Conquest

by Felix von Falkenlust

  “I guess since you put it that way . . .” I looked over at Elise, to see what she thought.

  She said, “Bob’s pretty much right, though I might have phrased it differently. I mean, let’s say you’re a baseball player; you start out in Little League, then work your way up to the Minors, and then at last your dream comes true and you reach the Major League. Do you quit there? Of course not. That’s when your career really begins.”

  “Good point.”

  “Plus you can use the gold to buy stuff in Verterria.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”

  “And think about this quest we’re on now. You don’t need the EP or AP to level up, but aren’t you excited?”

  “I’m totally excited.”

  Bob knocked a stone from the road and said, “It’s about glory.”

  “Glory,” Anna echoed. I thought I saw a smile lurk under her serious face.

  Bob asked, “So where are we headed here, Mister Map Man?”

  I stopped and unrolled the parchment and studied it. “We’re on the right track; here’s those weird burial mounds we just passed a minute ago.” Heads had popped out of the mounds, and I’d gone from one to another smashing the heads like a game of Whack-a-Mole. “It looks like we take this road to another river and cross this bridge.”

  In a half-hour or so we came to the bridge. A really, really long bridge, we noted as we got closer, and not over a river: it was gorge. A really, really deep gorge.

  As we came up to the bridge Bob’s face turned as white as his beard.

  “Oh fuck me. . . .”

  He looked down and then stepped back and crouched on the ground. I asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Can’t do it. Afraid of heights. You guys go on without me.”

  “What are you talking about? We need you!”

  “You’ll be fine. I’ll wait for you in Sexbury. Have fun.”

  “Bob!”

  “I—I’m really afraid of heights, Karl. I can’t even go beyond the second rung of a ladder without getting nervous.”

  “Come on, just try. Get up.”

  He got off the ground, shaking as he approached the bridge. He glanced down at the gorge and rubbed his chest where his heart must have been pounding. “Oh hell no!”

  “Bob, you’re a level-ten wizard—no, a Master Wizard! You can do this!”

  “Look dude, this is the sort of thing where your level doesn’t matter. This is where your real self shows through. Like how there’s no Charisma in this game, and you have to rely on your actual personality. Well my real self is scared shitless of heights, and there is no way I can cross this mile-long bridge!”

  It wasn’t actually a mile, but it was still seriously long and did not look all that solid.

  “Bob, we need your powers. The queen at the white castle said we need four people, and it’s probably because that’s the only way to beat whatever’s there.”

  “Maybe you’ll meet someone on the way there who can help you.”

  “Bob . . . You know, you can’t actually die now. You’re already dead! The worst thing that can happen is you fall and you respawn. It won’t even hurt.”

  “It’ll hurt my pride when I shit myself on the way down.”

  “Come on, Bob.”

  “Look, unless there’s a spell to make me magically appear on the other side of that bridge, it ain’t gonna happen.” He looked over to Elise, but she shook her head.

  “There’s no spell like that, as far as I know.”

  Anna lifted her head and she turned her amber eyes on Bob.

  “Wizard. Cross this bridge and my body awaits on the other side.”

  Bob stared at her for a second, unblinking. Then he slapped his hands together.

  “Hell yeah, let’s do this!”

  The bridge was so narrow that we had to walk single file. Elise took the lead, then Anna, then Bob, then me. Bob walked about two feet before his fear surpassed his horniness.

  “Oh fuck my life. Oh my God we’re so high up and it’s so far down to the bottom! I think I’m gonna have another heart attack.”

  “I’m pretty sure you can’t have a heart attack in this game.”

  “Tell that to my heart. It feels like it’s going to explode.”

  “Did I ever tell you about my night with Anna? Best lay in the game so far, and that’s including a Sorceress who gave me a ten-minute orgasm. So if you want to talk about exploding, cross this bridge and it won’t be your heart that explodes.”

  “Dude, you should’ve been, like, a motivational speaker or something.”

  “I didn’t live long enough.”

  A gust of wind sent the bridge swaying, and the swaying of the bridge sent a gust of profanity from Bob’s mouth as he stopped and squeezed the fraying rope that served as a rail. Then he looked up and saw the same wind blow aside the back of Anna’s costume to reveal the thick round globes of her ass, and he steeled himself to move forward once more.

  I too had gripped the rope tightly when it rocked in the wind. I wasn’t as afraid of heights as Bob, but looking down into the depths of that gorge was enough to make anyone’s pulse rise.

  “Uh oh.” Elise’s voice drifted back to me from the front of the line. I leaned over to look past my companions and saw what appeared to be a ram at the other end of the bridge. Even at this distance I could see that it was much bigger than a real ram and that its horns gleamed like gold instead of bone.

  The fantasy-ram charged, with every intention of doing what it did best: ram. Elise fired off a bolt of green magic—and gasped when it did nothing. “It’s magic proof!”

  Magic proof? Are you kidding?

  “I got it!” I yelled as I squeezed around the three. I made it around Elise just in time to meet the ram’s charge with my hammer, which smashed down into the golden horns, sending the beast’s head down to the planks. Unfortunately the creature’s motion was not so easily checked, and its rump flew up and crashed into me, and as my back in turn crashed into Elise it was all I could do to toss the thing off the bridge without falling off myself. If Elise hadn’t held onto my waist I think I would have taken the long, terrifying plunge.

  It took a minute to get Bob to stop cowering in a crouch, fingers locked on the rope, but after that we made it across the bridge without further incident. Bob sighed in relief as his feet touched the earth on the other side of the gorge.

  “Well, that sucked.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  WE walked away from the gorge and soon reached a stretch of woodland. The road became a mere path through the trees, which the map indicated we should take. Before long we came upon a little woodcutter’s hut. Bob opened the door and peeked in.

  “Oh, look at this. It’s empty.” He turned back to Anna. “I’ll take that body now if you don’t mind.”

  Anna looked as if she wished Bob had fallen off the bridge, but she went inside the hut. Before he closed the door, Bob said, “You guys stand guard. Don’t worry, I won’t be long.”

  “I know.” I stood there with Elise a while before breaking the silence. “So, how does one get to be an Eleven in this game?”

  “I told you, every game has its secrets. It wouldn’t be a secret if I told you.”

  “You’re my guide; you should totally tell me.”

  “I’m not your guide anymore. I’m your companion on a quest.”

  “Even more reason you should tell me.”

  She just smiled at me and shrugged. Before I could say anything else, Bob came out with his hat on crooked and a big grin on his face. Anna came out behind him looking like she wanted her quarter back.

  I said, “Seriously Bob? You can’t even prolong the act for Anna?”

  “Hey, when a babe’s as hot as that, of course I’m gonna bust too soon. She should think of it as a compliment.”

  Anna’s face made it clear she did not think of it as a compliment.

  I said, “You’re a tenth-level wizard, Bob—”

  �
��Master Wizard.”

  “Haven’t you learned the Spell of Neverending Delight?”

  “Sure I have. I use it all the time.”

  “On the women, or just yourself?”

  “Hey, it uses a lot of MP, cut me some slack dude.”

  I shook my head and we started back down the path. After an hour or so I noticed the sun had stopped filtering through the trees; it had grown quite dark. There was a chill in the air, too. And then I noticed something else.

  “Hey, is it just me, or are the trees dying the further we go?”

  The others looked up to see the leaves were turned like a gloomy fall; not pretty autumn reds and yellows, but a dull brown. Soon there were more leaves on the ground than there were on the trees. Splotches of black tainted the leaves, and the bark on the trunks looked diseased.

  But we couldn’t dwell on that very long, for a more tangible threat began to appear from several directions. The same short, hooded creatures from the forest where I had met Anna, with the same razor-sharp knives. And the ones with the magic throwing stars, too.

  Without a word, we went into action as if we had planned our attack: me taking care of the nearest ones, squashing them with my big hammer as Anna and the wizards dealt with those farthest away, making sure to take out the star throwers first.

  I was struck a couple times but my armor absorbed most of the damage. Anna took a knife wound to the thigh, but one bandage later and all that remained was a sexy scar.

  We carried on and soon noticed that the trees were all completely leafless and lifeless. The woods thinned until they could no longer be called woods, but the sun still did not shine on our heads. The sky was a dull, miserable gray. The path opened back up to a road, and on each side the grass was dried to the color and texture of straw. The few trees that dotted the landscape were all stunted and bare and dead. A thick haze obscured the horizon.

  We walked with apprehensive steps through this gloomy wasteland of a landscape. We passed a field of some failed crop next to a ruined, deserted barn. We crossed over a river without need of the shambles of a bridge that spanned the ten yards or so from one bank to the other: the river was completely dry. The bones of fish littered the dead river, along with other, more disconcerting bones.

  It was as if nothing could survive here, and I hoped this did not include us.

  “This place is giving me the creeps, bro.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I said, frowning as I took in the dreary scene. Something cracked under my foot, and I looked down to see the broken bones of a human hand.

  “What foul evil has worked itself over these forsaken lands?”

  Even Elise, who was normally smiling and ready for anything, had trepidation all over her beautiful face, the nervous edge in her voice belying her flippant, “What goth level designer cooked up this place?”

  I half expected some horrible creature to come out of the mist to attack us, but we walked for miles and yet nothing. It was as if even monsters could not live in this bleak place.

  And then at last a dark form that explained everything took shape out of the fog, and it was Elise that put it into words.

  “The black castle. . . .”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  “THIS isn’t quite what I expected.” I looked over at what appeared to be the main gate. “It doesn’t even have a door.”

  We passed through the empty arch and into a dreary courtyard. The ground was the color of ash. A couple of dead trees that still stood looked as if they had been scorched.

  “The whole place looks charred,” I said, and then absently ran a finger on the black stones of the wall. My brow rose as I saw that the tip of my finger was coated with black. “It is charred.”

  Elise frowned. “They could’ve made the stone just be black if they wanted to. If it’s burnt, there’s a reason.”

  “The dragon.” The others turned toward me. “I forgot all about it. After I left Noob Town, I had a view for miles, and I could see that giant we fought, and a dragon. A big, fire-breathing dragon.”

  I saw the memory hit the others, and got a chorus of “Oh yeah. . . .” Well, it would have been a chorus, except of course Anna said, “Aye. It is so. I have seen it.”

  Bob looked up at the sky, his mouth open over his beard. “Uh, I am currently seeing it.”

  Our heads shot up to follow his gaze to the threatening black shape in the sky. It grew by the second. When it really came into focus, its scaly black head jerked down at the ground. At us.

  Bob said, “Yeah . . . it saw us.”

  All four of us swore and then the dragon swooped down, opened its mouth, and breathed green fire.

  I’d forgotten the fire was green, but I didn’t pause to think about that because I was busy jumping like a beach volleyball player going for a desperate save; I must have cleared ten feet, and my chest landed on the ashen earth with a thud that knocked the wind out of me. I rolled away as the ground next to me burned bright green. It smelled exactly like you would expect dragon breath to smell like, but more importantly it was really fucking hot.

  I lifted my hammer as I jumped to my feet, but what the hell was I going to do with it? The dragon was the size of a tank, and anyway it could fly. It shot out of range before I could do anything.

  Anna loosed an arrow but missed. Bob sent out a lightning-like bolt of blue and did not miss, but he did piss off the dragon. The scaly bastard tilted around in the air and swept down at Bob and an inferno blasted from its mouth.

  Bob barely escaped being charbroiled, jumping out of the way with an athletic leap. He landed nearby and smiled at me.

  “That was close.”

  “Bob! Your hat!”

  It was on fire. He casually took it off to look at it, saw that it was in flames, and screamed something that sounded like “Uwaahh!” and flung it away like a frisbee.

  Elise turned to Bob. “Can you slow it down? I need time to work this spell!”

  “Done!” Bob traced some lines with his staff as the dragon circled over the crumbling black tower of the castle. It swept down at us, but Bob pointed his staff and boomed, “Slow thy foul self!” and a burst of magic entangled the creature like an electric web.

  Anna launched a few arrows into the dragon, which came slowly at us as Elise traced her hands fast in the air. It looked like she was working out a physics calculation with both hands on an invisible chalkboard. Her face was strained in concentration, and whatever spell she was working up still wasn’t ready when I saw Bob’s slowness spell begin to wear off. Only a swirl of white danced in the air between her hands, but just as the dragon shot out back to full speed, the smokelike shape of Elise’s magic grew with blinding brightness. When my eyes opened narrowly against the light, I saw what it was: a white dragon. A dragon of bright white sparkling magic light. A dragon that soared at the black dragon, latched onto it with magical talons and sunk its luminescent teeth into the monster’s long neck.

  Anna had to jump out of the way as the black dragon scorched the earth with a blast of green fire, and the two dragons soared up into the sky, a stunning fireworks display of green and white with a finale of a massive white burst.

  And then there were no dragons, white or black. All that was left was a cloud of smoke.

  * * *

  I stared up at the sky. “That’s . . . That’s it?”

  Elise was sitting on the ground, exhausted. She checked her palm and nodded. “That’s it. It’s dead.”

  Bob said, “Well, that was easy!”

  “But . . .” I looked around at the castle.

  Anna said, “Far too easy.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”

  Elise appeared to think for a moment. “It does seem a little anticlimactic. But we’re here at the castle, and that was the only monster—or anything else—around.”

  I frowned, trying to remember something, then the light bulb clicked on. “That’s it: she said something about halls.”

  “Who?”r />
  “The queen at the white castle. It was like, ‘kill the fiend that lurks in those evil halls,’ or something.”

  Bob looked around. “There aren’t any halls. There isn’t even a roof.”

  I looked at the shambles of a castle. He was right, of course; there were some walls, and there was the tower, but it didn’t look like anything could pass for a hall. “Well, let’s look around and see if we find anything.”

  Elise finally got off the ground. “My Stamina really took a hit. I used a lot of Magic, too, but I have a decent amount left.”

  “I’m pissed about my hat,” said Bob. “That thing was expensive.”

  “You should be glad it wasn’t you that went up in flames.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  The four of us wandered around the castle like a bunch of detectives, searching for clues.

  “Well, it looks like the main hall was here,” said Elise as we stood in a large space outlined by the remnants of four walls, “but I don’t think they’ll be holding any dinner parties in this place anymore.”

  “I’m sure this quest isn’t over.” I ran my eyes over the carbon-black stones. “I just feel it, you know?”

  “Aye, warrior. We are not done here yet, of this I am certain.”

  “What about those players who got the quest before? Did they say anything about it?”

  Elise gave a strange smile. “Nobody ever saw them again.”

  “Oh . . . That’s comforting.” I gave a little shudder. “Hey, if the dragon killed them, there would be some weapons lying around here, right?”

  “Yeah, normally that’s how it would work. Of course for all we know they fell off that bridge into the gorge.”

  “Oh shit,” Bob said, suddenly turning pale.

  “What?” I looked behind me, to see if he’d seen something, but there was nothing. “What is it?”

  “I just realized I’ll have to go back over that fucking bridge, too.”

  “You did it once.”

  “Once was more than enough, dude.” He turned to Anna hopefully. “I don’t suppose you’d offer me some incentive to cross it again?”