by John L. Monk
“Oh, yuck,” she said when a length of blackened skin peeled away with her sock.
“Frostbite,” I said.
Rita nodded. “Your turn.”
My feet, when we checked, were just as bad.
“You should take the potion,” she said.
I shook my head. “Why waste it? I can’t feel it anyway. Ignis! A little closer.”
The fire demon crept closer.
Rita said, “When I’m healed enough, I’ll get the tent ready.”
Shivering in my cloak, I nodded.
As always, our wounds healed so completely it was hard to imagine we’d ever had them.
Considering how late it was, we decided to stay camped until the next day. For safety reasons, we couldn’t bring the fire demon in with us, so I stationed it upwind to heat the air flowing over the tent. It helped, but not enough for anything like comfort.
Unlike every other time Rita and I had shared a tent, this time we clutched each other for warmth. I very nearly revealed my knowledge that she had another tent in her bag. The extra material would have added tremendously to our safety and comfort. Neither of us slept. More like we waited there for morning to happen.
I couldn’t help noticing how Rita felt in my arms, and that it wasn’t so bad. Which, of course, led my mind back to where it should have been, thousands of miles away in Heroes’ Landing.
Once again, I checked on Melody’s status, expecting the same result as the last fifty times, then bolted upright in shock.
“Melody!” I said.
Rita sat up. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s in danger! We have to go back!”
Despite the raging blizzard outside, I tried crawling out, only to be yanked back by Rita’s superhuman strength.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You were just dreaming.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
I reminded her about the guardian demon in Melody’s apartment—how it would teleport her away if she were ever in danger, and how I’d know it happened when it was available again for summoning. Somewhere between that heated lake and here, the demon had expired.
“So she’s safe,” Rita said. “She’s no longer in danger, right? She’ll be on high alert.”
“Yeah, but she’s … You don’t know her. She’s a gamer, like you. Thinks she can handle this world. She has a sword, for the love of … Dammit. I bet she went adventuring. I told her to stay in the city.”
Rita pursed her lips. “You know, Ethan, women don’t usually like being told what to do.”
“Neither do children,” I said, then immediately regretted it. “Sorry, I just…”
I heaved a long, tired sigh and rubbed my neck. I needed to think. Not run off half-cocked.
Rita said, “You came all the way here for her. It was important when you set out and it’s still important. Traveling to Ward 1 will take weeks, even if we flew nonstop. The best way to help her is to finish what you started.”
At such times, the best advice always seems wrong, whereas the worst thing I could do felt easy and right.
“Just sleep on it,” she said. “You can’t go out in this anyway.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Sure you can,” she said and placed her hands on my temples. “It’s easy when you’re friends with a monk.”
Her face was close to mine. Despite everything I’d come to expect from her, I thought she might kiss me. And despite everything I knew about myself, I didn’t pull back.
I started to say something. Then her eyes flashed red, and invisible fingers of soothing warmth swept through my body, carrying me softly into oblivious slumber.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I woke up alone, warmer than before, but achy and stiff. Crawling out of the tent, I squinted at the clear sunshine illuminating this side of Mount Rage. There was a steady breeze, but nothing like the previous day’s gusting. The storm, it seemed, had broken.
“Rita!” I yelled uselessly. She was nowhere to be found.
When I looked at the fire demon, it was sitting with its arms behind it like a child, looking bored and much put-upon.
“Begone,” I said, and it disappeared with a hiss.
The day was new, but the previous night’s worries came back in force. Melody had been forced to flee someone or something—spirited away to a “safe place,” though I knew not where. And there was nothing I could do about it.
After a maddening twenty-minute wait, Rita appeared as a dot in the sky high up on the western slope. She saw me and waved. Less than a minute later, she landed lightly beside me.
“Hey there, sleepy pants,” she said.
“What did you do to me?” I said.
Smiling mysteriously, Rita said, “Not all monk skills are combat-based. We have some utilitarian abilities.”
I gazed back the way she’d come. “What were you doing up there?”
“That’s just the way I came back. If we go that way”—she pointed to the east—“the wind picks up something fierce. About a thousand feet up, there’s an entrance.”
NEW LOCATION: HALL OF HEROES
EXPLORATION AWARD: 10,000 EXPERIENCE POINTS
LOCATION FLAGS: NO-PVP, NO-EATING, NO-DRINKING
We stood in a huddled courtyard carved into the rock of the mountain with no easy way to reach it other than flight. The wind had died to nothing. Thirty-six statues of heroic people lined up on either side of two massive stone doors, both of which were covered in magical runes. Beneath each statue was the name of a hero class in Mythian.
“What the heck’s a shadewalker?” I said. Though they were all listed in the manual, nearly half of them were missing descriptions.
“Ever meet an enchantress?” Rita said, staring at the carving of a scantily clad woman holding a wand.
I shook my head. “I wonder if being half naked is a requirement.”
“They’re probably based on comeliness,” she said. “Always wondered why comeliness was a major stat.”
I glided through the air to the doors. Up close, they looked far too heavy to push or pull. Above the doors, carved into the triangular architrave, were these words:
“HEREIN SLUMBER THOSE FOR WHOM TIME ITSELF HATH BECOME A BURDEN. TROUBLE NOT THESE TIRED HEROES, LEST YE BE SLAIN. RESTLESS SOULS BE WARY!”
Rita landed lightly beside me. “Gets right to the point, doesn’t it?”
“Very pointy. If we go in there, we get slayethed.”
Rita sighed. “Probably not immediately. Guarded by monsters, I bet. Still, there’s some good news.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
Rita giggled. “We lucked in with the no-eating and drinking flags. If the snow angel’s Hard Mode, he won’t die of starvation.”
I smiled. “Or wake up looking for snacks.”
We stared at the doors awhile in thought. When that didn’t do anything, I cast Mighty Shield on myself.
“You may want to stand back,” I said. “If I die, you’ll have to fly to Eureka and get me.”
“Why don’t I do it? I can fly without items.”
I shook my head. “Aspect of the Swami. If it’s just damage, I should be able to survive at least five hits.”
Rita nodded reluctantly and flew to the edge of the platform.
As a precaution, I pulled one of the swords we’d looted from the Awful Calamity and touched it to the door on the right. Other than the faint tink of steel touching stone, nothing happened. Feeling slightly foolish, I gave the ten-thousand-pound door a gentle nudge. When nothing happened, I shoved harder.
Over by the ledge, she yelled, “Push the runes with the sword! The sword!” In case I didn’t understand, she pantomimed what rune-pushing looked like.
I poked one of the runes with the sword, then relaxed when I didn’t explode or catch fire.
“Turn it like a key!” Rita yelled, then pantomimed twisting a sword in the air like a key.
Exasperated, I shouted, “Do you want to do this?”
> Rita shot through the air and landed beside me.
“You’re so hopeless,” she said, then began poking and prodding the door with her bare hands. “Let’s try pushing. One, two, three—go!”
She slammed against the door before I was ready.
I threw my shoulder into it, but it wouldn’t move no matter how hard we pushed.
“Ugh,” she said, giving up. “Quite the little puzzle.”
Frustrated, trying not to get angry, all I said was, “Yeah.”
“We just gotta figure it out. Hold on, lemme try something.” She stood back and spread her arms wide, palms up in welcome.
“Friend,” she said ominously in a deep voice.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Friend? Really?”
“It’s from Lord of the Rings,” she said. “Didn’t you read it?”
I pointed at the writing along the top. “What about that?”
Rita’s lips moved as she silently read: Herein lie those for whom time itself hath become a burden. Trouble not these tired heroes, lest ye be slain. Restless souls be wary!
“Tired heroes,” I said thoughtfully.
Rita nodded. “Something about that.” Then her eyes widened. “Got it! Come here.”
She flew over to a statue of a man holding a sectional cube etched with intricate tracery. The word Diabolist was written on the pedestal.
“The key’s in that sentence,” Rita said. “Trouble not these tired heroes.” She poked the diabolist. “We have to trouble them. You know, get them mad, wake them up. Come on, help!”
For lack of alternatives, I began poking the statue while Rita shouted insults at it.
“Lizard breath! Dog humper! Noodle head! Just gonna sit there taking all this? I’m troubling you! Come on, ya big baby! Demons are stupid! Double trouble, your mother’s rubble!”
I started to laugh. She looked so serious.
Rita rounded in anger. “You’re not even trying!”
“Fine,” I said, then faced the statue. “You, sir, are the worst statue I’ve ever seen. See? This isn’t the way. I mean it was a good idea and all, but…”
Rita sighed. “What about that restless souls stuff? The heroes inside are supposed to be sleeping, right? Which sort of implies it’s possible to go in and disturb them.”
I nodded slowly. “But if we can’t get in…”
We looked at each other at the same time.
Rita said, “We need to be asleep. Forever, like the snow angel. Assuming he really is inside.”
Feeling like a fool, I faced the doors and cast Seek, then thought snow angel.
As had happened near the Ward 2 bridge, a dotted line appeared on my local map. This one stretched directly ahead through the doors.
“Answers one question,” Rita said when I told her.
“And leaves a whole lot more.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rita resisted the idea that the only way in was to put ourselves to sleep forever. I did too. The chief reason being: neither of us knew how to wake ourselves back up again.
Desperate for an alternative, we spent the next several hours beating the doors, kicking them, firing spells at them, and generally wasting a lot of time to no good effect. Frequently, Rita’s exertions forced her to suck in gobs of oxygenated air from her bag just to keep standing.
Nightfall came, and with it a dangerous drop in temperature. It had to be minus twenty, though with no wind, thankfully. Tucked away in the carved-out cliff face, we appeared to be in a storm hole of sorts.
We stationed Ignis next to a statue close to the door, heating it. Though we still needed to bundle up, the temperature near the makeshift radiator was bearable.
For the first time since Hard Mode, we didn’t have to eat or drink anything to maintain full vitality. A welcome change, as we were all out of cheese and baguettes and were sick of perk food.
Due to the high altitude, sleep didn’t come easily. Rita offered to knock me out again, but I said no. It wasn’t right that I should sleep while she tossed and turned.
Sometime around midnight, I was alerted by a flickering light outside the tent. I nudged Rita, but she was out cold. My guess was she’d been put to sleep, and I thought I knew who’d done it.
I found Cipher sitting in one of our two camp chairs near the fire demon, whose color had changed from orange to the ghostly blue favored by gods and fiends. I didn’t remember either of us putting those chairs out before turning in.
“Ethan,” Cipher said in a frail, quavering voice. “Come sit with me a bit.”
I sat down and looked at him. Before, he’d been old and gaunt in an undertaker sort of way, yet possessed of an inner vitality. The man beside me now was hunched over and frail, aged in a way almost never seen in a world where people destroyed themselves at seventy. He looked to be nearly a hundred years old. Even the fire seemed paler than before.
“What’s happened to you?” I said.
Cipher issued a thin chuckle that turned into a fit of dry, wracking coughs.
“Too many things at once,” he wheezed. “Allow me a moment.”
He coughed some more, then took a minute to catch his breath. I had so many things to ask him—primarily if he knew what had happened to Melody.
“You may ask about your wife now,” he said weakly.
“So you know she’s in trouble. What happened? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” he said. “The Crimson Sigil tried to capture her, then lost her when your demon spirited her away. Aushiel—a very powerful demon, indeed. Almost unbalanced. All for naught. Melody was caught soon thereafter. For leverage! They plan to force you into revealing your so-called leveling secrets. A man named Greenie Red has been spinning quite the tale about you.”
I gnashed my teeth in frustration. If I ever saw that guy again …
“Is she okay?” I said. “Is she in a dungeon?”
Cipher shook his head. “Not a dank prison with bars and rats and torture devices, if that’s what you mean. Presently, she’s confined to a tower in the Crimson Sigil stronghold. They hope you will try to rescue her.” He chuckled again, though without coughing. “The sorry fools … Never fear, Ethan. After our developer friend fixes the karma system, I’ll set her free and send her to you as promised.”
Something occurred to me. “How do you know about code and developers?”
It might have been my imagination, but Cipher’s visage appeared to change. He looked around cautiously, as if for eavesdroppers.
“Jaddow was quite the technologist in life,” he said. “After we met, he told me many things about your world: its history, culture, and of the magic called science that created this world. I’m afraid I found it all quite fascinating, and I pestered him something fierce. Now, if you have no more questions, I’ll tell you why I’m here. I need—”
“Oh, I have questions,” I said. “You appeared here out of nowhere. How come you can’t teleport my wife to me?”
“The karma hit would obliterate me, that’s why.”
Before I could reply, Cipher doubled over in a fresh spasm of coughs that lasted nearly two minutes. Near the end, he pointed a shaky finger at me. Well, no, not exactly. He was pointing at my finger.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Give me your ring, there, and I’ll explain it better. That and much more. Ah, but too much? We shall see.”
Mystified, I gave him my new green ring and shivered at a sudden feeling of vulnerability. When he put it on, his face and stature went through a remarkable transformation. Just like that, he looked thirty years younger.
“Ahhhh,” he said, straightening his back and breathing in deeply. “Ten thousand points of karma, freely given! My dear, Ethan, I cannot thank you enough. You’ll be fine, of course. Even after all the little hits you’ve taken with your human inventiveness. You’re so new to the game, you have tens of thousands to go before you’re in any danger.”
“So that’s why you looked so old? How did you lose your karma?”
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Cipher’s laugh was much stronger this time. “Too many ways to count. But I’ll give you an example. Remember when you found that sorcerer skill book in Under Town?”
I nodded.
“Very useful for leveling, hmm? I thought so too—which is why I put it there. Gods and fiends exercise our power in the world through the use of karma, much as you use mana. The more self-serving, the more it costs. Giving you that book—which you earned in battle—was but a modest karma hit.” He frowned, and his voice dropped an octave. “My more overt actions cut far more deeply. One simple chat with Myrialla, the Dryad, drained me tremendously.”
“She told me about that one,” I said. “Can anyone beat her without help?”
“Probably not.” He shrugged. “Maybe? Hard to say. Humans are curiously surprising sometimes, though usually not.”
“What other ways have you helped me?”
“More recently, I created an unseasonal snowstorm in southern Ward 2. This allowed you to track someone who needed tracking, which eventually led you here without me telling you anything. One thing I can say is this person has a note hidden in his—or her—pocket.” He smiled, and his eyes blazed with excitement. “I do love a mystery, you know. Part of my imperative. But that snowstorm … I’m afraid it took quite a bit out of me. Almost too much.”
Cipher held up his hand with the Band of Karma, turning it this way and that with a loving expression.
“Placing this ring in that silver chest,” he said, “cost a third of what I got back. A good trade, wouldn’t you say?”
“Wait a minute, you put that there?”
He nodded. “And I’m about to do us one more favor. If this one kills me, so be it. I’d rather risk death than spend another eon a prisoner to my own powers. Are you ready?”
With a feeling of foreboding, I said, “What are you going to do?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“I’m going to give you information,” Cipher said.
A letdown. I’d hoped he would blow the doors off the Hall of Heroes so I could find the snow angel and finish the quest.