by Eric Nylund
And it could be that this drunken monkey was simply a drunken monkey.
I really missed the popup quest alerts with their convenient clues confirming one was on the right track. Outside the Game boundary, though, I was out of luck.
He sure didn’t look like a kung fu master. The only thing he might be able to teach me was a decided lack of manners.
The monkey trudged up a hill away from our camp.
My mystical headband did not confer X-ray vision, so once on the other side, I’d lose him.
A compromise then: I’d go to the hilltop and get a general idea where he was headed—back toward the grasslands, along the stream one way or the other, or into the forest. This would at least give us a head start in the morning finding his trail.
From that hilltop vantage, I’d also be able to see or hear any trouble in our camp. I’d be able to sprint back in twenty seconds flat—less if I used Perfect Motion.
I leapt up and ran atop the stalks of grass as if I were a gentle breeze. Nice. Thank you, Wire Work.
At the top of the hill, I halted, hunkered down, and hid.
The monkey meandered toward the stream. So did another creature, cutting silently through the grass on an intercept course. If not for my headband, I would’ve missed the wolf because its silver and black stripes were perfect camouflage in the moonlight. Its body heat, though, was a dead giveaway in the infrared spectrum.
The wolf charged at the monkey as fast as a crossbow bolt.
I was too far away to do anything. Sorry, little guy.
The wolf opened its jaws to snap up a well-marinated dinner, but the monkey stumbled.
And the wolf bit the dirt.
It snuffled and sputtered and shook its head.
That was the luckiest monkey ever… or had he lost his balance on purpose?
The wolf spun, snarled, and pounced.
There was no way it could miss.
The monkey, seemingly oblivious to the danger and still recovering from his stumble, pinwheeled his arms—flung his fruit, and the stuff nailed the wolf square in its snout.
The projectiles spattered across the wolf’s eyes and went up its nostrils. It squeaked—sneezed, once, twice, thrice, and tried to paw bits of the nasty substance out of its nose.
The macaque howled with laughter and threw more fruit at the beast.
The wolf ran off.
The monkey kept laughing and fell over. After a few seconds, he got up and gathered his tossed fruit (most of it dripping with wolf snot). He cocked his head, stared at it, looked around, then sampled some. He nodded and shoved as much as he could into his mouth. Then, plodding along a zig-zag path toward the stream, he crossed and disappeared into the woods beyond.
The macaque had moves.
But was it martial arts or just a smart monkey and improvised weapons?
Yeah, it had all looked accidental, but his aim had been dead on. Kung fu moves or not, I no longer had any doubt the monkey was connected to our quest.
I was tempted to follow him farther but decided to stick to my plan. I’d spent my allotment of stupid today dueling Grimhalt.
With a hearty pat on the back for making a wise choice, I went back to camp.
All was well. The heat stone glowed merrily. The half dozen buffalo had peacefully settled in the grass. And there were no signs of carnage in the two minutes I’d abandoned my post.
I sat on my bedroll to meditate, or failing that, sort through everything that had happened in the last few days.
This was nice. Cool night air. The chirp of crickets. The un-adrenalized steady beat of my heart.
I could see why some players might slow down, perhaps buy a tavern with some stolen dragon hoard, and spend their days and nights sipping a few ales, listening and telling tall tales to their patrons. I bet the other clans would be more than happy to leave such a “retired” player alone since it could only benefit them.
I snapped out of my fantasy.
It was too quiet. Apart from the subtle sounds of nature, I didn’t hear what I’d thought I’d be hearing.
Look, I’m not a pervert or anything, but I did have elven ears. I’d expected to be actively ignoring, um, sounds coming from Elmac’s tent yonder. Not to put too fine a point on the matter, but it’d only been ten minutes.
I wasn’t even picking up hushed pillow talk.
Or Elmac snoring.
Of course, maybe they hadn’t even started. I suspected Elmac was a hopeless romantic and a star-lit walk might be more his speed.
…away from camp?
…without telling the person on guard about it?
That didn’t sound right either.
I got up and crept toward the tent. As I did so, I seriously considered picking up thief as my third character class for the stealth skill alone. Morgana would murder me if she found me lurking nearby.
There were no heat sources within the tent.
I jogged over.
The flap was open. Elmac’s and Morgana’s boots were inside… as were a bunch of slimy apricot pits that had been scraped clean.
Had they actually eaten…? No way.
I did a quick search of the area. No signs of a battle.
There were, however, two sets of bare footprints in the dewy grass heading toward the stream.
I relaxed. See? Just an innocent barefoot stroll.
I wandered over to the buffalo to check on them. I wasn’t surprised that two were awake and tracked me as I approached.
The one I’d ridden today grunted a soft greeting. I scratched her head.
It was a bit surprising, though, that a bunch of that fruit lay nearby in the grass. Untouched. I’d have thought our beast friends would have snuffled it all up—half fermented and rotten or not.
On a weird impulse, I picked up a flabby fragment of apple and sniffed.
Yow—it reeked of that too-sweet, rubbing alcohol, decaying scent. Definitely not the subtle hundred-and-eleven-year-old whiskey I’d had the pleasure of sampling tonight.
…And yet, for some reason, I had an overwhelming urge to taste it.
What was I thinking?
I tossed it, but then caught myself bringing my juice-covered fingers to my mouth.
Alarm bells clanged.
I didn’t need a quest alert or magically boosted super senses to know that something was definitely off with this fruit—other than it being “off.”
I could only think of two reasons for those pits to be in Elmac’s tent. Either a bunch of plastered apes had come, kidnapped my friends, and left their trash behind, or Elmac and Morgana had gorged themselves on the stuff and wandered off on their own.
The two sets of footprints seemed to imply the latter, disgusting explanation.
Or could it have been assassins? Those pits and tracks planted by them? Seemed unlikely—but I was not making any more assumptions tonight.
I double-timed it down to the stream.
Morgana and Elmac’s trail was easy to follow through the grass.
The two of them weren’t anywhere in sight, so I checked the opposite bank and discovered their muddy footprints stumbling deeper into the woods.
The same direction I’d seen the monkey go.
Ten yards into the trees, the ground dried and I lost their trail.
I considered calling out to them, but I was in unfamiliar territory and didn’t know if hostiles were near.
Ah, wait. I was an idiot.
I opened my interface and tabbed to the Message Center—only to find the keyboard, fields, and buttons grayed out.
Of course, because we were beyond the Game boundary, there was no instant messaging.
What about the SKILLS & ABILITIES interface? If that still functioned, I was pretty sure I could find my friends.
I opened it, and yes! The buttons gleamed and every text field was crystal clear.
I flicked down the listings and found what I needed.
Track: Find tracks and other signs to follow an animal or pers
on. May learn direction traveled, number of creatures, time passed, the physical state of the quarry, and other information. The skill is enhanced by user’s PERCEPTION and INTELLECT. Higher skill levels allow the tracker to follow trails in increasingly difficult terrain as well as quarry with exotic abilities.
NOTE: A skilled tracker may attempt to conceal their tracks. At skill levels of ten or more, a tracker may counter a target’s STEALTH abilities.
This seemed like a handy skill to have, especially with assassins looking for us.
The ten points needed to counter stealth abilities, though… that was about a third of the non-combat skill points I had banked. Was it worth it?
I’d take it one step at a time. If Morgana wasn’t actively trying to conceal her tracks, three points ought to do the trick. If that didn’t work, I’d consider spending more.
I assigned the points and new memories imprinted upon my brain. My older gypsy elf brother, Adam, taught me how to hunt deer… which started with first learning how to follow them. I never had the guts to actually kill a deer, but I had made a game of shadowing them.
And then I remembered Adam being slaughtered with the rest of my family.
It wasn’t the same ice-pick-slammed-into-my-forehead feeling I’d had before, but it felt, if anything, worse. Without the immediate and overwhelming pain to distract me, I had time to grieve all over again for the deaths of my fictional loved ones.
I was beginning to resent the Game’s backstory fill-in-the-blank intrusion into my… my self.
Compartmentalize, Marine. Focus.
Morgana and Elmac’s footprints and other signs of their passage popped in stark relief—there, a twig broke—here, a patch of moss shifted—and the edge of a toe print.
It was all so obvious now.
I made out other recent trails as well: monkeys, some large, some small, crossing this way and that, back and forth—all with a swaggering stagger. Dozens of simians had come and gone over the last few days. Fruit seeds and pits and parts had been strewn about the forest floor. What a bunch of litterbugs.
I moved along, taking care to look and listen for danger.
The trails all converged and headed into the hills.
I crept along.
The trees thinned and I started, finding myself face to face with a giant monkey. Only the head, though… that had been carved into a granite outcropping like a statue from Angkor Wat.
I steadied my racing heart.
The monkey’s mouth was frozen open in a teeth-baring grimace, and right down its gullet, curved a paved tunnel.
CHAPTER 28
A dungeon.
Well, not exactly a “dungeon” dungeon, but “dungeon” in the general gaming sense of the word, i.e. a scenario that occurs usually, but not always, underground.
Besides actual torture chambers and medieval prisons, there was the good-old bandit’s secret hideout cave; the lich’s crypt filled with deadly traps and priceless treasures; or what I suspected this might be, a long-forgotten and submerged temple that needed the evil scrubbed out of it.
Unless you were a noob, you went into dungeons armed with three things: background information so you knew what you were up against; a plan to act on said information; and a team who could watch out for each other, because once you entered there was a good chance you weren’t leaving until you fulfilled your objective.
My background information?
My quest log was one of the Game systems offline. Uh… so let’s see. I was looking for an old barbarian to teach me secret martial art techniques, and from the quest’s title, I knew there might be drinking and monkeys involved. Sketchy data at best.
My plan? Seat of the pants.
My team? That’d be me.
I considered the stone monkey face: a crazed chimpanzee posed in an aggression display that subtly communicated: “Intruders welcome—for dinner.” Farther down its throat, torchlight flickered. And yes, I looked, no huge gemstones in the statue’s eye sockets.
I checked my ninja chain, subcutaneous demon bone knuckles, and tightened the laces of my troll-skin boots… but this was just procrastination.
I was scared.
The last time I’d gone it alone, I’d faced my brother and his demonic army. I’d lived to tell the tale but still felt the scars on my soul from embracing ultimate evil, aka the Ebon Hands of Soul Death.
More than any danger I might face, however, I was afraid I’d let Elmac and Morgana down. I had a growing suspicion that whatever had stopped the Far Field tribes from coming to Thera wasn’t just the Chaos Knight guarding the gate.
And whatever it was, it might be happening to my friends.
Okay, when all else failed, fall back on your training.
I couldn’t figure out a grand strategy, because I didn’t know my enemy, their numbers, strengths, or goals. But I could break the situation into bite-sized chunks and come up with a few tactical options and operational rules.
Right. Start with the easy stuff.
RULE ONE: Do not eat the fruit.
Since I’d come to Thera, I’d developed a habit of drinking and eating just about anything stuck under my nose. Since the fruit here seemed to be drugged and/or ensorcelled, I better stick to the rations in my inventory.
I suspected (and hoped) that the secret martial art techniques I was here to learn were along the lines of drunken boxing. If you’re not familiar with the style, I suggest my favorite movie covering these techniques, the 1994 Jackie Chan masterpiece The Legend of Drunken Master, wherein he did all his own stunts (I bow in respect to you, Mr. Chan).
Learning those techniques would involve drinking. Lots of it.
That would come later, though, so I had to play it safe, because of my next rule.
RULE TWO: My only priority was retrieving Elmac and Morgana.
Until I knew they were safe, nothing else mattered.
Last and most important, RULE THREE: Do not get caught or killed.
A given, but worth repeating.
I had to assume Elmac and Morgana were out of commission… imprisoned, unconscious, or perhaps already dead. No—they were not dead. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, go there. For all I knew, they’d become pals with that little macaque and were having one big party.
The point was that I had no backup. If I failed, that might be it for us all.
I steadied myself.
Three operational rules. I could handle that.
My tactical priorities were similarly simple: “be cautious, cunning, and stealthy.”
I took a deep breath and entered the tunnel.
Five steps in, the stone walls became mud-brick and the floor was covered with irregular slate tiles. I halted, noting that only some tiles were worn… as if the monkeys had specifically avoided the others.
Trapped? Sure, weren’t all dungeons?
I spotted a sliver of wood on the ground. It was tipped with a sticky substance.
There might be pressure plates here that triggered spring-loaded darts.
I picked the splinter up, careful not to touch the tip, and sniffed, detecting the faint scents of blood and apricot brandy.
Please refer to RULE ONE (do not eat the fruit).
I decided against the torturous staggered path made by drunken simians. Instead, I bounded up one wall—leapt to the other—and back, parkouring my way down the passage.
I ended this feat, landing on a well-scuffed tile in a four-way intersection.
I listened. Nothing but the beating of my own heart.
Cautious, cunning, stealthy. Check, check, and check.
So far, so good.
The passage to my left was scaled for creatures the size of that lion-tailed macaque. Straight ahead stairs were built for legs slightly larger than mine and they descended into the dark. They were also covered in dust. The tunnel to my right, however, had plenty of tracks, and ah, there—wide dwarven-sized scuffs and Morgana’s tiny footprints.
Something seemed different about my fr
iends’ tracks. I squinted, but couldn’t quite figure out what (even though I could see them perfectly with Azramath’s headband).
Maybe it was a trick of the flickering torchlight.
I heard snoring from the end of this passage.
I once more bounded off the walls down that corridor, making no more noise than a shadow.
The passage led to a vaulted chamber. At the far end, sitting Buddha-like was a fifty-foot tall orangutan statue, the granite darkened with wine stains. His cheek flaps were so fat and prominent they nearly covered his eyes. On his face was a ridiculous crooked grin, parted to receive a raised bathtub-sized sipping saucer.
Before this idol were what could only be described as “self” sacrifices: passed out in sprawling poses were dozens of lemurs, chimpanzees, and orangutans. From the scattered cups, broken bottles, spilled wine, and a few splotches of vomit… it looked like quite a shindig had raged.
No Elmac or Morgana, though.
Across the room, a shaft of moonlight filtered through an open iron door.
Okay, short “dungeon,” but fine by me.
Unless I had to explore those other two passages…
Getting swarmed in a tunnel by dozens of tipsy, but I assumed nimble, monkeys was not a combat situation I wanted to try, though.
So I’d explore outside a bit first.
I started toward the door but paused because I saw the chubby orangutan statue did indeed have gemstones for eyes: basketball-sized purple-red orbs. Garnets? Rubies maybe?
But then I remembered RULE TWO (my only priority was retrieving Elmac and Morgana).
I turned my back on temptation and kept laser-focused on finding my friends, gingerly stepped between the snoring, farting, tossing and turning monkeys—and then slipped through the open door unnoticed.
Odd. This door had thick bars on both sides. Why would you want to be able to secure it either way?
Didn’t matter. I had one job, and puzzling out architectural details wasn’t it.
Outside was a wide valley nestled among steep erosion-cut hills similar to China’s scenic river gorges. Neat rows of fruit trees stretched as far as I could see. The moon’s soft glow shadowed the trees and made them look like skeletal hands. There were ladders propped along the trunks and on the ground lay half-filled baskets. It was apparently harvest time.