The Monolith

by Stephen Roark

  All right, you bastards. I grimaced, taking a step back as the rats readied themselves for another attack. Let’s go!

  My eyes on their muscles, I anticipated their movements and slashed out at the air with my axe in a broad, cleaving stroke. The stupid beasts leapt straight into it, and my blade severed the tissue holding their jaws together.

  115—117

  One of them hit my leg like a bag of old flesh, and the other landed at my feet, perfectly placed for a downward strike. I put everything I had into it and embedded my axe in its back, scoring a massive blow.

  280

  Before it could recover, I lashed out again, the hit causing my Rally meter to flex and bloom like the world’s toughest flower. The snailman spit again, and I simply Shadowstepped behind the rats and brought my axe down in a diagonal blow that tore one of them to pieces.

  150—190

  I felt like my ears were about to bleed as the thing’s death rattle rang out. Quintessence twisted around my body as the last rodent, whose jaws were now all but useless, raked his claws across my leg. The nails were like knives that cut quickly.

  -17, -22, -18

  The damage wasn’t anything to worry about, but each strike added onto the crimson debuff meter that was steadily growing in the corner of my vision. Only a sliver remained before it would be full, and who knew what would happen then?

  The snailman spit and hit me in the shoulder, refreshing the Swamp Sickness that had just worn off. I fought for a Soothing Syrup, but the rat scrambled up my body like a fevered squirrel, screeching in anger and pain, clawing at every inch of me.

  -19, -23, -17

  The debuff bar was so stacked I thought it was full, and my health was ticking down from the Swamp Sickness. I thrashed wildly at the rodent, swinging aimlessly as the pain of its attacks seized me. My shoulder cried out in agony and something splashed beside me, and I looked down to see the Toxic Snail had reached me. In contrast to its slow travel speed, the snailman snatched at my legs with incredible quickness, pulled hard and yanked my feet out from under me. I hit hard—some kind of stone or root carving a hole in my side as I landed.

  Breath left my chest as the monstrosity began slamming its forearms wildly, clubbing me with a frenzied anger as though it was literally trying to beat my life out of me.

  -31, -45, -41

  My health was plunging and dropped even more as the rat continued its onslaught. The debuff bar was about to blossom, and I knew my time was up.

  Fighting through the pain, I slashed the snailman’s shell. My axe dinged off it like I’d just struck stone.

  12

  My new skill! I thought as I spun to the snailman and thought—Blunted Strike.

  I felt a mysterious hand guide me as I spun my axe in my hand like a whirlwind, catching it and driving the butt of the smooth handle straight into the Toxic Snail’s grotesque face. A sound like a deep bass echo resonated and a look of shock smeared across the creature’s face. It froze in place, giving me the opportunity I needed. I leapt to my feet, Shadowstepped and threw back a shot of Soothing Syrup as the debuff meter filled and burst like a firework made from bone and flesh.

  FRENZY!

  The blood-red letters appeared in front of me, jagged and horrible, temporarily filling my vision and blinding me. With a sickly sound of tearing flesh, 90% of my health vanished instantly.

  “Shit!” I cried out as the snailman’s sludge sucked at my shoulder and the rat leapt up toward me. My Blunderbuss blared and I scored a riposte. Using the second stun window I had, I cut the toothy mess of snot in half and brought my axe down on the rat’s belly as it lay there helplessly at my feet.

  412

  Two more hits and the things died, but my health was dangerously low and the Swamp Sickness was ticking away. Only a sliver of health remained, and I wasn’t sure I had enough time to heal before it killed me. Thankfully, the gamer in me flexed his muscles and a brilliant thought entered my mind. I opened my character sheet and pressed the Recall button.

  I managed to “breathe” a sigh of relief as I hurtled toward the lamppost. Someone shouted my name as my feet hit solid ground, but I was too preoccupied with my health to respond. I lifted a Soothing Syrup to my lips, but before I could swallow the healing liquid, the last vile tick of the cursed Swamp Sickness hit me and sucked away the last sliver of my precious health.

  “Rand!” It was Jacob’s voice, and I grimaced as Mizaguchi’s taunt appeared before my eyes.

  DEATH TAKES YOU!!

  28

  The Gang’s All Here

  “It’s not that we don’t like you, dude. It’s just that…you talk back too much. The guys don’t like that and it turns them on us, ya know? If you could just chill a bit that would be easier for all of us.”

  —private message from Brad McKenny to Clay Jones

  Ridiculous, I thought as I swam through the darkness toward the lamppost for the second time in five seconds. To win the fight and die in town!

  I appeared directly on top of my corpse and stared down at it, the gleaming ball of Quintessence available for only me to loot. Jacob cried out as I bent down and scooped it up.

  “What the Hell happened?!”

  “Swamp Sickness,” I grumbled as my body disappeared.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “The Swamp of Sacrifices,” I replied, angrily eyeing my death penalty in the bottom of my vision.

  You will die! I remembered, the game’s tagline shuffling through my mind like a playground insult, and boy was that true. I was only level 6 and I felt as though I’d been getting my ass kicked. Every time I got up a head of steam and started rocking, something unexpected happened to knock me back down again.

  “Swamp of Sacrifices?” Jacob asked with interest. “Where’s that?”

  “Southwest of Rathborne’s,” I told him as I stomped a loose cobblestone back down into the dirt. “Where the Hell have you been?”

  His health bar looked lower than normal, and I was able to piece together my own answer before he replied.

  “Tried to get my body back,” he sighed. “Turns out there’s some pretty nasty stuff in the Cragstone Plains. These weird skeleton type things made out of hard ash. A group of them ambushed me as soon as I got there. Now I’ve got ten% death penalty. Ten%!”

  “How high does it go?” I asked, trying not to chuckle at his misfortune.

  “Not sure—” Jacob started to say, then stopped suddenly as though someone had whacked him in the side of the head with a bowling ball. “Wait a second! Where the Hell did you go earlier? You were just standing there with me, and then suddenly—you weren’t!”

  “Oh, right…” I replied. I’d forgotten all about that and the fact that Jacob hadn’t been in town when I’d logged back in. So, I took a couple minutes to explain the whole thing to him, from my epilepsy, to my mom smashing up my Fount and the mysterious message on my computer that had led me to Altarus and the others. Once I was finished, Jacob was staring at me like I’d just told him I could fly.

  “Ep—epilepsy?” he finally managed to croak. “Like, seizures and shit?”

  “Yes, Jacob.” I nodded. “Seizures and shit.”

  “What causes that?”

  I shrugged. “Glitch in my code? No one knows.”

  “That sucks, dude.”

  “A gift and a curse, it seems,” I replied with an attempt at deflection humor.

  “Yeah…” Jacob muttered. “And here I was bummed out by a little death penalty!”

  We looked at each other and chuckled and I suddenly realized I hadn’t told him about my new talent.

  “Hey, wanna see something cool?” I asked him, taking a step forward so I was standing just a few inches away. He looked at me awkwardly, as though I’d invaded his personal space, but nodded.

  “Yeah, sure—”

  His voice was cut off as I drove the butt of my axe into his lips, slapping him with a Blunted Strike that froze him in place. I leapt back and raise
d my arms like a prize fighter.

  “Bam! Right in the kisser!”

  Jacob’s face twisted angrily as the stun wore off and he began rubbing his face quickly as though trying to brush away the pain. I felt a little bit bad—just a little, though.

  “What the Hell was that?” he cried out.

  “Blunted Strike. Just picked up my first new skill, or talent as they call it.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “An Intuition point,” I replied. “I’m not sure, but I think you get one every five levels.”

  Jacob nodded, pursing his lips and letting me know, with a thin-eyed scowl, that there probably was a better way for me to show off my new ability. He was right.

  “Well, you wanna use that new skill of yours to help me get some levels?”

  “Sure.” I nodded. We grouped up and started to set off for the woods when I heard a voice call out to me.

  “Aye, Rand!” It was a female voice, and for just a second I felt my heart leap inside my chest.

  Rey?!

  But of course it wasn’t her, and I felt a wash of depression pass into me and out the other side as I turned and saw a dark haired girl stride into the town square headed in our direction.

  She wore a pair of high ankle boots of black leather, black pants that bloomed slightly at the hips, a white tunic with flared fringe at the shoulders and a set of leather gauntlets.

  “Fujiko?” I asked as she approached. She nodded confidently and indicated over her shoulder with a tilt of her head.

  Fujiko—Level 5

  “Altarus is right behind me. Who’s your friend?”

  I turned and gestured an introduction. “Jacob, Fujiko. Fujiko, Jacob.”

  “You Japanese?” It was the first thing Jacob said. She did something that was a cross between rolling her eyes and being knocked off balance and opened her lips to respond, but before she could, I heard Altarus’ voice call out from behind her.

  “No, she’s just a weeb.”

  “Hey!” Fujiko whined as Jacob and I both broke out laughing.

  “It’s okay,” he added. “We love her.”

  Altarus looked about how he looked in real life, and wore a pair of straight black trousers with a tucked in grey shirt and stiff leather vest over the top. He held a Winchester, battered and ancient looking, that he tapped casually against his shoulder as he stepped up to the ground. It was like looking at a cowboy from the Old West that had his D.N.A. mixed with some fierce gothic warrior.

  Altarus—Level 5

  “Jacob, Altarus. Altarus—”

  “Jacob,” Altarus interjected, taking his hand and shaking it firmly. “Good to meet you. My heart goes out to you and the rest of those held captive in this place.”

  Jacob’s eyes flicked to mine and back to his. “Oh, so you can—you can leave like Rand?”

  Altarus nodded. “And one day, if we succeed, you will be able to as well.”

  “We were just about to go work off Jacob’s death penalty,” I told them. “Care to join us?”

  “Leveling is leveling.” Fujiko nodded. “Add us to the group.”

  I did and noticed that Fujiko wasn’t carrying a weapon. “You unarmed or something?” I asked.

  Grinning, she opened her inventory, and seconds later, an enormous two handed hammer appeared in her hands. It looked like a huge iron stone attached to a roughly hewn black iron rod. The color matched her hair.

  “That’s no starter weapon,” Jacob remarked with not too subtle admiration. Fujiko, pleased by his reaction, brandished the enormous mallet above her head like it weighed nothing, then pressed its butt into a crack in the cobblestones and leaned against it with one arm, flashing a brutally cocky smile.

  “Nope. It’s called the Hammer of the Headless Horseman,” she said proudly.

  “Random mini-boss as far as we can tell,” Altarus explained for her. “Ran into it back in Ebonmire. Took the entire town to take him down, but Fujiko here did the most damage, so she got the loot.”

  “125 damage,” Fujiko told us. “With a B Strength scaling!”

  “Damn,” I said with admiration. “That is good! Mine’s 110 with C scaling.”

  “I’d say I’d let you have it—but I’d be lying,” Fujiko teased.

  “Yeah? Well, maybe I just kill you and take it from you,” I countered, taking a battle stance. “I mean, you’re just a lowly level 5.”

  “Two lowly level 5s,” Altarus corrected me, his voice stern like a father on the verge of having to scold his children. I smirked in his direction.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll spare you two.” Jacob chuckled beside me. “So, do you guys want to get moving?”

  “These woods,” Fujiko asked. “What level are they?”

  “Low level stuff,” I replied. “Why, you have something better in mind?”

  “We passed a graveyard on the way here,” she replied. “We didn’t stop, as we wanted to meet up with you, but it looked a little more appropriate for people our level. The Quintessence would easily deal with your death penalty, Jacob.”

  “Sounds good to me.” I shrugged, starting in the direction they had come, but stopped just as I passed them. “Say, do you want to like…bind here at our lamppost? If you die, you don’t want to respawn in Ebonmire, right?”

  “The cemetery is halfway between here and there,” Fujiko told us. “We should be fine.”

  “Still,” Altarus interrupted. “We should all be together in case something happens. Rand is right.”

  It occurred to me I didn’t even have an idea of what it took to bind at a lamppost, as I’d just always been tied to the one in Weeping Hills. Altarus and Fujiko walked up to the rod with its glowing silver light, raised both hands above their head, then lowered them slowly to their sides. A fountain of silver sprites spewed from their fingertips, dissipating quickly as a rising sound like wind swept through the air.

  “There we go,” Fujiko said as she turned around to face me. “Now, let’s get a move on.”

  29

  The Swollen Cemetery

  “Room…there’s simply no more room for them…”

  —unknown

  Night seemed ever present as we made our way up the crooked path north out of town. The stars seemed less like far off celestial bodies than tiny pin pricks letting light through a swathe of black velvet that wrapped the entire world in darkness. A bird called in the distance—well, called would be one way of describing it. A death gurgle would be more appropriate, like something with wings and gobs of flesh and muck stuck in its throat.

  The woods lay on either side of us as we navigated the dusty road that seemed like it could have once been a small stream that had long since dried up. Sharp roots exploded from the grey, clay-like ground, which made progress slow and difficult. More than once, my boots caught and tripped me up. I caught myself on Jacob’s back and cracked a joke as we pressed on. We cut down a few Corrupted Villagers, working away at the death penalty, and it wasn’t long before the shape of the woods began to change.

  The skeletal branches thickened and swelled, wrapped in dense flecked sheets of bark that peeled and fell, scattering down among the scrub and low brush every time the wind blew. The stench of the old woods subsided as we continued on and was replaced by a thick, humid air that seemed to want to settle in my nostrils and lungs, causing me to exhale angrily every couple of minutes, it seemed.

  “Thick,” Fujiko muttered, her boots kicking a dead root cluster from the ground before her.

  “How much longer?” I asked.

  “Nearly there,” Altarus replied.

  I stopped suddenly, causing Jacob to slam into me and puff out his breath with irritation, but I held out a hand and pointed into the darkness. Something lay still among the shadows—a player, unmoving, almost as though they’d lay down to take a nap—but what kind of sense would that have made? You don’t rest in the middle of the woods. You rest back in town where it’s safe—or at least safer. But still, there was definite
ly a player on the ground less than twenty feet away, and whoever it was, they weren’t moving.

  Forley—Level 5

  “What the Hell?” Jacob whispered. I sensed the rest of my party ready themselves. Slowly, I began inching forward, my axe held high and my finger on the trigger of my Blunderbuss. “What’s he doing?!”

  I held up my hand again for silence. Still, there was no sign of movement as we approached. A soft wind blew, temporarily causing a break in the canopy and allowing a few dotted patches of moonlight to illuminate whoever it was. I saw a young looking man, still wearing mostly starter clothes, a Bloodletter draped lazily across his chest. At first glance, it seemed like he was sleeping—except for the fact that his eyes were open wide, staring, vacant and unmoving.

  “Is he—dead?” Jacob asked.

  “He’d be back at a lamppost if he was,” Fujiko replied.

  “Bloodless, maybe,” I suggested.

  “No,” Altarus said firmly, stepping up so he was standing tall over Forley as he lay motionless at the base of the tree. “He lives alone.”

  Altarus’ words hung in the air like a poison. We all heard him, but it was just too hard to process something like that. I understood what my mom had told me about players being unable to log out and the hospitals being overwhelmed, but it hadn’t really sunk in until now.

  Did Forley’s position in the game mirror that of his body in real life? Had he died back there, in the real world, and this was the result?

  “No…” I muttered. No one replied.

  Maybe he was one of the Bloodless and something had gone wrong—at least then we’d know he was okay—breathing somewhere with people watching over him. I was probably kidding myself, though.

  “He—he can’t be dead!” Jacob protested. “It hasn’t been long enough!”

  “That’s true,” Fujiko added. “He couldn’t have starved in this amount of time.”