“It is really that big of a deal?” I asked.
“Yeah, it is. All the animals and vegetation in the game are programmed to follow the daily cycle, and if that cycle were to apparently be put on pause, it would wreak havoc.”
“Kincaid is already wreaking havoc,” I said. “And I don’t think that Aeorock can withstand another attack tonight.”
On the screen floating in front of my face, Dr. Hamilton glanced around conspiratorially. He leaned in closer to the camera and whispered. “To tell you the truth, Sam, I don’t give a shit what happens to Arthur. Horizon Corp stocks have dropped 76% since news of this latest glitch got out. If it was up to me, the new Kincaid would simply be deleted. But his father owns the company, so obviously that is out of the question.”
“Doctor Marks said something before he was killed by the assassin,” I said. “He said something about trapping Kincaid, but that’s all he managed to tell me. Do you know what he meant?”
Doctor Hamilton glanced around again. “Yes, Doctor Marks and I talked about this. We believe that if we can somehow quarantine Kincaid, then perhaps we can stop what is happening and prevent any damage to Arthur Gaines at the same time.”
“How do we trap him in another realm?” I asked.
“It won’t be easy, and it will take someone getting in close.”
“By someone, I assume that you mean me,” I said with a sprinkle of sarcasm.
“You’re the one who contacted me,” Doctor Hamilton reminded me.
“Fair enough,” I said with a reluctant sigh. “What do you need me to do?”
Chapter 7
“He wants us to do what?” Kit said and leapt from the bed.
The girls gathered around, pressing me into a quick confession.
“He said it’s the only way. We’ve got to get ourselves killed, infiltrate the Underworld, and face Kincaid. Then I activate this.” I held out a pulsing golden orb.
The golden light shone in my guildmates’ eyes, and slowly they all glanced up at me.
“Get ourselves killed?” said Ember, crossing her arms.
“Infiltrate the Underworld?” Anna said with a raised brow.
“And face Kincaid?” Kit bit the tip of a claw nervously.
“What does that do?” Cecilia asked.
I glanced down at the swirling golden orb. Inside, there looked to be contained a storm of golden flakes churning in gilded lava.
“It is supposed to send Kincaid to another realm,” I explained.
“Then Doctor Hamilton decided to help? Good.”
“Not quite, Cece,” I said to the foxy lady. “He’s kind of gone rogue. He says that the programmers are unable to do anything for fear of hurting Arthur Gaines.”
“That’s stupid,” said Ember shaking her head. “Whatever Kincaid is, he’s not Arthur Gaines. There’s noooo way in hell. I mean come on, what are they afraid of disturbing, some kind of spiritual connection? That’s some Silicon Valley digital hippy bullshit.”
I shrugged. “This looks like our only shot at saving Tweak & Trinity, not to mention everyone else trapped down there.”
“Well why don’t they get someone else to do it?” said Kit. She then stomped her foot and clenched her fists, saying, “Hairballs! We just saved the freaking world!”
“What’s your problem?” Ember asked, looking at Kit like she was a wet dog. “Since when don’t you like to quest?”
“Uhhh, since I don’t think facing the lord of the Underworld on his turf sounds like a good time, you psycho. We could all end up trapped down there, and since when is this shit our responsibility?”
“I took Kincaid out,” I said, standing tall and clutching the glowing orb in my fist. “I made Kincaid what he is, and I’ve got to clean up my mess.”
“Sam,” said Cecilia, leveling me with her bullshit-detector eyes. “You’re a pretty awesome guy, and a hell of a lay, but you’re not superman.”
“You sure about that?” I offered her my best once-over and a wink.
She laughed, shaking her head. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I’m a lot of things, babe, but a coward isn’t one of them. I defeated Kincaid once, and I can do it again.”
“Last time you had Tweak’s help,” said Kit. “But now he’s dead.”
“You don’t have to help if you don’t want to, but I’ve got to do this,” I told her.
“Of course we’re going to help,” Ember declared and threw Kit a frown. “We’re guildmates. No matter how crazy Sam’s ideas are, and they are crazy, we’ve got to stick together. That’s what guildmates do.”
“There’s no debate to be made,” said Anna, glancing around at all of us. “We’re in this together. We all know that. The question is: what do we do next?”
“We get ourselves killed,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Kit, “But how? I’m not killing myself, and I’m not killing any of you either.”
“I don’t think I could do it either,” Anna admitted.
We all glanced at Ember, and the dark elf raised a silver eyebrow. “Why are you all looking at me? I’m an assassin, not an asshole. I’m not killing you all.”
“Don’t look at me,” said Cecilia.
“Speaking of you,” said Ember, “Are you in or are you out? Tweak’s your friend too.”
“Of course I’m in,” said the foxy lady.
“I can’t kill myself either, and I’m definitely not killing any of you,” I said when the looks turned my way.
“Then what do we do?” Kit asked.
“The undead are going to attack tonight,” I reminded them. “I guess we’ve got to battle to the death.”
We all agreed on the plan, so naturally we went into the city to gather as much shit as we could that would help us survive in the Underworld. My first stop was to the mage trainer to learn my new spell, Fire Vision.
I found the trainer working with a group of high-level mages, but one of his doubles hobbled over to me to help instead. I nodded to the other mages, and they returned the greeting. Their eyes showed their fear, and the hope that sparked inside them when they saw me.
I had never seen such a look before.
For most of the last year of my life I had been trapped in a body that no longer worked, and I had gotten used to the sympathetic looks. But for some reason it was harder to get used to being looked at with reverence rather than pity, to be seen as a savior rather than a cripple, to be seen as a hero instead of an unfortunate.
“What can I do for y— Ahh!” said the trainer as he noticed my level. “You’re now a level 23 Fire Mage, and therefore you must be seeking to learn Fire Vision.”
“Yes sir,” I said with a respectful bow.
“Excellent, excellent I say. Come, come with me and I shall begin with Volume One of—”
“Um, I was hoping to just learn the hand gestures,” I admitted.
“Just learn the hand gestures?” he said, looking shocked and confused and disgusted all at the same time. “Oh yes, I remember now, you like to take the easy way.”
“That’s not it, I’m just pressed for time. I’ve read up on the other spells.”
“Have you now?” he asked as his bushy right eyebrow slowly crawled up his wrinkled face like a silver caterpillar.
“Ask me anything,” I said confidentially—and inwardly hoping that he wouldn’t call my bluff. I should have read the tomes by now, and I intended to, but I had always learned better by doing.
To my relief, the trainer didn’t ask me anything, instead he shook his head and turned from the giant bookshelf he had been heading for and turned to me.
“Always in a hurry,” he mumbled to himself. “You know, there is more to magic than flashy lights, green fires, and farts that don’t stink.”
“What?”
He grimaced and kind of cocked his hip to the side. What followed was the longest, loudest fart that I’ve ever heard.
“That was epic,” I said with a smile and began to clap.
>
He grinned and then waved me off. Then, with a grumble and a cough and a flexing of the fingers, he showed me the hand gesture. He made the OK sign with each hand, then brought the tips of his pinched fingers and thumbs together like kids do to make imagined eye-glasses, then he brought them up to his eyes.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“No, that’s not it, but you don’t want to learn the hard way now do you?” he responded flippantly.
I mimicked the gestures and brought my makeshift glasses to my face. I felt a little silly doing so, but then my vision suddenly flared to life.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled.
The mage trainer laughed. “It takes some getting used to. You would have known that, but you—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I squeezed my eyes shut. “Just tell me how to turn the damn thing off.”
“Nonsense. You’ve got to learn to use it, so start learning.”
I opened my eyes again, and once more the world around me flared with intense red light.
“What you’re seeing are heat signatures,” said the trainer. “Look away from me, focus on the wall instead.”
I turned my head and opened my eyes once more, and the glow was much dimmer than it had been. Looking at the wall, I was amazed to see faint humanoid outlines on the other side, as well as other glowing heat signatures.
“This is pretty cool,” I admitted.
“Cool?” said the trainer confused. “If anything, it’s hot.”
“Right.”
“It is most useful when trying to determine if there are people around corners, locating dragons inside cold dens, and the like.”
“Is there any way to dial it back a bit?” I asked, once more glancing at him and finding the glow emanating from him too hard to handle.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said lazily.
“How do I shut it off?”
“The same way that you turned it on,” he replied. “Now if you have no other business, I must get back to those who actually wish to hear the lore behind the spells they are learning.”
I performed the hand gestures once more and brought them to my eyes, and to my relief the spell went away.
“I need to spend my attribute points,” I reminded the trainer, and with a sigh he asked me where I would like to apply them. I decided to put them all into spirit, and then made my way to the main marketplace.
The place was bustling with activity, and it soon became apparent that people were coming from all over the realm to take refuge in Aeorock. I passed groups of people speaking with their friends, and overheard stories of the undead rising up all throughout the land and marching through villages, towns, and even cities.
There were still a few strongholds standing, like Aeorock, but I didn’t think it would stay that way for long. As it turned out, I was not alone in my prognostication. A few freaked out noobs were huddled together and crying, and though many of the other higher-level players regarded them with amusement, they too were afraid.
I found Ember in one of the weirder shops in town, which was run by an old portly witch with gnarly salt and pepper hair.
“You learn your new spell?” Ember asked absently as she inspected a shrunken head.
“Yup, it’s pretty cool, lets me see heat signatures through walls and shit,” I said proudly.
“Hmm, that’ll come in handy.”
“What’s that?” I asked, indicating the artifact in her hand.
“It’s supposed to be the shrunken head of a witch doctor. The witch says that it’ll ward off evil spirits, but I think she’s just bat shit crazy,” she said with some frustration.
Kit and Anna soon joined us, and we all left the crazy witch’s shop to go see a shaman that Kit said she knew well.
“He’s an NPC, but I swear you can’t tell at all,” Kit explained as we walked through the city. “He’s really into the Underworld and claims to know everything about it. If anyone can help up prepare for that place, it’s him.”
She led us to a large stalagmite situated far away from the rest of the main trading hall, where the sounds of the busy crowd were replaced by the slow dripping of mountain spring water and the occasional flutter of unseen bat wings.
Kit knocked on the crooked wooden door of the stalagmite, and I glanced at the lone window beside it and saw a quick flash of movement behind the ragged curtains.
“Who’s there?” came a high-pitched voice that reminded me of the lollipop guild from Wizard of Oz.
“It’s me, Kitty Kat,” said Kit.
“Ahhh!” came the comical voice, and a moment later the door flew open. The little gnome man standing in the door was dressed in a fine green suit with golden trim. His shoes curled up at the tips, and he wore an old top hat that looked like it had been made from bat wings. “Welcome Kitty, welcome!” he said jovially.
“Hello Bogmire!” Kit trumpeted. She offered him a greeting and a hug, and he scowled at me over her shoulder as she bent down to embrace him.
“Who’s the meat stick?” he asked gruffly, eyeing me up and down.
I held out a hand, “Samson, nice to meet you.”
He ignored the gesture and ogled Anna, then Ember.
“Well, hello, ladies,” he said with a small bow.
“These are my guildmates that I’ve told you about,” said Kit happily.
“Niiice,” he said in a dreamy voice. “Come on in, I’ve just put on tea.”
The inside of the little gnome’s stalagmite abode looked to have been carved out by hand, and it reminded me of Yoda’s pad on Dagobah. There was a small fire burning in the fireplace, and something that smelled disgusting boiling in the cauldron above the flames. The walls were lined with old glass jars full of all things strange and gooey, and various herbs hung from the low ceiling in the cooking area. There wasn’t enough headspace for me to stand upright, so I awkwardly bent and shuffled to the old, moss-covered couch.
We all sat down on a rumpled old couch and waited as the gnome took his sweet time pouring our tea into mismatched cups and saucers. He placed the drinks before us and waited expectantly, his big eyes wide with anticipation. I sipped the tea and nearly puked. It tasted like Bigfoot had dipped his balls in it.
“Good, isn’t it?” he said proudly.
“Mnnn…” I hummed and nodded agreement.
He eyed me suspiciously and glanced at the girls.
“What’s in this?” Ember asked with a barely contained grimace.
“Guano, old man’s beard root, mushrooms, and a few other ingredients that I care not to divulge,” he said.
To my left, Anna made a low retching noise and covered it up with a cough.
“It’s delicious,” said Kit with a smile.
Bogmire looked very pleased with himself. He nodded to himself and climbed up into his big chair. ‘What can I do for you, pretty kitty?”
“We’re going to die tonight,” Kit said happily. “And we need something that—”
“What?” said Bogmire, frowning at the cat lady.
“Surely you’ve heard about the undead attacks,” said Ember impatiently.
“Of course I have, but what makes you think that you will die this night? What do you know that I have not gleaned from the spirit world?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Kit. Her poker face was terrible, and I was afraid that she was going to give something away.
“What she means is,” I said quickly, “Is that if we die, we will need something that can help us in the Underworld.”
Bogmire completely ignored me and continued to stare at Kit.
“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” she told him. “Everyone is dying and instantly hitting level zero. We figure that it’s only a matter of time before it happens to us as well. So we were wondering if you have anything that might help us down there.”
“I can do little more than offer you a blessing,” said Bogmire gravely. “For when you die and enter the Underworld, you bring with you nothing that you had i
n this realm. The Underworld is a place of nightmares and madness. Up is down and down is sideways. Magic doesn’t work the same down there, everything is…different.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Anna noted.
“Maybe I do,” he said with a small grin.
“Have you ever been there?” I asked.
“Of course not,” he said shaking his head. “No one comes back from the Underworld.”
“Then how do you know so much about the Underworld?” I asked.
He let out a long sigh, as though I was the biggest cockblock in the world and I could be doing better things just then, like pounding salt. “I can communicate with the spirits.”
I glanced at Kit and showed her my skepticism, but she didn’t seem to share it.
“Can you bless us, Bogmire?” Kit asked. “Anything you can do to help would be very welcome.”
The gnome’s scowl, which had been aimed at me, instantly turned to a bright, crooked toothed smile as he turned toward Kit.
“Of course I can. But I don’t think your boyfriend here is going to like the price.”
“How much?” I asked, “And what will the blessing do?”
“I have a number of different blessings that I offer, and none of them are cheap,” he said. “For instance, I could bless you with a resistance to the undead, which would serve you well in the Underworld.”
“And would no doubt cost an arm and a leg,” I offered.
“Not an arm and a leg, 50,000 gold,” he said snidely.
A laugh burst from me and I glanced around at the ladies. “Welp, I’ve heard enough, let's go do something useful with our—”
“You doubt my abilities?” Bogmire yelled and shot to his feet.
“I haven’t seen any proof of your abilities,” I said, arms wide.
“He’s right,” said Ember. “For all we know, you’re a charlatan.”
Kit gasped. Bogmire scowled. But Anna, ever the diplomat, stood and moved between us.
“We would be happy to pay for your blessings, Bogmire,” she said in a soothing voice that instantly put him at ease. “But you must understand our need for proof of your abilities before we commit to such a deal.”
“I’d love to see what you can do,” Ember added alluringly, which was the icing on the cake.
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