“You should get some sleep,” I say.
She shrugs and says, “I'm not sure I can.”
“You should try,” Ekko says. “The climb up those mountains tomorrow is going to be hard.”
She eventually and reluctantly follows me into the tent. I feel sad that the tent will split us into separate instances, but when I appear inside my own canvas-covered area, complete with a plush sleeping bag and pillow, my eyes close faster than I thought they would. My mind is running too fast for me to catch up, and my thoughts become torrential, moving so fast that I can't hold onto any one of them. I'm asleep before I realize I'm laying down, but when I hear an incoming group message beeping, it feels like I've only blinked my eyes.
I roll to one side with a groan and wave my hand in the air, opening my options window. The corner of the window displays the time, and I have difficulty believing I've been asleep for five hours. I glance down at the pending messages, and I see seventeen of them waiting for me. I jerk out of bed and touch the button to select the first message. Ekko's voice whispers in my ear, but I don't see any video.
“Son, I hope you're getting this. You need to wake up right now. Something is headed for our camp... and it's big.”
I don't need to listen to the other messages. I push myself out of the flap, and my avatar appears in the middle of chaos. A bare foot the size of a truck, with coarse hair and split toenails, smashes into the ground only a few feet from where I'm standing. The entire campsite shakes, and it throws me to the ground. I look up and see the bulbous belly and disfigured face of a hill giant.
I hear the rapid fire of Ekko's assault rifle erupt from the right and bullets sink into the giant's back, only serving to annoy him. He spins just in time for Fantom to leap toward his belly. She grabs onto his belt and climbs, stabbing her sword into him repeatedly, using it as leverage to lift herself up.
The hill giant wraps his chubby fingers around her body, howling in pain as he rips her from his flesh. He tosses her like she weighs nothing. I watch her body go tumbling through the air, landing over the crest of a nearby hill.
I struggle to pull my pistols from their holsters as Ekko continues to empty his magazine into the giant. The bullets manage to draw his attention, and the massive creature stomps toward the wooden avatar.
I aim both pistols at the thing's head, hoping to do more damage to his skull than the thick fat that covers the rest of him. As my explosive rounds hammers away at the scraggly hair that hangs around his face, he stops his progression toward Ekko and turns toward me. I look around and realize I have no cover, I have no where to run, and I'm still laying on the ground.
The giant moves faster, lumbering toward me, crossing the gap with only three large steps. He reaches down and picks me up, turning his face away from my constant gunfire. His fingers squeeze my ribcage, making it hard to breathe. I keep firing, and he holds his other hand up in front of his face to block my attacks. With a quick shake that makes it feel like my head may snap from my body, my hands let go of both of my guns, leaving me helpless.
The giant smiles, revealing only three teeth inside his mouth, each one of them bigger than my body. Drool drips from the corners of his lips, and a massive tongue swirls around inside. He draws me closer, and his mouth opens wide. I realize at that moment that I'm about to become his morning snack.
I wrestle and writhe inside his grip, trying to pry myself free, but it's impossible. Each finger is like a swollen boa constrictor, tightening itself the more I fight against it. I get closer to his mouth, and I can smell his wretched breath. I close my eyes when I'm so close that I can see down his rotten throat.
And then I'm ripped away from my certain doom, moving so fast that the rush of air almost knocks me unconscious. The giant is holding me at his side now, distracted by the incoming green fireballs that have ignited his hair.
He pats his own head a few times, trying to extinguish the flames, but one hand is not enough. He drops me to the ground as he tries to smother the green fire under his palms. I waste no time scrambling away. My eyes are searching the ground for my pistols, but I see nothing. I keep moving. Staying alive is more important than attacking. I keep running until I'm over the top of the next hill.
As soon as I reach the top, Fantom passes me, running from the other direction. Her face is smashed and beaten, and I see one arm hanging limp, but the look in her eyes is a silent scream, and her clenched teeth are gnashing themselves with hate. With her one good arm, she's holding her sword with a grip so tight it threatens to snap the blade in two. She leaps from a cluster of rocks, then activates her magical ring, striking across the sky like an arc of lightning. She smashes into the giant, her sword impaling him over and over between his eyes. The giant screams, swatting at his own face, trying to remove the attacker, but it's too late. The behemoth topples over, and Fantom keeps stabbing her blade into his face the entire way down. His back slams into the ground, crushing our campsite and sending out a wave of concussion. Both arms spread out to the side and drop, lifeless. The body does not move, but Fantom stays on top of him, continuing to mutilate his face, making sure the giant is dead once and for all.
Even splitting them with the group, my inventory fills with Koins, more than I would know how to spend.
“Welcome to Level 21,” I hear the announcer say, then again, “Welcome to Level 22.”
I watch Xen climb up onto the giant's chest and set his hands on Fantom's shoulders, saying something into her ear, finally calming her. I see Ekko standup from his hiding place, putting a fresh magazine into his rifle. I stand up from my crouched position, but as I'm about to make my way down the hill to meet up with the rest of the group, I feel a hand on my back. I whirl around, my nerves still jumpy, but my breath returns to my lungs when I see Cyren's black lips forming a smile. I look down, and she's holding both of my pistols in her hands.
“This is becoming a habit.”
“Thanks,” I say bashfully, accepting the guns and sliding them back into their holsters. “Maybe I should tie them to my hands.”
“Couldn't hurt,” she says with a grin.
We both walk down the hill and join the rest of the group that's standing next to the colossal body. Xen is comforting Fantom, who appears to be the most damaged. Her arm still hangs by her side, and she's trying to cover her broken face.
“Are you-” I start to ask, but realize the question is pointless when I can see for myself that she is far from okay. “Is your arm...?”
“I can't move it,” she says, looking down at the useless appendage.
She grabs her arm by the wrist and stuffs it into her white and yellow kimono, saying, “I need to like, get it out of the way or whatever. I'll be fine. I only need one arm to swing this sword anyway, yo.”
“Your shield,” Xen says, but Fantom shrugs her shoulder.
“I'm sorry,” Ekko says. “I tried to wake you kids up in time to run, but...”
“What were you doing still on watch?” I ask “We were supposed to take turns.”
“I couldn't sleep, so I figured I'd let you guys get as much rest as you could.”
I turn toward Cyren and ask, “Did you manage to sleep?” but she shakes her head. I let out a sigh and say, “Today is going to be difficult.”
“It's already been difficult,” Ekko says.
“It's going to get worse,” Cyren says, backing me up. “We got lucky that only one of those giants attacked us. If there had been two...” She pauses, then looks up toward the snow-capped peaks above us and says, “Those mountains are treacherous and built for players that are at least 20 Levels higher than us. We can't fight. If we see anything, we need to run.”
Everyone nods their head, but they're still reluctant.
“She's not messing around,” I say to the group, then I look directly at Xen. “I don't want anyone playing hero or doing anything stupid. We have one option and that's it. We go as fast as we can through this zone. Fantom leads the way to Grael with her comp
ass.”
“He's like, still a long way off,” she says, looking at her wrist. “But if we keep moving, we can reach him by sundown.”
Ekko loads a shell into the chamber of his gun and says, “Then what are we waiting for?”
011111
In the mountainous zone, we have no choice but to stay on the trail that winds its way into the snow capped peaks. The rest of the zone is nothing but jagged rocks and sheer cliffs covered in ice. The wind howls past us, and snow begins to fall as soon as we enter the zone, but luckily the temperature stays the same. No need for winter clothing in a game world.
The group moves slower than I want them to, but Fantom's balance is thrown off by her useless arm. She stumbles on every slippery pathway and wobbles when we near a cliff's edge. The whole group is holding their breath, waiting for her to fall, but she never does. The pace really slows to a crawl when the elevation becomes steeper, and we're forced to climb up small piles of rocks. Everyone assists Fantom as best we can, but it's still a weight that we don't need.
We eventually reach a tall cliff that wraps around one side of a mountain. I can see a plateau on the other side, but we need to shimmy across a ledge that is only a few inches wide.
Fantom yells over the wind that feels stronger now that we're closer to the edge, “I'm not sure I can do this, yo.”
I take a step closer to the cliff to see how far up we are, and my foot slides out from under me. I catch my balance again, but I feel a sheet of ice under the thin layer of snow. There's almost no traction, and the cliff isn't offering us anything to hold onto.
“We can do this,” Xen yells over the howling of the wind.
“We don't have a choice,” Ekko says.
I look at the cliff, then at the group, and I say something that surprises me. “We need to work together.” I step up toward the ledge and unfold Fantom's kimono.
“What are you doing, cowboy?” she says, backing away.
“We're going to need your other arm for this.”
“It doesn't work, yo. It just like, hangs there.”
“But it's still attached.” I pull out the arm, grip onto the lifeless hand and yell back toward the group, “Everyone hold hands! If one of us slips, we have the rest of the group to stop us from falling.”
Ekko shakes his head and yells up at me, “Or if one of us falls, they'll take the rest of us with them!”
I roll my eyes, sick of the wooden boy's constant parental concern.
“He like, has that Anti-Gravity Belt, remember? We'll be fine.”
“Why don't you cross the cliff, then throw us the belt? We can go across one at a time.”
“That isn't going to work,” I say with a sigh. “If you fall, you won't die, but you'll still fall. And who knows where the bottom of this cliff is. Do you want to fall down there by yourself and leave us up here without the belt?”
Nobody argues.
“Omniversalism teaches us that living together is just as important as dying together, so we should accept both with the same enthusiasm,” Xen yells out.
It's another of his pointless clichés that really has no bearing on logic at all. Cyren smirks at me, acknowledging the silliness, but for the rest of the group, it works. They all reach out and clasp their fingers around the next person's hands.
I take my first step onto the ledge, and I feel a little less than the heel of my boot resting on solid ground. The toe of my boot hangs over the ledge, pointing out into the nothingness. The wind slices past my face, and I'm sure it's going to catch my trench coat like a sail, carrying me off the ledge.
Inch-by-inch, I slide my boots sideways, never lifting them off the ledge to actually take a step. Fantom follows me, and we keep talking, letting each other know when we're going to move. She gets both feet onto the ledge, then Ekko follows her. Soon all of us are looking down below, into the great emptiness of white, and only Xen remains on the base, holding onto Cyren's hand.
I slide my boot again, but it gets stuck on a rough patch of ice. I jerk my leg, but it's too much. My foot slides out farther than I expect. I try to adjust, but my other leg goes out from under me. I slip, clenching Fantom's dead arm tighter. I fall slowly, but the weight of my avatar pulls her off too. She screams, falling faster than I do. She pulls me with her, and we swing down. Ekko tries to brace himself, digging his feet into the ice, but we pull him straight off the ledge. Cyren and Xen manage to anchor themselves against the wall, and the three of us slam into the cliff. We dangle back and forth a few times before Ekko speaks up.
“Nice plan.”
“We're alive, aren't we?”
He laughs and says, “Yeah. So now what?”
I twist myself on Fantom's arm and look up at Xen and Cyren. “How are you two doing?”
Between heavy grunts, Xen manages to say, “No problem. Take your time.”
“He's being sarcastic,” Cyren yells down. “We can't hold you guys for long.”
I look up at Fantom. Her face is straining as she's getting pulled in two different directions.
“Okay, Fantom. I need you to try and use your ring to give us more momentum as we swing.”
She nods her head.
I call out directions, and the entire group works as one, swinging our line of bodies back and forth. It moves slow at first, but with every swing we pick up speed. Once we get moving, I wait until we're at the bottom of a swing, just about to curve back up, and I yell, “Now!”
Fantom's ring flashes her forward, carrying Xen and I with her. Our bodies are lifted into the air, past the ledge. Cyren lets go of Ekko's hand. My stomach goes up into my throat. I think it's all over, but when she lets go, our bodies keep their momentum, and we fly forward, toward the plateau on the other side of the ledge. All three of us come crashing down in the thick snow that rests there.
I'm staring into the gray sky, watching tiny flakes fall toward me, unable to speak, but I hear Xen and Cyren cheering. It doesn't take long for Cyren to be leaning over me and blocking out those falling flakes, replacing them with her black-lipped smile.
“I'm going to be honest with you,” she says. “I'm surprised that worked.”
I hear Ekko say, “I think all of us are.”
“All that matters right now is that it did,” Xen says. “Omniversalism teaches us that what might happen tomorrow is more important than what could have happened yesterday.”
I lift myself out of the snow and climb to my feet. The flakes increase in density, and I'm having a hard time seeing the rest of the group, even though they're only a few feet away.
“We should keep moving,” I say. “This snow will give us cover. We should take advantage while it lasts.”
“It will also make it harder for us to see the NPCs,” Cyren says.
“She's right,” Ekko says. “We could walk right into the middle of a group of... of whatever, and we wouldn't even know until we were right on top of them.”
Fantom calls out from the deep white. Her voice sounds far away. “I'm leaving, yo. Are you guys like, coming with me or not?”
I hear footsteps as people jog to catch up to her. I smile. Her brute logic cuts through the nonsense. She reminds them all that we don't have time to stand around and debate. We need to act. Left or right. Up or down. We need to go with our gut and deal with the consequences.
We all walk close together so that no one gets lost. We're barely able to see each other through the growing blizzard. As the wind increases and the flakes blow horizontally, I feel Cyren's fingers wrap around my own. I look toward her. I can't see her face, but I know she's there, and it makes me feel safer. She makes me feel protected. She makes me feel like I'm a part of something, and for the first time it's something I want to be a part of. She gives my hand a little squeeze, and right then I decide that I never want to play solo again.
100000
We're all laying on our bellies, looking down at a giant facility built into the side of the mountain. The only road travels straight through
the walled military base. A tall, reinforced gate stands on either side, blocking the road. Armed guards patrol both gates, and when I zoom in with my goggles, I can see men with rifles in the towers. The place appears impenetrable and far beyond our Level.
“This doesn't look good,” Ekko says, his wooden image fluttering in and out of focus.
“There has to be another way, yo.” Fantom's voice doesn't sound as sure as her words.
I scan around the mountain with my goggles, zooming in and out of the terrain. The fortress is built on a ledge, with the walls bordering both sides. A cliff rises up on one side of the base and drops off on the other. There is no way around. “We have to go through.”
“That's suicide,” Ekko says. “The sheer number of soldiers down there will tear us apart.”
“We can't like, go in, guns blazing,” Fantom says. “But maybe if we use stealth or whatever...”
“You're both right,” Cyren says. “These soldiers are lower Level because they're meant to overwhelm you with their numbers. We can't possibly take on the whole base. But look at them. They aren't in groups when they're walking around. If we can take them out one at a time, without alerting the others...”
“You and Fantom are our best bet,” I say. “Your attacks are silent. The rest of us are going to be nearly useless.” I grit my teeth with regret. “I should have bought those silencers for my pistols.”
Fantom looks toward Cyren and says, “Boys. They like, never plan ahead, yo.”
Cyren doesn't get the joke. She points at the front gate. “When the sun goes down, I'll take out the men on the ground. You can use your ring to get up into those towers.”
Fantom nods and says, “Sounds good, yo. Once we've taken them, you guys move down to the gate. If things like, go bad or whatever, we'll open those doors so you can provide us with like, backup or whatever.”
“If things go bad,” Ekko says, “then we're all dead.”
I slap the wooden boy's shoulder and say, “Then we've got nothing to lose.”
Level Zero Page 15