by Adam Drake
“Yeah,” said Kragg. “People go in, but they never come out again.” He looked at me, worried now.
I said, “Kragg, I know you can't remove the bounty on my head, not without killing me at least, which won't happen. But you've got information which could help me on my way to having the bounty negated.”
“What's that?” the ogre asked, genuinely curious.
“If I kill Ogden Trite, the bounty is canceled. And, as everyone knows, Ogden always hides in his guildhall, and you know where his guildhall is hidden.”
Kragg blanched, which is strange to see considering how green he is. “I don't know that. Never been there.”. He folded his arms in front of him.
“No?” I asked, then gave the orb a small push. It, along with Kragg inside, floated a few feet toward the gaping portal. “We've done our research on you, buddy, and wouldn't be asking if you didn't have the answer.”
Kragg's eyes widened in alarm. “Wait! Don't!”
Mudhoof chuckled. “Got something to share with us, Booger?”
The ogre seemed to wrestle with himself over spilling the beans. I gave the orb another little nudge.
“Okay!” Kragg finally said. “I'll tell you what I know. Just stop pushing me!” His eyes stared at the gate in fear. And he had reason to be. Once inside the Void there was no way out. Not any way that is known. He could be floating forever in there. Even if he died or deleted his character, the new one would appear back inside the void, floating through space.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Well, I don't know where he is at this exact moment. But, like you said, he has a guildhall.”
“Where is it located?”
“I don't know the exact spot,” Kragg said.
Mudhoof snorted and tapped his horns, which were tipped in steel, against the orb. The orb moved closer to the portal.
Kragg held up his hands. “No one knows exactly where the guildhall is, but I know where the travel gate is that will lead you to it.”
I waited a heartbeat then motioned for him to keep talking.
“Wally's Womp,” Kragg said.
“Wally's Womp?” Mudhoof said. “There's a place called Wally's Womp?”
Kragg shook his head. “No beef-for-brains. It's the name of the travel gate.”
“Watch your mouth!” Mudhoof said. The two scowled at each other.
“Huh?” I said, befuddled. “Wally's Womp is the name of the gate? That doesn't make sense.”
Kragg waved a hand dismissively, “You know what, this is crap. How am I suppose to deal with someone so dense? Besides, without an invite from Ogden himself, you won't gain access to the guildhall.”
Mudhoof said to me, “Do you believe him?”
I saw Kragg give the Void Portal another worried glance. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Really?” Mudhoof said, sceptical. “Why?”
“Because if I faced my character floating through a void for all eternity, I'd spill the beans, too.” I said and meant it. I looked to the Void Portal. The view it gave was beautiful but cold. Then I thought I glanced something moving, far off in the distance, snake-like and huge. But before I could query the game for an identity and statistics, the thing was gone.
Mudhoof's voice pulled me back to the situation.
“There's no such thing as a Wally's Womp,” Mudhoof said. He hitched a thumb at Kragg. “This green sack of unicorn dung is worthless.”
Now enraged, Kragg stood up in the orb. “It does exist! But if you weren't so daft you would take the time to check it out.” He punched at the orb. “Let me out of here and I'll turn you into hamburger, stupid man-cow!”
“That's it!” Mudhoof yelled and with nostrils flaring suddenly used his Charge ability.
“No!” I shouted and reached for Mudhoof. But there was no way you could stop a charging minotaur.
Mudhoof head-butted the orb at full speed hitting it with a loud crack. His head whipped back from the impact, snorting with rage.
The orb shot away, with Kragg panicking inside, and passed straight into the Void Portal. The moment the orb crossed over from our dimension into the other, the gate instantly shrunk and vanished.
Mudhoof looked at me with a sheepish grin. “Been wanting to do that since this started.”
“That was uncalled for,” I said. I intended to let Kragg go, but by leaving him here in the Orb for a few days, at least. Once we checked out if the gate existed where he said, I would return and reverse the orb's creation. Now that wouldn't happen at all.
Mudhoof shrugged, “Yeah, maybe a little, but it felt good. So, Vee, what do we do now?”
I let my anger subside. Mudhoof was one of only a handful of allies I had in this entire game. I couldn't afford to alienate him by losing my temper. Instead, I put Kragg out of my mind and answered Mudhoof's question.
“Now?” I said. “Now we go kill Ogden Trite.”
CHAPTER THREE
We emerged from the dank chamber and out into the shadows cast by the high cliffs which surrounded us.
I glanced over at the river and its opposite bank. There was no one here. None of Kragg's cronies had arrived, yet. But I did not doubt they were coming. We may have trapped the ogre in the Orb, but that didn't prevent him from using the in-game chat to call for help. While we were interrogating him he was, no doubt, calling in favors.
Mudhoof must have been thinking the same thing. “We need to make tracks, Vee. The cavalry may be coming.”
“Agreed,” I said, “let's find the closest Locators Guild, then try to get a bead on this Wally's Womp.” I pulled up the local area map and did a quick search.
While I did so, a yellow alert message appeared at the corner of my vision. Work needed my attention. There were a series of Digging droids which were going through their daily diagnostics. But since it was only yellow, I knew it was the IceStation's AI throwing me some crumbs to keep be busy. Now wasn't the best time to log out, let alone, step away from the game. Canceling the message, I resolved to check it out later. Real Life would have to wait.
Mudhoof snorted and kicked at the sand. “Wally's Womp? Nonsense. We couldn't trust that guy to tell the truth, anyway. Yeah, it was worth the shot to trap him, and kinda fun, too, but come on. Can't trust him as far as I could throw him.” He thought for a moment. “Oh, wait. I did throw him, and damn far. Never mind.”
I tuned the minotaur's rambling out and found what I needed. “Ingot's Perch has a Locators branch. And, hey, it's just down the river from us, not that far.” I closed the map. “Okay, we need to-”.
I didn't get a chance to finish. Mudhoof was looking at me when something over my shoulder caught his attention. As he opened his mouth to shout a warning, I was already moving.
But not fast enough.
My simulation suit registered a sudden deep pain under my left shoulder blade.
The combat log window at the lower right of my vision blared a message in bright red font:
Perriwinkle KillUGood Backstabs Vivian Valesh for 788 hit points of damage.
Then beneath that:
You have been poisoned. Poison unidentified.
My avatar was stunned and collapsed to the sandy ground. I twisted around to look at my assailant.
A man wearing a dark hooded cowl whirled away. In one hand was a long crystal dagger, covered in blood. My blood. Across his back was a quiver, and a sword sheathed on one thigh. He had struck from a point of camouflage.
Another Shadow! I thought as I watched Perriwinkle run away.
Mudhoof roared, a double-bladed axe appearing in his hands, and gave chase. But Perriwinkle was quicker and made a dash for the river. Had Mudhoof not already used his Charge ability back in the chamber to knock Kragg's orb, he may have been able to use it now to catch the fleeing Shadow.
As Perriwinkle reached the edge of the river he dived into its rushing waters and vanished. Mudhoof stopped at the edge and screamed filtered profanities at him. I know he wanted to keep chasing him, but I n
eeded help.
Fuming, the angry minotaur returned to my side. “Sorry, Vee! He came out of nowhere. Nothing I could do.”
I nodded and tried to get into a sitting position. Mudhoof eased me up a little, cradling me in one massive arm. “No worries,” I said. “Now I know what it's like to get attacked by a Shadow.” I managed a laugh but my avatar coughed up blood, instead.
Mudhoof looked me over. “How bad is it? Tell me you ain't gonna have to reroll. Not now.”
A green icon shaped like a water drop appeared in the top right corner of my view-screen, indicating my poisoned status. That Backstab took almost 80 percent of my health in one fell swoop. Had I not turned when I did, I might have been killed instantly.
But now, what little health I had slowly ebbed away because of the poison.
You have suffered 20 hit points of Poison damage.
“No reroll. At least not in the next few minutes. But time is counting down.”
“Here, take this Health Potion,” Mudhoof said passing a little bottle with a red cross on it. “Should buy you some time.”
I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd already used a Health Potion during my initial encounter with Kragg. Applying this one so soon after dulls its effect. Because potions instantly healed all hit points to full, there was a penalty for trying to use them, one after an other. So a one hour penalty was applied which greatly reduces the results by about 80 percent, depending on your medical acuity. Healing Salves were better because they healed you to full over 90 seconds with only a small cooldown.
But I didn't have the time for a Salve, nor did I think of it. Now I could pay the price for that hasty oversight with my life. Still, I used it though, and my health bar only went up fifteen percent. This was looking grim.
“I need a Temple,” I said, stating the obvious.
“Right,” Mudhoof said, nodding vigorously. “Good idea. I'll just-”.
An arrow suddenly thunked into the right side of Mudhoof's head just below the horn.
“What the...?” he said. He grabbed the arrow and yanked it out. He looked around, angrily. “Who the hell did that?!”
I pointed weakly upward.
Far above, on the edge of the cliffs that encircled this little sandy patch, stood a row of archers. From what I could see, there were close to ten of them.
“Oh, FILTERED,” said Mudhoof as he gazed up at them. “Kragg called in an army?”
“They're not players,” I said when I tried to focus on one of them.
“Huh?” Mudhoof said, then another arrow hit him in the back. Several others hit the surrounding sand.
Frustrated, Mudhoof brought out a shield from his inventory. It was a black segmented shell from a huge beetle. From end to end it was almost as tall as Mudhoof.
Braced against an arm, Mudhoof put it over us as he hunched down. A volley of arrows cracked against its surface and were deflected. None of them could even pierce it.
“Nice,” I said, trying not to stare at my dropping health bar. Got to keep an upbeat attitude in the face of impending doom.
“Picked this baby up while doing a Daily Quest, believe it or not,” he said with a wide grin. More arrows struck the beetle shield. “Sometimes mindlessly grinding experience points can pay off.”
I had pulled up the local area map, again, this time enquiring about the nearest Healer's Temple.
“Ingot's Perch,” I said.
“What?”
“It has a Temple!”
“Oh,” Mudhoof said as if realizing our current situation. “Right. Well, Vee, there seems to be only way to get out of here.” A machine-gun like cracking of arrows assailed the shield as if to emphasize his words.
“What's that?” I dared to ask.
“Time to pull out the big Sausage,” the minotaur said with an even wider grin.
I shouldn't have dared. “What? Sausage?” I said confused.
“Don't mind while I whip this out, ma'am?” Mudhoof said. He dismissed his battle axe and motioned the free hand toward his waist.
I was beside myself in disbelief. “What the heck are you going on about, Muddie? Now is not the time for juvenile jokes about your-”.
Mudhoof laughed, tipping the shield up a little and pointed at a patch of sand next to us. “Here, check out my big Sausage.”
At that moment, a massive pig popped into existence beside us. No, not a pig. A warthog!
I blinked in surprise. Huh?
“He's my new mount!” Mudhoof said with pride which was partly drowned out by a staccato of arrow impacts.
The creature was nearly twice the size as Smoke, and easily a million times uglier. A jumbled forest of tusks stuck out at all angles from its mouth. Thick tufts of hair bristled from unspeakable nooks and crannies along its dark pitted hide.
Fastened to its arched back was an almost comically small saddle.
“You named your giant pig mount, Sausage?” I said, shrinking health bar momentarily forgotten. Then I started to laugh, and couldn't stop.
“That's the spirit!” Mudhoof declared. “Now let's get out of here!”
With that he hoisted me up with his free arm and, while keeping the beetle shield over our heads, ran to his mount.
Mudhoof leapt into the saddle and wedged me between him and the enormously wide neck of the warthog. Arrows thunked into the animal's thick hide, but it didn't appear to even notice.
Mudhoof grabbed the reigns and kicked at Sausage. “Go! Go! Go!”
Sausage snorted loudly, spraying an ungodly amount of mucus and spit all over the place. Then he wheeled about and charged toward the river at full speed. Arrows continued to rain over us, and I grudgingly had to acknowledge the skill of those archers, so far up.
As we neared the river's edge I asked, “Does Sausage have a Leap ability?”
“Nope!” Mudhoof said.
“Do you?” I asked in alarm as the roiling water neared.
“Nope!” he said again.
When he reached the very edge of sandy bank Sausage made an effort to jump. And barely a third of the way across we dropped straight into the water.
For a few moments we sank like a stone, but to my relief we all popped back up to the surface. Sausage was more buoyant than he looked.
As water sloshed around us, we looked back. The sandy spot, and the archers on the cliffs above, slipped from view.
“This is good,” Mudhoof said, watching the landscape fly by on either side of us. “We'll be at Ingot's Perch in no time. How's the poison situation?”
I looked at my health bar. What tiny gain the health boost had given me was gone, and the rest was slipping away. The edges of my view-screen distorted and blurred. “As bad as you'd expect.”
Despite his size and burden, Sausage excelled at swimming in the churning waters. Soon, a small town appeared by the river in the distance.
“There it is!” Mudhoof said.
My health bar was at eleven percent. Things were going dark.
As we reached Ingot's Perch, Mudhoof steered Sausage's massive bulk up onto a low part of the shoreline. A man, fishing rod in hand, stood nearby lost in contemplation about a potential meal. He fell back in shock as Sausage surged out of the water and stood dripping next to him.
“Where's the Temple?” Mudhoof roared at the fisherman.
The man was wide eyed with shock and I could only imagine how we must appear to him: larger than life and terrifying.
“Wh-what?” he asked, confused.
“WHERE IS THE FILTERING TEMPLE!?” Mudhoof bellowed.
The man shrank back in fear, dropping his rod. “At the town square,” he said, pointing.
And we were gone, Mudhoof driving Sausage at high speed. Sausage's large hooves clopped loudly on the cobblestone streets, as townsfolk scrambled to get out of the way.
We entered the square at a full gallop. Mudhoof yanked on the reigns to turn Sausage toward a large squat building, topped with a pyramid. At the pinnacle was a statue of a dove.
He rode Sausage up the Temple's stairs and through the open entrance. I heard shrieks of alarm, and Mudhoof shouting orders, but now my simulation suit was locking off my hearing, and my vision was an opaque slate grey.
There was movement, and I had the sense my avatar was being carried. I heard the words, “FILTERing backstabbed with poison.” Mudhoof? I couldn't tell.