Desert

by Caiden Walker

  Her dad nodded. "They are. Here they are simply a little less close." He lifted a shoulder. "We needed the save point closer to Gaia, and we didn't think players would enjoy being deposited into the pitch black of the caverns."

  Ah, yes, the darkness. Nika had almost forgotten that lovely part of it. She looked over to Louella. "Better get your lantern ready," she said.

  The pixie nodded and brought it out. Hesitating, she offered it to Nika. "Maybe you should carry it."

  "Thanks, but I'm thinking if the height of the cavern will allow it, the best plan might be to have an overhead light for everybody."

  Louella brightened. "Oh, yes, a good idea. I can so do that again."

  "I can help a little with that, too," her dad said. "As a priest, I have the illumination spell for dark spaces. It works pretty well. With the pixie's lantern and my spell, we should have plenty of light."

  "Good," Dean shivered. "I'm really not a fan of caves."

  They crossed under the stone archway and into the mouth of the cave. The entry was large and had three separate paths leading into three separate tunnels. "Oh Lord," Nika said. "Please, Dad, tell me you didn't put in a maze."

  He sighed. "I just couldn't resist. Can't let players get by too easily, you know, or they'll get bored."

  Nika pulled up her area map, but it was totally dark. "And no map, either, huh?"

  He grinned at her. "Wouldn't be much of a maze if the map just led you through it, now would it? The map will only fill in as you explore different areas of the caverns."

  "Dad..."

  "I know, I know," he said. "But just for the record, this is so not what I wanted for your first game run through."

  He stopped and looked around, appearing to be getting his bearings. Then he started toward the right-hand tunnel. "This way," he said as he called his light spell into being.

  It was a nice spell that created a globe of light that looked like an old-fashioned twentieth century light bulb. No matter what its appearance, the small bulb put out quite a bit of light. A quick glance at the ceiling said it was a good thing, too. There wasn't nearly enough clearance overhead to allow the pixie to fly.

  At least with the priest in front of the party and the pixie behind it, the ground and cavern walls were fairly well lit. Enough to see where they were going and if they were about to be ambushed by enemies. She still regretted the map's inability to detect anything in the cavern, though. It would have been nice to at least know how far they had to go to reach Gaia.

  "I know this cavern," Striker said quietly. "My family mined in the deep years ago." He seemed a bit in awe. "I've heard tales of the creatures that live in here. Great cats the size of a full grown dwarf and even bigger. Fierce beasts with wisps of hair on the tips of their ears." Striker shook his head. "Many of my family's men went into the bellies of those unholy creatures."

  "Cats, huh?" Dean asked. "Big cats. Any other creatures in those tales you heard?"

  Striker considered for a minute and then shook his head. "Just the cats really. Now the hilltops outside are a far different story, but here mostly the cats."

  "Well, with any luck we won't have to explore the hilltops outside and can stick with the caverns," Nika said. "Your family give any hints as to how to fight the cats?"

  "Oh, yes," he said nodding. "The beasts seem to have only one fear. Fire." He cast a furtive glance over at Ash and sidled a little closer to her side. As nothing in the game thus far had seemed to faze the dwarf, his obvious fear of the cats had Nika a bit worried. They must be fierce beasts indeed. She was glad they had decided to push their levels to the max before entering the caves.

  The tunnel they were following led back into the cave and then started shifting to a downward slope, the ceilings lowering just a bit. Still tall enough for Dean to stand upright, but Nika didn't know how long that would last. They'd been walking a good half hour before the tunnel branched out into a Y with two tunnels to choose from.

  "Which way now, Dad?" Nika asked.

  As she watched, he studied the area and finally pointed to the one on the left. "That way," he said.

  "How do you know?" Nika asked.

  He lifted his light so he could see her face and gave her a smile. "The maze wouldn't be much fun if it was static, so I programmed it to change a bit with each run-through of the game. There are signs that will tell you which to choose if you know what to look for but I don't want to tell you. That will be for you to discover next time. Something new."

  She took a deep breath but knew better than to argue with her dad. In all of her life, she had never won a single argument.

  It wasn't long before the tunnel led them into a large single cavern room. The space itself was quite lovely with a tiny waterfall trickling down the far wall and a tiny lake pooling beneath it. The ceiling here was quite high. So high in fact that there was a bit of light shining through a few holes here and there above. The scattered sunbeams seemed to focus on the water and gave the room an almost surreal look and feel.

  Until they noticed the other inhabitants of the room.

  Three large cats, and yes they were every one as big or bigger than their dwarf friend, lay on ledges halfway up the walls watching them. The party stopped before they got into jumping distance from them. No sense making it easy on the cats. A feline that large could do a lot of damage with a well-timed pounce.

  When the creatures realized they had been seen, they finally jumped down to the floor and started slinking toward them. Two of them branched out, and one came straight at them. Which of course was when they heard the sound of more kitty footfalls behind them. Looking over her shoulder, Nika saw three more of the beasts cutting off the party's escape from that direction.

  "No sense waiting, everyone," she said. "Let's end these beasts."

  Dean, Ash, and Blake turned to face the three coming up from behind and the others readied themselves for the ones in front. Dean lifted his bow and to Nika's amazement, the air was suddenly filled with arrows. So many that she couldn't count. Then it hit her. He was level twenty as well. That meant he had elf shot. Ten arrows and every one of them guaranteed to hit a living target.

  The air around them came alive at the sound of the cats' screams of pain, anger, and sheer hatred of everything man-shaped. Nika gave her new BattleCry and dodged the middle cat's rush, only to swing her body onto the creature's back as it passed her. From that position, it was short work to swing her ax and bring the feline down. Glancing over, she saw Evan wielding his dual swords, both legendaries the game had been kind enough to give him, and darting and dodging the cat on the left.

  The beast on the right was under attack from the priest and pixie. Nika smiled as she saw how well the two of them worked together. That would be important once the others left the game. Once she saw they had a handle on their fight, she turned to aid Dean and Ash.

  Belatedly Blake started singing and everyone's attack rose. Then he stopped as one of the cats turned toward him with murder in its eyes. As much as Nika would have loved watching the beast tear him limb from limb, she stepped between him and the creature and swung her ax, cleanly lopping off the creature's head in one single swipe.

  As fast as that, the battle was done.

  "Seems me family might have exaggerated the fierceness of these creatures a tad bit," Striker said. "They fell pretty easily to my goddess and her party."

  "Maybe that's because we are just more fierce even than they are," Dean said grinning.

  The dwarf grinned back. "Aye, that could be the right of it."

  Or maybe not, Nika thought, as she saw shadows start to detach from the surrounding walls. Staring in horror, she watched as they seem to gain more substance the further they got from the walls. She knew it was a matter of camouflage and lighting, but still, it was creepy as hell. As if the fact that there were bloody blood elves here in the caverns wasn't bad enough.

  She screamed a warning to the others and gave another BattleCry. "Sing for all you're worth,
Blake," she yelled. "Scratch that. Sing for all we're worth."

  If he took offense, he didn't speak it. Instead, his clear tenor began to fill the cave with a tender ballad. She felt the added strength flowing through her non-existent veins and took heart. The others gathered around her and they formed a small but tight circle facing the walls all around them.

  Seven elves. She only hoped these weren't the invincible ones from Forest. Or maybe those back then weren't really invincible, simply out of their place in the game. After all, all of them were max level now too.

  "ShieldAll!" cried Louella and an invisible force field formed around the party. "It won't keep them out," the pixie said. "But our defense should be up quite a bit."

  The elves had surrounded them, eerily moving in sync with each other. Almost as if they were puppets on an invisible string. Then she realized that maybe they were just that. Whirling around, she caught a glimpse of movement through the waterfall, but it was only there for a split second.

  Gaia? But they hadn't reached the save point yet.

  Then the time for thinking was over as the elves had finally reached them. These were sword-bearing elves at the least, so they couldn't attack from a distance which helped.

  Louella waited until the elves raised their swords in unison and then cast her clone, positioning it on the opposite side of the circle from her. Once in place, she immediately cast double Cyclone. The swirling, high-speed tornado that ensued threw the elves back against the walls and seemed to confuse them. That was all the party needed to give them an edge.

  Dean took advantage of the distance and started firing off ElfShot and TripleShot, alternating between the two attacks to save his very limited mana that the more powerful attack used. Ash threw her chain lighting at the group on her side which bounced between the enemies like a rapid-fire and very deadly pinball.

  Nika and Evan headed out, weapons drawn and caught two elves between them. Then they hacked and slashed their way to the center and each came to face each other standing in a small pile of glitter. They could really do this.

  If these enemies were this easy, then maybe Gaia wouldn't be the threat she had thought she would be. The thought of sleeping the night in her own bed in the real world distracted her for just long enough for a sneaky elf to get a sword strike in and she felt her arm go numb. Looking down she realized that a big chunk of her shoulder was missing. If the game wasn't muting pain, she would be on the ground right now. Even at the much lesser level of distress they felt, she knew the wound was bad.

  "Need a heal," she yelled and instantly felt the power flow through her as not one but two heal spells hit her almost instantaneously. It wasn't enough to completely undo the damage, but at least she had feeling in her arm again. Enough to swing her ax.

  She didn't let any more thoughts of the real world distract her and soon the party was standing in an empty cavern surrounded by bright flares of light. Each and every one of the blood elves had left a legendary item. They collected them and distributed them to the party member who could get the most use out of it. Nika was actually shocked to see a beautiful lyre in the pile of items. Obviously for the bard, but she didn't think any items had been coded for him as his character class wasn't really part of the original game.

  Cora must have felt sorry for him and given him a bone or two. Either that or it was just her dad’s way of helping out the party.

  Most of the items were fuel for the market, but there were two nice pendants that gave stat bonuses. One went to Louella as she was by far their heaviest hitter when it came to magic attack and the Blessed Mage necklace gave a nice boost to that. The other went to her dad, as it was an item suited only for the priest class. His pendant gave him God's Armor, an instant shield that popped into place automatically at the start of battle.

  At this point, everything they got, they were grateful for. Now if they could just get through Gaia and out the other side, they would be indeed grateful.

  Once they were done distributing and equipping their new items, they started looking for the next tunnel. At first glance, there didn't seem to be one. Except for the archway to the tunnel they had just come from, the walls seemed to be solid with no openings.

  Then Nika remembered a video she had seen once where there was a cave entrance behind a waterfall. When she checked the falling water, there was a small opening at its back, behind the streaming water.

  "Hey guys," she called out. "Found it."

  Her father was beside her in a heartbeat. "Very good, dear. I was about to give in and show you all." He leaned in closer. "But I really wanted you to find this one."

  She smiled at him, glad she had been the one to do so. It felt good to please him with her game play.

  The others came over and they passed through the water and to the other side. They were out of the caverns.

  "Oh Lord," Striker said, turning almost white. "We're on the hilltops."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Hero Hacker

  Louella pulled up her area map, outside the caverns it was working again. Thankfully, it showed the next entrance back into the caves just ahead. The map also showed several red dots heading their way.

  She hadn't been the only one checking their status. Nika had too. "Come on guys, let's move it," the Amazon said, running full tilt for the slightly camouflaged archway of stone. If they could reach it before the enemies came within sight, it should mean they could avoid another battle.

  Louella was a bit surprised when Striker passed her along the short run. She'd had no idea the little man could run that fast. Then she realized that fear was lending him speed and picked up her own pace. Whatever could make that dwarf afraid was something she didn't really want to meet right now.

  As they made their way through the cavern system, Louella discovered it was set up a lot like the forest area. Battles were reserved for large, open spaces where they had free range of movement. That meant they could travel fairly quickly down the tunnels without being too afraid of a sneak attack or ambush. Of course, that also meant that just about every time they came to a room within the caverns, there was a battle of some type waiting.

  On their way down into the deep part of the cave, they met up with several more of the desert cats, but no more elves showed themselves. After what seemed like hours of walking interspersed with fighting, they finally turned a corner to find a glorious sight. The save fountain.

  Louella felt her shoulders sag in relief as she touched the beautiful gem at the fountain's center and saw that lovely flash that meant, hopefully, her progress had been saved. She still didn't trust one hundred percent that she would reboot, but if she did, she didn't want to find herself all the way back at the oasis with her friends still here. Shivering, she realized that there was no way she could make it through the caverns back to them alone. She would be done.

  Hopefully, she could stay alive, or at least be revived while the battle still raged. They all checked their health and mana potion supplies and traded back and forth to make sure everyone had a good backup for the battle ahead.

  "Ash," Nika said. "I'm thinking it might be best if you save your mana for healing and reviving any lost members of the party. I know that takes a lot of magic points and I'd hate to lose someone and you not have enough to bring them back."

  The mage nodded. "Got it," she said. "I'll only fight if I see someone in life-threatening danger."

  The Amazon hesitated then agreed. It would use less magic to save them than to revive them. The strategy made sense.

  Nika turned to her with a small smile. "I'm afraid Earthquake is out of the question down here," Nika said. "We have to be able to access that portal and that would be hard to do if it were to be buried under all this rock. But that Cyclone of yours worked really well knocking those elves back so that could come in handy." The woman hesitated. "And that ShieldAll was new too, wasn't it?"

  "Yeah, I got it from the mass level up," Louella said.

  "Good. Definitely use that one." Nika turn
ed to Blake. "No more hesitating before you start singing," she said. "When we enter that cavern, I want to hear your song, and I want to keep hearing it until Gaia is nothing but a glowing pile of dust. Got it?"

  "Got it," he said. Blake opened his mouth to say something else, but then shut it leaving the words unsaid. Really, what was there that he could possibly say?

  "Okay, Dad, spill the beans. And I do mean all of them. Just what will we be facing inside with Gaia?"

  He took a deep breath. "Gaia will have helpers. The game is to add one of the larger nomad thieves for every two party members. They are pretty hard to beat, but not impossible. Once you have them out of the way, Gaia will show up and start her attack. You won't get a break in between, so don't even think about collecting loot. When we defeat Gaia, the portal to the real world should open and crossing it should put all of you back into your bodies."

  "So you think it really is doable?" Nika asked.

  "Absolutely. With as strong a players as you all are at level twenty, there shouldn't be any worry at all about getting that portal to appear," he said.

  "That's good to hear," Dean said. "I know the food here is awesome and everything, but what I wouldn't give for some good ole fast food from back home." He blushed. "I think I've missed that most of all."

  "Hopefully you can scratch that itch in about an hour or so," Nika said. "It will take a little time for the nurses to disconnect all the various things we are attached to, but it shouldn't delay your quest for too long.

  "We ready to do this?" Ash asked. One by one, they all nodded. Blake hesitated, but he gave the nod, anyway. The hesitation was enough to worry Louella. Did he know something they didn't?

  Before she could form a question to ask him, the others were standing up and preparing to go in. Oh well, she thought. If there was a surprise, they’d learn about it soon enough.

  The archway leading into the main battle room was wide enough for two players to walk through side by side. The honor of going first was given to Nika and Cameron. It was only fitting.