Conquest

by Felix von Falkenlust

  Beyond the dim green penetrating a few feet through the doorway, this new room was pitch black. We stepped inside, with less confidence now. Anna’s lips were pressed tight together, her blond brow tense. When we were all inside, the door shut behind us with an iron thud.

  We stood there in complete blackness. I knew Anna was miserable at that moment, but when the darkness was relieved it was I who deserved pity as all my courage departed.

  “Oh fuck me. . . .”

  Chapter Fifty

  A blood-red thing that could only be described as a demon stood in the center of a huge round room, but that wasn’t what scared me. What scared me was what allowed me to see the room.

  Fire.

  The entire room was surrounded by water, or possibly oil, forming a circular moat about six feet from the wall. And it was on fire. Not magic green fire, but regular old fire, with flames reaching out as high as my chest.

  When I was thirteen, I was staying the night at my dad’s trailer. We were watching a movie on the couch and I fell asleep. I woke up to a searing pain in my foot; I opened my eyes to see the blanket over my legs was on fire. It turned out my dad had decided to light up a cigarette and then, no doubt aided by the pint of whiskey he imbibed during the night, he too had dozed off. I threw off the burning blanket and saw my sock glowing and smoking before I yanked it from my foot. The pain was extraordinary. I couldn’t believe anything could hurt that much. My dad managed to put the fire out, but that was the last time I ever saw him. It left me with an ugly scar on top of my foot and another scar, not so easy to see but just as permanent, on my mind.

  And now, after being safely dead for many years, I was surrounded by flames and realized the depth of my fear.

  If I was knocked off the stone circle I would be plunged into the fire to drown or burn.

  Of course rationally I now know the fire wouldn’t hurt anywhere close to real life—if it did, DA would have a lawsuit right up their ass. But rational thought went out the window when I felt the heat of the flames on my back and relived that horrible memory. Karl didn’t have that scar on his foot, but I could’ve sworn I felt it throb.

  I was frozen with fear. None of my companions moved either, though they appeared more concerned by the demon, who also stood motionless at the center of the circle.

  I shoved my thoughts of burning aside, with much difficulty, to study our opponent. It towered at perhaps seven and a half feet. Its muscles were big, but the red skin that covered those muscles sagged and wrinkled like an extremely old man. There appeared to be no fat at all between sinew and skin. No clothes covered the thing, yet its midsection was sexless. The fingers and toes ended in claws. Two short horns sprouted from the bald red head.

  The face was a nightmare. A long red nose ending in a point. A jumble of crooked fangs stuffed into a blistered mouth. Dull white eyes with no pupils.

  Its clawed hands clutched a spear. It was long enough, but it looked like a pretty simple weapon for an obviously high-level monster. I was forced to revise my opinion when the thing suddenly swung the spear.

  The trajectory of the spear’s tip, based on the length of the shaft and our distance from the monster, shouldn’t have come within twenty feet of us. I didn’t realize the blade had stretched out with a red glow until it was almost at my side. I barely hit the deck in time. I felt the swish over me and heard the chink of metal on stone behind me, heard pieces of the wall break off.

  A quick glance to my right told me the others had safely dropped to the ground. I looked back at the monster, who stood motionless with the spear at its original length. I got off the ground and the four of us exchanged uneasy looks.

  We were trapped with this demon, whose spear could reach anywhere in the room, in a ring of fire.

  Anna slowly fit an arrow onto her cord. Elise began to work up a spell with her hands. Bob set his staff into motion. I could do nothing but wait. With my years of gaming experience I knew if I could survive long enough to watch our opponent, I could find a weakness. But my thoughts kept shifting back to the surrounding flames.

  Anna let her arrow fly. It never landed; the demon lifted its left arm and red magic spread out to form a big round shield and the arrow bounced impotently onto the floor. The demon shot out its spear straight at Anna, the blade stretching out at her stomach, forcing her to jump fast to the side.

  A bolt of green shot out from Elise’s finger but the demon’s shield appeared again, and again the monster sought to punish its attacker and Elise had to duck to keep her gorgeous head.

  Bob attacked an instant later, a whirl of blue pouring from his staff, but the demon’s shield rendered Bob’s magic useless and Bob jumped as the spear’s lengthened tip scraped the stones at his feet.

  “Damn!” exclaimed Bob, then he looked at Elise and froze, which made me look at Elise, and she looked very alarmed. Her head was raised toward the high ceiling, and Bob, Anna, and I all looked up to follow her shocked eyes.

  Anna softly said something in her native tongue, and I’m sure it was not a polite word. Bob and I both swore almost silently. For a second I even forgot about the fire.

  Hanging from the ceiling were four skeletons. A black wizard’s robe hung from the bones of one, the fabric sliced down the middle. Another wore what might also have been a wizard’s robe, but the cloth was charred to ashes. Another wore leather breeches and warrior’s boots, both scorched black in spots, and a big hole punctured the rib cage. The last one had a short linen dress over its bones like I had seen a few female archers wear. There was no skull.

  The demon got tired of waiting for us to finish gawking at the bones and whipped its spear around at our waists. We all had to drop flat on the ground. The demon laughed with a voice like a giant dying frog.

  In an instant Anna had an arrow on her string and launched it. I thought the demon would be off guard while laughing, but the shield came up, the arrow bounced away, and the spear lashed out in retaliation. Anna avoided being gutted by mere inches.

  Every time one of us attacked, I thought, they would be immediately targeted by the demon. If we did nothing, the demon would eventually swing his lance out at all of us. At least that’s how it seemed so far.

  “We have to coordinate our attacks,” I said. “If we—”

  The demon’s spear shot out at me. I darted to the side, out of the blade’s path but too far: I felt the flames lick my shoulder with a burning pain as I nearly toppled into the flaming moat. I yanked myself back in the other direction and rolled onto the stone floor.

  The AI knew when I tried to verbalize a plan. That made things even more difficult. Yet my thinking must have been clear enough to the others, for this time Anna waited for Elise and Bob to bring up some magic. When her arrow was finally loosed and blocked by the shield, Elise attacked the instant the shield faded away and the demon’s spear sped out at Anna.

  Bullseye. The demon rocked on its feet with an angry cry. When it went after Elise, Bob landed a ball of yellow light, beaming the thing in the bald head.

  The demon went after Bob, but its shield came up in time to block Anna’s next arrow. She jumped aside to avoid the spear, and we were back where we’d started.

  But not quite. For now we had scored two hits on the bastard, and we knew what to do. And I no longer stood next to Anna, but rather was slowly creeping around the circle of the floor, edging in as I went, away from the fire and closer to the demon. If I was going to join in the attack, I had to get close.

  Bob tried to use the Spell of Slowness on the demon, but the shield absorbed his magic and Bob’s beard got trimmed by the spear’s blade. But it gave Anna time to land an arrow in the monster’s shoulder.

  For the first time in the game, I would have been thankful for a Health bar floating over the demon’s head. I had no idea how close or far we were from defeating our foe. But then I smiled and thought to myself, Nay, I have no need for such illusions. My blade shall cut so deep into that red flesh that there shall be no doubt
!

  As the others attacked and the demon countered, I used the opportunity to circle around until I was nearly to the side of the thing. When the demon blocked Elise’s magic and the other two had no attack ready, the three of them paused so that Bob and Elise could summon more spells and Anna could prepare an arrow. I took a cautious step closer to the demon, and found my advance did not trigger it to attack.

  Unfortunately, we were inactive too long, and that’s when I found it didn’t matter where I was, the demon’s sweep of his endless spear would include all of us; as the others crouched down under the swinging blade, I didn’t realize until too late that the spear continued its arc, and I was only saved from being sliced in two by a last-second lift of my sword, both hands hard on the hilt.

  It felt like a truck crashed into my sword. I flew through the air, and when I came down I couldn’t break the fall without releasing the sword and so I hit the ground hard and I rolled—rolled over the stone floor toward the burning flames, closer and closer.

  I let one hand free from the sword and dug my fingers into the stone and skidded to a halt, but not before my feet had swung out past the floor. I yanked my legs back before my boots were roasted, my heart pounding. I curled into a ball and shook, the heat on my toes bringing back the memory of that horrible night and crippling me with terror.

  If my friends hadn’t kept up their attack, leaving the demon to slice at the lot of us, I would’ve been history. I lay there in a frozen panic, completely open to attack, until I heard Elise scream.

  My fear evaporated in an instant and I jumped to my feet and stared past the demon. Elise still stood, but I could see her robe had been sliced and a dark spot stained the white cloth. And then I noticed I was behind the demon.

  I snuck slowly forward, a little to the right of the fiend so as not to be in the path of Anna’s arrows, then I waited, crouched, tension filling my big muscles. Anna nocked an arrow, a ball of white grew bigger in Elise’s hands, and the tip of Bob’s staff began to turn violet as he waved it methodically in the air.

  And then, as if we had rehearsed it a hundred times, we burst into action. Bob sent an electric spiral of violet at the demon, who blocked it with the shield. No sooner had the lance stabbed out at Bob than Anna sent an arrow flying through the air. A red arrow. It landed in the chest and a burst of red light lit up the room and the demon reeled, but it did not stop the demon’s attack on Anna, who had to jump like a cat to avoid being skewered. At the same instant a big ball of white soared into the demon. The shield began to form but it was too late and a blinding flash of white nearly knocked the thing off its clawed feet.

  When I saw Bob point his staff, my muscles wound tight, and once the violet burst of magic hit the demon I sprang, my sword burning a fiery orange. The spear had hardly shot out at Bob when my sword sailed through the air, every drop of my strength behind it, and sliced like a guillotine through the demon’s neck.

  The evil head flew from the red-skinned body, yet still the arm with the spear moved to strike, and so I sent my blade back with an upward slice and cleaved the arm off at the shoulder even as another of Anna’s red arrows and a bolt of white magic hit the demon’s chest. A second later the demon exploded.

  When I opened my eyes again, all that remained of the demon was the head. Bits of red demon flesh were strewn over the entire floor. The fire surrounding the floor had died down just enough to see by, and the door to the circular chamber opened. I limped over to the others, my knees and elbows scraped and raw.

  “Is everyone okay?”

  Bob said, “I’m fine . . . except for my beard.” He lifted it up to look at the chunk which had been sliced off.

  Elise inspected her wound, then her stats, and nodded. “I’m about clean out of magic, though.”

  Anna looked at me, a gleam in her eyes and a rare smile on her lips. “We have done it, warrior. Riches and glory be ours!”

  I pulled her close to me and our lips met with fierce passion.

  I then stood in front of Elise, but didn’t dare kiss her. We exchanged a hug, and then I went to Bob, gave him first a headbutt, then a toe bump, and then, after a second of hesitation, a big hug.

  “Careful dude,” he said in a strangled voice. I let go and he rubbed his ribs. “Don’t forget you’re like two hundred fifty pounds of muscle.”

  “Sorry man. So, do we, uh, take the head, or what?”

  Elise said, “I don’t know if we need it for proof or not. Maybe just to be safe?”

  Bob looked at the severed red head and shuddered. “Well I’m not holding that nasty thing.” He did, however, take a screenshot of the head.

  Anna sniffed, then pulled off the linen covering her fine breasts, strode to the head, and wrapped it up.

  We left the chamber. When we reached the section of the tunnel that had opened to free the snake, we noticed a green fire now illuminated the passage. Taking this, in fifteen minutes we were climbing out into the ruined black castle, into the light of dawn.

  As we set back on our path to the white castle, I turned to Bob. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Go for it.”

  “If you ever wanted to hang out outside this game—”

  “Like I’m ever leaving this game.”

  “But if you did . . .”

  “If I did, I’m totally up for hanging with you, dude.”

  “Then, would you mind telling me your real name? So I can look you up? I’m Ace, by the way. Ace Singleton.”

  “Johnson.” He shook my offered hand. “Berbifaberama Torquewrench Johnson.”

  Chapter Fifty-one

  THE quest completed, I took some time off from the game. Battle is mentally tiring and yes, to be honest, I needed a little break from banging extraordinarily hot girls. I never could have imagined that crossing my mind during real life.

  The first afternoon in Verterria after the black castle, I turned the handle of the basement door and was pleased to find that, unlike the bedrooms of my mom or sister, it opened. I went straight down and sure enough, my old drum kit stood there in the corner, waiting.

  I sat down and picked up the sticks. I tapped gently on the snare, then gave a few light presses of the bass pedal, gradually thumping louder and louder on the kick drum, and then I gave a little roll on the snare and sent my sticks pounding over the toms.

  That looks good in print, but it sounded awful; my rhythm was about as smooth as a jackhammered sidewalk.

  But I was happy. I had my drum kit and I had basically forever to learn. Maybe I could find a good teacher, I thought, and I spent the next hour banging away.

  * * *

  Apart from practicing the drums, I spent my time in Verterria reading Cybertronic Catgirl Killer, eating whatever I had a hankering for, and hanging out with Anaksa Anderson.

  A couple weeks after leaving Conquest, Anaksa called and asked if I wanted to hang out at her place. I met her in front of the comic shop and we walked down Main Street, like going to the Arcade except we turned left instead of right. Houses of all sorts began to spring up, and then about halfway down the street Anaksa stopped and held out a hand.

  “Here we are!”

  I stopped and stared. “Are—are you serious?”

  The house, if you could call it that, was tiny. I mean really tiny. When we were growing up, my sister and I had a playhouse in the backyard, and even back then we had to stoop to go through the door; this was a little smaller. I don’t think the dimensions could’ve been much bigger than five by five feet. For you metric-system users out there, that’s “really, really small.”

  Anaksa smiled and said, “Don’t you like it?”

  “Oh, it’s nice, for sure. It’s just a little, uh, small.”

  “Come on in, there’s plenty of room.” She opened the door for me and I bowed my head low to clear the doorway as I stepped inside.

  I shouldn’t have been so surprised when I looked around at the sprawling room as I stood in a marble-floored foyer that itself was
considerably larger than five by five feet, but I was. Just because things were possible in this digitized world didn’t mean my recreated brain could accept everything.

  Anaksa shut the door and led me through the huge room, with its great marble fireplace, over which hung an exact replica of a Renoir nude that I knew very well.

  “Hey, I love this painting,” I said. “It’s one of my favorites.”

  “You like the Impressionists?”

  “Yeah, especially Renoir.” I just sat there and stared at it. “It looks exactly the same.”

  “It is, except you couldn’t eat the original.”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean because of the lead and arsenic paints.”

  “No, I get that you can’t eat the original, but does that mean . . .”

  To my complete shock she took a knife from the mantel and plunged into the canvas—except instead of ripping canvas, the painting cut smoothly, thick and fluffy. She pulled out the section she had cut and handed it to me. “Try it.”

  I just stood there looking at the piece of painting in my hand, three inches thick, feeling like cake on my palm. When I didn’t move she cut a piece for herself and bit into it. At last I moved whatever the hell was in my hand to my mouth and very hesitantly sank my teeth into what looked for all the world like a section of an oil-painted butt cheek.

  “Oh my God,” I said, chewing freely now. “It’s cake. . . . Chocolate cake! What the fuck?”

  She smiled. “Well, we’re dead, we might as well enjoy it, right?”

  I looked around and said, “Nice place, by the way.”

  “Thanks. Come check out the kitchen.” The kitchen was a chef’s dream. Then she showed me the bathroom, which was nice enough with its oak cabinet under the sink and spotless toilet and all, but when she slid back the shower curtain there was no shower: it appeared instead to be a replica of a bathhouse from ancient Pompeii.