by John L. Monk
“You shush too,” Jaddow said, and Frank vanished.
Jaddow was a showoff and a bully. But as humbling a display of power as that was, I knew they’d be fine. Even Jaddow couldn’t break Everlife’s promise to us: we’d never die, and we could give up if things got too bad.
“Where are they?” I said anyway. I didn’t trust Jaddow, Cipher, or the sadistic game designers any more than I could throw them.
“Around,” he said.
“Are they alive?”
“Sure.”
“Unharmed?”
Jaddow smiled. “They’re exactly as you saw them last. If I killed them, they’d be back in a few minutes, but I wanted to talk to you first. Of course, you can join them if you want. Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or you can ask me how your wife’s doing, and what it will take to reach her.”
I felt seized by a nagging doubt previously kept in check. Jaddow acted as if my reunion with Melody wasn’t a foregone conclusion.
“Tell me about my wife,” I said. “Nothing’s changed, has it? Cipher said she’s in Ward 2. I’m supposed to find the ruins.”
“Oh, you suddenly care about your wife again? From what I can see, you seem to have found a new woman. And just how long did you agree to stay in the Swaze Pit, anyway?”
I blinked in confusion. “Rita? She’s just a friend. I love my wife, if it’s any business of yours. And it isn’t. You told me to reach twenty-five, and I did one better. After that, I had plans to find Ward 2. On my own, if I had to. I still might. I don’t need your help.”
Jaddow chuckled. “So, in addition to being a cheater in the game and in your heart, you’re also a worthless little liar. That or you’re too stupid to realize you can’t get there without my help.”
Who the hell did this guy think he was? I loved my wife. And yeah, I’d cheat any game if it meant getting to her. I’d made my vows to her, not Everlife.
Swallow your pride. Ask him.
“Fine,” I said. “Yes, I need your help. What do I do next?”
For the first time, Jaddow’s smug expression faltered. He looked uncertain, or possibly guilty. Then it passed.
“You have two choices,” he said. “Come with me, learn what it takes to make it to Ward 2, and reunite with your wife, or wait for your friends and see if that gets you there faster.”
“What about Cipher?” I said. “How come I’m dealing with you and not him?”
“I must be very careful in what I tell you,” he said in a low voice. “Suffice to say you’ll meet him when the time is right. Cipher isn’t what he seems. He’s manipulative. His motives in helping you are hidden. For all that, he will deliver precisely what he’s promised. You will see your wife again. But take it from me: your service to Cipher won’t end there. Now go on, choose. Are you coming or staying?”
Somewhere in the distance came a faint and steady hum I couldn’t place because of the noise-scattering mist.
“What do you mean service? I’m not serving anyone.”
Jaddow just stood there, giving nothing away. Waiting.
“Is my wife okay or isn’t she?” I said. “He said she was sleeping!”
The humming grew steadily louder.
I wanted to take my newfound powers and head to Ward 2 immediately. The idea of going anywhere with this overbearing ass and his insinuations was more than I could stand.
Almost.
The truth was, he was powerful, and he knew way more than me about this world—more than anyone I’d seen yet, except for maybe Bernard. He also had insights into this Cipher person—said he was manipulative, and motivated by more than high regard for Melody’s gaming career. Paradoxically, Jaddow also said I could trust the man at his word.
But could I trust Jaddow? Did I even have a choice?
The humming had morphed into a sort of swooshing sound.
“You’ll really take me there?” I said. “Straight to her?”
Jaddow shook his head. “I can’t do that. Before a player can advance to a higher ward, they must defeat a bridge guardian in solo combat. What I can do is prepare you. Better than anyone alive. But I won’t coddle you, and I won’t cheat for you. You’ll do everything yourself, and it’ll be enough. You have my word.”
“You keep talking about cheating,” I said, “but you helped us in the forest. The purple mist. Remember?”
At this, he seemed taken aback. “Purple mist? In that forest?”
“Yeah. That was you, right? Helping us?”
Shaking his head, Jaddow said, “Ethan, what I’m about to say is the best advice anyone in this world will ever give you. If you ever see purple mist in that forest, run and don’t stop until you’re clear of the zone.”
The swishing and humming—quite loud now—was making me nervous.
After a worried look around, I said, “Where’s that noise coming from?”
“We’re almost out of time,” he said. “If you say no, my debt to Cipher is paid, and you’ll never see me again. Say yes and we’ll leave now and get started.”
He made a flicking motion over his shoulder and a freestanding black rectangle emerged from the ground.
“What the hell is that?” I said.
“A door. Are you coming or not?”
I didn’t reply. The humming wasn’t humming at all, but rather screaming. The sound was too muffled by the mist to make out who, what, or how many screamers.
Jaddow turned and started walking. “The door will remain open for two minutes. If you’re on the other side before it closes, great. If not, good luck.”
He stepped through and vanished, but the door-thing stayed put.
A second later, Rita cartwheeled out of the sky and slammed into the ground with a sickening whump. A few seconds later, Frank fell to his death beside her. They’d been falling this whole time.
I stared in horror and disgust at their broken bodies, and all that blood. Jaddow, I decided, was a twisted sonofabitch, but my choice was clear.
“I’m sorry,” I told them.
And entered the doorway.
Mythian Final Stats
Player Name: Ethan Crane
Player Level: 26
Next level: 58,726/61,057 XP
Species: Human
Age: 25
Classes: Sorcerer/26
Health Points: 300 (450)
Current Health: 450
Health Regeneration: 150 (175)/hour
Mana: 1010 (1160)
Current Mana: 1160
Mana Regeneration: 505 (530)
Armor: 1/1
Avoidance: .01%
Gold: 276
Unused Class Points: 0
Unused Skill Points: 14
Unused Stat Points: 0
Lives: Infinite
MAJOR ATTRIBUTES: Strength: 2, Agility: 1, Vitality: 30 (35), Intelligence: 101 (106), Comeliness: 1
RESISTANCES: Poison: 17.5 (22.5), Fire: 1 (6), Cold: 1 (6), Acid: 1 (6), Magic: 1 (6), Mind Control: 53 (58), Pain: 1 (6)
PERKS: Summon Apple, Troll Skin
ACTIVE EFFECTS: Griefing Penalty (Rita, Frank), Griefing Protection (Rita, Frank)
WEAPON SKILLS: Melee: 1, Ranged: 1, Hand-to-hand: 1
CLASS ABILITIES: Fire Shield, Flame Lance, Greater Invisible Fist, Greater Lightning Bolt, Greater Zap, Group Shield, Ice Bullet, Invisible Fist, Lightning Bolt, Rain of Fire, Weak Shield, Zap
ACTIVE GEAR: Boots of Health (+5 Vitality), Initiate’s Robes (+5 Intelligence), Staff of Power (+100 Mana), Troll Ring (+100 Health, 50% Fire Damage Penalty), Band of Endurance (Resistances: +5 Poison, +5 Fire, +5 Cold, +5 Acid, +5 Magic, +5 Mind Control, +5 Pain)
Hard Mode
Chronicles of Ethan Book 2
Chapter One
I found myself in a fresh-smelling pine forest. The magic doorway was gone and so was Jaddow. I opened my inner map to find my location, but the map came up blank. The location literally said “UNKNOWN.”
If I were in a new zone—s
ay, Under Town—there’d be a little dot showing my presence surrounded by grayed-out unexplored sections. Here, the gray was there, but not the dot.
“Hello?” I shouted uselessly into the sound-dampening trees.
The forest floor was a deep pack of yellow pine needles and twigs. When I looked up…
“What the hell?” I said.
The sky was a stunning shade of arterial red. Not blue, like Earth, or what I’d come to expect from the Mythian sky. No visible sun, either. The whole of it glowed faintly, easily providing enough light to see by. And yet, despite being red, my surroundings appeared colored correctly.
“Hello!” I shouted again, and again nobody responded.
There was a faint trail through the pine pack, and for lack of something to do, I started walking—warily, for fear of stumbling across something nasty. Or worse: Jaddow.
He’d killed me several times already, and not a minute ago, Rita and Frank, too. Whooshed them miles into the sky with a single word—Shush—and let them fall to their deaths around me. It took a special kind of demented to do that to someone. And power. Every goblin corpse had bristled with dozens of arrows each. He didn’t even have a bow. Some high-level spell, I figured.
“Guy’s a freak,” I muttered and kept going.
No signs of footprints, but that didn’t mean anything. He’d looked like a minimalist outdoors type in his Daniel Boone leathers. I couldn’t track a guy like that through snow, let alone an unfamiliar forest.
In time, the lush green trees of the forest changed to stunted and sickly, then began to thin. The once gentle pathway turned into an official road of reddish gravel. Soon, the forest fell away completely, replaced by a blasted plain of jagged volcanic rock, impassible but for the road, which sloped ever-so-gently downward.
The red sky darkened to an angry bruise and the gravel ended, replaced by bricks of some jet-black stone. In the distance, a shadowy fortress dominated the landscape: soaring battlements, spiky crenellations, and a massive black gate in the outer wall. A single tower rose from the middle, topped with spikes, lending the fortress a sinister look.
To reach the gate, I had to cross a narrow bridge over a moat filled with lava. The heat shimmered off it in waves that quickly had me sweating. It didn’t smell sulfurous, though. A plus.
“Halt and state your name, lest ye be slain,” a vibrato voice sounded when I got to the other side.
I gasped as an armored figure stepped from the deep shadows of the gate. And such armor … Pure black, like the flagstones, like the castle. As I gazed at it, the peripheral world grew dimmer, and I feared I’d gone blind. I glanced away and everything seemed fine again. But when I looked back, the visual distortion returned.
The figure—he? it?—had a sword strapped to its back.
“Hello?” I said.
“State your name, lest ye be slain,” it said again.
“Ethan,” I said.
“Ethan is expected,” it said and began walking to the castle.
I fell in behind it. The huge gate lifted vertically to just above our heads as we passed beneath a massive gatehouse. From the ceiling, a constellation of murder holes gaped down at us, giving me an exposed, spooked feeling.
Where the heck was I? Who would put a castle here? To protect against what, exactly? I considered my new companion, so forbidding in its wall-to-wall suit of armor. Maybe it was chatty?
“Hey,” I said. “Where are we? Somewhere in the Swaze Pit?”
Robot-like, it simply marched.
Ahead, a portcullis of black iron pulled up just in time for us to pass beneath it, and we emerged in a courtyard with a massive stone keep ahead. Mister Metal didn’t bother with the enormous double doors. Instead, it opened a more normal-sized door off to the side that blended almost invisibly with the dark stone.
“What is this place?” I said.
What I wanted to ask was, Where’s Jaddow, but held back from a strange sense of pride. Everything here seemed to convey just how small I was and how great he was. And it was working.
We passed through the door into a wide corridor running right to left. The thing didn’t touch the walls or even gesture, yet light runes flared to life upon our entrance. Directly ahead was a normal set of double doors, ornately carved, but we didn’t approach them. Instead, we went left.
Unlike the castles I’d seen in historical pictures, the walls held no tapestries or shields or even paintings. No rugs on the floor, either. This set my companion’s steps clicking loudly off the black stone as we proceeded.
We passed through a side door into a short corridor then ascended a flight of steps. Then another door, a long hallway, and two more doors after that, followed by another long hallway. After a second set of stairs, the procession of halls and doorways started all over again, and fairly soon I was hopelessly lost.
Chapter Two
When we stopped in front of perhaps the tenth door, my escort said, “Here you may stay. You have access to any room in the keep, and you are encouraged to explore.”
Having finished its speech, it walked away.
“Hey!” I shouted. “What am I supposed to do? Where’s Jaddow?”
It didn’t reply.
With no better choices, I opened the door, went in … and immediately felt that sense of vertigo I’d experienced upon stepping on the binding stone in the Swaze Pit. I also received a game notification:
BINDING UPDATE: Unknown Room.
So far, my castle experience had been free of furniture, rugs, paintings, or anything remotely homelike. Not so in my emperor-sized room. There was a great-big bed in the middle, massive chests of drawers along the walls, gold-framed mirrors, and paintings of dragons, unicorns, elves, and other fantasy creatures. The ceiling was so textured with baroque-styled coffers—brilliantly painted blue and gold—that I found myself staring in wonder. With so much to look at, I almost missed the fact that there were no windows.
There was even a bathroom, with pull-chains for hot and cold running water. I didn’t need a toilet, but it had one anyway. The copper tub—porcelain inside, decorative patina outside—was warm to the touch and smelled of lavender.
Such opulence … Such craftsmanship and detail. I caught my puzzled reflection in a tall mirror inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I knew what he was thinking: was this Jaddow’s castle?
The chests of drawers were empty. When I ran a finger over the top of one, it came away clean. Either the Mythian reality didn’t account for dust or Jaddow had a housekeeper.
I grinned at the thought of Mister Metal traipsing around with a duster.
“Now what?” I said after running out of stuff to be surprised at.
I didn’t need sleep. Jaddow didn’t either, but he’d assigned me a bedroom and—bizarrely—a bathroom with a working toilet. Could Cipher be in a similar room? If so, I was impatient to meet him.
The metal guy said I could explore, so I stepped through the door back into the hallway. I went left and peered around a corner where the hall turned right. There was a door halfway down and another turn about fifty feet beyond that. Feeling like I was sneaking, I quietly padded to the door and pressed my ear against it, but heard nothing.
I almost knocked, then changed my mind and tried the knob. It turned. I pushed the door open and discovered what looked like a private library, empty of people.
Wall-to-wall books on floor-to-ceiling shelves wreathed the perimeter, and comfy chairs of a modern design braced a table near a cold fireplace. The room was lit by luminous orbs that floated around the vaulted ceiling, causing the light to shift ever so slowly. As with my room, there were no windows.
“Wow,” I said and marveled at the rare spectacle of physical books.
Books. As in spines and covers and the forbidden heft of paper. A rarity these days with all the environmental rules. Even without them, everything readable was on Q4, streamable to billions of greedy lenses around the world. These days, people who had real books in their homes probably ha
d paintings and statues and other unnecessary things—like taste and refinement and a classical education. Hard to imagine any of that from Jaddow, which kindled my hope that this was Cipher’s castle, and that I’d finally get to meet him.
I approached one of the shelves. The books were leather-bound and ornate, resembling ancient grimoires, like something out of a…
“Fantasy novel,” I whispered, pulling free a tome with fantasy swordsmen on it, written by someone named David Eddings.
Pawn of Prophecy.
I’d never heard of the author, let alone the book. But flipping through the gilded pages, I felt a historian’s delight at the ancient printing. The first letter of every chapter had a colorful drop-cap with tiny dragons and other fantasy creatures around it. There were also larger, full-page pictures throughout, called plates. These, too, were colorized—many of them illuminated in gold leaf, like ancient bibles from medieval times.
I put the book back and browsed some more:
Master of the Five Magics, by Lyndon Hardy.
The Misenchanted Sword, by Lawrence Watt-Evans.
A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Magician’s Apprentice, by Raymond E. Feist.
Each book had archaic front matter, with copyright information and dire warnings about reproducing or distributing the books. Curiously, the newest was from about eighty years ago.
A funny thing about the library: the books weren’t organized in any sensible way. Certainly not alphabetical. It took me five minutes to find Tolkien’s famous works, but I should have spotted them right away. The leather bindings on those were inlaid with precious metals and gems, by far the most exquisite books in the room. On the front of each was an intricate clasp that looked like a fiery red demon.
I put the book back, searched some more, and discovered the library wasn’t limited to just fantasy. One of the walls held a collection of science fiction, with books like Dune and Heechee Rendezvous and Ringworld, each lovingly bound in leather. The dragons and gothic drop-caps had been replaced by robots, aliens, and spaceships.