by Deck Davis
Dawnfreaks are forbidden in the Edgenesse Republic, the Ironelf kingdom, and the Marbledale Coast. The only notable use of them in such places is in Godden’s battle for the Reach, where Godden used a dawnfreak to cut through the colonies of orb weavers who called the Reach home.
It is said that Godden errantly believed his dawnfreak’s growth was tamed by his surgeon, who cut the creature’s thyroid. However, although the dawnfreak helped Godden win the battle, it would not stop growing. He was forced to execute it with his own sword.
(Editor’s Note: That was Godden for you. Foolish when he fixed his mind on something, yet always willing to correct his own mistakes no matter the cost.)
Following this execution, it is said that Godden had his mages and alchemists reduce the dawnfreak to its essence, which they began to implant on the local population of birds, rabbits, and other creatures, resulting into the birth of new species such as frorarg and sleel, which are only found in the Reach.
Furthermore, Godden ordered that his dawnfreak’s skeleton be artificed so as not to wear away, and he placed this on the plains of the Reach as a monument to the dawnfreak’s role in the battle of the Reach.
“Wow,” said Tripp, passing the note to Jon. So many thoughts swirled in his head that it was a battle just to focus on one.
He remembered the skeleton he had seen when he first arrived in Soulboxe. He thought it was a sleel, but he had been wrong. It shared ancestry with the sleel, but it was a dawnfreak, an adult version of the creature that had just fled from the labyrinth.
Godden had used a dawnfreak to kill weavers, but it had become so big from the venom, so dangerous to Godden and his men, that he’d slaughtered it with his own sword.
The implications grew like stinging nettles in his mind. A dawnfreak had fled the labyrinth and was probably seeking its way to the plains, to the Blood Wave where hundreds of weavers were advancing on Mountmend.
So many weavers. So much venom. So much room for the dawnfreak to grow until not even Old Kimby could cover it in shadow.
“Does this mean…” said Jon, and although he didn’t finish the sentence verbally, his eyes seemed to do it for him.
“That our escape artist friend is going to be the size of a house by the time we get to him.”
“So it is the final test, then. How the hell do we kill something like that?”
“It might have something to do with this,” Tripp said, reaching into the chest and taking out the sword.
It was a normal sword. Plain. The kind of thing an armorer’s apprentice might make while learning his craft. Its nicked and beaten steel blade didn’t speak of great deeds, nor did its basic hilt, free from any carvings or decoration, inspire awe.
But as Tripp held it, puffs of smoke text appeared in front of him.
Godden’s Sword
Legacy: A sword gifted to Godden by his father, an armorer of no-note and of whom not much is known.
Godden’s sword slew many enemies, but only one death by its blade pained Godden himself. When his dawnfreak grew so large as to not only be merely uncontrollable but a danger to his people, Godden led his monstrous friend into the plains and, after feeding it a soothing potion, humanely ended its life with this very sword.
With the deed done, manus gathered around the sword like fireflies dancing with campfire flames, and fresh power etched itself into the metal.
Effects: 100% fatal strike chance versus dawnfreaks.
“Can you see that?” asked Tripp.
“See what?”
“Wait.”
After enabling Jon to see his game alerts, he watched as his elvish eyes, usually stern and squinting, widened.
“I guess that answers it,” said Jon. “We can kill it if we can find it.”
“And now there’s the bone,” said Tripp.
He took the final item from the chest. This was a single bone, yellow around the edges and so brittle that parts of it flaked away at his touch. He wished he had the anatomical knowledge to say what kind of bone it was, but all he had was an inkling in his gut, one that said this had belonged to a person.
Again, after holding the bone for long enough, an alert filled his vision.
Godden’s Bone
After slaughtering colony upon colony of orb weavers, a predatory instinct filled Godden. Entrenched deep within him was the knowledge of battle, but not just any battle; killing orb weavers became second nature to him.
Effects: Improved damage versus orb weavers
Tripp’s heart was thudding as every solution fell into place piece by piece. While Jon read the alert, Tripp got to work. Using his Deconstructor mallet he smashed Godden’s bone until he was left with a single pile of dust; the essence of Godden.
With his artificer goggles still strapped to his head, he removed the artificery from every sword and axe he had brought with him, taking away the essence that would have dealt more damage to sleels, frorargs, hornfels, and eisschwarms.
In their place, he put Godden’s essence into the artificery slots. When he was done, not only did his artificer-inventor skill level up to Tin 4, but he had half a dozen swords and axes honed to damage orb weavers.
“We can kill the weavers and the dawnfreak,” he said. “Now we just need to get out of here.”
“I think I know how to do that,” said Jon.
He stepped into the alcove where the chest had been. Tripp heard something click, and then the labyrinth door opened.
“There was a lever in there,” said Jon, stepping out. “Ever feel like you’re being pulled along on a string?”
“We better go join the wave.”
CHAPTER 74
“It’s insane. Completely unstable,” said Lucas, pacing. With his sleeves rolled up and sandy-brown stubble covering his cheeks, he wasn’t the model of professionalism today.
It was a rare afternoon when it was just the three of them in the office; Lucas, Rathburger, and Rudy. No interns, none of Rudy’s gaggle of assistants. That wasn’t the only change; Rathburger had taken to wearing sweats and a t-shirt the last few days, a contravention of office decorum that Rudy couldn’t hide his displeasure of.
Not that Rudy was his pristine self. He was still the best dressed of the three, with his Gucci blazer over his floral Versace shirt, but he was slipping. He hadn’t shaved for two days, and his hair was less perfect than usual. If that wasn’t enough evidence of his stress, he’d been stirring sugar into his coffee for a full two minutes. His hand was still going round and round now, the spoon tinkling when it hit the sides, the sugar long-since dissolved.
“Relax, Luke,” said Rathburger. He took a big pull on his e-cigarette – another habit that made Rudy red in the cheeks – and blew a plume of apricot-scented smoke up at the ceiling. “Boxe can’t actually hurt anyone.”
“But he can scare them. Who’s going to login to Soulboxe if they don’t think we have control of the game? Bugs are a nuisance when you’re holding a controller, but they scream in your face when you’re in full immersion.”
Rudy walked to the window and grabbed the blind switch. Lucas was struck with a worrying thought: he had no idea what he would see when Rudy opened the blinds.
Was it daytime? Night? Winter? Summer? It felt like he’d been stuck in the office for years. He’d worked all the way through at least one night, he knew that much. He’d sweated and problem-solved through breakfast, lunch, and dinner, only gorging on three protein bars in-between telling some interns what he needed them to do.
The slats opened, and a ray of sunlight streamed in, spreading blankets of gold over the various coffee cups, takeout containers, and papers strewn all over the table. It was morning, then. He’d worked without a break, without letting his heart settle. The golden spread of sun was a reminder of the betrayal of his own self.
His self-treachery had started when his grandpa had a stroke, and Lucas had found out that heart problems ran in his family. He was carrying venom in his bloodstream, and there was no telling when it would strike.
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After his last check-up when Dr. Rode, his family doctor, told him that his blood pressure would go the same way as his grandpa’s if he didn’t “get his life together,” Lucas had promised his mornings would be different. Orange juice. A banana and some porridge. A thirty-minute jog.
But instead of following his good intentions, Lucas was back to no-sleep, slugging down his third coffee by the time the birds had woken, and feeling stress wrap all around his body the way a winter wind would chill your bones.
Rudy spoke with his back to them. Sunlight shone over his head, highlighting how thin he was getting up-top, despite the hair transplant he kept insisting he hadn’t had. Come on, Rudy. You aren’t fooling anyone, thought Lucas.
“This hasn’t worked,” Rudy said. “Let’s just face facts dead on, shall we? We pandered to the digital baby, and he pissed in our faces when we tried to change his nappy. We have to take him offline and explore the other options.”
Lucas felt tension shoot through him. “No goddamn way.”
Rudy stared at him. The look on his face said, ‘I wish I’d never gotten involved in this game.’ “Come on, Lucas. Be reasonable. This hasn’t worked, and we know from research that instances of game instability lead to drop-offs in subscriber rates.”
Lucas only had to think about it for a second. “It isn’t as simple as taking him offline.”
“I thought you could control him.”
“It isn’t that. I can remove him with one keystroke. It’s just…Boxe represents my life. Everything I’ve done.”
He stopped short of finishing the sentence churning in his mind; take Boxe away from me, and what’s left? Even so, he still sounded pathetic. He guessed that was what happened when 72 hours without sleep, 58 cups of coffee, and 12 sneaky what-the-hell? post-quitting cigarettes did to you when they collided head-on with the ending of your dreams. His thoughts had left the tracks and were skidding on their side, sparks flying, heading dead-on into a crowd of innocent spectators.
Rudy’s face looked ready to thunder. “Either we pull Boxe now and go scripted, or I pull my money. When bailiffs come for company assets, you can ask them if they’ll accept dynamic questing in lieu of payment.”
Rathburger stood up, and then he did something Lucas didn’t expect. He put his arm around Lucas’s shoulder and squeezed him tight.
“Your dad is a jackass. Always was, always will be. His face is printed on the currency in the kingdom of jackassery. Whatever he says about you, Lucas, it’s pure bullshit, and you don’t need to cling to Boxe like this, okay? Even if Soulboxe went under, people will talk about what we did for years. Old games, they get remembered. They get stronger with time and they get this casing around them, made from nostalgia. Okay? King Jackass the first doesn’t get to take that away.”
Lucas didn’t know what to say. He felt himself welling up. Looking at Eli, listening to him, it was easy to pretend he had his college buddy back for the first time in years. All this time, he’d never really taken Eli’s needs into account. How did he feel about everything? He had more on the line than Lucas. He had a family to sweat over.
“Okay. If this keeps Soulboxe afloat, we’ll do it. But not right now. Give it time; we need to develop high-quality scripts, the best storylines, dialogue, quests. We can’t half-ass this.”
“We already have them,” said Rudy, smiling.
“Huh?”
“I paid for it. Eli already approved all the quests, all the new characters, dialogue, everything. He’s overseen it all.”
Lucas felt sick. “Without telling me?”
Rathburger wouldn’t look at him now. Just like the time he’d kissed Lucas’s girlfriend in college, he couldn’t meet his eyes. Back then he’d owned up to it straight away, but the guilt still pecked at him, culminating in him spending some of his birthday money buying Lucas a games console that had just been released. This older version of Rathburger hadn’t confessed; he’d had Rudy do it for him.
“Eli?” said Lucas. “What happened to Soulboxe not being a generic pile of shit?”
Before Rathburger could answer, Rudy spoke up. “It seems that when it came to it, Mr. Rathburger chose smartly. He chose to be able to afford his house and take his children on vacation. It’s easy having principles until they get tested. Paper tears when it gets wet enough.”
Lucas wanted to rage at them both, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Looking at the pair, he could understand why they had done it. Rudy had pumped money into Soulboxe. He wasn’t a charity, so he deserved a return on his investment. Eli was being responsible for once. Soulboxe had sucked so much of his life way, frayed his marriage, and now he’d chosen to try to protect his family, to have financial security, over hammering away at the same rusted nail.
“We still need time,” Lucas said. “I once changed a popular tavern in Fossy Grove, and one woman threatened to nail my balls to a wall. Hers was one of the nicer emails.”
“How is your mom, by the way?” said Rathburger.
“Funny.”
Rudy leaned forward. His left hand was red from how much he’d scratched at it. “Eli has explained to me how the transition from Boxe-control to scripts will work. I know it won’t be seamless, but I had a plan for that. Sometimes, you divert attention away from a fire by lighting an even bigger one.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lucas.
Rudy took off his blazer and rolled up his sleeves. The skin on his right forearm was pale pink and scarred. He’d told Lucas it was from laser removal of a tattoo, but he wouldn’t tell a soul in the office what the tattoo had been. That prompted an office sweepstake, and Chris from accounts was currently the guardian of 500 bucks waiting to find its way into the winner’s hands.
“The Blood Wave,” Rudy said. “It was something new. A shot of horse plasma into an aging body. It caught people’s attention. When I saw how much it was talked about, I decided this was a fire worth stoking. Blogs, memes, blogs, streams. I pumped money into them all. Did you notice that every popular video game streamer is talking about the Wave? Following it through their access to player cams?”
“You paid them to stream it?”
“Their audience is our player base, and I wanted our player base to watch this fire, and not the one that burns when we switch from Boxe.”
“Nobody talks about the coffee stain on the couch while they’re watching the dog shit on the rug,” said Rathburger. “I can tell you that from experience.”
Lucas sighed. “The only thing I don’t understand is why you couldn’t tell me. We never hide game stuff from each other.”
Rathburger sneered. “No? You don’t think I noticed you fixing some of Boxe’s mistakes? Come on, Luke.”
“This is another level. This is skipping the intro cut scene and teleporting to the final boss. Really, Eli? After all this time you couldn’t talk to me?”
“You’ve lost objectivity. If it’s not all about you sticking your father’s words up his own ass, then it’s about Boxe. You know how you talk about him. When it comes to Boxe, you’re not capable of making a level decision.”
“And now the decision is made,” said Rudy.
Their decision was made before Lucas had even entered the room, and he guessed his was, really. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but the words had been there for him to read the whole time.
Would he miss this place? The welling in his stomach said yes. Maybe it wasn’t the place he’d miss, but the time. A time when it was just him and Rathburger, when they spent every second together, when they were full of dreams and pizza, and they only bickered over whose turn it was for the next beer run.
The time was different now, and so was the place. It used to be that the walls of this room were covered in posters of Conan and the Balrog and every character and every game that had formed the foundation of their dreams. A rainbow of multi-colored post-its with ideas they’d implement or shelve was the first thing you’d see when you walked in. The walls shone with ideas and ins
piration. Now, the only decorations were print-outs of graphs and spreadsheets that Lucas couldn’t even stomach looking at.
But that was nostalgia. Nostalgia acted as a friend but it had a knife in its hand, and it led you into a labyrinth of happy times and then slit your throat and left you there.
“If your decision is set, so is mine,” said Lucas.
Without a word, without looking to Rudy or Rathburger, Lucas marched across the office, grabbed his jacket from the coat stand, and left Soulboxe headquarters.
CHAPTER 75
The stench hanging in the Reach air was so sickening and so thick that Tripp found himself wishing he was back inside Old Kimby. It was the smell of blood, of orb weaver flesh ripped apart so that the insides showed, of bellies carved open and sausages of intestine strew over the grass.
But the smell was forgotten once he glimpsed the horror of the plains. Horror in the nose became a nightmare in the eyes, and Tripp stared at the slaughter without blinking. He saw all the dead players, their corpses torn and impaled and swollen with weaver venom.
Worse, it wasn’t just the weavers anymore. He saw the truth of what was happening but stopped short of being able to express it.
“He died in the second wave,” said Jon.
He pointed at a rakish druid dressed head-to-toe in black, who raised an axe and carved a chunk from a hunter’s throat, draining her hit points and letting her body fall limply on the grass. The druid slowly turned around, looking for another victim, his eyes shot pure black.
“They’ve come back,” said Tripp. “If he died in wave two, then Boxe brought has brought him back. Not just him.”
“Does that mean that Lizzy…”
“Come on.”
They left the Mountmend gates and headed toward the plains. There were fewer weavers than he’d expected, with most of them fighting alongside resurrected players and battling pockets of still-living ones. To the west, Gilla and her Forgestriders were hacking at a weaver, lopping off its limbs until it crashed to the ground belly-first.