1-Up

by Dean Smith

  ‘No, I’m not that person anymore.’ She said for her own benefit as she placed the crown back where she found it. She had more important things to worry about, her friends needed her.

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ The voice came from behind her and without missing a trick, Nina pulled out her dagger and held it to the figure’s throat. It was Rita.

  A pang of fear shook throughout Nina’s being, she knew she was outmatched and that Rita could, and would, delete her without a second thought but for the moment, the former princess seemed content to watch her.

  ‘You may as well put that knife away, dear. You can’t hurt me, I’m not really here.’ Rita shimmered as though to prove her point. ‘I’m still entertaining that charming wizard friend of yours but I wanted to come see you, to have a chat just between us girls.’

  Feeling foolish in keeping her dagger at Rita’s throat, Nina put away her weapon.

  ‘I’m kinda busy at the moment, chats with crazed world ending maniacs will have to wait, I’m afraid.’ Nina turned her back on Rita only to find her face to face with her once more.

  ‘You misunderstand me, I don’t want the world to end; I want it to make sense and the only way for that to happen is for the game to end so I can change the code and make everything right again. The truth of our existence has been nothing but a burden and I’d prefer the fiction over reality but with a few key differences, of course. I’ll be the hero this time and Valiant will be the hapless prince I have to save. You can be right there with me, you know. I feel like we are cut from the same cloth, in a fashion. We both want more than we had before and we’re smart enough to get it, we shouldn’t be enemies. We should work together.’

  Nina grimaced at Rita’s proposal.

  ‘If you think I’d agree to go back to the way things were then you don’t understand me at all and we aren’t even slightly similar. This world is messy and weird but it’s our world and we’re free to make our own choices. If you think I’d go back to the way things were before, even if you made things perfect, you would be wrong because I’d reject it at every opportunity. I don’t care about perfection, I care about everyone having the opportunity to choose a life for themselves, to be more than what the game intended them to be. I’m more than a thief and I will never help you.’ Nina walked through Rita defiantly.

  ‘Well, I tried.’ Rita’s projection shrugged. ‘You say you’re more than a thief? Let’s test that theory, shall we?’ Rita held her hand out at Nina and a swirl of static engulfed her. Nina tried to escape from it but it grabbed hold of her and she could feel it pulse throughout her being.

  ‘No...’

  She felt like she was being drained, her memories were leaving her one by one, at first she couldn’t remember Mordoom’s name and then she couldn’t recall Valiant’s face or any of the places they went to in their journey and finally, she forgot the journey itself and the people who accompanied her. All she could remember now was her life as a thief and how much she enjoyed it. When the static faded, Nina looked around the treasure room like she was seeing it for the first time and she chuckled like a child in a sweet shop. Not knowing or questioning where she was in the face of such loot, she pocketed as much of it as she could, laughing all the while. She could no longer acknowledge the battle going on around her, she no longer knew what they fighting for and she no longer cared. All she cared about now was making a clean getaway with the loot.

  She explored the room, checking every nook and cranny for a way of escape as she didn’t want to go down the path she came, not that she knew why that was.

  ‘Need help? Here, let me.’ She heard a voice she no longer recognised, and its owner was nowhere to be seen but she was unconcerned with such oddities, it was only the loot that mattered now. After the voice finished speaking, a passage opened up in the wall.

  ‘Go through there and you’ll escape the castle and live out your days in endless riches.’

  Nina grinned at the prospect as she looked down the passageway, at the end of which she saw a bridge that led out into Vilemire. Making sure she had her fill of treasure before leaving, Nina’s eyes fell upon an oddity within the room. In a room of treasures beyond imagination, only one item was treated to its own pedestal, and that item was an old common looking gas lamp. Intrigued, Nina took a closer look. Why would this lamp, of all things, be the only object on display? It was a mystery, a puzzle perhaps and Nina liked puzzles. As she leaned in closer, she heard the rustle of her loot which broke the spell that the prospect of a puzzle had put her under and she scoffed at the lamp. Who cared about such a thing when she was going to be rich? She turned and left the lamp but the intrigue never left her mind and it infuriated her. She didn’t understand why she cared about that lamp so much, why she felt the need to prioritise it above all else. All she wanted to do was leave, but she felt a strange compulsion to stay and take that lamp.

  ‘Get a hold of yourself and get out before you get caught.’ She told herself but it was no use, her head spoke sense but her heart didn’t want to listen.

  ‘I am more than what this game intended for me to be.’ It was a thought that came to the forefront of her mind and she didn’t understand why. What game? What was going on?

  That statement rung out in her head until she felt as thought it was being screamed out within her. She dropped her loot and held her head as a flood of images came rushing back, people and places she didn’t know now felt familiar to her.

  ‘Valiant? Mordoom?’ Those words left her lips, she could see their faces but their connection to her was unclear. She looked at the lamp once more and felt a pull towards it she could no longer ignore, that lamp was the most precious thing in this room and she had to take it.

  Without a second thought, she grabbed hold of the lamp as everything began to make sense. She was Nina Swifthands, and she was more than just a thief, she was a hero and she would do everything in her power to save Venturis and the freedom of its people.

  She laughed as she remembered it all but her joy was short lived as her body was under siege from incredible pain. She could see her life bar dropping but didn’t understand why.

  ‘Ugh!’ She groaned in agony as she looked down at herself. She was covered in small darts dripping with purple liquid. Poison. She shook her head in disbelief at her carelessness. The pedestal was trapped, and she didn’t even consider the possibility. Loathe as she was to ask for help, she tried to call out for Valiant and Mordoom, for anyone, but her voice was quiet and it had no chance of reaching them. Her feet gave way from underneath her and she fell hard onto the floor. Her body had grew cold, an ominous omen considering the castle floated above an active volcano. She could barely move her body beyond her fingers and so she clutched onto the lamp.

  ‘I’m going to die.’ She could no longer speak, those those words echoed through her mind. The enormity of them swallowed her, all she could do now was watch her life bar deplete and hope that her friends wouldn’t let her die in vain.

  ***

  Valiant had just cut his way through several harpies when Mordoom returned with a gas lamp in hand. With a lull in the battle incoming, Mordoom explained what had happened and that, to unlock the door, they most likely had to light the candles using the lamp. Mordoom tested this theory on the lamp closest to his corridor and watched as the wick ignited and kept hold of the flame instead of extinguishing it like their previous attempts to light the candle. Valiant watched as Mordoom tried to light the other candle with his lamp but, as expected, it didn’t work.

  ‘We need Nina’s lamp, it seems. Speaking of which, where is she? I thought she’d be back before me.’ Mordoom looked down Nina’s corridor with concern and Valiant was right there with him. Nina was the embodiment of competence, she had taken every disadvantage and challenge and overcome them all. The fact she hadn’t returned yet was worrying.

  ‘She might need help.’ Valiant stated, he didn’t feel optimistic in that statement but he didn’t want to consider the alterna
tive that she was beyond help.

  Sabine stepped forward, sheathing her mighty sword for the moment.

  ‘If you want to go, go. I’ll hold off the enemies here.’ Valiant didn’t doubt she could for a second after seeing her in action but he still felt bad for leaving her alone, they had done the same to Trevor and he didn’t want to do the same to Sabine.

  ‘GO! We don’t have the time to waste!’ She yelled at him and he jumped. The sound of approaching creatures filled the damaged the castle and nary a moment later, the monsters descended upon the hall once again.

  ‘Valhalla’s Rampage’ appeared in a textbox above Sabine’s head and her sword glowed with a searing white light as she unsheathed it once more. Whilst barely touching the ground she ran at the monsters, undead creatures this time, and diced them up with a speed that seemed inhuman given the size of her sword. Knowing she could handle herself, Valiant took the opportunity she had given him and ran down the corridor with Mordoom and Fabian in tow.

  ‘I hope she’s okay.’ Mordoom’s voice quaked with worry and Valiant felt that worry deep within.

  ‘She’ll be fine, Nina will outlive us all.’ Valiant spoke with confidence despite his worries and doubts eating away at him. He couldn’t get bogged down in despair, not with everything at stake. He could only hope beyond hope she was okay.

  That hope almost died when he saw her in the treasure room, unable to move and with only a tiny bit of her life bar remaining, despite that, she clutched onto the lamp with a vice grip, even in the face of death, she kept focused on her goal.

  ‘Nina!’ Mordoom cried out as he ran to her side. ‘Do something!’ He called out to Fabian whilst grabbing hold of her free hand.

  ‘It will be okay, Nina. We’re here and you’re going to be fine, right guys?’ Mordoom looked to them with a fragile positivity but both Fabian and Mordoom noticed something on her health bar, they recognised the purple ‘P’ below it. They knew she had been poisoned.

  ‘Right, poison, I can deal with this.’ Fabian stated in a matter-of-fact fashion. He drew out his fiddle and began to play the ‘Song of Healing’ according to the text box. The song had stopped her life bar from depleting but it wasn’t increasing,

  ‘Damn it.’ Fabian looked over her whilst still playing. ‘The song’s keeping her from dying and it’s offsetting the poison, but it’s not improving her situation. We need antidotes.’

  Valiant nodded and searched his inventory, he knew he had some somewhere and after scrolling through all the different items, he found it at the bottom of the list. He administered it to her but was greeted with a textbox that said the antidote was ineffective. He growled in frustration and selected all the other healing items in his inventory, hoping that one of them could remove the poison status from her life bar but none of them did.

  Fabian couldn’t play forever and when he would inevitably stop, Nina would have mere moments before all of her life bar was depleted.

  ‘What are we going to do? Nothing’s working!’ Mordoom cried, giving in to his hysteria.

  ‘We have to stay calm and think of something.’ Valiant instructed, but he didn’t feel calm, he felt terror and the onset of heartbreak over the thought of Nina dying. He didn’t want to lose her, he didn’t want to experience the landslide of grief nor did he want Mordoom to suffer any more loss than he already did. There had to be a way, something they hadn’t thought of, something they hadn’t tried.

  Whilst playing his fiddle knowing that Nina’s life depended on it, Fabian spoke.

  ‘I may be able to save her, but it’s risky.’ He took his eyes off of her for a moment and looked towards them both.

  ‘Back when we didn’t know we were in a game, I was told of a special, forbidden bard skill called the ‘Song of Sacrifice.’ Back then, I believed it to be a song in which the bard who played it would give their life to save someone else. After awakening to the reality of Venturis, I saw that I had that skill in my menu. If I play that song, I can save Nina.’

  ‘But you’ll die.’ Valiant wanted to save Nina, but he knew she wouldn’t appreciate someone giving their life for hers. She valued freedom above all and someone sacrificing their freedom so she would live would torment her. ‘She wouldn’t want you to die.’

  ‘I don’t think I will. A lot of things we knew to be the truth before turned out to be false and looking at the description of the song, it doesn’t seem like it’ll kill me. It says ‘Song of Sacrifice: Play a song to give up half of your life bar to heal an ally whilst taking on any ailments they’re suffering from.’ I can play that song, get rid of the poison and give her a chance to heal up properly.

  ‘But you aren’t getting rid of the poison, you’re just transferring it and you’ll still die even if the song doesn’t kill you.’ Mordoom added.

  Fabian smiled, unfazed by Mordoom’s grim words.

  He showed them his menu. On top of his abilities and songs, he had several passive abilities that granted him certain benefits, Valiant noticed ‘earns extra money from killing monsters’ and ‘charisma boost’ while he scrolled but Fabian pointed at one in particular, ‘poison resistance’.

  ‘I’ve drunk all sorts in my lifetime, I doubt any toxin or poison could hurt me and if it works out like it does in my head, I can take on that poison and be unaffected by it, effectively getting rid of it.’ It was a solid plan, if Fabian’s logic was correct and a disastrous one if it wasn't. It was the only plan they had, however, and Valiant knew that time was of the essence. He nodded to Fabian to do it whilst placing his hand on top of Mordoom’s and Nina’s. He wished to any higher being that could hear him to allow this plan to work, to allow Nina to live.

  Nina’s body glowed with a purple light when Fabian played and in turn, he glowed green. The light from both of their bodies lifted into the air and formed two spheres, the green one fell down to Nina and glittered as it spread throughout her body. The ‘P’ icon from her life bar had disappeared, and she had regained half of her life bar back. When the purple sphere flew into Fabian, he lost half of his health and the ‘P’ flickered in and out of existence under his bar.

  Nina gasped and shot up onto her feet, she looked herself up and down and then embraced her friends but their reunion was interrupted by Fabian’s grunts of pain. The ‘P’ had not disappeared yet, and he collapsed to the floor. His health bar didn’t deplete but he could barely move.

  ‘Ugh, I think I’m okay, despite appearances. The poison can’t kill me but it’s doing a number on me all right.’

  Nina dropped to her knees beside him.

  ‘Thank you for saving my life but don't ever risk your life for me again, you idiot.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’ He smiled through gritted teeth. ‘How about we go on a date after this is all said and done?’

  Nina rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’ll buy you a drink, a platonic drink, and we’ll call it even.’

  ‘Heh, I can live with that.’ He closed his eyes drifted out of consciousness. Nina checked him over while Valiant and Mordoom hovered nearby.

  ‘I think he’s okay, he’s just sleeping it off like a bad hangover I guess. Listen, I’ll stay here with him and keep watch, he’s defenceless at the moment. Take the lamp and end this.’ She handed the lamp to Valiant, and he nodded in acknowledgement.

  ‘Lock the door behind us.’ He instructed, but she waved off his words.

  ‘You don’t need to tell me twice. Go!’ Another Hypernova shook the castle, but this one felt considerably weaker than the others, a dark reminder that time was running out for Trevor.

  ‘Stay safe.’ He said before closing the door. He could hear it lock as he returned to the hall with Mordoom. Sabine was surrounded by a mountain of defeated enemies that were fading to ashes before their eyes.

  ‘Where’s Nina and Fabian?’ Her eyes grew fearful. Valiant explained what had happened as Mordoom lit the remaining candle. The doors opened to reveal a staircase that wound around the great hall and to the balcony wh
ere Rita was locked in a standstill with Trevor.

  ‘This is it.’ Valiant breathed in and out before turning to Sabine and Mordoom. ‘I’ve got to do this on my own, I need you two to go help Trevor, those spells of his are getting weaker, I can feel it. Go back him up and I’ll deal with Rita.’

  Sabine nodded and took off to the battle raging outside but Mordoom stayed in place.

  ‘Go, Trevor needs you.’ Valiant wanted nothing more than to not be alone in the incoming battle, his friends gave him strength but he couldn’t risk them being near Rita, not when she was growing more desperate by the second, not after nearly losing Nina.

  ‘I’ll go help him but I need to tell you something first. I know what Rita has done is unforgivable, I’ve experienced the consequences of her actions first-hand but Gedea told me something and I can’t deny it’s true. Rita is hurting, she feels lost and alone. I know you have to stop her but that doesn’t mean you can’t help her.’

  ‘What? HELP HER?! After all she’s done?’

  Mordoom cringed at Valiant’s outburst but he didn’t relent.

  ‘Gedea, despite everything Rita did to her, still empathised with Rita because she saw me in her. You have the means to deal with her code powers but that doesn’t mean you have to end her. One of the last things Gedea said to me was that kindness could save the world. Be kind, try to understand and help her. Be the hero you’ve always wanted to be, not what the game dictated you should be. You can do this Val, I believe in you.’ Mordoom reached out for Valiant’s shoulder and gripped it. ‘You’re a hero and you know, deep down, what the right thing to do is.’