I DON’T KNOW why I was so surprised. Thandroot had seemed far too intelligent to be an NPC. Even Grayson, for all of his pomp and fancy British accent, had been as dumb as a rock. Thandroot, on the other hand, had offered a lot of smart suggestions during our little jaunt. Of course, he didn’t know shit about disarming traps.
I picked my way over the slimy tiles and wished there was a way to be resurrected with our boots on. I think stuff moved around in the muck and I stepped on a thorny something or other that was probably going to give me the plague.
“Dying here is the worst,” Karian said.
I turned and nodded at her.
“Eyes front, mister.” Karian pointed.
“What? I wasn’t checking you out,” I protested.
“Whatever. Just keep leading the way. You guys are doing a great job.”
“You like the view, huh?” Oz said.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Karian said.
Thandroot stood near the front of the temple but hung back. He squeezed his nostrils together with his fingers and then stuck his head inside the doorway.
“Is it still poisonous in there?” I asked.
“Don’t know, lad. Haven’t tried to go in yet. But those goblins are long gone,” Thandroot said. “They either ran away, or they went in to get our stuff and died.”
“I got this,” Oz said.
“You’re going in there?” I asked.
“Yeah. Should have let me handle the trap as well,” Oz said.
“Are you also trained in avoiding poison gas?” Karian asked.
I turned to look, but she pointed straight ahead again. “Jeez. I’m just making eye contact.”
“Make eye contact with the little guy,” Karian said. “Speaking of which. Who in the ever-loving hell are you, Thandroot? One of the programmers in the top-secret project? Can you fill us in on what kind of special hell we’re in, and more importantly, how to get out?”
“Not now. Clothes and gear first, answers later,” Thandroot said.
“It’s not gonna work that way,” Karian stomped toward the dwarf. “You’re going to cough up some answers.”
“Yeah,” Oz growled.
“I promise ya,” Thandroot said. “Answers soon enough.”
Then he gave us a wink and ducked into the building.
I couldn’t help it. I crowded near the entryway. I wasn’t sure if I wanted Thandroot to succeed or die again. He had deceived us from the first moment we had met.
“It’s safe. Must have been the wind cleaned it out,” Thandroot yelled from inside. “Found our things.”
He shrugged into his pants and then boots. Thandroot dug around on the soggy ground until he located a pile, picked them up, and carried them back to the entrance.
“You sure it’s safe?” I said.
“I’m still alive,” Thandroot said. “For you, milady.”
Thandroot handed out Karian’s clothing. She barged between us and snatched them from his hand before retreating out of our line of sight again.
“I’m soaking wet. Know how hard it’s going to be to get into these leathers?” Karian fumed.
“Tell me,” Oz snickered.
“Dude,” I gave Oz the universal WTF shrug.
“You guys are all on my shit list,” Karian said as she fought to get her shirt on.
“What did I do?” I protested.
“I don’t know. This is just so damn annoying. We all died. It sucked. And now the little guy over there has been feeding us a line of bullshit since we got here.”
A slithering from behind got my attention. I turned and found that we were about to have company.
“Putridfangs, and a lot of them,” I said.
“Get in here the lot of ya,” Thandroot’s eyes roamed over the oncoming threat. “The door’s open anyway. We can kill two birds and all that. Before those creatures kill us.”
Oz and I dove into the shrine and made for our stuff. My robe was half soaked and dripped water and green slime. I tried to wipe some of it off then I wished I had a few bottles of sanitizer to immerse my clothing and body.
A pair of putridfangs squeezed into the doorway hissing and looking for a meal.
Karian had donned a shirt and her leather chest piece. She piled the rest of her things in her arms and then made for the open entryway in the floor. I couldn’t help but notice her shirt barely covered her butt. Then I looked away before she caught me staring.
With my robe back in place, mace at my side, and the satchel over my back, I checked my bag quickly and found the book, my collection of coins, and the weird little elk figurine.
The heavy iron door had receded into the wall, and now the opening stared back at us. It was four or five feet square, and water ran from the floor, through the hole, into the space below.
“Do you think the goblins got it open?” I asked as I grabbed my staff and hung the mace on my belt.
“Don’t know, don’t care, just don’t want to fight a bunch of those things until I catch my breath,” Karian said as she slithered into her leather pants. “I said no looking, pal.”
I rolled my eyes and looked instead toward the entryway.
A putridfang paused as its tongue tested the air, then slithered into the room with another pair close behind. Then a howling rose as a face appeared in the doorway. Another gray wraith had arrived for the party, and I can assure you she was totally uninvited.
“In we go,” Thandroot stepped onto a set of rusted rungs that led below and then shimmied down.
“Wait,” Oz said in frustration. “When are you guys going to learn to let me go first?”
He stopped at the entryway and looked down.
“Going?” I said as I nearly ran into him.
“Yeah. Just wondering how the passageway below is lit,” Oz said and dropped to the first rung. “Whatever.”
I spun and thought of the frost spell. I had just died, and though the loss of my XP points stung, at least my mana and health bars were full again.
Karian lowered herself into the hole in the floor, and that left just me unless the goblins were hiding under something.
There were too many of them and hitting a single putridfang with the spell would only slow it, allowing the rest to close in. I decided to follow my friends, and we could deal with them if they dropped below. I slipped on the first rung, and my foot shot below. I got my hands out and but it didn’t stop me from nearly slamming into the floor.
“Ouch,” I muttered, found my footing, and took the rest at a slow pace even though the mobs closed on us.
The gray wraith appeared exactly like the last one right down to the black holes where her eyes should have been. I guess it was good to know, although not reassuring, that mobs respawned in the world.
The passageway, like the rest of this entire swamp, glimmered with condensate and slime. The black walls bore murals of creatures I could barely make out in the muck. Could have been angels or they could have been people reaching heavenward. Torches, go figure, burned in sconces at intervals although some sections were in darkness.
“Get ready,” Karian turned and drew her knives.
“Where’s Oz?” I asked.
“Here,” he called from a pool of shadow twenty feet away.
“What are you doing?” I asked Oz.
“Hang on,” he replied.
The gray wraith howled from above. Thandroot moved between us and began to mutter unintelligible words again.
“Are you chanting a spell?” I asked.
Karian smacked my arm.
“What?”
“Let him do his thing if it will stop that wraith,” Karian shot me a sharp look.
“I was curious is all,” I mumbled. “He’s done it before. The magic is completely different than mine.”
“So get a lesson when we’re safe,” Karian said as she buttoned up the front of her pants.
The first putridfang appeared. Face angry and distorted as its disgusting maw opened and slimy
tongue extended. The slug-like creature looked into the hole, saw us, shot forward, and promptly landed on the ground with a splat.
The second one appeared, as did the wraith.
“We should retreat,” I urged. “We can’t risk another explosion in this small space. It may bring the roof down on us.”
Thandroot finished speaking, lifted his hand, and then thrust it forward. The gray wraith recoiled in horror. Her clothing rippled around her as if buffeted by a strong wind. Then her mouth opened as wide as a saucer cup, and she flew away from the opening.
“That ward won’t hold her for long, but it should buy us some time,” Thandroot said.
I hit the putridfang right in his putrid face with the frost spell and plastered his ass to the wall. Karian swept in with both blades and drove them to the hilt into its body where its neck might have been. The putridfang choked, and its lower body beat against the wall. She pulled her blades out and withdrew, leaving the partially frozen corpse to slide down the wall.
My HUD registered an XP gain.
50/800
“Got it!” Oz shouted. “Shit. Hold your breath.”
“Wait. What?” Karian spun and shot him a dangerous look.
The door above us slammed shut and severed the second putridfang who must have thought that falling inside a hole in the floor was an excellent idea.
The putridfang’s head hit the floor, rolled through green water and came to a stop with its bulbous eyes staring at us.
I held my breath for as long as I could. After a full forty seconds felt like an hour to me, I expelled my breath because Oz materialized out of the shadow and held his arms wide.
“Who’s the man?” he said with a shit eating grin.
“Good job, lad.” Thandroot smiled. “Better than my crap job that got us all killed.”
Karian moved like a whip, got Thandroot around the neck, pushed him against the wall, and pressed one of her knives to his neck.
“You’re about to die right now. So start talking.”
25
A PRIEST, AN ASSASSIN, A ROGUE, AND A MAGE WALK INTO A CATACOMB
Realms of Th’loria spent the first three or four game hours slowly introducing its systems, skills, and classes. You didn’t have to choose a class, but by level ten you had an obvious idea which you would like to pursue. Like most players, I knew I thought I knew what I wanted to be at the start and even tried a bunch of different characters, but mage always felt like my favorite.
Once the choice was made, and you hit level ten, the game would allow you to learn other skills, but it did try to narrow your focus down by offering more powerful skills in the job you had put the most time in. For instance, I was happy to learn a combination of destructive spells, as well as buffing enchantments that focused on myself. Going into battle was hard enough when a single arrow could take away half of your life, so having a decent shielding spell went a long way toward improving your chances of survival.
Some spells just didn’t play well together. If you had, for instance, Draedor’s greater life ward you had to continually expend mana to keep the spell in place. That meant you weren’t likely to get off that one big apocalyptic spell that could take out an entire room of mobs. There was always a delicate balance to the game, and there weren’t a lot of wrong choices.
I wish the same could be said for the real version of the game.
Thandroot’s eyes went wide as Karian held the knife against his throat.
“You can kill me if ya like, but I’ll just respawn. You know how this works,” Thandroot said in a flat voice. “So drop the knife, and we’ll talk.”
“Talk now,” Karian said and pressed the blade’s edge against the dwarf’s neck hard enough to break the skin, allowing a line of blood to run along the dull steel.
“Fine. Not like you’re so innocent yourself, eh, Karian? You designed half of this zone.”
“I did not create this shit. I reworked a long lost area that flourished with life,” Karian hissed. “Not whatever this is, and it doesn’t get you off the hook. Who are you?”
“Wait. You designed what now?” Oz asked, and put his hand on his long sword.
Oh shit.
“Let’s all calm down.” I held my hands up in the air hoping to calm some nerves. The last thing we needed was to end up fighting each other in a dungeon.
“I don’t know you except via email, lass.” Thandroot reached up and gently put his hand on Karian’s wrist and pushed it away from his neck. “Read plenty of those over the years.”
“Drop the fake Scottish or whatever accent, Droot, or whatever your real name is,” Oz growled.
“It’s not fake, lad. Though I’ve worked hard to mute it somewhat. I’m actually from Scotland, truth be known. I worked in an office in London, sort of, all remotely.”
“Wait a second. You’re from a European office?” Karian asked in shock.
“Aye,” Thandroot said and eased himself out of Karian’s grip. “Kevin Wimer at your service.”
I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. Kevin Wimer had been a game developer who died in a car crash. He had been one of the lead programmers until a year ago when he passed away.
“You’re full of shit,” I said. “Kevin Wimer is dead. We held a memorial. They named a new zone after him. Wimer’s Reach in the last expansion pack.”
“Oh, I’m not dead. Neither are you. We’re all still alive back in the real world, but that’s where it gets a little more complicated,” Thandroot, er, Kevin said.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. One of the greatest developers at AlgerTech was not only alive, but he was here, with us, and he’d kept that fact secret.
Water trickled somewhere in the distance in a steady drip drip drip, but the passageway had been blessedly quite after the door slammed shut. So when the groan arrived with the clattering like someone had tossed a bunch of sticks in a bag and shaken them around, I didn’t think I had enough expletives to cover how it made me feel. We didn’t have time for this shit. We were about to get some answers and instead were going to have to get into yet another fight.
Worse. If we died here and respawned above, we would not only not have access to our gear but also would face a room full of mobs, assuming the trap above didn’t reset and we all perished in a new discharge of poisonous gas.
“We’ve got company,” Thandroot said.
“Fuck that. Tell us everything,” Oz was the next one to get in Thandroot’s face.
“I don’t know much more than you. I swear it. We’re in a simulation, and we’re not sure how we got here. You say I was in a car accident? Sounds like a cover for the idiots who tested the new VR gear on me but not just the gear. Do you remember the Ziploc bags?”
“The what the hell?” I asked.
“When they put you in the bag. Felt like laying down in Jell-O, yeah?” Thandroot’s eyebrows scrunched together. “I hated that part.”
“Seriously. What are you talking about?” Karian said with a visible shiver.
“Huge dark bags to hold our bodies. Electrical currents passing through membranes attached to our skin to stimulate our nervous systems,” Thandroot said. “Cutting edge tech but works a little too well, eh?”
“No,” Oz protested. “That’s not what happened to us. We were at a party, and that’s the last thing we remember.”
“Yeah. I saw those,” I said, and then something clicked in my head.
We were at a party, and we had a few drinks. Howard had already left to take his CEOness somewhere else, and the room had slowly emptied. But I had stuck around hoping to get a second, as soon as I worked up the nerve, to talk to Karian. She had been chatting with one of the developers in her group, a guy named Mark Thierny. But Mark had been a jerk, got a few too many drinks in him, and he’d started hitting on her.
I shook my head. Why was this just coming back to me now?
It was blank after that until the big white room.
“Wait. We were in the r
oom then we were somewhere else,” Oz said.
I turned because the clacking of sticks got closer but whatever was in the darkness was still too far away.
A clattering of metal on metal. Feet on wet tiles. Grunts of anger.
“Guys,” I tried to warn my friends.
“Sounds like they might have been working on the experiment. Tell me something, do you all have family close to ya?” Thandroot asked.
“Mine live in another state,” Oz shrugged. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“We went downstairs. Into the top-secret area,” I said as the memory came back. “Mark Thiery took us down there, but he was just trying to impress Karian.”
“Mark,” Karian’s eyes blinked rapidly. “Wait. He did. He said he would show us around, but no one could know. Someone else was down there and wasn’t happy. He yelled a lot.”
“It was that asshole Gabriel,” Oz finished.
“It was,” I said. “He said there would be hell to pay. But then he changed his tune and said we should try the experimental stuff.”
“Oh shit. That’s it,” Oz snapped his fingers.
“Things are finally starting to come together,” I said.
But we didn’t have enough time to continue this conversation.
Another clatter of bones. Armor clanking, and voices moaning. Shapes materialized, and I reached for my mace.
“Bad again,” Burp grunted as he and his goblins materialized and sprinted toward us. That explained where they had run off to, and it also explained all of the rattling around.
I should have known because we had faced a few of them an hour or so ago.
Skeletons.
This time it wasn’t just two. They came in a wave closely followed by five or six more.
Rotted creatures covered in the remains of rusted armor. Skin and sinew hanging in clumps from bleached bones. Hobbling, limping, lurching, and wielding all manner of weapons, the undead had come for us.
Suddenly, fighting a bunch of putridfangs didn’t seem like such a bad way to get back to the binding stone.
“Many come,” Burp came to a stop with a clatter of green bodies dressed in armor only slightly better than what the skeletons bore.
SHARDS OF REALITY: A LitRPG novel (Enter the Realm Book 1) Page 26