by Jakob Tanner
“When did you get up?”
“An hour ago,” she said, then smiled. “You snore.”
“Do I? There must be a magical potion to cure me of such a terrible curse.”
“I’m sure whichever Muumuu alchemist came up with that potion is living it large.”
I laughed and laid on the bed, blissfully. This was nice.
“Get dressed,” said Serena. “We have a lot to do today. The king said Bertwald would show us the information they’ve already gathered on the vanishings.”
Minutes later, I was dressed and fully equipped. Both the mirror and my HUD showed me clad in my gear, though the HUD kept me informed on all the equipped items’ sweet stat bonuses.
Basic Mage Cloak (DEF: 15. +10 MTKP. Durability 7/10)
Green Apprentice Pants (DEF: 9. Durability 9/10)
Leather Gloves of the Mind (DEF: 3. MP+5. Durability 8/10)
Apprentice’s Staff (ATKP: 15-20. MTKP: 20-40. Durability: 9/10 REQ: 20 MTKP+)
Leather Boots (DEF: 3 Durability 6/10).
Most of it wasn’t anything special but it was decent enough gear for my level. I was grateful for having any gear at all. I had entered this game in rundown rags without a potion or even a weapon, but with the 500 gold coin bribe from the king I now had the means to buy an upgrade or two. I was looking forward to checking the market and shops of Land’s Shield.
We met Shade on the perimeter wall outside our bed chambers’ tower. The ramparts led in two directions, one way led to stairs taking you to central Land’s Shield, the other led to a dark cavernous opening in the looming rock mountain.
“The old guy, I mean, the king’s advisor went on ahead,” said Shade. “He said he’d be waiting for us beyond there.”
He pointed to the ominous dark cavern.
Serena placed a hand on my shoulder as well as Shade’s.
“Well boys, I'm going to leave you to it. I need to do more research in the library and practice at the sword training grounds so I’ll see you guys later.” She planted a kiss on my cheek. “I’ll leave the crime stopping and interrogating miscreants to the muscle. Oh wait—that’s me. Good luck anyways!”
She headed down towards the city center, Shade and I watching her walk away.
Shade licked his hand. “You, my friend, are definitely under her spell.”
I didn’t disagree with him.
Walking away, a voice echoed behind us. “Halt.”
I shuddered. I recognized the voice. Sir Archades.
The knight sauntered over to us. “I’ve been informed the king has offered you a quest to look into the disappearances in the capital.”
“Yep,” said Shade. “So how can we help you?”
“I want you to bring anything you find to me before speaking to the king,” said the knight. “Not everyone can be trusted, you know.”
“Sure,” I said. “We’ll keep you posted, but we gotta run.”
Through the shadowy entrance of the dark cavern laid a row of caged elevators with brass and copper pipes, running up and down the excavated interior of the mountain. The moving cages transported a whole assortment of different workers: a few had pickaxes, others had clipboards, and one group even had archaeological equipment. The inner stone of the mountain was made mostly of black obsidian though there were glimmers of pink and purple crystallized mana as well. Leaning against the furthest elevator shaft was the man we were looking for: Bertwald Graves. He wore a long black robe similar to a priest with ribbed golden buttons.
“Ready for your tour?” He opened the cage to the elevator and gestured for us to get in. He followed behind and pulled a lever and pressed a button. Soon the cage was riding high up into the dark corridors of the mountain. He smiled at us as we ascended.
“I remember the first time I came here. It reminded me of when I was a kid and went on a field trip to the science center. They had those bat caves, artificial environments to explore. This mountain the Laergardians have excavated—it makes me think of that cave, of that trip.”
His face had a wistful somberness to it.
“So I’m guessing you aren’t a player but a developer trapped in an NPC?”
The man nodded his head. “You’ve met others like me then?”
“We have,” I said and looked to Shade. The NPC turned away from me and picked at his nails. This was an awkward gesture he did whenever the discussion of Earth or, from his perspective, the world from which we came from got mentioned.
“How do you get by?” I asked. “How do you not freak out by being trapped in here, in a fictional character’s body?”
The man’s eyes twitched and then he smiled. He lifted his arm and clutched onto the silver pendant hanging from his neck. “You learn to live your life here. I was lucky. I fell in love.”
He lifted up his pendant towards us and clicked a button revealing inside a small painted portrait of a Haeren woman.
“She knew instantly when I took over her husband’s body that I wasn’t him. When I became trapped here, I told her about our world and my life. We kept things quite formal at first but eventually we came together as husband and wife. It was beautiful.”
A tear fell down his cheek.
“She passed away a few years ago.”
I wasn’t really sure how to reply to his bittersweet tale when Theobold’s grumpy voice cut through my thoughts: Find out what his real name is and what department he worked in.
“Do you mind if I asked what your real name is? The one you had, you know, on the outside.”
The man wiped his eye. “Of course. The other developer you’ve met may have been a close colleague of mine. My name was Gregory Samson. I worked in the architectural rendering division.”
“Was?”
Bertwald tilted his head and looked at me quizzically.
“You said was. ‘My name was Gregory Samson.’ Are you not him anymore?”
Bertwald lifted his hands meekly in the air, reminding himself of the body he occupied. “I guess part of him will always be with me. But I’m known throughout the city and Laergard as Bertwald. That’s what people say to me in the morning, afternoon, and night. You learn to embody your position, I guess. It’s too hard to fight and hold onto my old self. Plus—since I was a developer—I know how important my role is in Laergard. I’m the king’s most trusted advisor. Who knows what would happen if I left this post?”
The elevator screeched to a halt. A harsh wind seeped through the chained cages, ruffling our hair.
“Speaking of which, it’s my duty to show you the first details of your quest. I take this role seriously and before you ask how it’s possible to tolerate working for a teenage dictator like Jared, let me tell you: it’s much better under his rulership than the high council of Arethkar. Trust me. You’re happy you spawned on this continent, even if you don’t know it yet.”
He opened the cage of the elevator and we stepped out onto the mountain’s edge. The sublime vista in front of us was completely overwhelming. Three meters from where I stood the ground disappeared: no fence or sign to warn you, only the jagged edge of a cliff and the open endless sky lying beyond. A swirl of clouds stretched on forever. Patches of purple lightning sparks dotted the horizon, appearing harmless from so far away. Airships patrolled the outer edges of the sky, hovering like buoys out in the ocean, a reassuring presence of preparations in place for danger.
Above us still loomed the final third of the mountain. Land’s Shield. The slab of rock defending the city below from torrential winds, thunder storms and sky pirates. The cliff edge we stood on formed a perimeter around the mountain. An outpost for miners, scientists and military strategists.
Two hulking Rorn in lab coats waddled towards us and stopped nearby to inspect a brass weather machine.
“What are those two daredevils doing?” asked Shade.
“Testing the harness claws to make sure they’re absorbing the lightning from the cloud ocean. All of this abundant energy,” said Bertwald, stretching
his hand out against the vista, “is harnessed and used to power all the magitech running Land’s Shield.”
“Isn’t that what crystal mana does?”
“Partially true, but crystal mana is a finite resource. The depletion of it would plunge the continents into the ground like—”
Shade coughed.
Bertwald eyed the Lirana. “Excuse me. As I was saying, crystal mana powers most things, particularly airships, but if we can find alternative means to power other aspects of our society, it means we can use our crystal mana resources more effectively. Speaking of which, the first vanished person was one of our own. A scientist named Catheta. If you would follow me please.”
The man led us down the stone passage, walking confidently along the edge as I tip-toed and made sure not to trip on any loose rocks. I kept my eyes focused on Bertwald’s back, struggling to not peer down the side of the cliff into the endless abyss of the cloud ocean.
We came to a metal bunker, the roof of which barely skirted the surface of the rocky pathway. Bertwald went down the steps and pulled a special lever to open the door. Inside was a minimalist apartment. Lab equipment—beakers and other measuring devices—rested along the windowsill, a sliver of which caught the sky outside. There was a rumpled couch with a blanket and a stovetop with a kettle for coffee. It reminded me of my own lonely studio apartment attached to the hostel where I worked in Paris.
“We have bunkers like this all along the perimeter,” said Bertwald. “Patrol troops use them as well as scientists measuring the energy levels throughout the night. The last time Catheta was seen she came in here for a nap in the middle of a research study. No one has seen her since.”
Shade stared out the window at the endless cloud ocean. “Well, we know of at least one place where no one would find you.”
A grim thought. It must be a hard life working along this cliff edge. The bleak environment, the loneliness. It reminded me of scientists who worked out in places like Antarctica. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a lot of people who worked along here contemplated jumping. The abyss, the endless fall. The cliff edge was mesmerizing. It drew you in.
“That’s what we thought,” said Bertwald. “And it’s possibly still the case too. But I took it upon myself to look into the city’s crime records and found out there were numerous unexplained disappearances throughout the capital. There were reports of missing employees at the Grand Casino Palace in the Night Court district and even lost children over at The Church of the Nine’s Orphanage. All disappearances without a single witness. No guards on duty at the walls saw anybody try to run away. None of the victims had enemies. They simply vanished with no rhyme or reason.”
A message popped up in my HUD.
Quest Update: Disappearances in the Capital
You have received your first lead. The king’s advisor Bertwald Graves informs you that notable disappearances occurred at 1) The Grand Casino Palace and 2) The Church of the Nine’s Orphanage. Both locations have been marked on your mini-map. Investigate them to discover more about the mysterious plot plaguing the city.
“That’s all I can help you with,” said Bertwald, rubbing his hands together and heading towards the bunker door. “I suggest you head into the city and see what you can find out.”
“Alright. When we’re done, who should we—”
A large ominous shadow appeared in the clouds. A silhouette of a massive warship, a dreadnought emerging from the misty sky.
“What’s that?” I asked.
A loud bellow echoed and a cannonball came hurtling towards us.
11
“Incoming!”
The cannonball hurtled across the sky, its shadow growing bigger and bigger overtop the cliff face, until BOOM! The cannonball pummeled into the ground in a shattering impact. Rock and soil burst forth, showering the nearby area in a tidal wave of dirt. I held up my arm to block out the sharp rocks from getting in my eyes.
The torrent of raining dirt dwindled and I lifted my head to take stock of the situation. Shade hid behind a boulder unscathed while Bertwald cowered as far back as the cliff path would allow him. His face was scratched and his robe was ruffled and stained.
Black shadowy tendrils swirled and blew out from the hole left by the blast. The cannonball itself had mostly disappeared, evaporating into the black mist blowing in the wind.
The dreadnought was now even closer to the cliff face. The airship was monstrous. Made of steel, the gargantuan ship hosted multiple turret towers and rows of gun decks. Lining the hull were gunports with cannon barrels sticking their necks out. Smoke and mana exhaust leaked from its back engine and chimneys. While the Laergardian ships had a whimsical quality to their construction, the Arethkarian aircraft was built on function and efficiency for the sole purpose of war.
Sparks flickered from the dreadnought’s gunports. Cannons blasted. Multiple shadow balls flew through the sky, smashing into the jagged edges of Land’s Shield. The footpath tremored. The mountain shook. Rocks tumbled down the mountain towards our platform.
“The bunker,” I yelled, running towards the metal structure. We were all a meter away when a cannonball blasted straight through the roof of the bunker, laying a massive hole.
My heart raced. I looked around, frantic.
The patrolling Laergardian ships swirled through the air towards the dreadnought. A fleet of four came from the east, while another fleet of the same size came from the west. Beams of mana cut across the clouds, shattering into the hull of the metal ship. The dreadnought returned fire. The cluster of ships ducked down and flew under the dreadnought, unleashing fire at it from below.
The domineering dreadnought was losing to the quick smaller ships, strafing and dodging all of its heavy attacks. But more than a ship full of heavy artillery, the dreadnought was an aircraft carrier too. The metal walls of the ship’s hull slid open and falling out of them were small aerial fighter ships that were sleek and silver, glowing with energy from the mana crystal at the core of each vehicle. They flew up the sides of the dreadnought and unleashed a flurry of blasts at the magical wooden Laergardian ships.
“We have to get to the aerodrome and make sure all hands are on deck,” yelled Bertwald, running a shaky hand across his forehead. “Our trackers said the Arethkarian fleet was still a week away from Land’s Shield. We’re not prepared for this kind of assault.”
“If you’re saying we should get out of here as soon as possible,” said Shade, yelling over the barrage of cannon blasts, laser turrets, and ripping wind. “Then I concur.”
We ran up the pathway towards the elevator when flying through the sky towards us was a barrage of shadowy cannonballs.
“Clay! Jump out of the way,” screamed Shade.
But it was too late. I closed my eyes and readied myself for the death’s punishment debuff prompt.
Nothing happened. I opened my eyes.
The charging shadow balls were, in fact, not cannon blasts but a squad of three shadow wraiths. They were ghostly swirls of black shadow with glowing red eyes. The creatures were ethereal nightmares, shifting in substance and form, except for a golden collar wrapped around their necks. A blue light glowed from the center. Their power source. The way in which the Arethkarian fleet controlled such nightmarish creatures to their own ends.
Floating above their heads was the caption, [Shadow Wraith]. Below it was their stats.
Shadow Wraith
Level 10
HP: 525
MP: 12
I wanted to think this would be a piece of cake because I was a level higher but this game never held back. Any creature fighting for its life would fucking fight for its life.
One of the wraith’s arms manifested into a sharp pointed spear. It rapidly stretched and grew, shooting towards my chest. Both my fingers flicked and twirled in a pattern unbeknownst to me, yet felt incredibly familiar. My leather boots were covered in flames, thrusting me meters away from the incoming shadow spear, leaving a trail of ferocious fla
mes behind me.
I had dodged the attack. There was only one problem; I had blasted myself off the cliff edge and into the open sky. My legs scurried in the air. The clouds below swirled in an endless mist, a black hole to nowhere. My stomach lurched.
Relax.
My descent stopped as pools of mana formed beneath my feet. I hopped my way back up to the cliff platform like Super Mario. I jumped and dodged through a collage of shadow blasts and other attacks. Shade unleashed a barrage of revolver shots at the shadowy creatures, chipping off little bits of HP. Meanwhile Bertwald formed two enormous fireballs in his hands and flung them out at the creatures, the flames rippling through the creatures’ ghostly shadow skin.
“Watch out,” yelled Shade, snapping me back into the action.
Two shadow spears came flinging towards me. Shit. I didn’t want to flame dodge off the mountain again. There was barely any maneuverability on the mountain pass so I raised and crossed my arms, shielding myself from the incoming blast. Time for another new ability. As the sharp shadow tendrils lunged through the air towards my body, a shield of rocks floated to the air, encasing my entire self with stone skin.
The shadow spear thumped against my stone skin, pushing me back a step. I took a few percentage points of damage but it was a pittance to what I would’ve felt had I not had stone skin protecting me. The rocks quickly crumbled to sandy dust, disintegrating to the ground.
It was time to go back on the offensive. Taking a cue from Bertwald’s playbook, my hands heated up like a furnace as two blazing balls of flame emerged in my palms. I whipped them, one after the other, at the swirling shadow wraiths. The fireballs flew through the air and smacked into the dark cloud of the monsters. Upon impact the blast dissipated like a blown-out candle.
What the hell? I checked my status, the wraith’s shadow spear had left a nasty debuff on me.
Weakness (Debuff): Your attacks do 25% less damage. (Duration: 1 minute.)