After what felt like an eternity, my feet finally touched ground.
“See? I wasn’t weak after all,” I said to the tree even as I placed the statue down carefully.
“You painted my root red,” the tree said back. Only then did I realise that the aerial root I had used to slide down was totally painted with crimson. My hand a gone numb half-way down.
“Well, blood of a strong person,” I said, “You should be proud of it.”
Chapter 27
I fell onto my knees. I felt quite weak at that moment. My friends, Balekh and the raptors came and surrounded me. Mastermind was about to reach out and touch the statue out of pure curiosity.
“No!” I cried, stopping him. “You don’t have enough Karma!”
Mastermind nodded, pursing his lips, looking thankful for the warning. I took out a health vial and drunk it. I watched as my health climbed up and my hand healed, the blood disappearing and sensation finally returned to it. I climbed up to the statue.
“Now what?” I said. I tapped the statue on the forehead with a finger. “Will you wake up please?”
Nothing happened.
Mastermind snapped his fingers. He began to search his bag earnestly.
“The book’s with me,” I said, guessing what Mastermind was searching. Mastermind looked at me confusedly.
“You dropped it, one of the gang members picked it up. Once he was dead, I got it,” I explained. All the same it was quite obvious that the next part of the quest would be outlined in the book.
I took out the book and flipped to the last page.
Give Ravana his accessories
“Accessories?” I said.
Mastermind took the book from me and read it with a frown.
“Accessories?” Lovebird said, “His helmet, breastplate and stuff?”
I hugged Lovebird, so that she blushed.
“Of course!” I said. “What else?”
All the items we had found so far belonged to Ravana!
Mastermind had the breastplate and the helmet. He gave these to me and I put them onto the statue. All of us then waited for the miracle to happen.
Nothing.
“He has other accessories?” Wiseazz said with a brow raised.
I scratched my chin.
The sword of Ravana…
Could it be possible that the sword was also one of Ravana’s accessories? Or was I being irrational? After all I had acquired the sword from an entirely different quest by killing an entirely different Ravana.
Well, it couldn’t hurt to try right?
I took out my sword from my bag.
“The sword of Ravana!” Grimguy said, apparently getting what I meant to do.
I forced the hilt of the sword into the grasp of the statue’s right hand.
It worked. Immediately a notification appeared in my vision and from the looks on the faces of the others except Balekh they too seemed to have received it.
Congratulations!
You have found Ravana and successfully given him his accessories!
You receive 10,000 gold each!
You level up!
I had a rush of good feeling about myself as I went up by one level. And then a second notification appeared in my vision.
Solve the puzzle and wake up Ravana by showing the solved puzzle to him!
Puzzle? There was no puzzle or any kind on the notification box. And then something appeared in the book of immortality. An image. It covered an entire page. The image made no sense and seemed to consist of countless tiny part, as though it was an unsolved jigsaw puzzle.
Just then Grimguy lifted a shivering finger at the image.
“That’s my puzzle,” he muttered, his eyes wide in awe.
“You puzzle?” I asked, quite confused.
And then it hit me what Grimguy was talking about. The puzzle in the book was the same one that Grimguy had accepted as a quest and spent countless hours trying to solve in his room! Heck, he had even finally declared the puzzle impossible to solve and given up on it.
Grimguy looked into my eyes.
“It’s still in my room at the Ravana inn back in Kapilpura,” he said.
I gulped.
How the heck were we going to get to Kapilpura located so many thousands of kilometres away? Even Pero was dead.
I needn’t have worried though, for the very next moment my eyes fell on the floating orb of the portal a few metres away from where we were standing. I turned to Wiseazz.
“Can you return to Kapilpura and bring the puzzle?” I said. “Please?” I added.
“That can definitely be done,” Wiseazz said, but there was some fear in his eyes. Apparently he didn’t want to go back to Kapilpura considering all the problems that were going on there and since they had probably already discovered his hideout.
“He needn’t go alone,” Mastermind said.
“But,” I said, wondering how that would be possible.
“You need to pay for the portal to go to a certain place,” Mastermind explained, “but to return from the same place, you needn’t pay. Also you can take back as many people as you want to.”
“So that’s what we do?” I asked. “Let’s all go back to Kapilpura?”
“And also take the statue with us?” Lovebird asked.
I observed the statue and thought over it. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t really like the idea of taking the statue with us.
“Taking the statue will save us time,” Mastermind said. “We could solve the puzzle and directly show it to Ravana so that he is awakened. We needn’t return to this place.”
Mastermind was right. But what if we got stuck in such a situation where we needed to part the statue from us. And what if Death13 found the statue of Ravana before Ravana was awakened? While the gang members already knew about the whereabouts of the statue, the fact that the statue was such a long way away from Kapilpura gave a sense of security that was there when I thought about taking the statue along.
I finally shook my head, my decision made.
“I agree,” I said, “but let’s leave the statue here. We needn’t be afraid that anyone who comes here would be able to touch the statue since a lot of Karma is required to touch it.”
Mastermind seemed a bit upset at these words of mine, perhaps because he wanted to save time, but he nodded all the same.
“Okay then,” he said, “Let’s all return through the portal.”
Mastermind asked everyone to hold hands. It was required, since Wiseazz was the person to whom the portal really belonged.
“Thanks for all you did for us,” I said to Balekh. Balekh made a quick bow and so did his raptors.
“Thanks for saving the life of the prince of the village,” he said. “Good bye.”
Wiseazz placed his foot on the orb. The very next moment, I was struck with a feeling as though the ground was pulling me. At the same time it was getting very difficult to keep the hold on the hands of Lovebird and Grimguy. A very strong force seemed to want to pull us all apart. But we didn’t let go of each other. And in a few heartbeats we found ourselves in the circle of stones in the village of the Rakshashas.
There were quite a few Raks around that spot. Pterodactyls were also there. All heads turned towards us. I gulped. I hoped nobody would want to harm us. And then I remembered that I had left my trustworthy Ravana sword with the statue and an intense sense of vulnerability dawned over me.
A Rak cried out in a strange tongue. The children ran away. Armed Raks came at us.
“Wait!” Mastermind said aloud. “We just used the portal. Are you going to kill us for that?”
“And remember that I paid a good amount of gold earlier,” Wiseazz added.
One of the Raks held up his hand to the others and said something in Rak tongue. He stepped forwards. I recognised him to be Humabel. The other Raks sheathed their swords and went about with their daily business. I felt like a knot in my stomach had solved.
Humabel approached Wiseazz,
his firm gaze on the lot of us. He frowned slightly when he saw me. He turned to Wiseazz.
“You paid for yourself,” he said, his tone like steel. “Not for the others.”
“Come on,” Wiseazz said, “I paid fifteen thousand gold.”
“You did,” Humabel said. “But for yourself. Unless you pay 7500 gold for each of these people that you have brought with yourself, then I must unfortunately tell my fellow Raks to chop you all to pieces.”
“I used the portal,” I said, “but I only went and never returned.”
Humabel frowned at me. Like I was talking about a party I had thrown a decade ago. His eyes were quite filled with mockery and disdain.
“So what?” he said, “You didn’t come back through your own portal. That was your choice, not mine. If you buy something and choose not to use it, what is the fault of the seller? And now you have used someone else’s portal. You must pay for it.” And from the look in his eyes, he totally meant his words. There were only five of us and it wouldn’t be easy to fight a whole village of Raks. Yes, we had successfully destroyed entire villages in the past, but that had all been with planning. We used to attack in such a way that the Raks were taken with surprise and we had always made sure to kill them one by one without the others knowing. Now however, all the Raks still had their eyes on us even though they had sheathed their weapons. Not accepting Humabel’s words would create a problem.
Wiseazz turned at us and whispered.
“So what do we do?”
I grimaced.
“Let’s pay them,” I said, “we need the time more than we need the gold. Plus, we just received 10,000 gold each from the quest, so I think we can all afford it.”
And so it happened that we left the village leaving Humabel a very delighted Rak. He told us to come again to the village. It sucked and I didn’t want to pay him any more gold, but I would need to come back to the Rak village for the portal again. It was inevitable.
Rohan.
Class: Multi-tasker
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Level: 19
Strength:910
Health: 739/800
Mana: 441
Intelligence: 250
Karma: 15000
Chapter 28
We ran the way to the river bank. It took us a good while, but the sight of the gushing blood river raised our spirits. It was then that I remembered Rajahard and Ladyjane. I decided to message them.
“What’s up?” Rajahard messaged back.
“I wanted to ask you about the Ravana inn. Is it safe to go there?”
“Well, it has been mostly left alone. But to be honest no place in Kapilpura is safe anymore. We are living in a different inn right now and we very rarely go out. It’s too dangerous.”
“I hope you and Ladyjane are fine?”
“We are, thankfully. But it’s getting boring living in the shadow of Death13. Initially we were enjoying the end-of-the-world feeling, but now… it’s getting depressing.”
Rajahard usually had a joke or two for most bad situations. Seeing his words, I reckoned things must be really bad.
“Don’t worry,” I replied back, “keep your spirits high. We are going to fix this. Also keep the jokes up. Who knows, Death13 and the Kartoshi gang might come up with some way to feed off a player’s sad mood. A joke or two might end up being the difference between life and death.”
We crossed the river on one of the boats. The ferryman had a grim expression. I realised that the number of boats were quite few that day.
“What happened to the other boats?” I asked the ferryman.
“Many of my brothers have fallen prey to Death,” he said, his tone melancholy.
“Why don’t you flee?” Grimguy asked. The ferryman looked at Grimguy like he had said the sun rose at night.
“It is out of question,” the ferryman said, and I couldn’t help but recognise a tone of defiance in his voice, “we were born to help people cross the river of blood. We would not flee, regardless of whatever comes upon us.”
I couldn’t help but look at the ferryman with a sense of respect. His kind was probably facing threat after a very long while since the ferrymen were usually at peace with both Raks and humans.
It was after reaching the other bank and climbing up to the road, that we really saw the chaos that Kapilpura was in—the same chaos that would probably take over the world if we didn’t do anything.
Houses and building lay in ruins, quite a few having toppled. There were trees lying on the road, having been uprooted, perhaps by Death13 or perhaps by gang members wanting to strike fear into everyone’s heart, since it was easier to rule over a group of people if they feared you.
And at the very centre of the town there was a giant structure that towered over the city in ruins. It was like a giant shapeless pyramid, and there was something very sinister about its appearance. It was built of rocks, soil and parts of other buildings. I had a feeling Death13 was definitely involved in its creation and Death13 probably possessed powers that were not limited to sucking Karma.
“This…” Lovebird said, her tone solemn, “this looks so much like my country.”
I placed a hand on her shoulder. She had come to the game world seeking refuge from the trauma of war, and here she was facing the same scenery that she had so dearly wanted to avoid.
“Just because it is broken doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed,” I said to her, looking her in the eye, wanting to give her hope and solace.
“Aye, right you are,” Wiseazz said. “Perhaps, we might end up making this world better than before?”
“We will,” Mastermind said, “and now let’s find the puzzle and kick out Death13 once and for all.”
It was getting dark, and I was thankful for it. We made our way to the town very cautiously. The horse carts that used to transport people from the bank to the town were nowhere in sight. Along the way we saw remnants of horse cart parts.
We reached the town after a while. There was nobody at the gate. The entire place had a post apocalyptic vibe about it. We entered the town, casting wary glances around us all the time. Occasionally we would hear sounds of people talking, but we never bothered to find out if they were innocent players or if they were Kartoshi gang members. They were likely the latter because innocent players were unlikely to be out in the dark.
After what felt like an eternity of walking, we reached the part of the town where the Ravana inn was located. All the while I had been feeling tensed as though somebody had a gun pointed at my head. Seeing the inn in the distance, of which Grimguy and I were partial owners made me feel better.
It was Grimguy who knocked on the door of the inn.
“Nanda, you there?” he asked, careful not to speak too loud.
There was a sound inside, like that of utensils falling to the floor. Grimguy and I exchanged confused looks. This was followed by the sound of footsteps, and the next moment, Nanda opened the door. He was smiling brightly… a bit too brightly, but his smile wasn’t exactly reaching his eyes. I reckoned he was trying too hard to be positive in the tough times.
“It- it feels good to see you all,” he said. “Please come in. You are the partial owners after all.”
He led us in. I observed the inn. Not much destruction seemed to have come over the inn. There was just a broken window that might have faced the boot of a Kartoshi gang member.
“How’s the business going these days?” I asked Nanda.
“Business has fallen but not significantly,” Nanda said. “People do still come.”
“Innocent players or gang members?” Mastermind asked Nanda with a slight frown.
“Both,” Nanda said, “which is unfortunate. Innocent players usually come when the gang members do not. Would you like to eat anything now?”
I thought about it. The Dinomen had fed us well, but it was quite a few hours ago. Still, the work at hand was more important than the food. Food was after all more or less a luxury item in t
he game world of Prithvi. After all, one could just drink a health vial if they suffered health loses.
“No,” I said and I noticed that Nanda’s face fell. “We have important things to do.”
And I marched up the stairs where Grimguy’s room was.
“I hope nobody has been to Grimguy’s room in our absence?” I asked Nanda from the top of the stairs as the others followed me up.
“Nope,” Nanda said from below. And he rushed towards the bar.
We meanwhile rushed to Grimguy’s room. We got the door open as Grimguy still had the key.
“Where did you keep the puzzle?” I asked. Grimguy scratched his head.
“I think I kept it below the bed,” he said as he got down to his knees. “Hell, I remember I had lost a few of the puzzle pieces. I hope we find them.”
He pulled out the puzzle from below his bed. Mastermind took out the book of immortality and looked at Grimguy’s puzzle.
“You are sure that this is the same puzzle that is in the book?” Mastermind asked. There wasn’t much certainty in his voice as if he doubted Grimguy’s puzzle was the one we needed, since the puzzle pieces were not arranged according to what was in the book.
“Don’t worry about that,” Grimguy assured. “This is the one. It’s just that I had mixed up all the puzzle pieces that it looks different. Now help me search the room. Some puzzle pieces are not in this box.”
All of us then got down on our knees, and began to scan the floor of the room. We moved Grimguy’s belongings here and there looking for the missing pieces.
Lovebird let out a shout of victory, holding up a puzzle piece.
“Yay! Found one,” she said. “How many more are still missing?”
“At least five, I suppose,” Grimguy said. After almost half an hour of extensive searching, we finally found the rest of the puzzle pieces. We put them in the puzzle box.
Rohan's Calling Online Page 34