Lovebird made her way back to her spot behind me. The pterodactyl, perhaps due to its pain from the wound it had received from Lovebird, stopped trying to throw us off and instead kept flying straight, keeping up with the other pterodactyls which were flying a good distance above us. The two players still left was the leader and another female player.
They were taking alternate chances at attacking Ravana. None of their attempts seemed to be working, except to infuriate Ravana more.
The two players were constantly revolving around Ravana, who kept a steady eye on them. The leader threw a strange spell at Ravana. What looked like coils that were sparking with electricity shot out from the hand of the leader and attached themselves to Ravana’s back.
Ravana made a sudden motion as though he was not in control of his body, and he boxed his own face. But the next moment Ravana regained control of his arm. He grabbed the coil of electricity with his other hand and then pulled it such that the leader was thrown off the pterodactyl. The leader would have fallen down, however Ravana still had hold over the coil that was attached to the palm of the leader. For some reason, the leader seemed incapable of detaching the coil of electricity from his palm, perhaps due to Ravana.
And there he was dangling in mid-air. Ravana pulled up the leader close to him. And then he began to box the face of the leader. Ravana could have easily killed the leader; however he was doing this with the sheer intention of causing pain to the leader. I felt no sympathy for the leader however. The fault was his.
By the time the leader was dead; his face was a gory mess. Parts of his skull were visibly and parts of his eyes were scattered all about his face. Finally the leader disappeared, so did the coil of electricity. Now Ravana turned to the last remaining female player.
She turned out to be the wisest of the lot. She kicked her pterodactyl. It turned in mid-air and fled. Ravana didn’t pursue the player perhaps thinking that a coward was not worth it. He however came down to the flying pterodactyl Lovebird and I were riding. He grabbed me and Lovebird with one hand each and hoisted us onto his shoulder. He also landed a kick on the head of the pterodactyl. The reptile lost consciousness and down it went.
The rest of the journey to Kapilpura was thankfully uneventful. Seeing the great fort that Death13 had built for his masters made my heart leap, although the last time I had seen it I had been filled with fear. I had a sense of the end coming close. The end of all bad things.
“Where is he?” Ravana asked.
“He must be in some place near the black fort,” I replied. I could see the fast flowing river of blood below. I also saw the spot where Death13 had claimed Grimguy and a tear welled up in my eye. Grimguy had been a good person. I hoped he would return once Ravana and Death13 destroyed each other.
Ravana went to the black fort and then he hovered near the top. He placed me and Lovebird down onto the top of the fort. It was not easy at all to maintain a footing, but we somehow managed it.
“So this town belongs to my weak self, eh?”Ravana said.
“Yes,” I said, “he has taken over it.”
“Well, if I destroy it then he would come out to meet me, obviously.”
“Wait, no—”
But Ravana had already gone towards a building. I watched in horror as he went up to the sky and then accelerated down and hit the top of the building with his fist. The shockwave went down the building, and a moment later the building had been transformed into mere rubble and debris.
Thankfully, there seemed to have been no occupants in the building… even if there were they would have died and disappeared.
Next Ravana approached another building and did the same to it. Down below I spotted some people, who seemed like they were members of the Kartoshi gang, flee from the spot around the building. Maybe this was not as bad after all? Destroying the building might kill players but they could always respawn, the main objective ultimately was to fix the logging out problem and to get rid of Death13.
“We won’t respawn, right?” Lovebird said to me. It was less a question and more of a statement. There was no fear in her eyes.
“I am not sure,” I said to her, preferring to say the truth, “maybe we will, maybe we won’t.”
“Well, at least it’s my choice,” Lovebird said with a smile and looked into my eyes.
“I don’t want you to do this,” I said, caressing her cheek, “you will never be able to meet your brother. If you can just transfer the Karma to… wait why don’t you transfer your Karma to me? I alone will be able to stop the effects of the blast then.”
Lovebird sighed.
“Two players are required,” she said, “We both must do this.”
At that moment, I spotted a black dot moving below. I looked down to see that it was Death13. He was flying fast towards Ravana who was busy destroying building after building. Death13 seemed to have missed us standing at the top of his fort.
Lovebird let out a gasp.
“We need to be near them!” she said.
My mind was calculating everything we could do. I realised that the solution was that we needed to attract the attention of Death13. Eventually Ravana might look towards us and he would see Death13 near us and come.
“Hey!” I cried out to Death13. “We have billions of Karma, don’t you want it?”
Too bad, Death13 seemed quite out of earshot. Maybe he did hear us but wanted to deal with Ravana first. But I couldn’t let that happen at any cost. It was a good thing that the fort had been made entirely of debris with rocks and stones and bricks sticking out. I picked up a part of a broken brick and flung it as hard as I could towards Death13. I had never been able to hit a cricket stamp with a ball during my childhood days, however today the brick went fast and far and hit Death13 on the back. It was a perfect throw. I suspected my high amount of Karma was helping.
It brought the intended result, getting us Death13’s attention.
I waved at Death13, almost as if he was a friend. Well… technically he had been a friend being part of my friend list in a long while ago.
“Don’t you want our Karma?” I shouted. “Just come and get it!”
Death13 began to move fast towards us. Encouraged by my throw which had hit Death1, I picked up another stone from the pile of debris over which we were standing. I aimed it at Ravana in the distance who had his back turned at us, busy with his building destruction. He was a good way away, so in the scenario that I hit him, the stone wouldn’t hit him too hard to make it seem like an offensive move.
“Hit him,” I said as I threw the stone. It went fast through the air like a projectile of sorts, its speed decreasing slowly. Death13 had almost reached us now and there wouldn’t be time to throw a second stone at Ravana to get his attention. The stone seemed like it was out of energy and would simply fall to the ground.
But it didn’t.
It touched Ravana’s back before falling. Ravana whirled around. It was enough for him to spot Death13 and us. He zoomed towards us. Death13 saw him coming as well, and was about to change his direction again, when I leapt onto his back and embraced him with all my might.
“You stick with Ravana,” I shouted to Lovebird, even as Death13 tried to shake me off himself.
Just then Ravana reached the spot. He looked at Death13 with a rage I had never seen in anyone. Lovebird leapt onto his back and embraced her arms around his neck. Ravana was so filled with hatred for Death13 that he didn’t even seem to realise the presence of Lovebird on his back.
“Who is he?” Death13 asked to me.
But it was Ravana to whom I spoke.
“Destroy your nemesis!” I yelled. That was enough to trigger Ravana into action. He came with his fist raised. But Death13 moved out of the way just in time.
“Conquer your weakness!” I said to Ravana. That he had missed Death13 only seemed to make him lose his head further. He let out a snarl and came again. This time, when Ravana came with his fist raised, Death13 met him squarely and grabbed his oncoming
fist. I felt my core shake from the impact and I was almost thrown off Death13’s shoulder.
“I see that you have a little bit of Karma,” Death13 said, probably seeing Ravana’s astronomical Karma levels. Death13 raised his other hand and electricity shot out from it to Ravana. Ravana’s Karma immediately began to fall as the electricity hit him. All the same, his Karma levels were so large that with Death13’s rate of Karma absorbance barely seemed to have any significant effect on Ravana.
“Your weakness is trying to take over you!” I said aloud to Ravana. Fresh anger erupted in him and he threw a kick at Death13, one that hit the hooded figure right on the chest. This was enough to break Death13’s Karma absorbing electricity.
Ravana grabbed Death13 by his waist and the two of them plummeted towards the earth, even as I felt a moment of weightlessness. However, just before all of us hit the ground hard, Death13 gave his own strength, and now both of the struggling rivals shot to the sky, Lovebird and I sticking to their backs.
A punch here, a kick there, followed by Karma absorbing electricity. Death13 was the weaker of the two, it was evident. He was just not built for any kind of aerial muscle fight. On top of that he seemed really confused why someone random should come to beat the pulp out of him when he had not done any harm to that person.
“I do not understand why we fight,” Death13 said, he and Ravana in the midst of a violent aerial dance. “You are powerful, but—”
Ravana was not interested in his words.
He threw a punch at Death13’s non-existent face. Following the massive impact, I could see bits of code flying out of the face of the hooded one. Yet another punch came along Death13’s way, but he avoided it. He dived down towards the earth, taking me along.
“Get off me!” he yelled, and he tried to wrench me away from his back. I was persistent, but eventually Death13 managed to take my hands off him. The result was that I fell a good twenty feet to the ground and lost considerable health.
Death13 looked at me.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he promised. And then he went up to meet Ravana who was in the sky above, Lovebird on his back. My heart sank. I shouldn’t have allowed Death13 to remove me from his back. I needed to be near him when he and Ravana destroyed each other.
My eyes fell on one of the buildings. It was about five storey’s high, and Ravana and Death13 were a good distance above it. But the important thing was that they were directly above it. I entered the building. It had been destroyed by the gang members. It must have been some sort of an inn. I raced up the staircase. The smell of decaying food hit my nostrils making me feel queasy. The building was devoid of any inhabitants except mice and cockroaches and other pests. Despite the situation I was in, I couldn’t help but be still fascinated by the fact that even virtual pests existed.
Eventually, I emerged at the very roof of the building. Death13 and Ravana were still doing their dance in the sky. Lovebird clung onto Ravana with determination, refusing anything to part her from him. Ravana had boxed Death13 on his face enough, that codes made of ones and zeroes were bleeding out of the non-existent face and the codes were surrounding Death13, forming a sphere around him.
My heart soared when Ravana and Death13 got into an aerial wrestle and they both plummeted to the ground. They came nearer and nearer. They were going to pass by the building and that would be my chance.
My heart raced. Finally they went below the building, passing mere metres from it. I leapt from the roof of the building. Death13 and Ravana wrestled below me. I swung my arms like mad and I managed to get a grip on one hand of Death13, and then I pulled myself up to his shoulder.
“You are back again?” Death13 said, trying to shake me off. But with Ravana not letting him go, he couldn’t focus his attention on me. The sphere of codes around him was growing brighter and brighter. I couldn’t help but observe that any code which got attached to Ravana’s body even as the duo wrestled glowed purplish. I felt like the blast was just around the corner.
Death13 just kept getting brighter and brighter, such that at one point I had to close my eyes, and I still could see the bright light despite that. All I focussed on was to keep my arms tight around Death13, refusing to fall off despite everything. After one point, my eyes began to pain due to the white light, and my health began to fall. How could anything be so bright? I could also see a purple light, all with my eyes closed. This I reckoned to be Ravana. He was glowing like some kind of a purple sun.
And then, a great noise filled my ear. My body felt like it was on fire, and I seem to have gone deaf. I lost sense of everything, and I could no longer feel the body of Death13 which I had been clinging on to for so long. I tried to open my eyes, but I failed.
Was I going to be like this forever? Worry crept over my mind. Was this what was like to not-exist? For the blast had occurred that was for sure, and Lovebird and I had been wiped out of existence. But then… I could still think.
I felt a voice. And it was entirely in my head… yet it was not my own.
“I think we did it,” Lovebird’s voice said, but it was getting smaller and smaller, “I think we did it, Rohan.”
And I could hear her no more.
After an amount of time, a notification appeared in my vision, followed by many more.
Congratulations!
You have defeated Death13!
You completed the quest!
You prevented the future of the pixies!
You level up!
You gain a new spell: Communication!
You gain a new spell: Money Transfer
Using this spell you can send Prithvi gold or real world money to anyone anywhere.
You receive 10000000 gold!
And then, everything blacked out.
Rohan.
Class: Multi-tasker
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Level: 20
Strength:1001
Health: 911/1000
Mana:600
Intelligence: 300
Karma: 998915789
Chapter 39
I opened my eyes. I struggled to make sense of anything. Was that… a roof?
I suddenly sat up bold upright. I had been lying on my bed in my room in the Ravana inn. For a moment I tried to think of all that had happened… had it really happened or had I just been dreaming?
I looked out of the window at the town of Kapilpura. I couldn’t see the great black fort.
The streets outside were filled with players. It was just like in my first day in the game world. Not even one of the buildings had any signs of undergoing repairs. The buildings that I had seen Ravana destroy like they were made of sand, stood tall and healthy. So… maybe I was dreaming after all?
I slapped a palm on my forehead, recalling the notification. I could just check my stats. A second later I found out that I had definitely not been dreaming. The extra gold that I had was proof of that. The new spells that I now possessed also provided testimony to it. And then… there was the log out button. If I pressed it would I wake up back in the capsule that was in the chamber below the blacksmith’s shop?
I took a deep breath and then selected the button.
Nothing happened.
Well, to think of it, it wasn’t really surprising. I had opted to become a perma player after all. But my body… what had become of it? I had never really given much thought to my body back in the capsule. Had it rotted in the capsule? Or had the Kartoshi gang members found out that I had gone perma and had disposed my body?
Well, either ways, there was no return to the real world.
Or was there? Not physically perhaps, but maybe there was another way.
I decided to try out my new spell. The communication one.
You have selected Communication.
Would you like to talk to someone in Prithvi or in the real world?
Wait… talk? I could actually talk with a person? Like in a phone call? How cool? Previously, my only way of communicating with
other players who were in my friend list was through messaging. You couldn’t really hear them, although you could just think and the message would type itself.
I selected ‘real world’.
A blinking cursor appeared in my vision.
Please enter a phone number.
How cool! I thought. My hands and feet were tingling with excitement. There was only one person that I wanted to talk to right now. The person who was ultimately responsible for me ever coming to Prithvi.
My best chap, Dev.
I inserted his phone number in the box. A moment later, Dev’s odd ringtone played all around me. I couldn’t stop grinning at all. My heart was racing!
“Hello,” Dev’s voice said.
“Hey, Dev!” I almost shouted. “It’s me, Rohan!” If someone was standing outside the door of my room, they must have thought that I had gone crazy.
Dev didn’t reply. I got confused.
“Hey, Dev? You there?”
“Who is this?” Dev said, and he sounded dead serious. If anything, his voice was shaking with emotions, like he was on the verge of tears. “Please don’t do this practical joke on me. My friend Rohan’s body was found in an underground gaming facility. I myself cremated his body since he had no close family. Please don’t do this joke on me.”
“Hey, listen,” I said, as my mind made sense of what he was saying, “You might have cremated my body… but not me. I went perma and uploaded myself into the game world to save myself.”
There was silence for a moment. Then I heard a sound that seemed to be a gasp from Dev.
“Is it really you, Rohan?” he asked me.
“It is me, Dev.”
There was a burst of sob from Dev.
“I am so sorry, Rohan,” Dev said, “It’s all because of me that you had to upload yourself into the game world. You know, there is this talk about this Kartoshi gang everywhere these days and several of their members have been found to be from the neighbourhood. The police are going on arresting more and more people.”
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