Lost in the Game

by Christopher Keene

  I ground my teeth. “Alright, fine.”

  I reached a hand round behind me and thought of fire. My Fireball must have struck whatever it was in the face, as it screamed and flew off me. I rose to my feet and waved my hand up as it charged again, blowing it back with a Wind Blast while summoning my Sapphire Edge. However, before I could lay into it with several Shockwaves, Vega landed on its back, stabbing it to the floor with a long spear and halving its Hit Points.

  The monster was a kind of Komodo dragon with a curved blade in place of a tail.

  I shouted, “Behind you!” in warning as one of the blades slashed at Vega’s back.

  Vega leaped up onto the hilt of his spear to avoid the blow. Even so, the slash cut through the spear’s shaft and he fell back to get some distance.

  There were three of these lizard creatures: the one that was advancing on Vega, one that was slashing its tail at Chloe, and one that Dice had just struck with an Ice Arrow. It appeared these monsters were weak against ice attack, as the arrow froze it solid.

  Cold-blooded creatures. Makes sense, I guess.

  “Chloe, do you have any Ice Bullets?” I asked, raising my fist.

  “Way ahead of you!” she called back, reloading her gun with glowing blue bullets.

  Just as she shot the one slashing at her, I launched my Ice Coffin spell, hitting the one charging at Vega. I timed it just right, for as soon as the blade-lizard froze in place, Vega had equipped a mace, which finished it off, shattering its body across the floor. Seeing the Skill Points accumulate in his vision, Vega grinned.

  “Thanks, buddy!”

  Dice shook his head. “Am I only the one who researched the monsters in this place before we headed here?”

  “Yeah,” Chloe replied derisively. “What’s the fun in doing a dungeon if you know everything that’s going to happen beforehand?”

  Vega eyed Dice, brow raised. “She’s got a point.”

  “Tsh . . .” Dice looked to me. “You did say not to waste time. Best way to do that is to be prepared.”

  I inclined my head at them. “You’ve both got good points.”

  With the excitement calming after the ambush, I finally managed to look around the room. The place was wider than the entrance, clearly underground, and moss and vines covered the walls. There were posters and charts around the walls, but due to the moss, they were barely visible.

  Chloe smirked at me. “That was pretty messy, Noah, at least compared to your fight at the Battle Royal.”

  I nodded but kept my mouth shut. Admittedly, I hadn’t calculated that my Future Projection ability wouldn’t work against monsters. It made sense considering they were A.I. and didn’t have conscious intentions that I could read. At the same time, I figured Chloe saying this was just her trying to get me to hint at what the ability did. That it only worked in PvP fights was a pretty big clue.

  I surveyed the room, trying to change the subject. “Shouldn’t you be looking for more clues from your brother or something?”

  Chloe frowned and rolled her eyes before walking off to search the walls. I turned to the other two and decided to voice what I’d had in my mind since we had arrived.

  “Does any of this seem familiar to you guys?”

  Vega stuck out his bottom lip and frowned, but Dice smiled.

  “I see I wasn’t the only one who did their research,” Dice said as he moved to the door across the room from us. Flashing his keycard, the door slid open and I followed him through.

  “Ah, I get it,” I said as I saw the familiar long corrugated iron corridor with pipe walls and a grated floor. “So, this design . . . it’s similar to the Engine Room, then?”

  Dice nodded. “It predates it, but the design is very similar. As you can see, it’s cooler and less chaotic, but I think this dungeon went largely unnoticed considering it was a Primatier dungeon in an area of the game that only can be accessed by people who have survived Tertiatier dungeons.”

  “So they recycled the design layout for a Heaven dungeon and made it one of the most difficult Tertiatier dungeons in the game so it wouldn’t go unappreciated.”

  Dice nodded and together we slowly moved into the corridor.

  “It makes sense then why Lucas would leave us a hint leading us to this place,” I continued, “not only because of the dungeons’ connection but because—”

  “Noah!”

  Chloe’s shout both interrupted me and startled me. I whirled about just in time to see a creepy plant monster rise up into the vents in the ceiling behind me. Not wanting to let it escape so it could sneak attack me later, I aimed a Fire Weave into the vent. However, besides the roaring of my flame through the metal passage, it gave no sign as to whether or not I actually hit it.

  “Damn,” I muttered and then turned to see Chloe, who was pointing back the way we had come in. “Did you find something?”

  Chloe caught up with me. “One of the posters under the moss had a layout of the floors in this place.”

  “Let me guess: it has nine floors?”

  Chloe stopped in front of me and narrowed her eyes. “And?”

  I suspected the excitement of the dungeon had made the others forget why we were here in the first place. “If Lucas left us a message here, it’ll most likely be on the second floor.”

  I turned and made to catch up with Dice, hearing Chloe let out an, “Oh!” of understanding before she caught up with us.

  Similar to the Engine Room, two monsters appeared around the next corner. Made of vines interconnecting with the ever-present moss, the plant monsters waddled into the view like skinny green penguins. At their tops were little pink flowers that opened up and shot sharp seeds at us. As soon as I saw the flowers open, I rubbed my hand in front of me to create an Ice Wall and the seeds stuck into it.

  Vega ran to catch up. “Oh, Noah, can I take these guys? I need to few more Skill Points to learn a new ability.”

  I grinned. “You’re the best among us and you still need Skill Points?”

  “I’ve only been playing for a month and haven’t unlocked everything I need yet. Come on, Noah.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Alright, but make it quick.”

  Vega grinned. “I’ll take a note out of your book for this one.”

  I didn’t know what he meant until he jumped on top of the ice wall, crossed his arm in front of him and slashed it out. “Burn, evil plant monsters!” he shouted as a Wildfire spell filled the grated pathway behind my wall.

  As the flame roared and then ceased, I realized the ice in front of us was melting. I looked out from behind it to see that there were only the ash-covered remains of what was left of the plant monsters.

  Well, I did tell him to make it quick.

  “Alright! A few more and I can get Blaze Conductor!” Vega called as he slid down what was left of the wall.

  I stood up. “What’s that?”

  “It allows you to control the direction of fire spells after they’ve been cast and can make it so Wildfire can be focused on one enemy.”

  I stuck out my bottom lip. “I didn’t know about that one.”

  We all moved to the end of the corridor. Unlike in the Engine Room where the gear spun to work as a kind of escalator, the gear at the end of this one was clogged with weeds and wouldn’t move.

  I grinned. “Escalator temporarily stairs.”

  Chloe eyed me as she climbed down. “You stole that joke from Mitch Hedberg, didn’t you?”

  “Hey, I didn’t say I invented it, did I? Besides, it’s appropriate considering the given circumstances.”

  We reached the bottom and spread out along the wide second floor. Recognizing the room’s similarities drew Chloe toward the same corner where the code had been in the Engine Room. A few more plants showed up, but we worked together to light them ablaze, Dice with a Flame Arrow, and Vega and I with Fireballs. His Wildfire spell was a bit excessive considering how easy they went down this time.


  When they were nothing but ash, we turned to Chloe. She was still crouched, swiping away layers from the wall and shaking her head.

  “Did you find another clue?” I asked.

  “Something’s not right. It’s supposed to be at the back west corner, but this place looks different from the second floor in the Engine Room.”

  “So nothing’s showing up?”

  She gazed up at me, eyes suddenly glassy. “I can’t find it.”

  Chapter 9: Romit Research Center

  “That’s just great!” Chloe shouted, on the verge of tears. “The first legitimate clue I find after a month of looking ends up being a dead end!”

  “Hey, Chloe, it’s not a dead end just yet.” I was trying to console her, but I knew there was little I could do other than blow more hope bubbles to keep her afloat. “Listen, you said yourself that this room doesn’t look the same. Even the entrance is different from the one in Heaven. Maybe parts of the dungeon were rearranged also. We should keep looking and maybe we’ll find something.”

  Chloe’s jaw set and she nodded, determined not to let this small failure defeat her.

  Vega’s brow rose. “What? You guys weren’t planning on doing the rest of this dungeon if the clue was here? Shame on you two! It’s such a cool place. It would be a shame not to kick its ass.”

  This got a smile out of Chloe. If I knew one thing about the girl, it was that there was nothing like a dungeon to blow away her frustrations.

  “Alright, I guess that sounds fun.”

  I looked over at Dice. “You gonna join in with us?”

  Dice raised a brow at me. “Is that a command?”

  “No.”

  “Then no.” Dice turned his back on us. “Besides, you wouldn’t want me to spoil everything with all I know about this place, would you?”

  He had a point. Knowing everything about a dungeon did ruin a bit of the fun of trying to solve it for ourselves. He tossed the Keycard over his shoulder at me and I caught it.

  — ACQUIRED KEYCARD —

  “Suit yourself,” I said.

  He leaped up the massive gear and then disappeared out of sight.

  Vega gave me a perplexed frown. “What’s up with him?”

  I shook my head. “Heck if I know. You know Dice. He can be a moody prick sometimes.”

  Chloe nodded, having been on the end of one of his moods before.

  “Come on. Let’s see if we can find anything in the other room that might point out where the Screamers are being held.”

  There was a ramp that led down to the third floor. I led Chloe and a confused-looking Vega out of the room and down it.

  “Wait, we’re here to find Screamers?” Vega asked.

  We ignored this comment in favor of jumping straight to equipping our weapons. Below the long, steep ramp were a dozen more of the lizard monsters I was calling Blade-Tails. I caught Chloe’s eyes and she grinned at the onslaught she looked eager to unleash upon them after their earlier ambush.

  “Got few Mana Bullets on you?” I asked Chloe.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good, because I’m about to turn this place into an ice cave.” I looked up in thought as, with a tingle of bells, my Iceberg spell formed. “Or a glacier. One of the two.”

  The Iceberg fell upon the creatures, shattering in the center of their horde. We then rained down specialty ice bullets and spells on them, picking off the ones on the outside.

  It didn’t take us long to finish them. Vega collected the items, and we moved down to the fourth floor.

  Instead of there being monsters, there was a large growth of vines and leaves that led down toward the fifth floor through a hole at our feet. Unlike the previous floors, barely anything could be seen of the walls due to the thick growth that surrounded it.

  “Lizards then plants, then more lizards and more plants,” I said, giving Chloe a sarcastic smile. “Where do they get all their ideas from?”

  Chloe shrugged as we moved over the large collection of vines in the center of the room, which led down into the floors below. “Well, this is a Primatier dungeon, which is generally intended for training up abilities. It only makes sense considering the type of magic we have to use to fight the creatures here.”

  I thought on this for a moment, remembering that not everyone who had made it to the New Calandor area would have accumulated as many Skill Points as I had considering how much I had to grind in the first-era dungeons.

  Vega raised a finger. “That reminds me, I still haven’t gotten the level three lightning spell yet.”

  I looked down over the edge to find what looked like giant praying mantises climbing up the vines toward us. “Well, here’s your chance. Go on. Plasma Beam-snipe those insects down.”

  It seemed Chloe hadn’t seen them until I had pointed them out as she made an “eek” before moving behind me and shouting, “Do it quickly!”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice.” Vega lay down on his belly, leaning out over the hole in the floor as the insects drew closer. “After all, I had just mastered first person shooters before I started playing this game. Now, you two, marvel at my perfect one-shot-one-kill ratio.”

  He charged up and shot a Plasma Beam at the praying mantis that had climbed the highest. Changing the angle of his finger, he charged and fired, again and again, and each time the praying mantis closest to the hole fell away.

  “Alright, grab my ankles, you two,” he said.

  We did so, and he leaned right out over the edge, curling under it to get the final two mantises that had been right under him. As he swung back up, he blew at the top of his finger as though it were a smoking gun and then looked up.

  “Hah, perfect timing! I just got the Perfect Storm!” he called. He got to his feet and raised his hand in a swiping gesture to put away the tutorial.

  I looked out over the edge. Vega had been true to his word; not a single insect was left.

  “Good work. Now let’s head down.”

  We climbed the thick vines until we came to the base of the massive plant, which seemed to go right through the floor. Again, Vega ran out to collect the Resource Items, as though wanting see what equipment he could synth with them. In the center of the large room was the core, an enormous tree with lifted roots one could walk under. I peered between them to find a staircase made of the wooden roots that led down to the next floor. The last step dropped off into a pool that the vines hung down into.

  Water training, then. Alright. I still need to get my level three water spell. From what the old Druid in the Hall of Doors did, it seemed to be a pretty powerful one.

  I grinned, remembering when Siena had taken on the water floor in the Druids’ Keep and came out looking like a mess. “Alright, I’ll take care of this one.”

  I rubbed my hand out in front of me horizontally to create an Ice Wall that floated on the water’s surface and then jumped down onto it. There didn’t seem to be any monsters inside the water, but when I looked up, I realized what my targets were going to be. Bats hung upside down from the roof. With such a large pool of water below me, it wasn’t hard to figure what I needed to do.

  The level two water spell was called Water Hose, and it was about as powerful as a fireman’s hose. Cupping my hand, I directed the spell at several of the bats and they were bashed against the roots of the tree by jets of water. The others, however, looked none-to-pleased and began flying toward me, fangs bared.

  I redirected my spell, but a few began latching onto me, their teeth sinking into my skin as their fangs sucked away at my Hit Points. I was about to ask for assistance when an announcement popped up in my vision.

  — WATER UPGRADE: ‘TSUNAMI’ LEARNED! —

  Yes!

  My old friend, the blank avatar, popped up to give a demonstration of how to use it. Holding his forearm vertically upright, he swiped it palm-first across his body as the line “Think of water” flashed up. I sent away the popup window and foll
owed the avatar’s instructions, waving my hand across my body as though creating a wave with it. Suddenly the Ice Wall I was standing on tipped sideways and I slipped into the water.

  What happened next shouldn’t have surprised me, but did nonetheless. The entire body of water I was now swimming in pooled to one side of the room and then suddenly struck the opposing wall with enough force that I was slammed into it. Being my own spell, it didn’t take any of my Hit Points, but it did manage to kill off the bats that were latched on to me. As the pool settled again, I managed to rise and gasp in some air. I looked around.

  My spell had killed not only the bats sucking away my health, but every bat in the room. I grinned and spat water. Now that’s a level three spell!

  I heard Chloe calling from above me. “Ah, Noah . . . there’s a side door behind some of the vines on the wall up here . . . I don’t actually think you needed to go down there.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  I cast another Ice Wall to float on and climbed a trident Vega equipped to help me up.

  “I can’t believe this,” I muttered.

  Chloe showed me to the door she had found behind the wall of vines. It led down a long, dark stairwell into a wide cavity in the mountain. She led us down into the dark opening, the stairs curling around ruins of the platforms that jutted out from the cave wall.

  “I’m sure that water place was the six or seventh floor,” she said, sounding like she was consoling me. “But you were right about them changing the floors for the Engine Room. I must have done that dungeon a dozen times and it’s nothing like this.”

  I was still dripping from falling into the water. It would take me a while to dry out without sunlight. Unequipping my robes in the middle of a dungeon so they would dry quicker would be a foolish thing to do. The staircase must have gone down at least four floors by the time we reached the bottom. It ended in a large, squared-off hollow that had neither an exit nor entrance at first glance. There were mud walls, a mud floor, and although I couldn’t see that high up, I would have put money on it having a mud ceiling as well. Strangely, from the small gaps at the bases of the walls, they didn’t seem connected to the floor, and neither was the staircase.