by Evan Klein
“That will not be possible,” General Morgan responded. “These recruits are needed to replace the ones you destroyed outside. They will take over protecting this first level so we can return to protect the Mistress while she slumbers.”
I could hear the mumbles of complaints behind me. A fight was about to ensue. The Realmborn would be slaughtered never to rise again and I would learn what it was like to respawn.
“You know that Starborn are immortal. You can slay me but I could just return tomorrow with an army of Starborn who you couldn’t defeat. They would pay me a king’s ransom to know the location of Shatana’s resting place. I don’t know very much about your mistress but I would guess she wouldn’t like fireballs and lightning bolts flying through her hallways. Sooner or later they would wipe out all of her protectors and go after your mistress.”
I could see her weighing my words for their veracity. And I had spoken the truth. If needed, I would talk to Cali and figure out a way contact enough high level players and assault this cave and wipe out everyone inside of it. I would tear it to the ground until it was nothing but rubble.
Though I was pretty sure that Haggerty would fire me right after that.
“Bring your army,” she seethed. “We will destroy you all and then I will seal the door again so that no magic from Realmborn or Starborn will open it until I so choose. By that time the recruits hanging up there will all belong to me.”
Bondi whispered to me, “With the force at her disposal she could defeat some of the strongest leagues around. The fact that we can’t see a level for General Morgan indicates she was well above 200th level – the current limit for monsters.”
This was not good. Not good at all.
“So be it!” I said. “Six months from now an army will be massed outside this cave – not to fight the Demon King – but to destroy you and Shatana this time. The ancestors of the humans and orcs in the villages fought side by side with you and your mistress a century ago. I don’t think they will be so keen again to fight for her if you enslave their people.”
“The orcs will fight against you also,” Grothar said as he come up beside me.
“Magash stands with orcs,” the ogre’s voice boomed.
“We too will resist,” Hearn said for the Freeholders.
“Us too,” Jarrell said. I just got the idea that he got caught up in the moment and felt he should step forward.
I could see the General’s mind racing for a solution. She was as the old saying goes in a pickle and was looking for a way to pull out victory from defeat.
“We will trade,” Mother said.
Trade? What trade I wondered. We had nothing to trade that I was aware of.
“I am listening sister,” the General said, curiosity in her tone.
“This Starborn,” she said, gesturing at me, “will return in six months with an army. The greatest army ever assembled in The Great Realm. He will bring with him some of the most powerful Starborn and Realmborn to fight alongside Lady Shatana. With their help Altirax will not just be banished this time but will be obliterated out of existence—lost even beyond the void.”
“Hold on a second,” I muttered. “Where am I getting the greatest army every assembled from? And I don’t know where I am going to be six days from now forget six months from now.”
Cali elbowed me in the side. “Take the deal,” she whispered. “I will help you get an army. One post on the forum and you will have twenty thousand Starborn outside in a few hours.”
“What is your answer? And if it is no, none of the Realmborn will leave here but will become my newest recruits. There were rumbles and worried sounds behind me. She now had me in a pickle and she knew it.
“I will agree under one condition,” I said. I was about to play a very dangerous game. “I will agree if Mother will agree to fight alongside me in the war against the Demon King.”
The world around me grew silent. Had I just destroyed the game? Would Mother in her wrath destroy mass coding like one of her sisters and poof – Freehold and Treehold and the other villages simply vanish? Haggerty had tasked me with gathering information about Mother and I figured forcing her hand might do just that.
Mother did something I didn’t expect. She began to laugh. Her hoots echoed off the cavern walls for a good solid minute. She finally straightened herself up and replied, “Oh I will be there by yee side. Yee know not what yee have wrought.”
“So be it,” Morgan said. I felt the compulsion placed over me and I knew that if I were logged into the game six months from now that I would be compelled to do all that was in my power to gather an army of Starborn and bring them here to fight for Shatana. My Intimidation perk failed this time. It was supposed to prevent charms and other compulsions. Except I think Morgan wasn’t just a powerful creature, but the servant of a demi-god. I tried to fight this compulsion but it was a part of me now…like an arm or a leg.
“The pact is struck!” Morgan shouted. “I bind it to the very core of The Great Realm. The ground below us rumbled for a moment and then ceased.
“What was that Cali?” Bondi asked.
“I don’t know. We got a lot to discuss when we get back home.”
Morgan walked over to the tendrils. One coiled down towards her and she placed her hand up to it, gently stroking it. One by one, a tendril reached up, wrapped itself around one of the prisoners, and lowered them not so gently to the ground.
“Go and help them.” I shouted to the Realmborn. “Get them out of here now.”
Hearn led the way followed by the other humans and orcs. The prisoners were all in a stupor and had to be half walked, half carried outside. Several still whimpered and a few screamed. Whatever torture their minds had been going through was at an end. When all the prisoners were finally outside I said, “I promise to return in six months’ time with an army.”
“Be gone,” Morgan said. “We must return to our slumber so our strength is full when we fight the Demon King. I will seal the door once you depart.”
“None of the Starborn needed to be told twice and we all hastened out of the cavern. Once we were all outside, the large boulder that had covered the entrance moved back into place. When all was said and done, it looked like the boulder had been there a hundred years. Also gone was the notification about Shatana’s cave. The bodies of the skelters had sunken into the ground. But a pile of their armor and weapons was heaped near the horses.
I looked around for Mother when I emerged from the cave. She sat on a big rock next to Magash teaching him how to smoke a cigar. The forest around us shook and echoed from the coughs of the ogre.
“Well that was some good old fun,” Jarrell said. “I love this game.”
“So much to figure out,” Flora whispered.
“We will Flora,” Cali said kindly. Looking to me she said, “We are going to log off for now.”
“Where can we find you tomorrow to discuss our gifts?” Bondi questioned.
“You will be able to find me in Freehold or there about tomorrow. I will be in the area for at least the next month or so. Again, be reasonable and I will get you what you want.”
“See you tomorrow,” Cali said and she faded away. Followed by Flora, Jarrell and lastly Bondi, who I was pretty sure winked at me.
I turned back towards the Realmborn. Orc and human were setting up a small camp fire. None of them felt like trudging in the dark back to their villages. The freed prisoners were slowly recovering. But they still seemed shaken. Hearn helped by plying them with some drink from a flask he produced from a copious sack. Psychiatry was not my thing so I figured I would leave their ministrations to the other Realmborn.
A long list of notifications were available for me to read. But not right now. Today had been a long first day. I hoped the next few weeks of grinding out some levels would be a little easier. I felt in my bones that once I entered Grandview in several weeks that my life was going to get very complicated. I told the Realmborn I was leaving for the night but that
I would return to Freehold in the morning.
With that I logged off.
Chapter 15: The Final Chapter
I really needed to remember to leave a light on in my living room. I said, “Lights,” and they flared. I slowly pulled off the haptic devices and placed them on the wrought iron and glass coffee table in front of me. I remained sitting for a second and realized I was bone tired…not just tired but weary and exhausted. My stomach gurgled and growled in hunger like an angry beast. I got up. Relieved myself. Then I headed to the kitchen to see what I could scrounge up to eat. Just as I finished my tuna sandwich, the telescreen beeped.
“Really Hags,” I said as I answered. “I knew it was you.”
“I wanted to give you a little time to readjust before I called you. It gets easier, the transition from the game to the real world.”
“I got remember to eat and relieve myself before I log on.”
“You’ll get a pattern going. Anyway, Shannon is really pleased with how things went. The skelters are wiped out and the door is closed. Of course, we still need to figure out what exactly happened. Morgan implied that the captain grew restless and opened the door. If that is the case, the artificial intelligence is more advanced than we thought. We checked with the programmer who created Shatana’s cave, and she said that cave and its inhabitants were passive – meaning they wouldn’t become active till a certain date and time. For the sake of the Shatana storyline, that was going to be a little over five months from now.”
“So what happened?”
“We are still investigating. Lots of lines of code to review,” he said.
“Do you think it was Mother?” I asked, pissed at how she had trapped me into a quest six months from now. Selling me out was probably the only solution to get everyone out of the cave alive and save the imprisoned villagers. But I still didn’t like it.
“Could be. Morgan and Mother seemed to know one another. But not sure how that is possible. Morgan was certainly created by us while Mother, as I told you before, is a glitch of some kind. But we like that you trapped her the way she trapped you. At least we know where she will be six months from now.”
“Listen, Hags, I am beat. Can we finish this tomorrow?”
“Yeah, in a second. Just one last thing. Those kids. Cali, Bondi and the others. You sure they aren’t going to say anything.”
“I trust Cali. I don’t know why but I do. And she will take care of her two siblings not to say anything. And then there is Bondi. She is going to ask for a king’s ransom.”
“We will give them what they want as long as it is reasonable. The next expansion takes place in six months when Shatana’s storyline along with a dozen other around The Great Realm will kick off. The player level cap of one hundred will be gone and monster level caps will increase as well. We might even introduce dragons. People love dragons, especially if they can fight or ride one.”
“I would like to get Bondi out of the way, however. Not sure what is up with her and Cali – but I think she might be a bad influence on her. I have a plan to get her away from Freehold for a while.”
“And what would that be?” He asked?
I explained my plan. He smirked and said he would need a few days to get it set up. I said goodnight and that I would speak with him the following day.
The telescreen went quiet and I sat there enjoying the peace. It was midnight by now and my eyes were closing. Walking to the bedroom seemed like too much work…and I dozed off.
The telescreen buzzed again. I cursed as I thought it was Haggerty calling back to tell me one more thing. But then I said, “Hi honey,” as I saw it was Amber.
“Are you okay?” I said, “You don’t usually call so late.”
“I’m fine,” Amber said, slurring her words. She had obviously had a few drinks. The Dad inside of me wanted to say something about her drinking and the dangers involved. But I held my tongue. Besides, I wasn’t really the correct person to warn someone about the dangers of alcohol.
“What’s up?” I asked next, always cautious about what I say to Amber now. She had just come back into my life and I didn’t want to lose her again. Amber and Haggerty were the only people I really had in my life.
“Wanted to know how your first day at work was?” she slurred again.
It was so strange to call playing a video game work, but it was. They were paying me and paying me well. Before I could answer she added, “I can’t believe you of all people are playing Immersion Online. You used to hassle me for spending so much time logged onto those games when I was a teen and now you are playing it for a living.”
I didn’t comment on the apparent irony instead I said, “You want to hear about it?”
She said, “I’d like that.”
I spent the next forty five minutes recalling the day’s events. Amber listened intently. Interjecting a few times with a question, or a “that’s crazy”, or a “can you really trust this Bondi chick?” Just as I began to tell her about General Morgan her eyelids wavered as sleep tried to take her. It was like she was a little girl again, and I was reading her a goodnight story. She suddenly popped back up and I finished recounting the long day’s events.
“Wow! You had a full first day. And you gained eight levels in one day – maybe even more since you haven’t read all your notifications or returned to Freehold to get your reward from Danna. That is a hell of an accomplishment. I should join the game. Maybe we can meet up in Grandview and do a quest or two.”
“I would like that very much,” I said. And I meant it.
“I am dozing here. So going to sleep. Early class. What kind of evil bastard created eight a.m. college classes?” She said with a yawn.
“Good night Honey,” I said lovingly.
“Good night Dad,” she responded and the telescreen went dark.
“As my eyes closed, I couldn’t help but think that this had been one of the best days I’d had in many years.
Epilogue 1: Grinding Levels
For the next several weeks, I played as a traditional noob, undertaking starter quests and trying to stay alive. Cali, Jarrell and Flora joined me on a number of the quests, and I really started to enjoy the company of the three kids. I got the feeling that in the real world Cali was raising the real world Jarrell and Flora. It was the just the way they acted around her and how she acted around them – part older sister and part matriarch. I believed Cali was in her early twenties and wondered what had happened to saddle her with two teenagers – one a bit wild and capricious; the other shy and withdrawn. Bondi didn’t join us on any of these quests. I had spoken with Hearn upon my return the following day after the defeat of the skelters. I had asked him to give the Starborn named Bondi and her alone the quest to find out how Blackthorn had ended up in the abandoned bandit cave. And I had asked him to make the reward something that she couldn’t say no to. A backstory and even a quest already existed for the sword. So a programmer and game writer pulled an all-nighter and fleshed out this unique solo quest that would keep Bondi busy for the next several months. She was also told about the missing treasure of the Bandit King – thousands of gold coins and rare magical items – all for her and her alone.
Before Bondi left on the quest, she claimed her gift from the corporation. Haggerty’s face blanched when I asked him for her gift: Mendelson’s Watch of Moments. Mendelson was the most famous Starborn designer of some of the most powerful relics and talismans in the entire game. He had items that were rumored could take down gods. Some of his items were one of a kind, one use items, such as Mendelson’s Boom Stick of Choas, Mendelson’s Monocle of Mania, Mendelson’s Nuclear Thunderclap, Mendelson’s Mirror of Minor Moments, among several others.
Bondi knew she was not getting one of these ultra-rare items. Instead she wanted a Mendelson Watch, which were readily available if you had the five thousand gold coins to purchase one – which most players did not. The watch was one of Mendelson’s less powerful items – but still a one-time use item that could be
a game changer if used at the right time and under the right circumstances. The item stopped time for ten seconds in a one hundred yard radius. Once I found out what it did I said, “She is probably going to sell it anyway. Besides, how much harm can you really cause in ten seconds?” When I thought about it, I realized quite a bit of mayhem and destruction can occur in a mere ten seconds.
When all was said and done, he acquiesced. The corporation actually had to purchase one of the watches from Mendelson. Bondi snatched the watch out of my hand. Cali just shook her head at me in disbelief at my stupidity. I did tell Bondi, however, that should knowledge of Shatana’s cave slip out, that the watch would cease to work. She nodded her head in acknowledgement.
As for Cali, Jarrell and Flora they all asked for a scalable weapon. Powerful magical weapons were difficult to come by or very expensive to buy. Characters were always out-leveling their armor, weapons and talismans. It was not unusual to see a thirty fifth level character walking around in twentieth level armor. Magical items in The Great Realm were abundant – but not necessarily cheap to purchase or easy to find. A scalable weapon allowed for their weapons to grow in power and magic as they grew in strength. Scalable weapons were very expensive and nearly impossible to purchase, and now each of them had one for their silence: Jarrell, a two bladed axe he named Striker; Flora an Air Mage wand; and Cali an Earth Mage quarterstaff.
While they sometimes bickered (mostly Jarrell and Cali), they were also very protective of one another. I found myself becoming protective of them as well. We also formed a cohesive team with established roles: Jarrell served as our tank; Flora was our damage dealer, her lightning spells frying our opponents; and Cali played a support role – casting spells to slow or entangle opponents. She also had just gained a buff, Earth Armor, that she would cast on Jarrell and I, which coated our armor with a thick layer of what looked like clay. It was weightless on us and could absorb quite a bit of damage. And I acted primarily as our frontline damage dealer. I had gained another level for completing Danna’s quest. I had poured all my attributes points into my strength. The added strength damage amplified the additional buffs added to my mace as I used it more and more. Cali called me a Bruiser – which I guess I was. How I designated then wouldn’t really matter. Prior to logging into Grandview for the first time, I would create the new and improved fiftieth level Mace.