Level Up

by Craig Anderson

  He makes it look easy. Carlos merges with the shadows, flowing from one to the other like a fluid. He doesn’t make a sound. At one point he climbs up the security camera pole so he can hide in its blind spot. As soon as the camera turns around he drops down and continues on his way.

  When he reaches the side door he presses a large red button which turns all the security cameras off. They make a powering down noise and droop forwards, like a drunk Grandma falling asleep after Christmas dinner.

  Sarah and I sneak across the carpark, avoiding line of sight to the guards out front. When we reach Carlos he says, “this might be a waste of time. Look at the lock on this thing.”

  There’s a an advanced lock with an electronic keypad. I step up and crack my fingers. “Stand back, I’ve got this.”

  I managed to look cool for at least a couple of seconds, but it’s hard to maintain when you’re playing a match 3 puzzle game.

  Once I line up the key tiles the door slides open. Sarah stares at me. “Impressive. Master locksmith?”

  “That’s me.”

  We step through the door and hear whirring as a security camera inside the room turns towards us. There’s no time for us all to get back out the doorway. Sarah holds out her hand and an arc of electricity fries the camera, which lets out a puff of black smoke to let us know it is done for the day.

  “Nice work team! Now let’s find us a vampire. If possible we should try to kill him quietly, so we don’t get a visit from his friends outside.”

  A chandelier crashes to the ground just left of us, showering us with shards of glass. This is followed by a loud cackling laugh.

  “I think it is safe to say he may already know we’re here.” Says Sarah.

  “Even better. Let’s get stuck in then.” Replies Carlos.

  I glance at Sarah. She looks worried. I place my hand on her shoulder and can’t help but notice how soft and warm it is. I say, “Is everything ok?”

  “I don’t like this. I know most of the game really well, but I always knew better than to piss off the Black Ring, so I never did. I’m going into this just as blind as you guys. I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be. Whatever happens, we will face it together.”

  There’s a moment, just a moment, when she smiles at me and I feel something. Then just like that, it is gone. She says, “One thing I don’t understand. Why aren’t there guards inside?”

  “I’m afraid I killed them all. I never have been very good at impulse control. You’d think I’d have learned it in 500 years!”

  We all turn around to see a morbidly obese teenager wearing all black staring back at us. He’s sipping from a gigantic drink cup. I can hear the slurping from back here. I don’t want to know what he’s drinking.

  “What the hell? I thought vampires were all skinny? How can you be this fat on a liquid diet?” says Carlos.

  “Just because I don’t have a soul, doesn’t mean words don’t hurt.” He surveys us and says, “You must be the idiots that robbed me. Are you here to save me the trouble of hunting you down? That’s honestly rather considerate of you.”

  “Considerate enough that you will leave our friend out of it? She had nothing to do with the robbery.” I gesture to Sarah.

  “Oh ok, sure, I can do that.”

  My bullshit detector starts flashing. “You’re lying!”

  “Well duh!” Roger turns to Carlos and waves his thumb at me, “What’s with your friend? Is he always this naive?”

  “Fraid so. He’s something of an optimist. So are you seriously the leader of the Black Ring? You look like you came straight from a mosh pit.”

  “Mosh pit? Is that like a dungeon? I’m afraid I haven’t gotten out much in this new world. That’s something that I am planning to change, now that I have run out of guards to eat.”

  Carlos nods at me and I slowly pull the water bottle out behind my back. I toss it at the chubby vampire and shout, “Now!”

  The arrow slices it clean in half, showering the vampire in water. I wait for the screaming, or some kind of reaction, but instead he looks mildly annoyed. He wipes up some of the water and puts it in his mouth. “Let me guess, holy water?”

  “Yes, fresh from a church! Shouldn’t you be writhing around in pain or something?”

  “Yeah, I’ll get right on that. Seriously, this shirt is dry clean only. If I wasn’t going to brutally murder you guys before, I certainly am now.”

  We all look at each other. I turn to Sarah. “Any other ideas?”

  “Try the garlic!”

  I toss a garlic clove at him like a hand grenade. As it lands by his feet Sarah vaporizes it with a fireball, showering him with garlic mist.

  He coughs a few times. “Ok, now you guys are starting to piss me off. It’s not bad enough to soak me, now you’ve made me smell like a French kitchen. You guys are so dead.”

  A health bar appears above the vampires head. It is surprisingly small. He’s only a level 7. That’s not the only thing to catch my eye. I have to read his name twice. I can’t help but laugh.

  Carlos sees it too. He says, “Your name is Roger?”

  Roger looks surprised. He stammers, “No! I am Tungsten, lord of the Black Ring. Prepare to die!”

  Carlos turns to me. “We don’t have all day here. Can we kill him now?”

  “Fine, but make it quick.”

  Carlos draws one of the arrows he made for just this occasion, with no steel tip and a sharpened wooden end. We’re not entirely sure if it will count as a stake, but there’s only one way to find out. He fires it straight at Roger’s heart, and the moment it reaches him he screams and disappears in a cloud of black smoke.

  “Well, that was easier than I expected…”

  Sarah says, “Something isn’t right. The QA guys would complain about this fight continually, there’s no way it should have been this easy.”

  “Maybe we are just that good?” Carlos swaggers around and we are all smiling when Roger leaps out of the shadows and bites Carlos on the neck. He screams, “Bloody hell! Get him off me!”

  I draw Waterfall but there’s too big a risk of hitting Carlos, who is frantically trying to prise Roger off his neck. His health isn’t draining nearly as quick as I thought it would. I thought this guy was supposed to be hard to beat?

  After a few more seconds Roger disappears in another cloud of black smoke and reappears on the other side of the room, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. Something is different about him and it takes me a moment to spot it. “Hey guys, it looks like he just jumped 10 levels…”

  “Yeah, he nicked them from me!” says Carlos. I glance at his stats and he’s right, he’s dropped down to level 16. Oh dear. That complicates matters. We have to kill him quickly, before he turns us all into level one grunts and murders us with a light breeze.

  I point Waterfall at him and pull the trigger. He smiles and a bubble shield appears around him, the shot harmlessly bouncing away. Carlos shouts, “he’s stolen my spells too! Someone kill this thieving bastard.”

  Sarah throws a few fireballs his way, but they are also absorbed by the shield. The bubble bobbles under the onslaught and disappears with a loud pop. Roger is nowhere to be seen.

  “Ok, keep your eyes open, he can reappear anywhere!” I say, but no-one answers. I turn around and Roger is already biting Sarah. She is trying to shout, but no sound is coming out. I turn on my turbo shoes and run into them both, knocking them to the ground. Roger scrambles to his feet and vanishes again. Sarah puts her hand up to her neck. “He’d only just bitten me, he didn’t get much. Just a couple of levels. All my spells are still here, so that’s a relief. How are we going to deal with this guy? He’ll just continue to pick away at us.”

  “We need a plan!” I stare at Carlos and he nods while holding his neck. He says, “No arguments from me.”

  “Ok, he’s moving too quick for us to use ranged weapons, so we are going to have to close the distance. Sarah, your freeze spell is our best bet. If we can just get h
im to hold still for a few seconds I think we have the firepower to take him down, but that only works if we can stop him moving.”

  I pull out my bo staff and use Showstopper to shave the end of it. It’s now an extra long stake.

  “Ok, we are going to need bait, someone that can coax him down here and get him to stop moving long enough for us to freeze him.”

  Both of them stare at me.

  “Ok fine, but be ready to hit him the moment he gets me. I don’t want dinner and a movie.”

  A voice echos from the rafters. “I’m looking forward to getting my legendary sword back. Those pistols will go nicely with my collection.”

  I pull out Showstopper and twirl it around. “You’re welcome to come get it over my dead body.”

  There’s suddenly a voice behind me and cold breath on my neck. “Deal!”

  “Now!”

  I hear the sound of the ice blast, but it is muffled. The walls are shimmering. Roger says, “This shield thing is very handy. Where were we?”

  I try to get away, but my legs won’t move. I wait for the pain in my neck, but it feels more like a scratch. Actually, lots of scratches. After a few seconds Roger makes a retching sound and I turn to find him with a limp Nutsack in his mouth. Yeah I know how that sounds, but it’s not funny.

  Roger spits out my pet and picks fluff from his teeth. “What the heck is this thing doing in your hood?”

  I don’t know how, but Nutsack is suddenly looking much better. I watch as new fur sprouts on his face. It is lighter than the existing fur, creating white stripes. Even his tail is getting bushier. He looks like a brand new squirrel.

  Roger on the other hand is not looking so good. His hair falls out in clumps and he starts scratching at his skin. His health bar starts to deplete. He yells, “What have you done to me?”

  Nutsack bites Roger on the hand and jumps across to my shoulder, straight back into my hood. It is just the distraction I need. I thrust the bo staff into Roger’s chest. He screams, but it doesn’t kill him. I’m running out of weapons here. I draw Agile and pause. Is shooting him going to do anything? The bullets are dipped in holy water, but we already established that is useless.

  Maybe there’s another way. I point Agile at the ceiling. “Holy water may not have worked, so lets try holey ceiling.” I spray bullets, turning the roof into a sieve. Sunlight comes pouring in. The moment it touches Roger’s skin he wails. He tries to vanish, but there’s a whooshing sound and his legs turn blue. I look to see a blue stream emanating from Sarah’s hands that freezes him in place. He pleads with me, “Ok, your debt is forgiven, let’s just call it quits!”

  “Sorry Roger, you had your chance.”

  His arms catch on fire and he wails. “You’ll regret this! The prophecy states that whomever should strike the final blow will become the l…”

  Thwack. The arrow hits him in the head and a big chunk of his life disappears. There’s only a fraction left, but then it blinks and the bar empties. Roger turns to ash with a final groan, taking my bo staff with him.

  Sarah and I both glare at Carlos and he says, “Yawn, backstory. Let’s get back to the fun.”

  “You idiot! That could have been really important. Now we won’t know what terrible curse may be inflicted upon us.”

  “Sounds good to me! Hey, what’s that on the ground?”

  At first I think he’s just trying to change the subject, but when I look there are three icons shimmering in the pile of ash. I check each of them.

  Bubble shield

  Blink

  Mange

  “I think these are spells and status effects. Carlos, see if you can get your bubble shield back.”

  He bends down. The moment he touches the icon it vanishes and he says, “Yep! That did it, I got my shield back. I still don’t have my levels though, looks like I’m going to have to get those back the hard way. What about the other two?”

  Sarah says, “Blink is that teleportation spell he was using. I’m not sure about Mange though. Isn’t that something foxes get?”

  “I think that’s what he got when he bit Nutsack.” I feel a little nudge in the back of my neck when I say his name. He wiggles around until he gets comfortable and then the snoring promptly starts up again. “Let’s leave that one alone. The question is, who wants Blink? I already have the speed shoes, so I am good for getting around quickly.”

  I’m expecting a fight, but Carlos says, “Strategically it makes sense for Sarah to take it. I have a better range and I should never be close enough to the enemies to require a quick exit.”

  Well that was easy!

  Sarah touches the icon and says, “I should test it out.”

  In a puff of smoke she is gone, reappearing over the other side of the room. Then she does the same in reverse, materializing so close that it makes me jump. She says, “Wow, that’s pretty cool, but it really eats up MP. Maybe if I level up it will become more efficient. We should test it out in combat.”

  “Yeah, speaking of which, we need to practice fighting together. We were a bit all over the place against Roger, and that was one fat emo kid. If we’re going to fight an army we need to be a well oiled machine.”

  Carlos says, “Before we march off into combat, I need food badly. I think there’s a fast food place just around the corner.”

  Sarah evaporates and after a few seconds she reappears holding a brown paper bag. She hands out burgers. She washes hers down with a potion and says, “I agree, we need to learn to fight together. Our skills are complimentary, we can do a lot more damage if we can coordinate attacks. We just need to find a low level mob to practice on.”

  There’s a thump on the door that is loud enough to rattle the hinges. We all share a look as the door comes crashing down and the Black Ring guards from outside come charging in. The golem stands at the head of the group, ready to take us down. They all glance at the pile of ash on the floor that used to be their boss and look none too pleased.

  We instinctively group up, backs together, ready to fight. This is going to be rough.

  That’s when they kneel, heads low and hold their weapons out towards me.

  Carlos says, “Well, I need a new pair of trousers.”

  It looks like I’m the new leader of the Black Ring.

  LEVEL 21: TURN IT UP

  “Seriously, could you all leave us alone for a minute? Go do whatever it is that you do. With less murdering.”

  The mercenaries stare at me coldly. Nobody moves.

  I turn to Carlos and Sarah. “So I guess that is what Roger was trying to tell us. Whoever kills him becomes the leader of the Black Ring.”

  Carlos scowls. “But I’m the one that killed him! I should be their leader.”

  “The sunlight must have finished him off. Who really knows. The point is, now we have thirty additional mouths to feed. What are we going to do with them? Could we use them to fight for us?”

  Sarah shakes her head. “They’d get all the EXP.”

  “There must be something they can do that would be useful.”

  A new message flashes up:

  Your Base is under attack. Protect your base!

  Oh god, we’re going to have to keep doing that?

  Wait. “I command you to go guard our base.”

  They continue staring. It’s so quiet I can hear Nutsack squeaking just behind me. It’s probably a mating call. Just what I need, a love nest in my hoodie.

  Suddenly the mob dissipates without warning. I have no idea if they are going where I asked them to, or if they just got bored and left to go on a rampage. The important thing is, they didn’t mutiny and immediately murder me. Bonus!

  Carlos says, “Back to the matter at hand, can we go find a mob? Preferably one that won’t kill me immediately. I can’t face the final boss as a measly level 16.”

  ***

  “Are you sure this is a good place to be?” asks Sarah.

  We stand in the Kasbah car park. The remains of Carlos’ car are still ther
e, only now they are smouldering from the fire that several homeless people are currently gathered around.

  “Yes, this was the first place we encountered an enemy, so it is kind of like the starting zone. We should get some easy pickings here.”

  I wait for Carlos to agree with me, but he is too busy searching for targets.

  There is a gang of youths loitering in the far corner of the car park. They look like perfect fodder for us to test our teamwork. I say, “I’ll engage them. Get ready to fight.”

  I stroll over and say, “afternoon chaps.”

  I’m expecting it to be enough. Around here a wrong glance can get your teeth kicked in. However, these young men apparently missed the memo. One of them says, “Good afternoon sir, I hope you are having a nice day. Is there something we can help you with?”

  I’m not really sure what to do with that. One of them is on his phone. I slap it out of his hand and the screen shatters as it hits the ground. Now I’m ready to rumble.

  He says, “Oh no, what a terrible accident! Good thing I got the extended protection plan with zero deductible.”

  What is with these kids? How am I supposed to start a fight if they are all so darn reasonable?

  I turn to leave and a burger wrapper falls out of my pocket and onto the ground. As I step away there is a gasp and one of them proclaims, “Sir, are you going to pick that up?”

  I bend down out of habit and have to stop myself. I slowly straighten up. “Actually no, I am just going to leave it there. I’m a big fan of littering.”

  That has got them riled up. I go in for the kill. “I also drive a car with terrible mileage, and I like my food stuffed full of GMO’s, and I only buy my dogs from puppy mills.”

  Yep, that did it. Health bars everywhere. They are only level 3, so they will be perfect cannon fodder for us to practice.

  I am about to grab Carlos and Sarah when a shadow blocks out the sun. I turn and have to crane my neck to see the three guys that are towering over me. One of them says, “Everything alright little bro?”

  “Actually, this guy is being very insensitive towards the planet and refuses to pick up his litter.”