by Jeff Sproul
“You did great today,” said Erica. “I doubt we would’ve gotten that Glasser guy otherwise.”
“I’m hugely thankful for your part in that fight,” Riley spoke up.
“Yeah, Riley owes his powers and that item all to you!” said Carla. “You should definitely hold that over his head forever.”
“Nah, I’m not like that,” Todd chuckled.
“I would totally be,” replied Carla.
It didn’t take long for Todd to dig a tunnel further out into the city, just beneath the streets. He closed up the ground behind them and opened up more ground ahead. Soon-enough, he opened a hole into the sidewalk above. Each of them walked up into the street, and noticed several NPC pedestrians looking their way, but still continuing about their business.
“I really appreciate you guys letting me come back with you,” said Tyler, who had stuck with them ever since they’d saved him from Glasser.
“No problem, glad we could help,” said Laura with a warm smile.
“Well, I’ll never forget it, it means a lot,” said Tyler. He gave them all a nod. “Thanks again, good luck and all. Later!” He turned and headed off on his own. They’d found out earlier that he was a native to Gargantuan City as well, so it was likely he had an idea on how to return to his spawn point from where they were.
“Good luck to you as well!” Seth called to the guy as he walked away.
“Alright, let’s get back to the bunker and rebuff,” said Laura, taking the lead once more.
“I’m not a huge fan of that zone,” said Erica. “I’ve only ever found two spots in that entire region, that have any sort of decent plant-life.”
“Yeah, some regions are going to be better for certain powers, than others,” said Riley. “It’s really open, so it’s easier to see enemies and avoid their attack, but I guess the enemies use broader attacks because of that.”
“I’m with Erica on that,” said Todd. “I guess I helped a little with the sand-barriers, but I miss moving solid ground. I can’t attack with sand.”
“Well, we obviously didn’t know about the poor conditions for your guys’ powers before heading in there originally,” said Laura. “So just stick it out until we use all the chalk and then we can find somewhere that’s better for everyone.”
“That’s going to be harder to do,” said Riley. “A lot of the higher level zones are specifically made to be harder to deal with. We’ve got a party of eight, so we’re just going to have to deal with what we can. I’m all for switching zones if that’s what everyone wants to do, but with an eight-person group, we’re going to find that some of our powers won’t do well in the zones we need to hunt in.”
“We’ll have to see what’s around, and what we can access,” said Laura. “When I get home tonight, I’ll dig around the internet and see if I can find more options.”
“I just can’t believe I’m still powerless,” Seth groaned. “Chase got powers before I did!”
“Chase spent a lot of extra time searching for powers,” said Brenda. “Have you been going around buying random useless crap from shops in other cities?”
“I guess you have a point,” Seth sighed.
Chase glanced over with a smirk, his cybernetic eye still glowing, but he didn’t say anything.
There wasn’t much activity on the streets, other than the usual NPCs that walked around, and drove various types of vehicles. It was a relatively short walk to return to Bunker 7.
Laura was still at the head of the party as she reached the doors first and pushed them open. She remembered how Chase’s little robot had pushed those very same doors open earlier, with much difficulty. It gave her a smile as she stepped into the bar area of Bunker 7.
Seated around the bar and lounge area, were two dozen other players, which was a normal amount of people to be around at this hour.
What wasn’t normal, was that none of them were talking. All eyes were on the center television behind the bar.
Laura’s eyes found the TV and her footsteps slowed. The words ‘breaking news’ were written across the bottom. One of the news anchors, Susan Graff, was sitting behind a desk, her eyebrows lifted as she spoke. “For those just tuning in, here’s another replay of the video that’s making Sigil Online players think twice before stepping outside. Please watch.”
The rest of Laura’s group filed into the room as the video started.
“What’s going on, why’s everyone—” Riley spoke, but was quickly cut-off.
“Shh!” Laura said as she silenced him and pointed to the television across the room.
“What’s going on?” Carla whispered from behind Laura and Riley as she stepped around to the side to watch the video.
“Just watch!” Laura said urgently in a whisper.
The video showed a black rock. There were pink and red lines running through some of it. Then, the camera angle lifted and two hands could be seen resting on the rock, as if someone was peeking over it.
About a hundred feet away stood a player with blonde hair and a blue jacket. He lifted his hand and with shaking fingers, he tapped rapidly at the air. The player nearby must’ve been in his party, because the name ‘Samuel’ could be seen above the player’s head, along with a health bar that was a little lower than fifty percent.
The sound of a player shouting came from the speakers of the TV. The player with the video feed turned his head.
Laying on the black stone ground, was another player. She had black hair with purple tips. But the majority of her features couldn’t be seen fast enough as an all-too familiar pale white insect dropped down from some unknown height.
Before anyone could see the White Weevil land a hit upon the fallen player, the video angle dropped down again, as if the player behind the rock was doing their best to keep hidden. But the unmistakeable burst of particles into the air, was proof of what had happened to the White Weevil’s target.
“It appeared again?” Riley whispered.
“Looks like it,” said Laura.
“How old is the video?” asked Seth.
“We’ll know soon, probably,” said Laura.
The player behind the rock turned their attention back to the blonde player that had pulled a white cube from their inventory. A second later, the cube was crushed.
The camera-angle turned to look back over to the White Weevil. The Weevil faced the blonde player, those long white segmented arms lifted into the air.
“No!” the blonde shouted and backed up. He swept his arm over his head and a blue shield encompassed his body like a dome.
From off-screen, an intense orange and red stream of flames buffeted the shielded player.
The camera angle shifted as the hidden player looked into the sky. It was then that all the viewers got a better look at where the fight was taking place. The sky was red, with streaks of orange lightning racing between clouds far away. There were tiny black stone islands slowly shifting and rising and falling.
“The obsidian stormlands,” Riley muttered.
“Looks like it,” Laura confirmed.
From one of the nearby floating islands, a large bulbous eye moved around on a bed of slime. It was like someone had taken a giant eye and connected it to a slime boss. The slime was attached to the underside of the obsidian island, but the pupil of the eye was angled down and emitting the intense and focused stream of fire assailing the shielded player.
Seconds later in a white flash of light, another player appeared. The far-off lightning caused his blue plate armor to glint.
“Paladin!” Seth spoke up.
Riley watched with wide eyes.
In the time it took Paladin to look around and gain his bearings, the shield of the player that had summoned him, broke. The scorching flames smacked the blonde player into the ground and everyone could watch the faint red health bar drop as the fire destroyed him. Paladin only had time to take a single step to reach out for the fallen player who was roughly ten feet away, before the player burst into parti
cles. Another kill for the White Weevil.
Paladin whipped his hand up and his fingers tapped once at the air. A moment later, the Weevil rammed into him and knocked him back. The camera angle followed Paladin’s movements as he righted himself and materialized his blue shield. He pulled the shield up and again, his right hand moved in such a way that anyone watching could tell that he was acccessing his inventory.
The White Weevil didn’t relent. Even after smashing into him, it ran forward and leapt over Paladin’s large energy shield. The Weevil grabbed Paladin’s hand as it was about to make a second tap. The Weevil smashed his fist into Paladin’s face, once, twice, three times.
“He was trying to—” Riley whispered, his pulse racing.
“The Weevil knows what he’s trying to do,” Laura whispered. “He’s not giving Paladin a chance to access his inventory.”
Seth’s hands were up at his head, gripping it nervously as he watched the fight.
Paladin punched the Weevil’s chest and knocked the insect partway back and free’d his right hand. Instead of attempting to access his inventory again, which was only letting the Weevil get free hits on him, he used an iota of will and created his sword and swung at the Weevil.
The Weevil and Paladin faced off, one versus one. Watching the fight, Riley was reminded of the Saros encounter, where Paladin fought the Weevil on the rooftop. The two still seemed somewhat evenly matched. Paladin was gaining hits on the Weevil, while the white insect was also scoring hits against Paladin.
The clash continued, with each minute as intense as the next. The eyeball monster passed by, as the island they were on, slowly ascended out of its line of sight. The two combatants slugged it out. Paladin attempted twice more to access his inventory when he seemed to have a partial opening to do so, but the Weevil stopped each attempt.
Since Paladin wasn’t in the hidden-player’s party, no one could see his health. No one could see the Weevil’s health either.
There was no way to tell who was winning. For the viewers, or for the two fighters. They were both betting on their own skills overcoming the other’s.
The Weevil struck at Paladin with a clenched fist of his bone-like fingers. Paladin deflected with his shield and immediately counterattacked with his sword. The Weevil dropped and slammed its knee into Paladin’s side, just beneath his swinging arm.
Paladin’s eyes went wide as he stumbled back several steps.
Then, his body burst into blue and white particles.
The player behind the stone was still observing the fight. He was frozen, just like everyone else watching the video.
Once Paladin’s particles had dispersed, an item fell on the ground. The Weevil picked it up. It was a blue metal gauntlet. The Weevil inspected it for several seconds, then tossed it over his shoulder, letting it land uselessly on the obsidian stone behind him. Then, his head slowly turned and those black eyes looked right over to the player who had been hiding. The Weevil crouched and leapt into the air.
The camera angle shifted abruptly as the player turned and ran. Within just a few short seconds, the player’s video suddenly dropped to the ground. The video flashed red a handful of times, before cutting out completely.
The room fell into silence, just as it had been when Laura entered.
Upon the television was the headline, ‘Paladin has been killed.’
Riley’s jaw was low. He couldn’t find words to speak. All he could do was stare at the television.
The silence was only broken when the news anchor returned to the screen. “The video you just watched was uploaded to a public forum. The video feed itself was from a player known as Rigel, who had been streaming their gameplay of Sigil Online. Several fans of Rigel’s, had taken it upon themselves to upload the video, since it’s well-known that a player loses all archived videos upon death. According to those players and posts on various forums, this incident occurred late last night. According to his fans, Rigel had recently been killed in an unrelated incident and was being power-leveled by his three friends in the obsidian stormlands. Upon engaging the boss known as ‘Slime Eye’ they were quickly assailed by the White Weevil. Earlier in the video, we were able to see the White Weevil appear inside the slime portion of the boss. There’s no way to know how it suddenly got there, but it quickly crawled out of the boss and controlled the Slime Eye to attack the three paragons while Rigel hid. As you were able to see, one of the players used a summoning cube to pull Paladin into the fight. Paladin was a well-known paragon that was strictly anti-PKers. Among his friends, he would hand out summoning cubes if they were assailed by such PKers. It seems that in this case, Paladin’s arrival was ill-timed as the party had already fallen to the boss and the Weevil, leaving Paladin to fight the Weevil alone. Paladin made several attempts to access his inventory, but we have no way of knowing what he was attempting to do. Speculation is that he was trying to use a short-term buffing potion to increase his stats, as he did during his first encounter with the White Weevil during the Saros invasion event.”
“What the hell are we going to do now?” Seth murmured. “Without Paladin...what are we going to do?”
Laura shook her head. “The Weevil has no proof of what Paladin was there to do. For all the Weevil knows, Paladin was answering a call for help, as he does all the time.”
“Were we wrong about the Weevil though?” asked Seth. “He picked up Paladin’s gauntlet and just tossed it away like he didn’t care.
Riley swallowed and looked over to Seth. “Because he’s still playing the part of a monster,” he said. “A monster or NPC wouldn’t care about items. I think the fact that he even picked it up, proves our own theory. Besides, that blue gauntlet is worth a small fortune. Players are going to go crazy trying to get to the stormlands and snag it for themselves. I think he’s using it as bait.”
“I think the Weevil is less morally-good than we assumed,” said Laura, keeping her voice low as she conferred with Riley and Seth, as the rest of their group loomed nearby and listened.
“You’re probably right,” said Riley. “But I think—”
In front of Laura, a white particle appeared. It had a dull white glow and emitted a soft ping as it pulsed. Laura took in a sharp breath as she tapped it in mid-air and was given a description of what it was for.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
“What is it?” asked Riley.
“It’s a summon-request from Red!” she said, turning to look to Riley. “There’s only one reason she’d send this.”
“It’s been less than a day!” said Carla. “It attacked again?”
“We have to go! We have to help her!” said Riley.
“But we just saw Paladin die to that thing! What if we’re about to fall into the same situation!” said Seth from the other side of Laura, their soft voices no longer a concern.
Riley spoke up again. “She and whoever she’s with could be dying as we speak! The longer we wait, the harder it’s going to be! We have to go now!”
Seth froze, staring at Riley. Then, he spoke up. “We just saw our greatest shot at killing that thing, die! What chance do we have?”
“We have the only chance anyone’s going to get,” said Laura. She turned her head and looked around to everyone gathered there. “I’m going to help Red. If you’re coming with me, you have three seconds to join me!”
Laura raised her hand and tapped at the white particle. She was given two selections. ‘Accept’ or ‘deny.’
“Three,” she spoke.
Riley reached out and placed his hand on her arm.
Chase and Carla’s hands went on top of his. “Lets smash a bug!” said Carla.
Todd and Erica placed their hands to her upper back.
“Two!” said Laura.
“This is crazy!” Brenda said as she touched Laura’s left shoulder. She looked over to Seth.
Seth met Brenda’s gaze.
“One!” laura spoke, her finger moving for the word ‘accept.’
; Seth slapped his hand on top of Brenda’s. “I guess I have the least to lose!”
Laura’s finger pressed to the word ‘accept.’
There was a bright flash as all eight players vanished from Bunker 7.
Chapter 31: Death’s Chasm
Another bright flash lit the area around them. One moment they were in Bunker 7, the next, they were surrounded by red stone and spouts of fire.
Riley tensed as he initially thought they were being attacked upon arrival, but he was quick to notice that this wasn’t the obsidian stormlands. This was—
“Death’s Chasm?” Laura was the first to speak as they got their bearings on their location.
Small divots in the ground were spewing hot embers into the air. Along the base of the far walls of the chasm were two rivers of lava.
Bang, Bang!
“A little help here! What took you so long?” came the familiar sound of Red Shotgun’s voice.
Bang, Bang!
Riley noticed the red-jacketed woman sparring off with a quick-moving white insect.
Without hesitation, Carla stepped forward and flung a healing lotus at Red’s back. Luckily, the Weevil didn’t seem to notice in time to be able to intercept it. The lotus exploded into a green puff of vapor as Red began to heal.
“Thanks!” Red yelled, ducking under another of the Weevil’s attacks, as she punched only enough to launch her red bullets at the Weevil. Her fighting style was causing the Weevil to remain at strange distances, since Red’s capabilities allowed her to be very strong in close-combat, and within about fifty feet of her target—due to the optimal range of her shotgun pellet blasts. But from watching her fight, it was evident to Riley that she didn’t have the speed required to overcome the Weevil.
Laura looked around as their team spread out.
“Help Melter! And Snow!” Red yelled.
Bang, Bang!
More of her intense blasts echoed around the high walls of the chasm they were fighting in.
Riley looked for the monster, the one that the Weevil would’ve needed in order to show up at the location.