Rohan's Calling Online

by A. J. Chaudhury

  “Pero!” Mastermind cried out. Pero was dead, for the flying reptile wasn’t struggling against his predator.

  “Run!” I cried, as the T. Rex turned its ugly head towards us. But Mastermind seemed to be frozen at the spot, his eyes fixed on his dead pet. Grimguy and Lovebird had taken off in a random direction. I grabbed Mastermind’s arm and pulled him along, even as the great monster opened its jaws again, Pero’s bloodied head falling out of his jaws to the ground.

  “Get over it and run!” I cried at Mastermind. The latter was in tears and he wasn’t really putting any effort into moving his legs, even as the T. Rex chased us, such that I was the one dragging him. “Pero would respawn anyway.”

  Mastermind nodded. He clenched his jaws and began to move his legs faster.

  For almost fifteen minutes we ran, and then the T. Rex suddenly gave up on its pursuit of us. Perhaps it was afraid that some other predator might come to the place where Pero’s body was.

  We caught up with Lovebird and Grimguy. For a while all four of us panted like mad. It was some time before we could calm down. I placed a hand on Lovebird’s shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  Suddenly Mastermind broke into fresh sobs.

  “Why are you crying?” Grimguy asked him. “Your pet would respawn, wouldn’t he? Although he won’t remain your pet anymore.”

  Mastermind shook his head. He wiped his tears and tried to be quiet, but streams of tears just kept coming out of his eyes.

  “He is not going to respawn,” he croaked.

  “But why?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Because Pero is an NPC and he has been killed by another NPC,” Mastermind replied. “If he had been killed by a player he would have respawned, but now that is just not possible. I wish I had killed him instead, at least he would have lived that way.”

  These words struck me hard. Now that I thought about it, I had never seen any NPC kill another NPC. I now understood Mastermind’s loss. Pero, who had served him so well for so long and helped him in so many dangerous situations, was permanently gone from this world.

  But Mastermind had to pull himself out of his grief. The sounds that were reaching my ears at that moment from the great T. Rex in the distance eating Pero’s corpse made me acutely aware of the fact that with Pero’s death we were more or less stuck in Dinoland.

  I patted Mastermind’s back. I was thankful that his sobs were finally starting to cease.

  “Let Pero not die in vain,” I told him, “he died for the cause to save the world of Prithvi from Death13. We must complete the quest that he died for. And we can only do that by saving ourselves as of the moment.”

  “Damn it,” Grimguy said, look about him at the dark shapes of the trees, “this is one scary situation we are in. Even though I know that I can just die and get out of this place.”

  “We don’t have loads of time,” I said, “not even the time to die. It will take us years to return to this place and complete the quest.”

  Mastermind wiped his face.

  “I guess you are right,” he said, “Pero shall not die in vain.” He rubbed his mouth, as if thinking hard as to what we should do next. But the light was so scanty that it was not possible to do anything. I reckoned we would have to wait till the morning before we could embark on any course of action.

  I could feel mosquito bites all about me. There hum was quite audible.

  Mastermind suddenly snapped his fingers, as if he had come to know something.

  “We can just check the map to see if there are portals nearby,” he said.

  Heck, why hadn’t I thought of that earlier? I quickly opened the map. I was rather surprised to see that not far away from the place we were, there were quite a few villages, but they were scattered at good distances from each other.

  “Villages?” I said, “Raks live in Dinoland?”

  Mastermind shook his head.

  “Very unlikely,” he said, “but there are others who dwell in Dinoland.”

  “You mean Dinomen?” Grimguy asked. “Like Reptilio?”

  Mastermind frowned at the name. He probably didn’t know that Reptilio was the pet of Wiseazz.

  “I don’t know who or whay Reptilio is,” Mastermind said, “but yes, the villages could belong to Dinomen.”

  “And Monkey People as well, I guess?” Lovebird said.

  “That’s right,” Mastermind said. “Dinomen and Monkey People. I do not know of other races that dwell in Dinoland that have humanoid forms.”

  At the mention of Monkey People, I couldn’t help but remember my pets Danavma and Danav, the mother and son duo. I wondered if one of the villages in the map was the very one where the two of them were currently staying.

  “You think we should go to the villages?” I asked Mastermind.

  “Well, I guess we can go to one of them seeking for shelter,” Mastermind said, “at least for the length of time that the book requires to give us another quest. A village of Monkey People is more likely to give us shelter than a village of Dinomen. But for the time being, this place is where we should stay. I can get a fire going with my spell, but I am afraid that it would bring us unwanted attention.”

  “To be honest,” Grimguy chimed in, after he had slapped his face in a bid to kill a mosquito sucking his blood, “if we don’t get a fire going right now, we won’t be able to survive to the time when we actually draw unwanted attention. The mosquitoes are feasting on us.”

  Grimguy’s words actually made sense. My health had slowly begun to fall, thanks to the mosquito bites. If the bites continued for a few more hours I was afraid my health would get to zero. Though reluctant, Mastermind used his fire spell and created a small fire at the spot we were. Once the smoke from the fire drove away the mosquito swarms, I felt at peace, even though the itching from the previous bites continued.

  We were able to catch some squirrels that lived on the trees near us. We also got a few fruits. And that was what constituted our dinner for the night. Thinking of our situation I couldn’t help but feel considerably secluded from the players who were in Kapilpura.

  Chapter 22

  A shrill cry made me wake up. I instantly got to my feet out of instinct, and took out my sword even before I had registered what really was going on. It was a moment before I could make any sense, my heart beating wildly. It was Mastermind who had cried out. He was holding the book of immortality in his hands and looking at it with wide eyes and an open mouth. Lovebird and Grimguy meanwhile were only beginning to stir.

  “What is it?” I asked Mastermind. Mastermind looked towards me.

  “Ah, you are awake,” he said, as if he had seen that only now. “Well, good news, the next phase of the quest is accessible to us.”

  “It is?” I said.

  “Yup, and it looks like it’ll be a pretty tough one, even tougher than killing Kumbhakarna perhaps, and remember we got lucky that Babaguy gave us the Brahmastra to kill Kumbhakarna.”

  Mastermind handed me the book, and I noticed that there was quite a shiver in his hands. Was it nervousness?

  I read the words on the page, and in my vision a notification appeared. There was a small map on the page as well. It was showing our current location. There was a volcano in the map, which I believed was one of the volcanoes which we could see from our place in the jungle.

  Quest Number Three

  Retrieve Ravana’s body

  Rewards: Unknown

  Note: In case you failed to complete quest three and do not retrieve Ravana’s body from the island in the volcano, you will get a second chance to retrieve his body in quest four. But there will be some additional requirements that you would have to meet in order to retrieve his body in the fourth quest.

  I accepted the quest. I recalled that the last time we had all immediately received notifications when I had unlocked the quest by uttering the word “Brahmastra”, however this time we needed to physically touch the book. I gave the
book of immortality to Lovebird and Grimguy once they had awoken and they too accepted the quest.

  For breakfast we ate some fruits and then without further ado we set off towards the volcano. The journey wasn’t easy at all. I wished Pero hadn’t died. Otherwise we could have just flown to the volcano atop him. The trek was a chore. We had to constantly battle the vegetation, which tried its best to block our way. There were also times when we happened upon dinosaur faeces, which was not the best of experiences.

  While we did pass close to a group of dinosaurs that looked like a mini version of brontosaurs, we thankfully didn’t happen upon any large carnivorous dinosaurs.

  For lunch we caught a couple of rabbits. Dinoland had dinosaurs, but smaller mammals were considerably plentiful in the region. There were monkey as well, that threw sticks at us from overhead, when we were unlucky enough to pass from below their tree.

  “I don’t understand one thing,” I said to Mastermind, chewing rabbit meat, “why does the quest say there is an island in the volcano? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Trust the book,” Mastermind replied instead. “If it says there is an island in the volcano, there will be an island in the volcano. It doesn’t have to be an island surrounded by water.”

  When I realised what Mastermind was referring too, I almost choked on the rabbit meat. Grimguy voiced my fears.

  “An island surrounded by lava?”

  Mastermind shrugged.

  “You never know. It’s not going to be easy, that is for sure.”

  “On the positive side we’d get a second chance at the statue if we fail this time,” Lovebird said, who was sitting on a fallen log of tree with me.

  “Second chances usually conjure obstacles that are even harder to overcome,” Mastermind said with a note of warning that said that we needed to get the job done in the first chance itself. “There can be islands surrounded by worse things than lava.”

  We had a couple of hours left of sunlight by which time we reached the foot of the volcano. I figured that the climb would take a nice while. I had hoped that we could get the job done when it was still day, but I didn’t see that as something possible any longer.

  We were about to begin out climb when Mastermind raised a finger.

  “Do you hear that?” he said. I strained my ears and I could make out a rhythmic sound of drumbeat.

  “I don’t feel good about this,” Lovebird said.

  The sound was getting louder.

  “What do we do?” I asked Mastermind.

  “We better get climbing,” Mastermind said with a grave face. The climb wasn’t easy at all. Going just a few metres uphill seemed to set fire to the muscles of my legs, and barely had we covered any height that I was panting uncontrollably.

  “Look there!” Grimguy said, pointing towards the foot of the hill. The chill in his tone couldn’t be mistaken at all.

  Dinomen.

  They couldn’t be missed even from the considerable height that we had come to. Their scales were shiny, reflecting the last rays of the sun. Hundreds of them had come to the foot of the volcano, perhaps even more than a thousand. They had surrounded the volcano from all sides. Many of the Dinomen carried large drums and were beating them continuously.

  “What the heck have the come for?” Mastermind said.

  “I think they have come here to pray,” I found myself saying.

  “Pray?” Mastermind said shooting me a puzzled look.

  I pointed at some incense pots and sticks that the Dinomen were carrying.

  “So I guess they wouldn’t bother us, right?” Grimguy said.

  “I am not sure of that,” I said. The Dinomen below had seen us, and some of them were pointing at us excitedly. No, not in excitement that comes with happiness, but the excitement that takes over someone when they are in a position of advantage and they see their foe.

  The Dinomen drew out swords from concealed scabbards. A bunch of them sprinted towards us. They were quick footed, climbing at ten times the same speed we were climbing.

  “There is no way we can outrun them,” Mastermind said, his voice shaking.

  I took out my sword.

  “Then let’s not run,” I said. Mastermind nodded, and so did Grimguy and Lovebird. Their faces were grave, but they seemed eager to die fighting.

  “Well, on the positive side, Dinomen don’t respawn,” Mastermind said. “So we can kill as many we want to kill without the fear that they would respawn in a few minutes.”

  In mere seconds the Dinomen reached us. They seemed to be snarling at us, though with the kind of faces that they possessed, it was difficult to say what expression they exactly had. But that they had come to kill us was a sure thing.

  Without wasting time, I threw myself at the nearest Dinoman. My sword clanged with his. It was no match against my superior sword and it shattered. He tried to bite me with his sharp razor-like teeth, but I boxed his face. I was about to bury my sword into his stomach and deplete the rest of his health, when suddenly Wiseazz’s face came in front of my mind’s eye and I could simply not kill the Dinoman. It was a moment of weakness. The Dinoman struggled free from my hold over him.

  Nearby, I could see Mastermind preparing to use his fire spell on the Dinoman he was fighting with.

  A sudden thought came to my mind, even as more of the Dinomen ran up the slope of the volcano. There were way too many of them. While I was certain that we could kill quite a few of them, I was also certain that due to their sheer number eventually we would fall. Plus, why should there always be a bloody fight? Reptilio was a Dinoman, yet he served Wiseazz, a human, so well. There was a different way out of the situation.

  “No, Mastermind!” I cried at the top of my voice, “Don’t kill him!”

  Mastermind, whose face had been convulsing with high emotion until then, turned towards me confusedly.

  “Let him go,” I said, “I have this under control.”

  Mastermind didn’t throw his spell at the Dinoman. Even Grimguy and Lovebird, who had also been engaged in combat until then, stopped fighting when I signalled them. The Dinomen also appeared confused, even though they did pick up their fallen swords and assumed combat positions, probably more out of fear that we would attack instead of actually wanting to kill us. By then, the other Dinomen too arrived at the spot. However, they didn’t attack us, seeing that the first group of Dinomen that had come wasn’t engaged in combat with us.

  I took in a breath. Though they weren’t throwing themselves at us, I was still intimidated by the Dinomen, due to their sheer numbers alone. Had they been of less numbers I would have just killed them and gotten along with the more important quest of retrieving the statue.

  “Can you speak?” I asked the Dinomen. I recalled that I had never heard Reptilio speak. But it was probably more as a result of haughtiness on his part than an inability to speak. But then you never know, it might have been because Reptilio was shy and only ever spoke to his master Wiseazz.

  “Yes,” one of the Dinomen said. He was just an inch or two taller than most of the other Dinomen present. He was among the Dinomen that had come second, following the first group. There was no hostility in his voice. But he also sounded like he would fight, if need be.

  “Why do you want to kill us?” I asked him.

  “We don’t want to kill you,” the Dinoman said. I focussed at him and saw that his name was Aksai. “But you are on the sacred volcano, and we shall kill you if you do not go away from here in a few moments.”

  I considered what he had said. Sacred volcano, eh? But I was also certain that so many Dinomen hadn’t come just to remove us from their sacred volcano.

  “And what are you humans doing so far away from your lands?” another Dinoman asked, who was shorter than Aksai.

  “We have come here on a purpose,” I said. I had stepped closer to Mastermind, Grimguy and Lovebird, such that I could hear well Lovebird’s tense breathing. I recalled all the hardships she had undergone in the real world, and
how bad it would be if the quest wasn’t completed and if she forever got stuck in Prithvi. No, I cannot let the Dinomen remove us from the volcano. At no cost shall that happen. “And it’s an important enough purpose that we shall not go away.”

  The Dinomen made angry noises at this. While their voices were quite like that of humans, the angry sounds that they produced were as unlike human as it could get.

  “Of course once our purpose is done, we’ll leave your volcano as soon as we can,” I hastened to add.

  I noticed that a female had made her way up, accompanied by a male. Both of them wore crowns of some kind made of magical plant roots, which seemed to glow. Quite a few other Dinomen came with them, who looked quite protective of the duo.

  The female was wearing a hastened expression. Though it was usually terribly hard to make out expressions on the face of Dinomen, I could instantly recognise that the female had a face of great sorrow.

  “What’s going on?” she said. “Why don’t you remove them fast? We are already getting late, my son will die!”

  I was quick to hold out a hand. I was quite sure she was referring to us by them.

  “Wait, wait, please!” I said. “We are capable of fighting you all, but we aren’t. Because I want to get this sorted out without bloodshed.” I said this with a voice of authority, even though it wasn’t true. “Maybe we can come to some middle ground? Because there is no way we can leave this volcano until our purpose here is done.”

  The king strode towards us.

  “Look,” he said sternly, “my son is dying. He was just born a few months ago and is a babe. We need to bring the sacred flower from the island in the volcano. Or else my son will perish, which is something I shall not accept.”

  Island? The word immediately had all of my attention.

  “Island in the volcano?” I asked. “That is the very place that we need to go.”

  The king’s voice softened suddenly.

  “Is a kid of yours sick as well?” he asked. “Do you need one of the flowers?”

  “No, but there is something in the island that we need,” I said.

  “The island only has the flowers and a statue,” the king said, his soft voice thickening.