earned vittles. It was enough to know that Leesha wasn’t just the caravan guard she pretended to be.

  But despite the implications, it didn’t matter much now. She was the best I had for the moment, so it looked like I was stuck with the untrustworthy bitch. I rose and stretched, then watched as Leesha’s avatar finished setting up camp and laid down on what looked like a poor man’s sleeping bag and became rigid as a corpse. A small text projection hovered next to her declaring: Player logged off. Cannot interact or be harmed.

  Well, good for her.

  10

  Zane the Explorer

  Hefting my battle-axe — I really needed to find a way to strap that to my back or something — I looked around me. I had the way to the road on my map. All I had to do was follow the revealed path back to the High Way and I could be headed toward Mythgard. Or a mod in some village along the way.

  But … some part of me still hesitated. Though I wanted to believe it, I didn’t think another mod would make one iota of difference in my glitch situation. If I was to get out, I had to go to the top — to Lord MythRune, and through him to Danny. And to do that, if I believed Leesha, I either needed to be Level 10 or I needed someone who was.

  I twisted my hands around my battle-axe, fuming. Maybe I’d find someone else along the way
who wanted to help me, especially if I flaunted my glitch. But telling too many people could be dangerous, too. After all, I was helping Danny take down this stupid game. Drawing attention to myself probably couldn’t be a good thing.

  I sighed and looked into the forest again. It looked like I was stuck with someone who couldn’t help but call me noob. But I was too restless just to wait. I might as well gather some XP and gain a level, or maybe I’d find some more Rc and pad my pockets for when I got back to the real world.

  Leaving Leesha’s avatar to plank on the ground, I wandered off into the darkening woods. Sunset would happen soon, and I wouldn’t want to be wandering the forest at night, but I’d just poke around for a bit. The forest didn’t look like anything special, though it had the same look and feel as reality. It was pretty amazing what Danny had built, even if it was a bitch to play.

  I enjoyed the simple feeling of both my legs working for a while, then set to scrutinizing my surroundings. In the fantasy games Danny and I had played as children, there was never wasted space. There would be something in this forest, I was sure, and probably not too far away. They couldn’t have players getting bored, after all.

  I wasn’t disappointed. After half an hour of searching, I heard a deep rumble coming from ahead of me. I’ll admit, embarrassing as it is, I was excited to see what it was. I attempted to sneak like Leesha had taught me, and though I felt ridiculous, I kept with it. I couldn’t give up if I wanted to get out of there. I needed higher skills and XP.

  Slowly, I waddled my way through brush, making as much or more noise than before. But the low rumble, which came in and out like a tide, drowned out most of it. Became louder and louder, until I was amazed I wasn’t already on top of whatever was making it. How loud was this? It felt like subwoofers were lining the ground beneath my feet.

  Then a clearing opened up before me, and I froze. Lying on its back in front of me was what looked like huge mound of garbage, only it was moving with every rumble. Beneath the tumble of mud, rags, twigs, bones, and other grisly things I didn’t care to identify, I made out a large, round belly that towered something like twice my height. Arms as thick round as pillars flopped out next to it, and I followed those up to a massive chest then a head lolling back against the ground. In the head was one half-lidded eye.

  I’d stumbled across a fucking cyclops.

  The smart thing to do would have been to slowly back away and go bed down with Leesha. But I didn’t do the smart thing. For amidst the pile of rubbish decorating the cyclops’ body was something gleaming and golden. A sword, somehow pristine despite all the much layering everywhere. That had to mean it was magic. I nearly licked my lips thinking how much that meant. My crappy hide armor, I found out, was worth about $2 in real money. That sword had to be worth hundreds, maybe thousands.

  Also, I couldn’t die. So really, what I was waiting for?

  Trying my best to do it properly, I did the waddle step to sneak up on the cyclops. The sound of my heart beat in my ears, and sweat started to trickle down my forehead. It was every bit as if it were actually me there, creeping up on a massive creature that could split me in two with a single swing.

  I almost turned back thinking about it. But I set my teeth and kept inching forward. Think about the money, Zane. Think about the money.

  I was five feet away from the sword shining by the cyclops’ side. Four. Three. There was a definitely glow coming off the sword — my mouth went dry with anticipation. Two. One…

  Your affinity Sneak has reached level 2!

  The projection came out of nowhere, startling me into gasping and taking a surprised step back. Something snapped under my foot as it settled down. My breath caught in my lungs, and I froze like a rabbit.

  The rumbling — the cyclops’ snoring — had stopped.

  Slowly, so slowly, I turned my head to look at the cyclops’ huge eye, but its log of an arm was in the way. Maybe that meant it couldn’t see me. If I went quickly, I could have the sword and be out of there before the cyclops even realized what had woken it.

  Too scared to sneak properly, I padded forward and brought the head of my battle-axe to the dirty bit of some animal skin that was keeping the sword in place. I wiggled the axe and sawed through the skin as quick as I could, but as I reached the end of it, my axe dinged against the sword with a faint ringing noise. I froze again. It had to have heard me this time.

  But there was nothing. Maybe it was a hard of hearing cyclops. Maybe it was just a coincidence that it had stopped snoring at the moment of that projection. Maybe my glitch had infected it and made it prone and not want to eat me.

  As luck would have it, that was not the case. The huge arm shifted, and fingers the size of my legs went searching toward its side. I sidestepped the hand, barely escaping the fingers as they scratched up and down the exposed part of the cyclops’ side. I didn’t dare move, even though the thing moving caused its stench to perfume the air so it was almost unbearable.

  The itch apparently satisfied, the cyclops’ hand fell back to the ground, and the giant lay still. I didn’t move for a minute, then two. Felt like I couldn’t move if I’d wanted to. But finally, my courage returned, and I took a step again toward the sword. It was half hanging out of the rest of the debris. I just had to grab the hilt and pull, then I’d double the pittance in my bank account.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I lunged forward and wrenched the sword from its makeshift sheath.

  At once, the cyclops rumbled awake, and its massive form shifted then began sitting up.

  Sword in one hand, axe in the other, I made a run for it, heart in my throat. I could get away. I could do this. The edge of the clearing was almost in front of me, then I could disappear into the trees. Just a few more steps—

  A blow like a car hitting me exploded on my body, followed by the tightest hug I’d ever received. The cyclops, gripping me in his hand, held me up. “Little man steals from me?!” the cyclops roared in my face, spit soaking me like the dirtiest shower I’d ever had.

  I didn’t say anything, not that I could have. But there was no need. The next moment, I found out what it was like to fly.

  And the moment after that, I experienced dismemberment for the first time. And unfortunately, not the last.

  11

  The Bandit Lair

  I woke with light tickling my eyes. I groaned. My body felt as if I’d been beaten with a sack of rocks, thrown off a moving truck, then kicked in the crotch for good measure. Every muscle was full to the brim of lactic acid, and it took every ounce of effort to move.

  But all my limbs were there. I checked. And that despite my distinctly remembering an arm flailing away when I hit a tree and a leg following close behind. I was lucky just to feel a bit of soreness.

  Lucky. That was a thought in his hellish place. I slowly got to my knees, cursing Danny’s creation the whole way, but cursing myself even more for getting involved. I resolved to be a worse person when I got of this place. Dying wishes always meant trouble, I should have known that by then.

  Once I’d come to terms with my battle-axe being lost, I made my way through the forest by following my map and headed towards Leesha’s campsite. It had been eleven and a half hours, a quick check of my projected dashboard told me. Perfect timing.

  The cyclops had thrown me in the right direction, so I had a head start on my hike. Still, it was nearly twelve hours by the time I reached the point again. Or at least thought I did.

  I blinked. Hadn’t she been set up right at the bend of the river? But there was nothing there. I looked to the right and to the left, anger and panic fighting for dominance in my chest. I’d wasted a whole night waiting for her. I’d literally lost two limbs. If she just shrugged and left me at the drop of a dime—

  “Hey, there you are! I thought you’d split…” Leesha’s words trailed off.

  I turned, and saw her looking me up and down. “What the hell happened to you?” she asked, incredulous. “Did you get attacked by a bear?�
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  I looked down at myself. The arm and leg that had fallen off didn’t have clothes or armor on them anymore, and I’d lost my boot as well. “You think a bear could do this to me?” I asked, defensive.

  “Uh, yeah. Bears aren’t exactly easy pickings.” She paused. “So, was it not a bear?”

  “No, it was not a bear. It was a fucking cyclops, only like a mile that way.” I waved in the direction of the forest.

  Leesha’s eyes widened, then a laugh burst out of her. I stared in disbelief. “You met Old Man Jenkins!” she said, as if that explained everything.

  “Old Man Jenkins? That monster has a name?”

  “Sure does. And he sleeps more than a lion.” She eyed me, a smirk growing in place of the laugh. “The only time he hurts people is if they’re incredibly stupid and try to steal something off of him.”

  I tried not to look embarrassed but failed spectacularly as heat flushed my face. “So, what, I’m stupid for trying to get rich? Well, excuse me!”

  “Nope. Just for trying to get rich in ways that are guaranteed to kill you. And ruining your armor while you’re at it.” She searched me again. “And did you lose your weapon?”

  Shit. She’d noticed. “Maybe.”

  “Jesus.” She shook her head. “You may have an OP glitch, but you might be the worst sidekick in history.”

  “I’m not a sidekick!” Now she had me sounding like I was ten.

  “Whatever.” She searched in her satchel and came out with a club. “Take this cudgel. You’re lucky I picked that off those bandits — I don’t usually pick up useless loot. But I had a feeling…”