by Jason Cheek
Almost a day had passed since the Goblins had taken the children. Aidan believed that the children had already been dragged all the way back to BrokenFang Hold for the Warlord’s victory feast. While Ulia had generally agreed with the Master Smith’s reasoning, she didn’t feel like she could take the chance of passing the children in the middle of the night if they were still in the area. Besides, it would be a lot easier to rescue the children from a small band of Goblins than from the invading army’s encampment.
The decision that we came up with together was to go ahead and take the time needed to check the camps on our direct route to BrokenFang Hold. Direct being somewhat of a misnomer since we were forced to follow curving mountain trails and then sidetrack any encampments that we ran across along the way and trust me when I say, nothing about that was direct. While these side trips were in part my decision, the whole ‘running my ass all over bum fuck Egypt’ in the middle of the freezing cold was slowly starting to piss me off. After the second camp, I was swearing under my steaming breath.
What a shit-ass quest! And to think I’d complain about all the running I did in the Insane Druid quest in World of Warcraft or the Fixer quest in Chaos Online. At least the Fixer quest had been fun in and of itself. Who the fuck ever heard of running around for half a day IRL to reach a quest location? I mean really, what the hell were the developers even thinking? Shaking my head in silent frustration, I took a deep breath as I swallowed my anger and focused on running. This quest would have to go to the top of my ‘suck-ass running’ quests of all time.
Even though I complained, the quest at least felt like it had merit. I couldn’t begin to list all of the asinine quests I’d taken on over the years in the various MMO’s I’d played that just sucked all the fun out of the game. Hell, at least saving the refugees from being eaten alive had truly felt like an accomplishment … like something a hero would do. Even the secret add-on quest to save the children had pulled me into its cause which in the end was what quests were supposed to be all about. It was the developer’s way of pulling you into their game … into their story … to make you care about the world you were in. So, even though I complained, I loved the sense of accomplishment and meaning the quests brought into my gaming experience at the same time. Besides, overall the girls and I made a good team. By the time the internal clock on my HUD warned that it was past two in the morning, we’d just reached the top of the last peak overlooking the plateau to BrokenFang Hold. In-between, we’d cleared another four camps off our list without seeing hide nor hair of the captured children.
Clearing the ridge, Ulia immediately scrambled into a jumble of snow-covered boulders. Seconds later Keela joined her, collapsing into the snow on her back panting in exhaustion as I slid into the alcove a step behind her. Gasping for breath, I braced my back against the frozen stone to catch my breath. Feeling the strength slowly return to my rubbery limbs, I scooted around the boulder to kneel next to Ulia’s overwatch position to take in the view below.
The view of House of Kayden’s ancestral home was spectacular. Built into the peak of the mountain itself, the structure was more tall than wide and designed for defense rather than beauty. Ideally sized for a small force to defend. The towers of the grey keep were partly built into the side of the mountain while its formidable walls were crafted directly into the rocky cliff face that rose up above the wide plateau of the pass. Both of which offered great protection against traditional siege equipment. The frozen shelf before the fortress walls was actually the highest and widest point of Fang Pass, which connected the Plains of Atoll to the Kingdom of Larathien and made the fortress somewhat inaccessible due to its unique location.
“You can see the two breaches in the walls from here,” Ulia said, leaning in closer to point out the damaged from the siege. Her voice momentarily rose in surprise as her finger pointed higher. “Look, part of the central keep has even collapsed.”
Sighting down her arm, I saw what she meant. I’d initially missed the gaping holes in the wall on the Plains of Atoll side of the pass, but, now that Ulia had pointed them out, I wondered how I’d missed the extensive damage. Whatever the invaders had used during the attack had collapsed the bottom portion of the wall only. The entire upper half was still intact. The damage to the central keep was even more severe. Although it looked complete at first glance, the front side of the structure nearest to the gate had collapsed into the ground by at least five stories, making the single keep look like two separate buildings with a base of jumbled blocks.
Ducking back into the alcove, I slid down the stone until I was sitting in the snow with my head hanging between my knees in exhaustion. ‘This virtual reality was feeling way too realistic!’ I silently laughed to myself. Thankfully, Ulia had steered our approach through the treeline in the mountains above the pass to keep our approach hidden, which was fortunate since the entire area below was lit-up like stars in the night’s sky from the invading army’s campfires that were surrounded by sleeping bodies. The breadth of which gripped my soul with a coil of fear. It was like looking out over the armies of Mordor from the walls of Gondor … only I wasn’t sitting on my couch in front of a television screen. Seriously, how in the hell were we going to fight something like that?
Various strategies began running through my head until I thought my mind was going to explode as I silently swore in frustration. My mind was like that. Give me a strategic challenge, and it would chew on the problem until it came up with an answer. Still, even if I got every player who’d helped me out the day before on the escort quest, what was that … a whopping 50 people maybe, and all the NPCs from House of Kayden together into one massive force, there was no way in hell we could take on the army below and survive.
‘Fuuuck me!’ I silently screamed in frustration. There was nothing really to do but rest and let my subconscious work over the problem. Who knows, maybe modern warfare hit and run tactics could somehow be used to whittle the force down, but even if we managed to kill three times our numbers, we’d still be outnumbered a hundred to one. Pushing my frustration away, I looked up to see Ulia and Keela looking at me questioningly as I sighed heavily. No way could I deal with that shit right now.
“We need to make camp for the night and rest up before cracking this nut. Think we’ll be safe here?” I tiredly asked, giving the girls a weak smile.
“Safe enough as long as we don’t build a fire. Unless someone was looking for us specifically and knew we were here, there’s no reason a patrol would be on this trail. That is, even if they could find it. The trail is practically invisible.” Ulia said, thoughtfully looking around the alcove. “We’ll need to prepare. It’s going to be a cold night.”
“Yea, we’re going to need to sleep together,” I said automatically, pulling the fur blankets from my inventory as both women’s heads snapped around to glare at me incredulously. Instantaneously the skin on the back of my neck began to prickle as if I could feel the heat of their stares as Ulia’s cold voice cut through me like a knife.
“It will be a cold day in hell before I lay down with you, newfar!”
“Whoa there …” I said holding both hands up apologetically as I quickly tried to think over what I’d just said that had pissed both women off so thoroughly when it suddenly hit me. Looking back and forth between both of them, I stuttered trying to explain what I truly meant. “I didn’t mean sex … I mean, meant … it’s cold, and we’ll need to share body heat to keep warm.” I finished lamely throwing my hands up in frustration as both women’s faces began to darken.
“Ugh … whatever!” Turning away quickly, I wrapped up in my furs and laid down covering my head as I heard Ulia’s angrily growl. “I guess that means I’ll be taking the first watch?” Ignoring the swordswoman’s jab, I triggered the logout sequence as Neysa crawled in my lap, missing the amused look the two women traded as my vision began to darken.
Chapter Two
(Friday, April 25th/Day Five of The World)
I woke up wit
h a splitting headache as my alarm began squawking in my ear. Ignoring the pounding inside my head, I forced my body to move. Swinging my legs to the floor, I held my aching head as I choked down the puke that tried to rise in the back of my throat. Fumbling around blindly with my eyes squeezed shut, I found the bottle of ibuprofen on the third blind swipe. Fishing out four gel capsules and downing them with the entire contents of the quart-sized cup next to my bed, I squeezed my eyes closed praying for the painkillers to hurry the fuck-up and do their job.
It took about five minutes for my head to clear enough for me to stagger to the bathroom and climb into the shower to let the hot water beat the pain away. By the time the hot water started to run out, I was starting to feel almost human again as I cleaned up and got ready for the day. The hot coffee and food made the difference as I leaned against the kitchen counter to wolf down my food.
I knew why I was sick. It wasn’t because I’d been burning the candle at both ends of the stick. Playing late multiple days in a row hadn’t affected me since I began High School. No, my migraine was self-induced from the nightmares that had haunted my dreams all night long as my mind tried to work out ways to take on the invasion army camped outside of BrokenFang Hold. I grimaced as a mental flashback from the night before of me being buried underneath piles of monsters and eaten alive flashed through my mind. Swearing silently, I chided myself mentally pushing the ugly thoughts away as I focused on clearing my head. Stressing out about how I was going to deal with the army ahead of time wasn’t going to help anything.
Sighing silently with my head still throbbing, I cleaned up from breakfast and headed to the computer room to get logged in for the day. I hadn’t felt this bad since my World of Warcraft vanilla days when I was stressing out about coming up with a working strategy for the Molten Core raid. At that time, it had been one of the hardest accomplishments I’d ever completed in an MMORPG. The strategy had taken a month to develop with forty veteran players playing over sixteen hours a day for five days a week to figure out the complex strategies needed to take down all ten bosses in the dungeon. Only this time, I was on my own and dying wasn’t an option.
I didn’t bother going through my emails or checking out the forums. My head was wrapped around somehow making the impossible happen, and I didn’t need any more stress this morning. Slipping on my bodysuit and headgear, I closed the door to the egg and started up the login process:
Running Pod Diagnostic – Complete
Synchronizing controller units - Complete
Neuro Synchronization - Complete
Initializing virtual environment …
Opening my eyes, I was greeted with the early morning light of the predawn sun and the freezing winds whistling through the stony alcove. Removing Keela’s arm that was draped across my chest, I eased out of the pile of furs waking Neysa in the process. The little Dire Wolf jumped onto my chest licking me excitedly as I sputtered at the intensity of her early morning greeting. As I gently pushed Neysa away, I noticed she was visibly bigger than before as I climbed to my feet. Wrapping the heavy fur blanket I’d used for the night around my shoulders, I made my way out of the alcove looking around for Ulia. I found her nearby wrapped-up in a fur blanket against the cold just outside the opening keeping watch. Giving her a silent nod, I joined her with Neysa trailing behind me as my eyes took in the scene below.
The invader’s camp covered the plateau. An area four football fields long and two wide packed with sleeping bodies, burned-out fire pits and shit. Lots and lots of shit … and garbage, I silently gulped trying not to breathe in the stench. Seeing my face, Ulia held out a strip of cloth stifling a yawn.
“The wind changed directions earlier this morning.”
“Fuck me!” I swore out loud, tying the cloth around my nose as Ulia gave me a smirk.
“I figured there was no sense in offering breakfast.”
“Yeah thanks for being so considerate,” I said, gagging as my stomach tried to flip. “What the hell is that stench?” Even with the strip of cloth covering my nose, I couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth. The smell was so bad I almost wished I’d skipped breakfast in the real world. Once again, I was reminded not everything was better with full immersion.
“Take your pick.” Ulia’s face screwed-up in anger as she spat, nodding to the camp below. “That’s the lovely combination of Goblin natural odour and the leftover remains of our people from last night’s feast.” Seeing my head jerk up at her words, Ulia’s face twisted in anguish. “It wasn’t the children, just ...”
“Just more of our people dying horribly at the hands of these monsters.” I grimaced, finishing her sentence as her voice died away in anguish. ‘Dammit, I’d known the answer to that without asking. I needed to think before opening my big mouth.’ I silently swore, running a hand through my hair. The quest log still showed ten and a half hours left on the quest before it expired. While that sounded like a lot of time, in actuality it wasn’t much once you considered we still had several hours left to reach the castle and that wasn’t saying anything about the army we had to sneak past.
Did I really need this quest? Pressing my eyes closed with my fingers, I leaned back against the cold stone as I felt Neysa pressed up against my leg. Whining softly, she nuzzled my hand as I sourly considered the conundrum. It was a fair question but one I well knew the answer to. Besides, I had to recon the castle either way. What was an extra complication of ten children on top of that? I choked back a laugh at the obvious joke … everyone knew rescue quests were the freaking worst. The thought made me think of my ex-girlfriend.
Julie had always accused me of being a romantic at heart, saying that I lived in some made-up fantasy world with ideas and honor that were outdated in this modern era. She’d never understood that I’d rather live in my imaginary fantasy world than the cold-hearted, cheating, backstabbing one that she lived in. Fuck that! There was more to life than just the bottom line. Opening my eyes, I saw Ulia watching me closely with a touch of nervousness as if she were reading my thoughts. Standing up straight, I gave her a reassuring smile.
“Well let’s wake up Keela and get moving. We’re burning daylight.”
“I’m awake.” I heard Keela’s muffled voice gag loudly from inside the alcove. “By the Dark, what’s that unholy stench?” I heard Neysa’s whine of agreement as Ulia called out to her friend
“Yea, the wind changed direction earlier this morning. Might as well get up and get moving. We’re heading out as soon as we’re packed … unless you want to eat breakfast first.”
“I think I’ll pass on that,” Keela yelled back as I began packing Ulia’s fur blanket up with my own back into inventory when a second later I heard her aggravated shout. “By the Dark, I hate Goblins!”
I smiled focusing on breaking camp. It still amazed me to watch the mass of fur disappear into my backpack like it was nothing. Exactly like what I’d pictured a Dungeon and Dragon bag of holding would look like in real life. Chuckling at my nerdy excitement, I silently reminded myself that this wasn’t real-life and not to be a dork as I headed back into the alcove to pack up the rest of the sleeping gear we’d used when I abruptly stopped at the sight of milky-white skin and perky breasts. Keela’s fine, black hair was delicately splayed-out over her bare shoulders as she shrugged into her robe, completely unconcerned about her nudity. The sight of her bare chest made my brain momentarily turn off until a smack on the back of my head brought me back to task.
“What, you’ve never seen tits before?” Ulia asked with a smirk as she brushed past. Feeling instantly self-conscious, I felt my face flush down to my neck as Keela looked up at me questioningly as I jerked my eyes away from the slope of her breasts. The ‘just-woke-up out of bed’ hair look she had going on made my heart race as I hurriedly held up my hands to stop any additional comments. Turning away, I began collecting up the rest of the gear again as Keela asked in an amused tone.
“Is there a problem, Startum?”
“Nope,
no problems here.” I hurriedly replied, still refusing to meet either woman’s eyes as Ulia threw Keela’s still warm blanket to me chuckling. When I glanced back up at Keela to see her reaction, she pointedly arched an eyebrow at me and rolled her eyes as I quickly looked away again in embarrassed.
While both NPCs women were beautiful, up till now I hadn’t thought one way or another about them sexually. Yeah, I know that might sound odd, but what the hell, I’m not the first guy to be attracted to a video game character. It’s actually quite common in the gamer community. Whether or not these women were NPCs inside a computer game, they looked and reacted just like any flesh and blood woman I’d ever met in real life. In defense of my manly man card for not taking note of their sexuality earlier, there just had been too much going on in-between saving NPCs from the northern invaders, building my own town and coming up with new strategies to complete my Nightmare quest for me to take note of anything more … at least until Keela had flashed her rack at me. Now, I suddenly found myself looking at both women differently and, like any other woman I’d ever met, they both knew it too. I could tell by the way they kept brushing up against me as we got ready to move out.
The sexual tension that had suddenly come into play seemed to be helping all of us deal with the stress of the situation, even if it was somewhat distracting. Thankfully, both women gave me a break as we got down to business. Our options were limited, fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon how you looked at it. We could either use the broken front gates that were currently surrounded by the invading army, try going over one of the walls without being seen during daylight hours or use the secret passage that Ulia had used earlier to lead the refugees out to safety. If not for the time limit on the quest for rescuing the children, we would’ve had better options ... but beggars couldn’t be choosy.