Beyond the Boss

by Drew Seren

  “Oh no you don’t.” Titanya sliced it through the legs. The thing was low enough for her to manage to sever the legs just above the knees. The Friggispiran flopped to the ground as Miranda landed a blow with her club, sending the thing into pixels.

  “Let’s run!” Horc shouted and spun toward the tunnel. He didn’t want to face another of the monsters and be slowed down again.

  Titanya was down under half health, as was Miranda. Tufkakes had taken a fair amount of damage and Wolf was in need of healing.

  “Once we’re clear, we need to pause so I can heal people,” Bigdaddybear said as they entered the tunnel, heading in the direction of the arrow that was leading them toward the AI dragon and its hostages.

  “I want to make sure we don’t get jumped by another of those things.” Horc said as they followed the tunnel around a turn. He wanted the party at full strength too, but they couldn’t handle more delays.

  They had to put some distance between them and the lake. Had their rest on the shores had given the AI time to come up with the Friggispiran attack plan? If it had needed time to plan, that gave them a chance if they could move faster and get to it before it came up with a way to block them from getting to the hostages.

  19

  Horc huffed hard as they rounded the fourth turn in the tunnel. He figured they had to be a good mile or more away from the underground lake.

  “Everyone be quiet for a moment,” Tufkakes said, holding up a hand. “Stop breathing.”

  Not sure what he was on about, Horc did as he asked. His chest was already sore from the run; he hoped Tufkakes had a good reason.

  After a second, Tufkakes nodded. “I don’t hear anything running after us. All quiet.”

  Horc let out the breath. “Good.” He was really tired of running, swimming and otherwise fleeing nearly everything they were running into in the tunnel.

  Beside him, Wolf’s head hung low and his tongue nearly hit the tunnel floor. Horc glanced at his companion’s health and it looked okay, but he had no idea if the new rules about exhaustion impacted Wolf as it was everyone else. For good measure, Horc tossed him a chunk of meat. His supply was starting to get low. Not getting loot was impacting that.

  Titanya pulled off her pack and began rummaging through it. “It’s a step or two down from what I was wearing, but I’ve got backup armor.”

  Baladara stared at her. “Who carries backup armor?”

  “Someone who’s prepared,” Titanya replied as she started pulling pieces of armor from her pack. “I always carry a backup set, normally the last armor I wore before I found something nicer. I know it sounds silly, but this time it’s coming in handy.”

  Bigdaddybear nodded. “I understand. I’ve done things like that in other games.”

  Since he wasn’t used to personal armor in the science fiction games he’d played before Halfworld, it sounded like a bad use of bag space, under normal circumstances. Since they were dealing with not getting loot, or being able to safely visit vendors, it made lots of sense for their current conditions. If he’d been thinking along those lines, he’d have kept a backup melee weapon and would be able to help the party more.

  When she was done putting her armor on, Titanya thumped her chest. “Yeah, that’s better. I was almost naked without my armor. I couldn’t be a good tank in that condition.”

  “And we need a good tank,” Baladara said.

  “Let’s keep moving.” Although Horc was thankful for the down time while Titanya got re-armored, he wanted to continue toward their quest. The arrow was almost straight down the tunnel.

  Tufkakes came back from slightly down the tunnel. “Yeah, now’s a good time.”

  Horc blinked at their Rogue. “Why? Did you hear that thing chasing us?” The way their luck was running, it would be getting close and they’d have to take off running again.

  “Not sure.” Tufkakes shrugged. “But if it does come charging after us, it’s going to be in for a nasty surprise when it comes down the tunnel and hits the traps I just laid. Since they aren’t magical, we don’t have to worry about them fading away.”

  “Let’s just hope we don’t have to come back out this way,” Miranda muttered.

  “Considering those crystals between us and the outside,” Horc was getting really tired of her attitude, which seemed to be getting worse the farther into the tunnels they went, “yeah, I hope we don’t have to come back this way. At that point, it might just be easier to log out of the game.” He wasn’t about to do that until he had everyone safe, and he figured they all knew that. If it came to having to turn back, they’d do everything they could to find an alternate course through the tunnels in hope of finding clear passage.

  Horc headed on down the way they’d been going.

  Tufkakes jogged ahead of him. “I’ll take point.” Then he faded into the shadows.

  Having the Rogue out front made Horc feel better, although deep in his gut he still felt like he should be the one scouting ahead. He was the ranger after all.

  A few minutes later, Tufkakes was waiting for them, leaning calmly on the passage wall. “We’ve got a bit of a decision to make here.”

  Since the tunnel had been non-branching, Horc had a sinking feeling he knew what they were about to be asked. “How many?”

  “Just a fork.” Tufkakes replied. “I went down both sides for short distances. They’re running the same direction as far as north south go, but one slopes up and the other slopes down.”

  “Well, that’s different.” Baladara glanced at Miranda. “I’m guessing this isn’t on that up-to-date map of yours.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes. “You know my map hasn’t been accurate since we split with the rest of the party.”

  Horc rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yes, we know. Any suggestions on which way we should go?” It was probably too much to ask for things to lead them straight to the hostages.

  For nearly half a minute, everything was silent, then everyone spoke at once.

  “Up,” Baladara said. “Makes more sense than down.”

  “Down,” Bigdaddybear replied. “Probably the deeper the better.”

  “Up.” Titanya threw in without additional commentary.

  “If the AI dragon is flying people in, up makes more sense.” Tufkakes was somehow louder than the rest.

  “Down, we have to go down,” Miranda insisted.

  Horc sighed and held up his hand for silence. “Wasn’t expecting everyone to go at once.” He glanced down at Wolf. “Do you have an opinion?”

  Wolf looked at him, then wandered over to the left hand fork.

  Horc looked at Tufkakes. “Which one is that?”

  Tufkakes grinned. “Up.”

  “Four to two with me abstaining is a clear majority.” Horc walked over the upward-slopping passage. “So we go up.”

  “Why does the pet get a vote?” Miranda asked. “He’s not even a real person.”

  Reaching down to scratch Wolf’s ears, Horc glared at her. “You know, he might just be bits of code and light…or whatever things are made of in this game, but he’s been better to me than a lot of the players, who are people I work with every day. I’m the guild leader here, and I say he gets a vote if he wants one.”

  Wolf licked his hand.

  Miranda put her hands on her hips and matched his glare. “And what if the AI is controlling him, using your companion to watch our every move?”

  It was a question that had never crossed his mind. He was so used to having Wolf at his side, even before the AI went nuts and started trying to control everything about the game. He’d had to plead with the Ranger trainer to get to keep Wolf when he finished his companion quests. Wolf didn’t act like the other NPCs in the game, he was more like one of the party… no, not like one of the party, he was one of the party. Being bound to Horc had to make him different. There was no way the AI was using Wolf against him.

  Horc shook his head. “I won’t believe that of him. He’s not shown any signs of not being
one of us.” He squatted down next to Wolf and gave him a brief hug, and Wolf licked his face.

  Setting his jaw, Horc stood and started off down the new tunnel, determined to prove Miranda wrong. Wolf was part of the party and his friend.

  20

  Horc rubbed his arms. The path had leveled out for a while, but it was getting colder. The quest arrow was still pointing them in the direction the tunnel ran, and again there hadn’t been any more branching. It was starting to feel too easy, and that made him nervous.

  A loud, squawking bray came from ahead just as Tufkakes came running back. “Slow down guys, we’ve got trouble.” He skidded to a stop and wiped his hand across his forehead, making Horc wonder if Procyans could sweat under all that fur.

  “What’s wrong?” Titanya drew her sword and stared past Tufkakes.

  “Giant, man-eating, or in my case, raccoon-eating, penguins.” Tufkakes glanced back over his shoulder. “At least they can’t fly and aren’t that fast on land.” The squawking brays continued from the tunnel.

  “Any way around them?” Horc asked, knocking an arrow.

  “If they hadn’t all come swarming out of their little side passage, maybe, but they’re following me.” Tufkakes turned back the way he’d come. “This might get messy.”

  “Wait a minute,” Baladara interrupted as she started the motions to cast her spell. “When you left, you were Shadowwalking. What happened?”

  Tufkakes pulled a couple of daggers. “Not sure. Maybe those things have sonar or something.”

  “More real-world adaptations for in-game mobs.” Bigdaddybear rubbed his chin. “The AI is getting way too creative.”

  Tufkakes shook his head. “The giant goo-spitting frog man was creative, these things just ain’t right.”

  “And they’re being vocal,” Miranda said, holding her club at the ready. “So far, most of the mobs haven’t been vocal. The AI is advancing, maybe even getting more scientific.”

  “Scientific?” Tufkakes frowned at her. “Wait until you see them, and then decide how factual they are.”

  The cacophony got closer, then the first wave of them rushed toward the party. The red text above them said Piranahquins, level 49. They were nearly man sized, looked like emperor penguins but with huge fang like teeth filling their long beaks. Physically, it didn’t make any sense whatsoever. As they ran, they flapped their flippers and continued their braying.

  “Ah geez, just shut up already.” Baladara unleashed a Fireball at the first one.

  Horc followed up with a Fire razor arrow.

  The flaming piranahquin flew backwards, knocking several of the other ones over as it went.

  “Well that was something I don’t think I ever wanted to see—” Bigdaddybear flung a Wind spell at them, bowling more over— “flaming flying piranhaquins.”

  “Don’t say that three times fast,” Titanya said before she leveled her sword and charged into the fray.

  “This makes no sense,” Miranda muttered as she swung her club and sent a jet of fire toward the oncoming mob. “It shouldn’t be making up its own creatures. Particularly not things like this. It’s almost like someone has plugged it into the internet and it’s just-”

  “Downloading anything and everything it can get its hands on.” Horc interrupted as he fired more arrows at it. All of a sudden everything was making sense. The programmers had taught the AI how to learn, but they hadn’t taught it how to tell the difference between real and imaginary, it also didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. The problem was, with everything coming at them non-stop, he had no idea how they were going to combat that point of its training. He needed time to think, or better yet, find a way to get back in touch with Rick and the other programmers outside the game.

  A piranhaquin broke through the mass of them caught in the wind and fire. It rushed forward. Horc turned his attention to it. Even as he hit it with arrows, he was amazed how much like the emperor penguins at the aquarium it looked. There weren’t many left in the wild due to the Antarctic ice melting and destroying their habitat, but he’d seen them and several other species at the Dallas World Aquarium that had been expanding to help more people understand the life forms they were losing to climate change and habitat destruction. The way the black and white feathers were patterned, the things were nearly identical to the flightless birds, but no birds had teeth in their bills. The only time he could remember seeing that was in some photo manipulations when he was a kid.

  Wolf jumped the piranhaquin charging Horc and bore it down to the ground. Horc caught it with two more arrows and it lay still.

  “At least they’re going down easier than that damned frog thing,” Baladara said as she got off another Fireball.

  “They aren’t specials,” Bigdaddybear replied. “No stars next to their names.”

  “But there’s a lot of them.” Horc found his next target as it came out of the pack and started toward them.

  “That there are,” Baladara agreed.

  When this attacker was down, Horc tossed a couple of trap spells into the middle of the piranhaquins, they went off quickly, making feathers fly.

  “TK, any idea on numbers?” Baladara asked yelled out.

  Tufkakes appeared out of the shadows. “A small village.” He threw a dagger at one as Horc hit the same one with an arrow. The thing vanished in a swirl of pixels. “I’d say most of them are here fighting us.” He was so far away that he was having to shout to be heard over the ruckus cries of the piranhaquins.

  “Good.” Bigdaddybear let fly with another gust of wind. That combined with various fire spells seemed to be having the biggest effect on them. But they were all starting to drop in mana and there was still at least half of the village left to take out. The sheer number of things they were dealing with really made Horc wish they were getting XP for the kills. Even with the jump in level they’d all gotten from Rick and crew, it would’ve been nice to get even more.

  “Miranda, we need your mana potion,” Bigdaddybear stopped casting spells and headed toward the Barbarian.

  “I’m a bit busy right now,” Miranda countered.

  One of Baladara’s Fireballs shot past her and knocked over several piranhaquins. “Got you an open spot.”

  “Okay, fine,” Miranda handed her club to Bigdaddybear and reached into her pack to pull out something that looked more like a mini beer stein than the vials Horc had been using for his health and mana potions. She flipped back the lid, and took a long draw from it, then flipped the lid shut. “I was getting a bit low too.” She handed the stein to Bigdaddybear.

  “Thanks.” Bigdaddybear wiped the lip of the stein off before lifting it to his lips. When he lowered it, he wiped it off and handed it to Baladara.

  She looked into it and frowned. “It’s empty.”

  “Close the lid, then reopen it,” Miranda snapped as she took her club back and started making arcs of fire that forced most of the piranahquins to retreat a few steps.

  Baladara did as instructed. “Ah, that’s how it works.” She took a long drink and her mana bar on Horc’s screen shot up to full. “Gotta love magic items like this. But isn’t it almost too powerful?”

  Miranda shook her head. “It’s the only one and it’s mine. I’m an admin, I can’t be too powerful.”

  Horc shook his head as Baladara handed him the stein. He reminded himself that Miranda was somewhere in the management tier above him. It made him wonder why they’d assigned her to be his watchdog earlier in the game, but then he remembered she was over pod development. The odds were someone else would’ve been better to send in, but she’d probably wanted to do it so if anyone came back on her for pod malfunction she could say she’d been there watching over him the whole time. The more he got to know Miranda, the more likely that sounded.

  With his mana restored, Horc flung a couple more traps into the mob of piranhaquins, as he handed the stein back to Miranda. Tufkakes and Titanya didn’t use mana as quickly as the rest of the party did.<
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  Horc managed to get off several shots before Wolf’s health started flashing red. He instantly cast healing on his companion and looked around for him. Several piranhaquins were going at him while he had two on the ground, apparently gnawing on each one alternately.

  With a Multiple Shot barrage, Horc managed to finish the two on the ground off and get the attention of two other piranhaquins. They squawked loudly and rushed toward him. Horc fired arrows as fast as he could. Everyone else seemed to be focused on other things, so Horc just kept flinging arrows at the monstrous birds.

  Both of the birds were down to half by the time they hit Horc. He smashed one in the chest as hard as he could with his hand wrapped around his bow. Something cracked loudly, but the damage wasn’t enough to take the thing out with a single blow. He hit it again as he dropped the bow and pulled out his dagger.

  One of the birds latched onto Horc’s arm, its fangs hitting bone as they embedded into his arm.

  Horc stabbed it twice in the chest with the dagger. Each blow did damage, but then the second bird hit Horc, knocking all three of them to the ground. Horc lashed out at it, but the first one was in the way. Horc stabbed it again. The piranhaquin’s health was flashing red, but it wasn’t all the way down. With each round its teeth stayed in Horc’s arm, and Horc took more damage. He was nearly to half by the time he managed to finish off the first bird and it disappeared into a flash of pixels.

  The second one got its teeth into Horc’s upper leg, barely missing anything that would’ve been vital IRL. Then Wolf hit the second one, tearing it off Horc.

  Pain lanced through Horc as the piranhaquin tore a huge chunk of flesh out of him. Horc screamed. He couldn’t believe he could hurt so badly in a game. His health was dropping with each second and had entered the orange. If he didn’t get healing, either a spell or a potion, he was going to die. He could only hope that he’d be fast enough getting out of the game to log out before the AI nabbed him.

  Wolf finished off the piranhaquin who’d done so much damage and Horc was trying to get into his pack and pull out a healing potion, if he still had one. They’d been relying so strongly on Bigdaddybear to heal them, he hadn’t checked on his potion supply in a while.