by Galen Wolf
Fitheach says, ‘Enemy held territory too.’
I say, ‘We can do it.’
They don’t look convinced. ‘Look, we can’t let the King go under. If Satanus takes Caer, then he’s won the game.’
Tye says, ‘Someone will rise up against him. He’s just so evil.’
‘Like who?’
They look at each other. ‘You?’ Tye says finally.
‘Me? If King Arthur can’t beat Satanus, then I’m not the man.’
Silence descends as I start to worry they won‘t go along with my plan to help Arthur. Then I say, ‘Fitheach, do you want the whole Realm of Logres to be ruled by evil heretics?’
‘I surely do not.’
‘Remember what they did to Lindisfarne?’
He looks sad. ‘They destroyed that holy spot.’
‘And they’ll destroy them all. Arthur is a holy defender of Christendom. If Caer falls, he’s finished.’
Fitheach nods.
‘Are you with me then?’
He sighs. ‘I just love my dungeon level so much.’
‘We can come back.’
He nods. ‘Okay.’
‘Then you’ll come with me?’
‘Yes.’
I turn to Bernard. ‘You’re an animal lover, right?’
He narrows his eyes, wondering where I’m going with this. ‘Yes.’
‘You love mules.’
Tye guffaws and Bernard shoots him a hostile glance, as do I.
‘Mules, like Henry and Bessie?’
Bernard grows misty eyed. He wipes his eyes with his dirty cassock sleeve. ‘I do love them.’
‘And you love Jabberwocks. Raymond and Dorothy and all the rest.’
‘Yes.’
‘Remember how you thought and thought and finally came up with a way we could extract Jabberwock essence for the vorpal crafting without actually killing the Jabberwocks?’
Tye says, ‘Though your idea was a lot more stinky.’
Bernard ignores him and nods.
I say in a steely voice, ‘They enemy will kill all the Jabberwocks and bleed them dry.’
Bernard clears his throat. ‘Okay, Gorrow. You convinced me. I’m with you.’
I turn to Tye. ‘And you…’ I’m really struggling for an angle with Tye. He’s looking hard at me. I say, ‘You like fire, right?’
He smiles. ‘You betcha.’
‘So, if you come you can burn stuff.’
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Sounds fantastic.’
There’s a pause. Bernard scratches something under his cassock. ‘So, Gorrow, you’ve used all your diplomatic skills to persuade us. We’re heading south to the King?’
I nod.
‘All of us?’
I look around at Fitheach, Bernard and Tye, my main men. I want them all, but who will run the dungeon? I shrug. ‘Someone could stay here to run the dungeon. We could replace you as mini-bosses with NPCs. I’ll speak to Asterix to see if we can hire appropriate ones.’
‘Nah,’ Tye says. ‘It won’t cut it. The NPCs will fold too easy.’
‘Besides, Maligon and the bad guys will notice if we close the dungeon, or if it’s obvious that NPCs are running it in our absence,’ Bernard says.
He has a point.
He continues, ‘And they’ll figure something is up.’
Fitheach frowns. ‘We don’t want them to figure something is up. This is a covert mission.’
‘Someone has to stay then,’ I say. ‘To keep the dungeon open.’
Tye shakes his head. ‘Not me. I’m going.’
‘Me too. I can’t miss this. It’s too important,’ Fitheach says.
‘I’m not staying here without you guys,’ Bernard says.
‘Scared, uncle?’ Tye winks at him.
Bernard scowls. ‘No. I’m not letting you go if I don’t.’
I sit back. ‘Okay, we’ll work out who’s going later. But it is a point about closing the dungeon. That’ll tip off the bad guys.’
‘It’s simple,’ Tye says. ‘We get wagons full of crystals and lead the Jabberwocks south. Under cover.’
‘Under cover? They’re twenty foot high horror lizards with teeth like swords and claws like meat hooks. It’ll be hard to hide them.’
Tye bites his lip then says, ‘We could disguise them as different animals.’
Bernard is scornful. ‘What? Cows?’
‘I don’t know.’
Bernard doesn’t give up. ‘Sheep, goats, little ickle kittens?’
Tye grunts.
I say, ‘We can’t disguise them.’
‘Anyway,’ Bernard says, ‘You’re not taking Raymond and Dorothy. They’re happy here. They’re going to have a family.’
Tye laughs out loud. ‘You sure are cracked, you old coot.’ He mimics Bernard’s voice. ‘…have a family…’ then rolls around laughing.
But it’s important the Jabberwocks breed. We need a constant supply of Jabberwock essence for new vorpal weapons. We don’t want them to go extinct on us. We also don’t want the enemy to capture them so they can get a source of Jabberwock essence. I say, ‘Anyway, we don’t need to take the actual Jabberwocks, just a good supply of essence.’
‘Shit?’ Tye says.
I say, ‘Yeah, essence, poop.’
‘So we fill a few wagons full of shit.’
‘Yes, I guess.’
‘And some wagons full of crystals.’
‘Yes.’
‘We take the mules.’
‘I suppose.’
Tye grins widely. ‘Road trip!’
‘A dangerous journey to sure death,’ Bernard says.
Tye lights another cheroot. ‘Yeah, uncle, keep your pants on. It’ll be bombastic.’
I muse. ‘Just still leaves us with the problem, who’s going to stay behind to run the dungeon.’
Fitheach folds his arms. ‘Not me.’
Bernard shakes his head. ‘Not me.’
Tye studies his tobacco stained fingernails. ‘Not I.’
At that point Grimdark returns from his tour with Oliver Stone. The barbarian looks impressed. ‘Man, I love this place!’
7
The New Boss
‘So, let me get it straight, yeah?’ Grimdark the Barbarian pulls at his braided ginger beard and looks thoughtful.
‘Do you have to talk in this stupid Swedish accent again?’ Bernard scowls.
Fitheach raises his bushy grey eyebrows but doesn’t comment.
Grimdark smiles, teeth like sawn-off cricket stumps. ‘Yeah, I gotta.’
‘But we’re sitting in the same room.’ They refer to some real-lifery habitation they share at least temporarily. The less I know about their sweaty living arrangements the better, but I can’t help but get a picture of three guys sitting in an over-hot, dimly lit tomb-like room to the humming of Virtual Reality machines wearing only their underpants and reaching out blindly to stuff cheetos into their mouths as they inhabit the world of Camelot.
I break into their conversation. ‘So, Grimdark, the guys are vouching for you.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And, I watched you—’
He wags a big finger. ‘Yeah, you pervert.’
I sigh. ‘There was nothing perverted about it. I wanted to see how you managed the dungeon to see if I needed to tweak anything.’
He guffaws. ‘So you say. You maybe like Grim’s chest, eh?’ He flexes his pectoral muscles in a merry little dance.
I continue, though it’s hard going. ‘So, do you want to run the dungeon in our absence?’ I haven’t been able to persuade Tye, Fitheach or Bernard to stay home while I journey to Caer and King Arthur.
He squints around at us. ‘What you guys up to, eh? Something pretty important, huh? You tell old Grim, eh?’
Bernard taps his nose. ‘Top secret.’
‘Hush-hush,’ Tye says.
Fitheach says nothing, just looks knowingly at the barbarian. Grimdark laughs out loud. When he’s stopped laughing, he speaks. ‘So on first lev
el, I dress up like little ginger guy.’ He points at Tye. ‘And I become Fire Wuzzard, yep?’
‘Fire Mage, actually,’ Tye says. The barbarian is annoying him but Grimdark doesn’t seem bothered by Tye’s annoyance. He points to Bernard, ‘And Level 2, I quick-change outfit and put on disgusting brown smock with food stains to be fat alchumist?’
‘Alchemist. And I know you’re trying to annoy me, but I won’t be annoyed,’ Bernard says pretty tetchily.
Grimdark is in his flow. He levels his gaze on Fitheach. ‘And finally I get to play with sparkly girl mobs and angels and shit and dress up in a sheet like this scarecrow sunt.’
‘Saint,’ Bernard says. ‘He’s a saint not a sunt.’
Fitheach smiles indulgently. ‘That’s it, Grimdark. You’ve got it. You get to dress up. That should make you happy.’
‘It make Grim, very happy. Very happy, old sunt.’
Later when the cousins have gone and there’s just me and Tye and I’m doing some stuff about inventory management for the Silver Drift Mine, Tye strikes a piece of steel on a flint to catch the spark and light a cheroot, pushes back the chair and puts his shabby black boots up on the scarred oak table. He takes a drag, exhales theatrically and a cloud of blue and green smoke drifts in the room. I guess wizards can make their cigar smoke whatever colour they like. ‘So,’ he says. ‘You trust this guy?’
I shrug. ‘He’s the cousin of Fitheach and Bernard.’
‘Yeah, yeah, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good guy.’
‘He’s a good fighter.’
‘And that’s another thing. So he’s going to be a wizard, alchemist and saint? He hasn’t got the skills.’
I shake my head. I’ve discussed this with Grimdark. ‘He’s going to be a barbarian throughout.’
‘But dress up like a wizard, alchemist and saint?’
I nod.
‘That’s pretty weird.’
‘It should surprise the adventurers. They’ll go looking to fight a wizard and get an axe in their teeth.’
‘Still weird.’ Tye frowns. ‘Not sure I trust him.’
‘Like I said, he’s their cousin…’
‘Gorrow, remember this is a game. Just because he’s their best bud in real life, doesn’t mean he has to be their best bud in the game.’ He stares at me. ‘You get this is a game, don’t you?’
I rub my eyes. ‘Well, but I think a man’s true nature comes out.’
‘So you think that everyone who plays a Knight of the Round Table is a good guy in real life? Helps old ladies, rescues kittens and all that?’
I nod. I guess I do.
‘And all the bad guys, Maligon the Messed Up—’
‘— He’s not really called that.’
‘Reza, Elizabeth Bathory and all of them; you think that just ‘cause they’re wicked in the game, they’re wicked in real life? Like cheat and steal and rob from charity shops?’
‘Yes.’
He sighs and grins. ‘You’re a simple soul, aintcha?’
‘I like to think so. Anyway, back to Grim. Why don’t you trust him?’
‘Because he’s too good to be true. We need someone to caretake the dungeon, and he appears, and he’s awesome and the answer to our dreams.’
‘Maybe, he is.’
He snorts. ‘Too good to be true.’ Shaking his head, he says, ‘No, I don’t buy it.’
‘We could discuss closing the dungeon down.’
‘We discussed that. We don’t want to tip off the enemy that we’re on the move. So that’s a no.’
‘So we need a caretaker.’
‘Like I say. Too good to be true.’
‘Just ‘cause he beat you.’
A flash of anger crosses the diminutive wizard’s brow. ‘He got lucky.’
It’s my turn to smile. ‘Let’s go with it.’
He shrugs. ‘It’s your dungeon. Up to you.’
8
Setting Out
The next time we all log on, Bernard says a tearful farewell to Raymond and Dorothy out in the Secret Valley and we trudge through the long corridors and stony passages of the Silver Drift Mine. I’m leading Spirit my stallion who snorts and prances and seems keen to go on a journey.
Tye is leading Bessie the Mule and Bernard, head down, sniffling, has his hand loosely on Henry the Mule’s reins that droop down between them. Their hooves clatter along the rock floor as we get to the door that leads through to the Forgotten Chapel Dungeon and the outside. I pull out my brass key to unlock the door and hear the sound of someone running. I spin round to see Fitheach, his white shift all billowy around him as he runs. ‘Did someone bring Laireog?’ he says.
Laireog is his Irish mare. I point toward the back of our little group and Jason the Brewer has Laireog.
‘Oh great. I’m really excited to be going on a quest,’ Fitheach says. ‘To kill more bad guys.’
I say, ‘That’s not the purpose of the quest. The purpose of the quest is to be low key.’
‘Like the last one,’ Bernard says, pointing at Tye.
The flame-haired mage turns accusingly. ‘What? How come it’s always me that gets the blame?’
‘You blew up that mega crystal store house in New World Order. Really low key.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Lower key than that, Tye. Seriously.’
Tye harrumphs and moves impatiently to the door I’ve just opened.
We lead our animals through the Dungeon and out the front door. There are people waiting for us there. Thorvald the Miner is there and there are four covered wagons. They are cheap looking and designed not to attract attention. Beside him is Grimdark the Barbarian wearing blue wizard robes copied to look exactly like Tye’s though he is about three feet taller than Tye and built like a massive barrel. Also, his robe is too tight and tugs around his chest and shoulders.
‘Four wagons.’ I nod. ‘Good.’
Fitheach is poking around, lifting the edge of the tarpaulin that covers the nearest one. He backs off, holding his nose. ‘What the hell?’
‘Shit,’ Bernard says.
‘Shit?’
Bernard nods.
‘What kind of shit?’
‘Stinky shit.’ Tye chortles, wiping his eyes.
It’s not really that funny so I say, ‘Jabberwock poop. We have two wagons.’
‘It’s ripe,’ Fitheach says.
‘Needs to be,’ Bernard says. ‘For the best effect.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Fitheach says. ‘What’s in the other two wagons?’
‘Smoky crystals,’ I say.
Bernard says, ‘So we have a vorpal weapon kit in these wagons. At least they don’t get the jabberwocks if they attack us.’
I say, ‘They’re not going to attack us. They’re not going to notice us.’
‘Sure,’ Tye says, winking.
I glare at him. ‘I mean it.’
Fitheach tugs his white beard. ‘Can’t we kill a few of them. For fun, I mean.’
‘Not really. Covert ops. Do you get that?’ I’m looking at all of them. Grimdark stands nearby grinning. At least we don’t have him along. He doesn’t look like the sort of guy who does covert.
We’re outside now and a breeze is ruffling the dying yellowed leaves of the twisted thorn tree that grows from the crag above the Forgotten Chapel Dungeon entrance. Over to the left a handful of crows sport in the breeze high up. It’s cold. Autumn is on its way.
I say, ‘Remember this is really secret. This is black ops.’
‘Eh what?’ Tye says.
‘Never mind,’ Bernard says.
‘Mount up?’ Fitheach says. The wagons have their own mules and I see Henry is already talking to them, giving them a pep talk like he was a mule general and they were his soldiers. ‘Don’t worry, guys,’ he says. ‘I’m right here with you. You have my support, and believe me, I’ve been on a whole crap ton of adventures and lived to tell the tale.’
The mules whinny. They seem to be buying his story. He’s an idiot, bu
t he’s Henry and I love him.
I mount Spirit who moves slightly as I climb onto the leather saddle and settle my heels into the stirrups.
Fitheach mounts beside me on Laireog, then Tye on Bessie and Bernard on Henry.
Grimdark waves.
I move Spirit over to him. ‘Listen, you look after my dungeon.’
‘You got it, Sir Gorrow. I take very good care of your little tunnels and trolls.’
‘We don’t have trolls.’
‘You should get trolls. Maybe I buy some. You have a guy, yes?’
He must mean Asterix the Dwarf who’s our staffing agency guy and who can get any mob we want.
‘Yes, yes,’ Grimdark continues in full Swedish mode. ‘Tiny guy with green beard?’
‘Dwarf yes. A proud and ancient race,’ Tye says.
‘Maybe then we gets some troll?’
I shake my head. ‘No trolls.’
He doesn’t seem too upset about having his request turned down. He just grins and waves as we turn the horses round. Everyone seems keen to set off on our journey. The sun is rising in the east but its bright rays are filtered through the black and red haze that reminds us that this whole area is under Evil control.
I look at Tye. ‘One final thing before we start.’
‘Yeah?’ Even his eyebrows are red and his eyes bright blue. Unnaturally blue, actually. Like a cartoon, which is what he is.
‘Glamour us to look unremarkable so no one is interested in stopping us.’
Bernard nods wisely. ‘We want to get by any checkpoints.’
‘The usual brown sack smock things?’
‘Yes.’
‘Big hoods.’
‘The biggest.’
‘Nasty boots?’
‘Depends what you mean by nasty,’ Fitheach says. ‘I don’t want holes in them. I don’t want to get virtually wet feet.’
‘Can your VR rig do that?’
Fitheach says, ‘It doesn’t have water sprinklers on the footrests, but it does something electric to my mind to trick me into thinking my feet are wet, and if we get nasty boots with holes, that’s what’ll happen. And it’ll be nasty.’
‘So no holes in the boots, but kind of cheap looking?’
Bernard sighs impatiently. ‘Get on with it for Crom’s sake.’