“Car-wait a minute, Kelly?” I asked as I realized everything at once, “What are you doing here?”
“Playing the game.” Kelly replied giddily before putting the pieces together and figuring out who I was, “Buck? Wow, I wasn’t expecting to see you hanging around here.”
“Yeah,” I chuckled, walking towards Kelly and eyeing off the nerve-wracking piles of smashed crockery around her feet, “I’m usually over at Alcatraz. Kelly, what are you doing?”
“Playing the game,” Kelly repeated coolly before grabbing another cup from the bench beside her and letting it slip from her fingers, “I read through that whole spell book thing, the parts I could read anyway, and then… I don’t know, I started toying around a bit.”
“By smashing plates?” Sam asked confusedly.
“Yeah,” Kelly said with a confident nod, “it’s amazing, isn’t it? Like, watch this.”
“Jesus.” I quietly hissed as Kelly smashed another glass on the floor, “I… Why is this happy fun time?”
“Because it’s so realistic!” Kelly exclaimed happily, “Seriously, I even logged out for a minute and went to do a comparison.”
“In your actual kitchen?” I asked, not bothering to hide my concern.
“Mmhm,” Kelly let out with a smile, “forgot to clean it up before I got into the game, but I figure I’ll remember when I see it next. Wait a minute…”
We all let that hang in the air for a while, if only to give us a brief reprieve of her smashmania.
“Aren’t we supposed to be fighting or something?” Kelly finally asked, letting a bowl go as she did so.
“Technically, yes,” Jane replied as she came to stand beside me, “but I’m sure no one would mind if we just let this little interaction slide. You know, you being a noob and all.”
“Thanks,” Kelly chuckled sarcastically, “I really do appreciate it though. Anyway, you should get going before Carl shows up, wouldn’t want to ruin the apartment.”
“Um…” I murmured, looking around the mess she’d made, “Too late.”
“I can fix this easy,” Kelly said confidently, “there’s a handful of spells that can repair or clear the mess with a few words and some waving. God, I wish I had that in real life.”
This might sound kind of weird, but as I looked at Kelly and took the time to try and get where she was coming from, I actually started to see her point.
Granted, I probably couldn’t find the fun in smashing all my kitchenware that she was, but at the same time I don’t know how many games she’d played outside of the mobile world, let alone anything of the scale of Echo.
“You’ll be alright though?” I asked, finally managing to grow a smile as I looked at the cheerful Elf, “Don’t want us to stick around so no one bothers you or anything?”
“I’ll be able to handle myself,” Kelly replied confidently, “besides, this is friendly territory for me. For now, anyway.”
I went to ask her what she meant by that, but was stopped when a thunderous force came through the front door, forcing us to spin and face the towering yet obviously weakened Angel with a fire in his eyes.
“You.” Carl snarled, his nostrils flaring as he made a move for us, before stopping mid-step with a confused look on his face.
I thought he was charging something up, or maybe he was trying to toy with us a little, but then he flew sharply to the right and smashed into the wall on the other side of the room.
“Who the Hell is that?” Kelly asked as she stepped between us, a set of mystical golden rings in front of her hands not dissimilar to Jane’s.
“That, my impressive friend,” I chuckled, feeling mighty confident in myself, “would be Carl.”
“Carl!?” Kelly exclaimed, releasing and running over to him, giving myself and the girls all the incentive we needed to hoof it.
Truthfully, I almost felt bad for Kelly, though at the same time I was pretty sure that Carl would’ve done worse if he’d managed to get even one of us.
A lot worse.
26
Having made it outside and deep into the darkened alleyways, the girls and I finally decided to slow our roll a little, mostly because our feet slamming on the asphalt was making a whole lot of noise in the mostly barren city.
“Glad to see that the warding worked,” Jane chuckled quietly after we’d ducked around a corner and made sure we weren’t being followed, “think that was what that weird, buzzing feeling was about?”
“Maybe,” I replied unsurely, “I don’t know if it would’ve taken him that long to get upstairs though, do you?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me, have to imagine getting past the warding takes a whole lot of energy.” Sam added, “Add on top of that that there’s not exactly room to fly in the stairwell.”
“Good point.” I agreed as another thought occurred to me, “Do you guys think we should’ve stayed behind? Finished him off?”
“And risk having Kelly turn on us?” Sam scoffed, “Yeah, no, I feel like getting out of there was the best call. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure if you and Carl were to go toe-to-toe, no magic or backup, the fight would at least be fair, probably pretty short too, but after seeing what Kelly could do…”
“She did seem powerful, didn’t she?” Jane chimed in, barely hiding a twinge of jealousy, “For someone who just got into the game, I mean.”
“Maybe a little,” I agreed, “but it may have also been that Carl was just super susceptible to attack at that point. We all saw how messed up he was.”
“True,” Jane replied with a nod as the sun set just enough to be obscured by the buildings that surrounded us, “still though, that kind of telekinesis seems pretty OP for a fresh spawn.”
“I’m sure it’s balanced out in other areas.” Sam suggested, “You know, maybe she can throw stuff around with her mind easy enough, but anything more than lifting a backpack pulls all her muscles.”
“Maybe…” Jane trailed off, clearly not falling for Sam’s subtle attempt to deflect from the minor inadequacy our mage felt.
“Hey, do you hear that?” I whispered as we passed a dumpster and got spat out onto an empty street, “Sounds like music.”
“Stripper music,” Sam added eagerly, her ears twitching as she craned her neck around to find the source of the music, “we’re close. This way.”
“Here I thought you’d gotten the club bug out of your system.” I chuckled as I struggled to maintain Sam’s erratic jog.
“I have,” Sam replied defensively, “it’s just that I want to get home and do the… thing with the… thing.”
“You truly do seem singularly focused on our goals.” Jane lightheartedly mocked after Sam had pointed to a corner and gestured for us to follow her across the road, “Seriously though, running around like this feels pretty damn risky.”
“Everything we’re doing is risky,” Sam said with a smile over her shoulder, “but this is one of the only things that ends with music and food. And I’m definitely getting some food this time.”
I wanted to say something witty about that, but didn’t get the chance before the club and the massive Orc bouncers at the door came into view, their eyes scanning the street for any possible threat.
“We’ll get in, right?” Jane asked concernedly.
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” I replied without thinking, completely ignorant of the fact that we were covered in sweat and dirt from running through the city, “I strongly doubt Rachel would’ve suggested we come here if it weren’t-”
“Buck!” one of the Orcs exclaimed in a thick Russian accent as he and his friend finally spotted us, “The leader of the Damned Legion! What brings you here?”
“Just looking for a place to have a drink and see some dancing,” I chuckled after coming to a stop in front of the bouncers with the girls at my arms, “you Sergei’s boys?”
“Yes, you could say that,” the second Orc replied with a nod, “not all of us were so lucky as to get respawned on that island.”
“This does not matter though,” the first Orc interjected, clearly wanting to avoid any sort of confrontation, “all that matters is that you’re here. Go on inside, Pash will want to speak with you.”
“Thanks,” I replied, nodding politely as we walked into the club, “keep up the good work.”
“Not going to bring up the fact that they just announced where we were?” Sam whispered under Def Leppard’s ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’, “Seems like a surefire way to call in all the halos.”
“I don’t know how much jurisdiction the Hallowed Kings have out here,” I said with genuine relief as we walked and I looked around the dark club and the variety of mythical people that filled it, “seems kind of like the land that God forgot…”
“Let’s hope you’re able to spread that particular plot beyond the confines of our fine establishment.” a calm, deep voice chuckled from behind me, stopping me in my tracks.
“Doing my best,” I replied coolly, struggling to maintain my composure as I turned to see an exceptionally well-dressed Centaur looming over me, “name’s Buck.”
“Passion the Pimptastic,” the Centaur proclaimed, extending his free hand while making sure to keep his mystical pimp cane-wielding one in full view, “but friends call me Pash. Rachael told us you were coming, but I low-key didn’t expect you to show up.”
“Nice to meet you, Pash,” I said after taking his hand, “I hear you’re the man to talk to about going on a little out of city excursion?”
“Not me, no,” Passion chuckled as he did a quick scan of the room, “but there are some people here that can help. Frank!”
For a moment I thought that he had some kind of Tourette’s and that screaming ‘Frank’ was his tic, but then something short and brazen made its way through the crowd and came to stand beside the Centaur, as best as he could anyway.
“You from that guild that used to hang out around the park?” I asked, trying my best not to look down my nose at the stylishly dressed Gnome.
“For a little while,” Frank said with a nod, his voice significantly deeper than I was expecting from someone of his stature, “but I left them long before that halo went all Jake on the city.”
“All… Jake?” Sam murmured confusedly.
“It’s an in-joke,” Passion explained before turning his attention to Frank, “want to introduce our guests to our… other guests.”
“Very subtle,” Frank chuckled as he walked purposefully between Jane and me and gestured for us to follow, “good to meet you all, by the way. I’m hoping you’ve gathered that I go by Frank.”
“Buck,” I replied, failing to hide how thrown about I was by how quickly everything seemed to be moving, “and this is Jane and Sam.”
“Heard a lot about you three,” Frank said with an amused huff, “and that big Russian of yours. He still kicking around after that brawl with the halos?”
“Maybe, haven’t heard anything from him or the other boys yet.” I sighed as guilt washed over me for forgetting them until that moment, “Where are you taking us, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Back room,” Frank replied over his shoulder, “Pash’d have taken you, but… Well, he gets around like a horse in a crowded club.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but I can kind of see why there aren’t too many Centaurs getting around.” Jane chimed in amusedly, “Not in the city, anyway.”
“Yeah, he’s not exactly suited for bodegas and elevators.” Frank chuckled as we reached the curtain that we’d gone through earlier in the real world, “Straight through here and take a seat.”
“You’re not going to strip for us, are you?” Sam joked after finding the same spot she’d sat in before.
“Not unless you got a couple o’ twenties on you.” Frank replied before walking to the circular stage and pressing something on its side, “Please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.”
I’d expected a smooth ride into an underground lair, but instead what I got was a jarring two-foot drop and some clanking followed by a mild nausea-inducing spinning as we made our way down.
“What is this place?” I asked as a metal plate slid over our heads and shrouded us in darkness.
“This is where all the cool kids hang out,” Frank said, his smile beaming through the black air between us, “but to put it in more simple terms, it’s a blast cellar that we expanded.”
“You mean to tell me there’s a blast cellar under the club in real life?” Jane scoffed.
“It would seem so, took a while for us to find it though.” Frank replied, “Took even longer to rig up this little elevator system and block the stairwell that originally led down here.”
“And why would you do that?” I chuckled.
“To keep it away from prying eyes,” Frank explained, “as much as we appear to be running a neutral operation, what we really want is to get the Angels out and you in.”
“Then why not just start fighting?” Sam asked, “From what we’ve heard, there are a whole bunch of halos who are as unhappy as the rest of us.”
“True, but there’s really no way to tell what they’d do if we went on the offensive,” Frank replied before light started to creep in around our feet and faint jazz rippled through the couch to our ears, “and the last thing we want is to get this place nuked off the map, especially not with the setup we’ve got down here.”
“What makes here so…” Jane trailed off as the former blast cellar came into view, “special…”
“Yeah,” Frank chuckled, “that was my reaction too.”
27
The place was huge, at least double the size of upstairs, and it seemed even larger given that it had less than a quarter of the population of the club.
It was also quieter by far, and while it had a sort of speakeasy-meets-war room vibe, it shared the attributes of neither.
The bar that sat in the far left corner was bare aside from the Orc bartender and the Tiefling he was having a drink-free conversation with, as were the tables that had blueprints, maps, and a variety of documents strewn over them.
Truthfully, the whole place felt like the beginning of junior prom, with small pockets of people staying in their corners and quietly talking amongst themselves.
“Figured there’d be a bit more of a unified front down here,” I murmured as the girls and Frank got off the ‘elevator’ while I still struggled to find my motion sickness-stricken feet, “or is this more of a finding Strider in a crowded tavern-type deal?”
“Inn.” Sam replied over her shoulder.
“Huh?” I asked, mostly because I couldn’t form the word ‘what’ after standing up.
“The Prancing Pony was an inn, not a tavern.” Sam reiterated, “They’re different.”
“What’s the difference?” Jane asked curiously as Frank led us towards one of the empty booths that lined the far wall.
“A tavern’ll likely throw you out if you look ready to pass out, an inn will give you a room.” Sam explained, smiling at her little joke.
“Can we please get back to the point at hand?” I huffed amusedly after practically falling into the booth, “That being, what are we supposed to do now? I was kind of hoping we’d… I don’t know, someone would approach us.”
“Don’t worry,” Frank chuckled, snapping his fingers at the barman and pointing to our table once he had his attention, “I’ll go and rustle up the people you need to talk to, might be an idea to do each group one at a time though.”
“Do they not get along?” Sam asked.
“They do,” Frank replied assuredly, “but these free roaming groups are all convinced they’re the best and know what they’re doing more than the other guy. It’ll just be easier.”
“Alright, I trust you to know ‘em better than we do. Set ‘em up.” I chuckled as the bartender appeared with a pitcher of water and three glasses and set them down in front of us.
“Let us know if you need anything stronger.” the Orc said with a forced smile be
fore making his way back towards the bar, muttering something about us wasting his time.
“Heh, classic Jake. See why we keep him locked up down here?” Frank joked, “Well, that, and his proclivity for blowing up things that should not be blown up. Anyway, I’ll go and grab Lleyton.”
With that, the Gnome walked off, leaving us to pour ourselves a few cups of water that turned out to be spicy water.
Sour water?
It was vodka.
Point is, I was actually kind of glad that booze was on the menu, not least because I was suddenly starting to get the feeling that the people around me were going to expect a whole lot from me.
Rachael had already said it earlier, but having Frank, a person I’d never met before, say that he and others like him wanted me in charge was anxiety provoking to say the least.
I was kind of happy with my island and the level of responsibility and stress that came from managing it and, in my mind, anything outside of that had the potential to be too much.
Truth be told, that’s how I ran my real life as well.
I didn’t really want to press my career past where I’d gotten, I was happy in my little-ish apartment, and my relationship… Well, I was starting to feel like that was the one area that could use a bit more expansion, but even still, that was stressful and ran the risk of going to Hell in a handbasket.
All of a sudden I had stakes in a massive app and was on the verge of staging a violent uprising, and I wasn’t exactly a paragon of commitment.
“I really should’ve eaten something…” Jane quietly mused after her third, full glass of straight vodka.
“Crap!” Sam exclaimed, earning us a grand total of zero looks from the people that Frank was still talking to, “I wanted to have something at the buffet this time.”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to grab a bite to eat on our way out.” I murmured, struggling to hide my internal spiral into self-doubt and misery, before taking another look around, “What is taking him so long?”
“We were busy fighting over who got to talk to you first,” a young Gathlain woman said as she came over to join us, her leaf-covered wings and dark green skin standing out against the leather of the booth, “Daddy Frostiey, I represent and run the local Gathlain tribe.”
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