Riders appeared in the distance. They were too far away for me to see in much detail. They wore robes like the woman’s, except they hadn’t cut their sleeves away.
I looked at the woman. She put her wand away and gripped the reins of her horse. Her name hovered above her head.
Gabriella Grimm – Witch Level 34
“If you don’t want to meet my family – and trust me, you really don’t – we better get moving,” she said.
“There’s a dungeon a few miles south,” said Jack.
“I know it. I’ll meet you there,” said Gabriella. She whipped the reins of her horse, and sped off.
I looked at the riders. Their horses kicked up dirt as they pounded along the grass. It was clear that these people were chasing Gabriella. I didn’t trust the witch, but I didn’t want to stick around to find out what the riders' intentions were.
“We better get going,” I told my friends.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Not long after, I found myself in Terence Pierce’s office. At first, his receptionist was reluctant to let me in without an appointment. I thought that, from looking at my face, she could tell the struggle I was under to keep my anger contained. Flashing me a wide smile, and looking at me with concerned eyes, she picked up the phone.
“Mr. Pierce, I have a ___”
“Chris Columbus,” I said. “I mean, Ledfield.”
She looked at me confused for a second. “I have a gentleman here to see you.”
She put the phone down. “He’ll be a few minutes,” she told me.
I crossed my legs. “Are you sure the phone is plugged in?” I said.
The receptionist acted as if she hadn’t heard me. On the wall to my left, a clock ticked. I crossed my arms. I needed to get back to Pana as soon as I could, but I knew it would be another seven hours, at least.
After following Gabriella Grimm to the dungeon, we’d hidden in the darkness while her pursuers went by. I was about to ask her what the hell was going on, when a message had flashed on my screen.
Warning – You must take a break.
As much as I was starting to think every second out of Pana was time wasted, I knew I didn’t have a choice. Leaving my friends, and the witch, in the dungeon entrance, I logged out. This time, though, I didn’t go to my apartment for a sleep. Instead, I went straight over to Terence’s office. I had a lot to talk about with the old man.
A door opened across from me, and Terence stood in the doorway. He was dressed in beige trousers and a pink polo shirt. He looked as if he was ready to leave for a round of golf.
“Chris,” he said, putting his hand out for me to shake it. “I didn’t expect to see you for a while yet.”
Ignoring his hand, I walked by him and into his office. A new picture frame had taken space on his wall now. It was a framed article from the Aldon Courier. It was about an announcement Terence had recently made to the press. The old man was planning on investing in a start-up in Silicon Valley, which aimed at creating another rival to Pana Reborn.
“My new venture,” said Terence, beaming with pride.
Three monitors had been set up on his desk. One of them was attached to his computer. The others didn’t seem to be connected to anything, but I heard sounds come from them.
Terence tapped one of them. “I like to keep your feed open while I work,” he said.
“And let me guess; you keep Star Horizon’s feed open on the other monitor.”
Terence sighed. “You better sit down.”
“I’m fine where I am,” I said. “What the hell is going on, Terence? Tell me you’re not funding Ellis Taunton.”
Terence leaned forward. “My son believes everyone should be on a level playing field,” he said. “He thinks that people with wealth shouldn’t use it to crush the people beneath them. He’s an idealist.”
“I thought you said he was a jock.”
“There was no point me telling you the truth. I was trying to teach him a lesson, and you were part of that.”
I gritted my teeth. “And what lesson is that?”
“Think about it, Chris. I funded you, and gave you a leg up over the other players in the game. Then I funded Star Horizon’s entry into Pana, but I gave them even more money than I gave you. You’ve got guts, and I knew that my son would see that. I was trying to show him that it doesn’t matter have big your cojones are. There’s always someone with more money, and they will use it to destroy you.”
For a second, all I could think was ‘cojones. That’s a much better word than nuts.’ Then I shook the cojones away.
“That’s the only reason you helped me? To teach your son a lesson?”
He shrugged. “You came to my office for an investment, and I saw an opportunity to straighten my son out. What’s wrong with that? If you find Helder’s Bane first, it’s win-win.”
“You haven’t made it easy,” I said. “Ellis is being a real pain in the ass.”
“We’re not enemies, Chris. I just like winning. It doesn’t matter to me if you win it, or if Ellis and his team do. I’m funding you both, so I have a hand on the prize either way.”
I wished I could give him back all his money. I could have found a different way to fund my entry into Pana. I could have sold things from my apartment, I could have gotten a personal loan rather than a business one. Or maybe I could have just paid for subscriptions, and taken the public ships to the island. It made me start to feel sick. No matter what my motives, by using Terence’s money I had added to a problem that was becoming the scourge of the gaming community.
Real life was pay to win. Sure, everyone knew that. Greed is good, and all that kind of thing. Games were supposed to be an escape from that. In worlds like Pana, everyone was supposed to have a chance, no matter what their circumstances.
I looked at Terence. I suddenly despised him. I hated his ego, I loathed his articles on his wall.
“Rex is a better person that you’ll ever be,” I told him. “And I don’t care how much money you’ve given Star Horizon. Because we’re going to beat them. When we do, you’ll see that money isn’t everything.”
***
When I got back to my apartment, things seemed different. It had used to be a sanctuary for me, but now all I could think was how drab the colours were, and how small the rooms seemed. It was the strangest feeling. Nothing compared to Artemis, I realized. It was a world so full of colour and excitement, and even danger, that with every second away, I missed it.
I looked at my watch. I still had six hours to go before I could re-enter the game. I knew that Jack and Rex would be taking their breaks too, and I wondered if they were as anxious to get back as I was.
Before I went to bed, I looked at my answer machine. The red light was lit, and the display told me that I had a message. I hit play, then settled onto my sofa, moving a crushed beer can out of my way.
‘Chris, it’s Dad. I’ve been thinking about the lawsuit. This woman isn’t going to quit, and we can’t afford to be bogged down in a court case. Hell, we can’t even pay a decent lawyer. I think we should use some of the company reserves to settle. Anyway, give me a call when you can. I’ve tried calling you a few times – are you ignoring me?’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Welcome back,” said Gabriella.
I logged back into Pana and found myself in the dungeon. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. Gabriella was sat against a wall, and her horse was spread out on the floor next to her.
I decided to ignore everything that had happened out of the game. Terence’s betrayal, my dad’s message. Brooding on those things wouldn’t help me. The only thing I could do was to find Helder’s Bane and beat Star Horizon.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked the witch. “Who was chasing you?”
“That’s my family,” she said.
“And why were they looking for you?”
“It’s a long story, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
<
br /> I thought about Rex and his father issues, and how it had taken him a long time to open up. “Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot,” I said.
A few minutes later, both Rex and Jack joined us. Gabriella left her horse by the entrance, and gave it a soothing pat on the head. We walked forward through the dungeon until we came to the magic barrier that had stopped me earlier.
I pressed my hand out and touched it. The air in front of me shimmered. “Think you can get us through here?” I said.
The witch paused. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“I’ll explain everything later,” I said. “We’re pushed for time.”
“You’re Eternals, aren’t you?” she said.
While the Dostooth villagers had said 'Eternals' with contempt, Gabriella seemed more interested.
“We are,” I said.
“My uncle lived on the mainland for a while,” said the witch. “He said you often go into places like this looking for loot. He said you’re all obsessed with it. He also told me that you keep smashing barrels everywhere you go, expecting coins or potions to be inside. Pub landlords don’t dare leave their barrels out. Some places are kept hidden for a reason, you know. This barrier wasn’t put here by accident; it’s here to keep people out.”
“Does that mean you won’t help us?” I said.
She smiled. “Hell no, it doesn’t mean that. It means I want to see what’s so important in this dungeon that they went to the effort to stop people getting in. I’ve always wanted to come here, but my family forbade it. I guess I don’t need to listen to them anymore.”
“Amen to that,” said Rex. I looked at him, and I felt sorry for him. My dad had always been supportive of me, even if he’d pushed me into running the family business. Rex’s father, on the other hand, was a stubborn, selfish old goat.
Gabriella took a few steps forward and stood in front of the barrier. “Stand back,” she told us. “When this breaks, it could sting a little.”
I noticed that as she worked, she muttered to herself in a language I couldn’t understand. Though I couldn’t pick out the words, from the tone of her voice I was sure that she was swearing. She moved her arm, and I saw her burnt skin stretch out. I wondered what could have caused such scarring.
After a few minutes of cursing, she closed her eyes and placed her palms flat out on the barrier. The wall of light rippled. Gabriella tipped her head back and let out a scream that threatened to poke holes in my eardrums. Not only did it fill the space around us, but it broke through the magic barrier and then continued down the dungeon. It must have woken up every creature within a mile.
“Was that really necessary?” said Jack.
Gabriella looked at the gambler. “And what else would you have me do? Throw cards at it?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “Maybe use some kind of magic lockpick?”
With sneaking out of the question now, we had no choice but to move forward. The original plan had been that I would walk in front of the group and use my sneak skill to get close to any enemies. Given that our witch had just screamed out our arrival, we opted instead to have Rex at the front. He wasn’t happy about it, but he had the most HP and damage resistance.
When we stepped through the gap where the magic barrier had been, I expected more of the same. Cramped passageways where the dirt fell from the ceiling and trickled down my collar. Cold walls and an airy draught.
Instead, the rest of the dungeon had an altogether more lived-in look. The walls had been dug out wide enough that two of us could walk side by side. The roof was cut into an archway, and the walls and ceiling were tiled over with a stone mosaic.
Gabriella muttered what I was sure was another curse word in her language. A small fire started to crackle in the palm of her hand. It then started to unravel and grow larger, before finally, it was big enough to light the area around us.
“So, we’re looking for a gem?” said Jack.
I nodded. “Joldemass said the curse was bound up in the gem, which the wizard hid in this dungeon. Since Helder was cursed along with the rest of the villagers, it makes sense that his bane is wrapped up in this gem.”
“Wizards, curses, and gems,” said Rex, almost to himself. “It all seems a bit too obvious.”
“This is a fantasy game,” I answered. “The makers of Pana have used tropes that the players will be familiar with. There’s a reason that so many different games all have levels, experience, hitpoints.”
“Don’t you just wish there could be something new?” said Jack. “You know, something groundbreaking?”
“If I was writing the game,” I said, “Or a fantasy book for that matter, I’d be a hell of a lot more original. Whoever wrote this quest needs to go back to the drawing board.”
I realized that as we’d been talking, Gabriella had stayed quiet. I knew that she was an NPC, so she was programmed to ignore conversations that referred to Pana as a game. I wondered if the words went into her head and were stored there somewhere, or if she just blocked them out.
“Gabriella?” I said.
The witch looked at me. A look of scorn was coded onto her face.
“Do you know you’re in a game?” I asked.
The witch stared at me blankly.
“Columbus, what are you doing?” said Rex.
A few seconds later, and the witch still hadn’t answered me.
“Never mind,” I said. “Let’s carry on.”
We had taken the path that branched from the left after stepping through the barrier. None of us had a dungeon map, so it made sense to start with the first path and see where it went. As it turned out, it was a single tunnel that stretched out for almost a mile. I was beginning to think that there was no end to it, when finally, I saw a light in the distance. There seemed to be an opening.
Rex started walking toward it. He took a step forward, when we all heard a click.
“What was that?” I said.
Rex turned around. “I just stepped on something.”
“A trap,” said Gabriella.
I didn’t understand. “I have the Trap and Awareness skills. I should have been able to sense it.”
I didn’t have time to brood over my lack of foresight. The tunnel was filled with the sound of something scuttling along the floor. I looked beyond Rex, but it seemed that the pathway was clear. I turned and looked behind us, but again there was nothing there.
Gabriella held her hand up in the air. The flames flickered and cast orange light up on the ceiling where I saw the source of the sound.
From along the corridor, dozens of insects were crawling along the roof, upside down.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
They looked like cockroaches with wings. They had talons that stuck out of their sides, and the ends were pointed and looked a damn sight sharper than Death Bringer. The dozens became twenty and then thirty, and their number seemed to have no end. The scuttling sound increased until it was all I could hear. If we tried to fight them in the corridor, it would be useless. We barely had space to swing our weapons, and the creatures would just swarm us.
I pulled my inventory bag around to my chest and unzipped it. “Start running toward the opening,” I told my friends.
“What are you doing?” said Jack.
I pulled a trap out of my bag and fastened it against the ceiling. “I brought ten or so with me. It won’t get them all, but it’s something. We need to find open space to fight them.”
My friends ran toward the light at the end of the corridor. I followed them, stopping every few seconds to pull a trap from my bag and fasten it to the ceiling. I tried to ignore the sounds of the insects’ feet as they crawled along the roof. I found that I had packed 1 more trap than I thought, so when I finished, eleven of them awaited the creatures.
With that, I turned and joined my friends at the end of the corridor. When I reached the section where the tunnel widened, I stopped dead.
A trap slammed shut behind me and a message told me I’d
earned 10 EXP points, but I ignored it. The sight in front of me was far more demanding of my attention. I could tell my friends were similarly transfixed.
Gabriella let out a long swear word. “GARAGH.AL.GAMARAH,” she said.
I didn’t know what the words meant, but I assumed that they fit the situation. “Garagh al gamarah,” I agreed.
The tunnel opened into a room with the dimensions of a cathedral interior. The roof reached thirty feet into the air, and wooden beams ran across it and supported the earth above. I couldn’t understand how it could be so high. As we’d walked through the dungeon, it hadn’t felt like we were going deeper underground. Perhaps the tunnels ran down a gentle slope, so that we didn’t even notice our descent.
The Scout of Artemis (LitRPG Series): Press X to Loot Book 1 Page 14