by Phil Tucker
“Brianna,” I said. “I’m in Death March mode.”
She froze, then blinked and gave her head a sharp shake. “You’re what?”
“Death March mode. You know Justin’s in trouble. They’re pushing for the death penalty. This is my one chance to turn things around.”
“What he’s saying,” said Falkon, still lounging, “is that you actually nearly for real murdered him.”
The black disc snapped out of existence. “Death penalty? Death March mode?” She floated closer. “You’re serious?”
“You know I don’t joke about Justin,” I said.
She ran her hands through her hair, the implications of what she’d been about to do hitting her in full force. “You… you idiot.”
“Actually,” said Lotharia, “I think it’s pretty damn selfless and heroic.”
A burst of affection filled me for my new friends. To have them standing by my side, to face up to Brianna and call her on her B.S. meant the world to me.
“If you’re feeling a little guilty about all this,” said Falkon, “you could hook him up with some items to make his odds a little better.”
Brianna was glassy-eyed. She gave a jerky shake of her head. “No. This is his doing. His choice.”
“Yeah,” said Falkon. “But you didn’t help any, did you? Kind of screwed him over.”
“Falkon,” I said. “That’s enough.”
Brianna flew back. “Winds of eternity, brutal and gray, obey my summons and take me away!”
A tornado manifested around her, and then she was gone.
“Well,” said Lotharia in clipped tones. “So that was Brianna.”
“I mean, she’s attractive,” said Falkon. “Or her avatar is. I guess?”
I sighed. I was exhausted. Which was weird, because my body – my avatar’s sense of energy – didn’t change at all. Instead, a spiritual exhaustion that washed over me. I turned and slid down the inside of the crenellations, hands steepled before my mouth.
“Yeah. I know.” I felt old, all battered and weary. “It doesn’t make sense from the outside. Why would anybody hook up with someone like her?”
“Hey,” said Lotharia. “We’re not judging.”
“Not much,” said Falkon.
Old pain filled me. “I’d just moved down from Seattle. Left everything behind. My job, my friends, my life. We were just starting to get a sense of how much trouble Justin was really in, how badly the government wanted to screw him over. It was a tough time. And I met Brianna at a stupid club a friend of mine dragged me to. I didn’t even want to go. But we met, and got to talking about games, and she said I was funny and gave me her number when I asked.”
I dug my thumbs into my eyes, then sighed. “And it was a shitshow. The chemistry was crazy and hot for the first month, and then… she gave me lots of reasons to break up with her. And I wouldn’t. I kept forgiving her. Or just letting things slide. Like when she didn’t show for Thanksgiving lunch. I’d invited her to join Ev and me. Stupid. But she didn’t show. Stayed home watching TV. And you know what I did? I bought her roses and went over to her place, to help her not feel bad.” I gave a hollow laugh. “I was in a really bad place. I didn’t want to let her go. I didn’t want to be alone.”
Lotharia knelt by my side and placed a hand on my shoulder. “We all need support. And sometimes we don’t have much of a choice as to where we can get it.”
“No kidding.” I rubbed my sleeve across my eyes. “God. I feel like such an idiot. And you know what broke it off? We’d been planning this trip to what was left of Bermuda for some time. Her dad’s place. And as things got worse, I kept telling myself we’d fix everything once we got there. But when we finally did… fuck. You can fill in the rest. An insane amount of hate sex and the worst verbal and emotional abuse I’ve ever experienced. I broke up with her at the airport and deleted all her info. Took me weeks to pick myself up off the floor after.”
“And the next thing that happens is you get an invitation from her to enter Euphoria?” Falkon sounded justifiably skeptical.
“Yeah, I know. I know. But like I said. Desperation. My brother. And I’m pretty good at this kind of thing. I thought I could handle it.”
Lotharia gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You are handling it. You didn’t fall into her trap, whatever it was. You’ve already hit level three in a completely lethal zone. You’ve made allies who care about you—”
“We do?” Falkon grinned and held up both hands. “Just kidding! I know we just met, but yeah, I like you guys. It’s why I chose to come spend up to six months with you here. Sorry. Keep going, Lotharia.”
“You’re doing great. Hang in there.”
“Yeah,” I said. I blew out my cheeks. “Damn. I’m sure glad you guys were here. I wouldn’t have put it past her to kidnap me or something.”
“Says a lot about her that she’s that concerned with what two strangers think about her,” said Lotharia.
“I know what you need,” said Falkon.
“What?”
“You need to do some serious leveling up. That’ll make you feel better.”
For a moment I didn’t know what to say, and then I laughed. “You’re right. OK. Enough of my personal drama. Time to focus.”
“Time to meditate,” said Lotharia. “You ready?”
I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm, but maybe that meant it would be the best thing for me. “Sure,” I said. “Ready.”
The sun was dipping toward the western mountains when I finally opened my eyes. I’d been lost in a world of glimmering gold, an approximation of the vision I’d had when I first received my magic. Meditation was basically a superficial version of that, a way to connect your essence with Euphoria’s energy and allow it to flow into your soul.
I checked my mana. Back up to three. Not only that, but energy bubbled through my limbs and my mind was delightfully clear, as if I’d had a deliciously restorative nap. I looked over to where Lotharia and Falkon sat, eyes still closed, and checked their sheets. Lotharia was sixteen out of sixteen. Falkon was back at full, too.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s tackle that last tower.”
They opened their eyes, stretched, then climbed to their feet. Together, we walked along the battlement across the entire front of the castle.
“We used to call this tower the Iron Gullet,” said Falkon. “Jeramy once permanently imbued all of its stone with the toughness of steel.”
“I remember that,” said Lotharia. “He said he was drunk and didn’t remember why he’d done it.”
“Yeah. Looks like his magic’s still good.”
The last tower was in perfect condition, in stark opposition to the rest of the castle. The ruins of a catapult could be seen atop it, and the badly scarred door leading into the top room was closed. As I approached, I made out what looked like a symbol carved into the stone wall beside the door. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“A trap?” I asked, turning to Lotharia.
“No.” She smiled and stepped right up to the wagon-wheel sized carving. “It’s Jeramy’s rune. Take a look at it with Detect Magic.”
I did so, and immediately raised a hand to shield my eyes. The carved lines of the rune were brilliant with gold mana, which coursed through the grooves with incredible potency. The rune itself sent lines of golden mana around the entire tower, encasing it in a field of pulsing power.
I lowered my hand, eyes growing used to the glow. “That’s… you can do that?”
“Oh, yes,” said Lotharia. She traced the rune with her fingers. “It’s how you make an Imbue spell permanent. Without a rune like this to anchor the magic, it’ll dissipate back into the world, causing the item to lose its enchantment.”
“But no,” chimed in Falkon. “She can’t do that.”
Lotharia scowled at him. “
That’s not what he was asking. Of course I can’t create a rune like this. At least, not yet.”
“Fascinating,” I said. The closer I studied the rune, the more complexities I saw. Mana was being drawn from the ambient air and slowly fed into the complex carvings, where it grew brighter, more condensed, and then distributed about the tower. I had a dozen more questions, but they’d have to wait.
“Time to get to work. There should be four floors,” I said. “If it’s anything like the last, some of them will have reverted into raid rooms. Traps, monsters waiting for errant adventurers, and so forth. If we have any difficulty, we retreat. It’s always better to come up with a new strategy and try again than try to force our way through.”
Falkon didn’t even try to hide his smirk. “Catch a load of this. We’ve a regular tactician on our hands.”
“I think that’s sound advice,” said Lotharia. “And good to remind ourselves of it. In the heat of battle, it’s easy to forget.”
“Right,” I said, drawing my knife. “I’m the darkblade, which means I should scout.”
“You, my dear friend, are level three and in Death March mode.” Falkon unshouldered his bastard sword, rotated both arms to loosen his shoulders and nodded me aside. “Let the girl in the armor take the lead.”
I wanted to argue. With my Shadow Step ability, I would be able to bounce the hell out of there if anything went wrong – but Falkon was right. No matter how confident I was becoming, I was still vastly underpowered in a very lethal zone.
“Fine,” I said. “Ladies first.”
Falkon grinned and pulled the door open slowly. We all peered in over his shoulder. An empty room. No gaping holes in the wall like the other tower, no dire bat napping in the corner. Just the stairwell leading down.
“Huh,” said Falkon. “That’s a little anticlimactic. Well, maybe there’ll be something a little more interesting below.”
“Wait —” cried out Lotharia, but it was too late.
Falkon stepped forward. His boot passed through the floor and with a cry he fell all the way through and was gone.
13
Instinct took over. I hopped forward after Falkon, turning as I did so that as I fell through the illusory ground I was able to catch the edge of the doorway. My hands grabbed hold of the rough, broken masonry just within the tower and I clung tight, feet against the inside wall so that I could duck my head under the insubstantial floor and see what lay below.
It was a nightmarish scenario. The Iron Gullet had been hollowed out and filled with shifting shadows, resulting in a hollow throat easily forty or fifty feet high with only broken ledges extending from where entire floors had once been. Strange shadow webbing was layered everywhere, and the light itself seemed enchanted, rising slowly through the darkness in great globs like bubbles inside a lava lamp, casting a shifting cold, purple illumination as they rose.
Pulse pounding in my ears, I searched for Falkon. He was enmeshed in webbing perhaps twenty feet below. He was desperately hacking at the thick black strands that had encased him.
Where was the enemy? This didn’t feel like a trap room. There had to be— There!
Shit.
The shadows shifted across from me and resolved themselves into a huge spider creature. It had the pendulous lower half of a massive black widow, and its upper half was that of a lean, goth-looking dude, with grayish purple skin and a wild mane of black hair.
Worse, it held a staff that glowed with enchanted runes, and from whose tip more shadows were pouring forth and streaking toward Falkon.
Definitely not a level three challenge.
“What’s going on?” Lotharia’s voice was sharp with fear.
We needed her in here, and fast. I lifted my head above the illusory floor. How to summarize what I’d seen? No time. “On your stomach! Duck your head under and cast Hail Strike on the spider monster!”
Lotharia’s eyes widened as she took this in, but thank the stars for her high wisdom. She dropped to her stomach and dunked her head through the illusion like a kid bobbing for apples.
I dropped below again. A half-dozen shadowy figures had appeared around Falkon, who had somehow fought free of the webbing and now had his back to the tower wall, sword waving before him.
Lotharia’s voice rang out in the gloom. “From the heart of glaciers, blue-green to black, I summon forth the coldest shards and send them to attack!”
Immediately, huge chunks of ice rained down from the ceiling upon the spider dude, slamming into its carapace and torso with punishing force. It screamed and stared up at us. The ice was cutting into its body but doing precious little damage – not surprising, given that Lotharia’s spell was only level eight. The monster pointed its staff and a huge gout of black webbing flew toward us.
{tap to see full size}
I activated Ledge Runner, shifted my grip from the ridge of rock to Lotharia’s shoulders, and hauled her into the void as I pushed away from the wall and fell. She screamed and clutched at me as we fell past the spider monster toward a thick rope of webbing that crossed the center of the tower from wall to wall.
Please work please work please work—
My feet hit the cable and it bent beneath us, sagging violently as it took our weight. My knees flexed and I held tight onto Lotharia, holding off on Adrenaline Surge for now unless I really needed it. Her scream continued and then grew higher as her momentum tore her from my arms. Desperately, I held on to her wrist and swung her around and under me like a pendulum as she fell, letting go of her only when the angle was right: she flew from my hand to land on a ledge, the remnants of the second floor.
Ledge Runner kept me pinned to the cable. Without Lotharia’s weight, it rebounded and flung me high up into the air as if it had been a trampoline. I’d not thought this far ahead, and yelled as I flew upward.
“Uncanny Aim!” I screamed, then recalled I simply had to will it into activation. Dagger in hand, I aimed my silver thread right at the spider monster’s left eye. I timed it just right – waited till I hit the apex of my ascent, then dipped into Adrenaline Surge for extra killing power.
My blood boiled, my energy became boundless, and with an exultant scream I chucked the dagger with all my strength. It flew straight at the spider dude’s head – only to be blocked by a contemptuous flick of its staff.
The dagger ricocheted off into the darkness.
Even as I fell, it pointed its staff at me once again and hissed a word I didn’t understand. A black spear of magic flew at me.
I didn’t hesitate. Shadow Step! Every natural instinct told me to get the hell away from this thing, to disappear into the furthest dark corner, but that wasn’t how you won fights. Instead, instincts honed in countless VR combats kicked in. I disappeared into the shadows just before the black spear hit me, and was spat out right behind the spider monster.
Still screaming, I grabbed hold of its staff, then Double Stepped away.
If it hadn’t been for the momentum I’d gained from falling and my Adrenaline Surge and the element of surprise, I’d have had no chance. But sheer terror boosted my strength even further, and I tore its staff free before falling back into the shadows.
I emerged next to Lotharia, who stood encased in her Frost Armor, her scepter pointed at the outraged spider monster high above us.
“Here!” I shoved the staff into her hands. “Use it!”
“What?” She stared at the staff in incomprehension. “How—”
“Use it!”
A thunderous roar sounded from below, the same lion’s bellow that Falkon had unleashed upon us when we’d first met him, and I glanced down to see the shadowy figures that surrounded him step back in confusion and disarray.
Lotharia gripped my shoulder. “Here it comes!”
The spider monster was hurtling down toward us, eyes livid, hand outstretched for its staff.
“I name you my foe!” shouted Falkon. “I see the fear in your eyes and the cowardice in your heart, and demand that you face me in single combat!”
There was a strange power to his words that I felt as much as heard, and to my surprise the spider-monster corrected its course to veer past us and toward the squire.
Falkon was about to get crushed. What could I do? Shadow Step onto the monster’s back? My dagger was gone. My Adrenaline Surge was about to expire.
No.
Time to fight smart.
I extended my hand and cast Light.
The small ball of golden illumination puffed into being, and I sent it hurtling after the charging spider to engulf its head.
At least, I tried to. The ball of light refused to do so, and instead settled for positioning itself directly before the monster’s eyes.
Good enough.
The monster shrieked in fury and batted its arm at the ball of light at precisely the right moment. Falkon leapt up, sword over his shoulder like a baseball bat, and swung it right into the spider dude’s chest.
A wave of power from his attack washed over us, but the force of the blow was such that the monster was knocked back up into the tower, limbs flailing, to hit the wall a good ten feet above us and cling to the shadows there, hissing in fury.
Falkon had leapt up to meet the monster’s charge, and he landed back down upon the edge of his broken platform, where he cartwheeled his arms in an attempt to regain his balance.
The fearsome blow to the spider had opened a shallow cut down the center of its chest. My heart sank. I’d hoped Falkon had lopped it in half. Damn, these upper level monsters were tough. Even though it looked bare-chested, it had to have some kind of crazy armor going on!
Lotharia was feverishly studying the staff. I grabbed her dagger from her belt without asking, activated Uncanny Aim and aligned the silver thread with the same wound Falkon had opened. The spider beast was gesturing, casting a spell, and I waited for it to raise both hands over its head before throwing.