by John L. Monk
“Did it touch you?” Frank said.
She shook her head. “It left me alone. The others acted like they’d seen the scariest thing ever. A couple of them threw their spears but nothing was there. Then they all ran off with the purple smoke chasing them.”
“You say it chased them?” I said.
“I don’t know what else you’d call it. Oh, and when I looked around, the two it snagged earlier were gone.”
“Did you see anyone there?” I said. “You know, another player?”
Rita shook her head.
“Maybe there’s another monster in the woods,” Frank said. “Something that only eats bugbears. A psychedelic smoke monster.”
Rita said, “It didn’t actually eat them … I think.”
Frank said, “Maybe it was the deathtrap.”
Rita shook her head. “I didn’t die.”
“A mystery then,” I said. “So long as it’s behind us, I don’t care what it was. How long till the Swaze Pit?”
Rita said, “Beyond the forest, about twenty miles. Bernard said we’d come to a deep pit filled with mist. Not glowing, just normal. Said we couldn’t mist it—I mean miss it.”
“This game sure likes mist,” I said.
Rita made a noncommittal sound and we continued in silence.
The forest had started to thin out, and the brightening in the sky finally turned into an actual dawn I could get behind. After that, we moved briskly. Then—like the parting of a curtain—the vegetation went from lush and verdant to scant and thorny.
“We’re definitely in a new zone,” Rita said. “Sort of jarring, actually. They didn’t even try to smooth the transition.”
“Devs probably paid by the hour,” Frank said derisively, shaking his head.
I stared at them like they were crazy. “What the heck are you talking about?”
Rita gestured at the sky and the rocky scrubland around us. “We just left a luscious forest full of vegetation, with deer and chipmunks and everything else. Now it’s suddenly a desert. Look at those thunderclouds! Whoever designed the geography was just going through the motions.”
“The change should be seamless,” Frank said. “You don’t put a desert next to a forest. Everyone knows that.” He barked a laugh. “It rained all day yesterday!”
“So disappointing,” Rita said.
“Paid by the hour,” Frank said again.
They kept talking about it, complaining about bugbears now—how pointless it was for them to attack us, only to run away from mysterious smoke.
“Deus ex machina,” Frank said.
“Gesundheit!” Rita said, and they both broke down in fits and giggles. When I didn’t join in, they giggled harder.
No, I didn’t believe for a second we’d been rescued by shoddy game design. Haunted smoke wasn’t exactly an arrow through the neck with a note, but it was just as effective in steering me to where Cipher and Jaddow wanted me. Being torn apart by an army of bugbears would have forced me to come back from my binding point in the city.
Frank and I might not have been good runners, but all of us could walk forever without rest. The dreary terrain slipped past, and we still hadn’t seen any goblins. It seemed the game liked to keep its creatures confined to certain areas: salamanders in Under Town, bugbears in the forest, goblins in the Swaze Pit. And just what the heck was a Swaze Pit, anyway?
With every step, the sky grew darker with storm clouds that never rained. In time, a sour smell wafted our way, like a million unwashed bodies.
“What the heck is that?” Rita said, covering her nose.
“Pretty sure its goblins,” Frank said thoughtfully. “The game’s warning us to turn back now because, you know: evil ahead.”
“Couldn’t they put up a sign or something?”
“Not very RPG-like,” he said.
A while later, we received a notification:
EXPLORATION AWARD: The Swaze Pit, 500 EXPERIENCE POINTS
The road died in the middle of nowhere, replaced by a tread-worn track through the desolate wasteland. What sun we’d enjoyed disappeared behind thick cloud cover that hung low as if in high mountains. As the stench grew stronger, the area turned hazy, limiting our visibility to a few hundred feet.
“Are we going downhill?” I said at one point.
Rita nodded. “I think so.”
The path continued to slope, the haze thickened, and visibility dropped to maybe a hundred feet. Overhead, the sky was a dull gray helmet, and the mist dampened our footsteps crunching on the sand and rock.
I strained my ears listening for who knew what. Goblins, I supposed. Or wyverns. If there could be bugbears, there could be anything. I hadn’t even heard the term bugbear until last night.
“What’s that?” Frank said, pointing ahead.
We stopped at a stick hut covered in animal hides, about ten feet in circumference.
“Hello?” Rita called out.
No one replied.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“You should go look,” Frank said to Rita.
Rita rolled her eyes and approached the hut. Frank and I followed cautiously behind her—me with a spell ready to go, him armed with cowardice and good intentions. There was an opening on the far side draped with a deer hide. Skulls and bits of bone dangled from strings around the opening.
“Goblin decor,” Frank whispered.
When Rita reached out to push the flap aside, the bones rattled against each other like a discordant xylophone, suggesting a more utilitarian function: a doorbell, or possibly an alarm.
“No one’s here,” she said.
“What about treasure?” Frank said.
Rita stepped aside so Frank and I could look. Sure enough, it was empty. Well, mostly. There was an animal skin rug and nothing else.
We left the hut behind and kept going. Soon we found another hut, also empty. Not long after that, another empty hut, and then another. Other than being empty, the huts were all of the same stick and hide design. As we proceeded, they appeared more frequently—about one every fifty feet.
Rita raised a cautioning hand as we approached another one. We must have been too loud because the flap flew open and a strange green creature ran out waving a rusty saber. In his other hand was a ram’s horn. It was also a horn horn, and we found that out when he held it to his lips and blew. Pretty loud, too, and startling after an hour of mostly silent walking.
“Get him!” Rita shouted.
It took a beat to realize she was talking to me.
As I decided between Lightning Bolt and Flame Lance, the creature dashed out of my thirty-yard range blowing its horn like a kid with a new toy.
“Well, that did it,” Frank said. “Unless this mist turns purple and scary, I think we’re goners.”
“So let’s go,” Rita said, heading in the opposite direction. She moved quickly, though not too fast for us to keep up. The huts came less frequently, but we began to see other structures: low stone walls we had to crawl over, carts and wagons with spikes all over them…
“Slow down a little,” Frank said when we’d crawled over our third wall and hadn’t seen a hut in about five minutes. “I think we lost them.”
“Anyone know where we are?” Rita said.
“No,” I said, “but we can always head back the way we came. Or choose a different direction. But first things first.”
Rita looked at me sideways. “Which first things?”
“We’re here to fight and level up.” I pointed at Frank. “And he wants treasure. If we can’t do that, we may as well go back to The Slaughtered Noob and get drunk.”
As I said it, I found myself smiling at a new realization: getting drunk wasn’t as appealing as it once was. My old life seemed so remote now I could barely recognize it, and I didn’t mind at all.
“Or,” Frank said, interrupting my thoughts, “we can deal with that little guy right there.”
As one, Rita and I turned to look.
A curious little go
blin clumped out of the mist leaning on a gnarled staff. The staff had a horned skull on top with colored feathers dangling from the antlers, and they flopped around when he shook it. Angrily, he shouted at us in a strange, twittering language.
“Zap it!” Rita said.
“Hold on,” I said. “First off, it’s clearly a he, and he’s not doing anything. He’s just mad at us. We’re probably trespassing.”
Rita said, “I thought we were here to kill stuff.”
“Well yeah, but he looks like a person. He even talks. We should wait to see what he does.”
Frank stared at me like I was crazy. “Are you kidding? It’s not real. It’s a lucid!”
The goblin shouted something and shook a green middle finger at us.
“I think it understood you,” Rita said quietly. “Say something else, Frank.”
Frank gaped at her. When he looked at me, I nodded encouragingly.
“Fine,” he said and cleared his throat. “Um … uh … hello there!”
The goblin stomped his foot and yelled something back. Then he made a series of suggestive motions indicating what we could do with ourselves. After that, he began chanting in a much lower voice that raised goosebumps all over my body.
“What the…?” Frank began.
“Ethan,” Rita said, “I really, really, really think you should zap it.”
“I need to get closer first.”
“Then go,” she said.
I started forward just as the goblin slammed his staff down. He was small, as was his staff, but the ground shook as if from a mighty blow. He slammed it again and the ground shook again. Again he slammed the ground, and again everything shook.
No longer chanting, the goblin smiled a toothy grin … and that’s when I knew I should have zapped him long ago.
From out of the mist behind it came an enormous thing that rushed toward us. A little like a giant or fantasy ogre, it was constructed of boulders all stuck together. It was also about fifteen feet tall.
Rita dashed from behind me, heading right for it, and Frank shamed me by following her.
“Come on, man!” he shouted.
She soared through the air in a Cricket Kick, smashing the thing in its granite chest and rocking it back. It swept a powerful arm down at her, but Rita was faster, narrowly escaping with a sideways tumble.
Frank cried out in supplication, and a beam of holy white light stabbed out of the sky. Other than making the thing brighter for a few seconds, nothing happened.
My attempt focused on its legs. If I could harm one of them, it might slow the thing down. Flame Lance seemed like a good bet, being my most damaging spell, but it splashed harmlessly over the creature like water.
Next up: Lightning Bolt. That brought forth a groan, and it staggered slightly. Rita landed a blurred series of whaps with her fighting batons into the other leg, and the creature staggered even more. When I smashed it in the leg with an Ice Bullet—critical hit—it stumbled and fell.
Rita leaped on its back and proceeded to pound its lumpy boulder head—a bumpy ride as the thing slammed her with its flailing arms. Frank was quick on the uptake, sending beam after blue beam into her after every hit, healing her wounds.
Having learned not to cast Lightning Bolt while someone was touching a target, I used Ice Bullet whenever it came off cooldown.
After maybe five minutes of this, the thing shuddered spastically and crumbled into a small hill of rubble.
ENEMY DEFEATED: Lesser Earth Elemental, 5,000 EXPERIENCE POINTS (SHARED)
“Flame Lance!” I shouted, blasting the astonished goblin who’d run into range after the monster died. My lance caught him square in the chest, setting his grubby clothes on fire but not killing him.
Rita bounded from the rubble mound in a Cricket Kick, knocking the goblin down. Then she stomped its head like she’d done to that bugbear back in the forest.
ENEMY DEFEATED: Goblin Shaman, 3,000 EXPERIENCE POINTS (SHARED)
Chapter Forty
“Elemental, twenty-eight hundred points!” Frank said. “The shaman was fifteen hundred. I just leveled!”
“That’s odd,” I said. “They both say more for me.”
He waved it away like a non-issue. “Penalty for you two power-leveling me. All games have that. Still great XP.”
Rita dusted herself off and joined us. “That thing hits like an avalanche. If I’d taken three in a row, I’d be walking back from the city right now.” She shook her head. “Hard to get a good hit in, the way it bounced around. Your heals helped with the pain, so I could at least think straight. Good job.”
“Zeal’s nearly dry,” Frank said, looking at me. “How are you on mana?”
I checked my sheet. “I can probably keep going if they come onesie-twosie. I’m also about to level. For my next spell, I think I’ll try something more kinetic in nature.”
“Good idea,” Rita said. “I need more help. Your little flame thing only warmed it a little. Cooked the heck out of that shaman, though.”
I hated that the creature might have suffered. Some people thought lucids were as real as people. Which, considering I was technically a lucid now, meant there was little difference between us.
Frank nudged me. “Relax, man. The things come back every month. Everyone says so. The goblins know the score, and sometimes they even win. When they do, they roast our bodies and eat them. They love this stuff.”
I thought back to that grinning shaman. He had seemed to be enjoying himself…
“Come on, guys,” Rita said, “let’s move. We should be able to farm them just like Under Town.” She laughed quietly. “XP’s amazing here. We’ll level like crazy. Oh yeah, I’m ten now. You guys are gonna die when you see my new move.”
We set off in a direction away from the huts. When the ground started to slope upward, we found a spot and waited an hour for our spirit, mana, and zeal to regenerate back to full. Rita’s took longer than mine, having hit the thing nonstop after mounting it. My little Ice Bullets only used 30 mana a pop.
When we finally reached full, we returned to where that shaman had been and kept going. Once again, the huts became more numerous, then bigger. Then we came across a huge hut surrounded by about ten smaller ones.
As we decided what to do, a massive rock flew out of the mist. It would have taken off Frank’s head if not for my 200-point Group Shield, which—according to my combat log—soaked 40 points of damage.
“Take cover!” I shouted.
We ran to the big hut as more rocks pounded around us. Another 40 points disappeared from the shield before we were clear.
“You guys okay?” I said.
“Yeah. Now what?” Rita said, peeking around the curved side.
I opened my mouth to answer, and a saber cut through the hut and along my ribs, drawing off another 20 points from my shield. Rita’s haste tattoos flared red as she grabbed the blade with both hands and cut a bigger gash in the side.
A female goblin poked her head out and screamed.
“Hai ya!” Rita shouted and crushed her skull with a fast jab. The goblin’s face literally caved in, and the blood spray caught me square in one eye.
Green hands tore the hole wider. A horn-tipped spear finished my shield and stabbed into Frank’s shoulder.
Frank fell back, already healing himself as I brought my will to bear:
“Flame Lance!”
“Lightning Bolt!”
“Ice Bullet!”
These spells were delivered back-to-back through the opening, drawing howls of rage and pain.
“Woohoo!” Rita yelled and hopped through the tear.
Frank and I shared a glance, and then he jumped through.
Not to be outdone when it came to bad ideas, I followed in after them.
Total chaos inside. Green bodies, glowing red knuckles, and little flashes of holy blue light lit the space like a club scene from my bachelor days. There could have been ten goblins or twenty for all I knew. One came close and go
t Greater Zapped for its trouble. Flame Lance came off its one-minute cooldown, and I sent it roaring through the middle of the brawling mass of bodies.
Kill notifications came in too quickly to track.
Just as I determined I hadn’t hit Frank or Rita, a sword ran me through the back, knocking me down from 200 health to 40, dropping me to my knees. In the dim light, I saw it sticking through my side dripping blood. I twisted sideways when the goblin jerked it out, and that snagged another 25 points.
My friends saved me: Rita’s fists flashed red and the goblin’s head caved in from a vicious punch.
Sudden warmth. Euphoria suffused my whole being, and my vision pulsed blue. Then came a game notification I hadn’t seen yet:
HEALED TO FULL: Lesser Mending (185 Health Points)
So focused was I on the healing message, I almost missed seeing a goblin with a glowing sword swinging at me.
“Lightning Bolt!”
The other goblins screamed at the noise and flash, and the sword wielder died—but not before slicing me across the shoulder for 20 health.
HEALED TO FULL: Minor Balm (20 Health Points)
Frank was really dishing out the healing. Despite the danger, I wondered how he could tell both my location and damage in all the confusion.
The hide flap opened and natural light flooded the tent. At first, I was afraid another batch of goblins would come barreling in. But no, the ones inside were fleeing. I shot a Flame Lance after them and was rewarded by terrified screams and another kill notification.
Rita and Frank started to give chase and I shouted, “Guys, wait!”
Turning as one, they regarded me with eyes wild with excitement.
“There’s too many,” I said. “We got lucky, but we need to rest. Two hours for my next Group Shield. It’s too useful to go without it.”
From deep in the mist, we heard the familiar pounding of a shaman’s summoning—more than one, it sounded like.
Rita nodded reluctantly, and we slipped away in the opposite direction.
Chapter Forty-One