by Charles Dean
Darwin, who had pulled his hand back, faked a high tone and brought out the finger to admonish Fuzzy Wuzzy like he was an old senior yelling at kids to get off of his lawn, “Bad Bear! Bad! Get away from that! Bad!” but the Bear just looked confused as he fell back down on all four legs.
“Yep, he clearly takes after his master.”
“Whatever you say, Kass.” Darwin looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead just grumbled as Fuzzy Wuzzy nudged his head under Darwin’s hand while he walked.
That Bear loves to be petted. He’s just like a tiny puppy trapped in a ten-foot, grizzled, red-eyed Black Bear’s body. That doesn’t sound strange at all, right?
“He definitely takes after his master,” Kass said again, still amused.
“Shh, Fuzzy Wuzzy, let’s leave this old lady behind,” Darwin said.
“W . . . wait! OLD LADY! I’m younger than you!” Kass yelled after him, but Darwin and Fuzzy Wuzzy had already started to walk away from her with the two Turtle-Wolves.
“Kass, does this dungeon feel like it’s missing something?” Darwin asked as she caught up to him. She hadn’t thought about it. It looked amazing. The sculptures, the glow in the dark walls, the beautiful detail that was painted across every single tile they stepped over. The dungeon didn’t feel like it was missing anything.
Kass couldn’t figure out what he meant as she walked further into the dungeon. Then the realization hit her. She knew what was missing.
“Right?” he asked, almost as if he had been reading her mind.
“Yeah . . . like this was all prepared for us. Darwin, what’s going on?”
“I don’t honestly know at this point. I was expecting resistance. I was expecting a fight. I was expecting them to try to stop me,” he said, pointing at the statues.
Kass gulped audibly as everything set in. There were no monsters; there were only statues. The statues were the monsters, and Darwin had expected them to resist him. The statues were the monsters, and they weren’t moving, only holding the roof as if life had never entered them at all. What is he trying to get? Why aren’t they resisting him?” Darwin, what are they supposed to stop you from doing?”
He laughed and smiled that creepy grin of his that sent shivers down her spine. He’s not going to answer me, is he? What are you up to, old man?
“Darwin, you’re being like this on purpose, aren’t you?” she asked, doing her best to press the issue.
“I’m doing nothing but keeping my word to my . . . sister,” he said, the last word coming out slow and forced like someone new to English trying it out for the first time.
“She made you promise not to tell me what was in here?”
“Yes,” he responded with no explanation.
“But she sent you on a mission through an empty dungeon in a mountain that no one goes to for an object that is super top secret?”
“Yes,” he answered again.
“Darwin, you’re being like this on purpose, aren’t you?” she repeated her question, rather frustrated with Darwin.
“I’m just making sure not to upset the person doing me a favor.”
“Well, that I can understand. By the way, what did you two talk about?”
“Now you’re just being nosy.”
Kass scoffed. I am not nosy! I am asking legitimate questions, and he is just being a stuffy, secretive old man! It’s not like I’m being a busybody for wanting to know why I’m being dragged across the continent to explore a dungeon where the mobs, for whatever reason, aren’t attacking us or even moving. Kass sighed: she wasn’t going to get anywhere with Darwin at this rate. “Darwin, do you have any other brothers or sisters I need to know about? That are going to perhaps sneak up on my back while you fight a Boss again?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Didn’t know I had the sister till just recently.”
“Wait, how do you not . . . “ she was about to finish her question when she remembered the earlier line of questioning. Right, orphan. Of course he wouldn’t know how many sisters or brothers he had. Stupid Kass. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, not all of us were born with a silver spoon . . .” he said, his hand tossing the Spoon he had kept since the Minotaur fight.
Kass couldn’t help but laugh at the terrible attempt at a joke. You’re such a doofus. “At least we haven’t run into any forks in the road,” she joined in on the bad jokes.
“It’s not like they could dish out anything worse than a fork in the road.”
“Careful what you say, there is still plenty of time for us to be served up here,” Kass cautioned.
“Yeah, need to avoid our just deserts, ey?” Darwin tried to keep it going.
Kass didn’t even bother responding with more dinner-themed puns. Instead, she gave Darwin that look that let him know he had failed. Even Fuzzy Wuzzy held his head low, as if sensing his master’s shame. “You think it’ll be a long dungeon?”
“Probably not.” A voice other than Darwin answered. Kass froze. Crap not again! How do they keep sneaking up on me? She finally turned her head to see what it was only to discover a skinny blonde teenage girl with red lipstick smeared across her face like the Joker from Christopher Nolan’s Batman series with her hand covering her eyes. “Hey! Hey, don’t look! Are you trying to get yourself killed?” the teenager shouted.
Kass averted her gaze. “Wait, why am I not looking?”
“Because I’m a Gorgon, you idiot. One look at me and you’ll turn into stone. Don’t you ready any mythology? Ugh. Teenagers these days must be allergic to reading or something. The entire world of knowledge for eating at, like, your fingertips, but you won’t even, like, take a bite if it’s not made into a movie first.”
“I . . . I read,” Kass tried to defend herself, but Darwin’s chuckle at the comment betrayed her. She didn’t read that much, not half as much as she should, but there were way too many good games to play to be stuck reading, right?
“So you’re the Boss,” Darwin asked, as if none of this new information could possibly phase him.
“Yeah! Totes, and I’ve been waiting for, like, forever for someone to come in here and loot the prize so I can get out of this joint.”
“And the statues . . . were your minions, right?” Darwin asked, walking forward as if Barbie the Medusa Clown wasn’t right behind him.
“Ding, ding! Winner, winner chicken dinner!” she carried on talking with smacking lips that sounded as if she was doing a mix between chewing bubblegum and shouting. “It was pretty fun having an entire dungeon of servants, but then they kept coming to report when an intruder was killed, and they insisted on eye contact and well, now it’s just me. The alone time was nice when there were books to read, but honestly I’ve run out of things to do now.”
“Good, then you know why I came here too?” Darwin asked.
“Yeah, your sister told me, though I gotta tell you I was, like, totes surprised to find you with a player. What’s the deal with that? Are you just looking for female companions because, like, Oh-Em-Gee, you can do way better than this wallflower here,” the Medusa Barbie went on.
HE CAN NOT! Darwin can NOT do bett--wait . . . what? His sister came here before us?
“Couldn’t tell you. She’s just fun to hang around and a good friend of mine,” Darwin responded. Kass was beginning to get used to Darwin having conversations as if she weren’t there, no matter how much it still annoyed her.
She needed to speak out, find her voice and not just let the conversation roll without her saying anything. “Hey!” she finally got out, before Medusa Barbie could respond. “I’m not just a wallflower!”
“Of course you aren’t. You just, like, totes dress like one, and that’s, like, perfectly norms in my book. Anyways, Darwin dear, are you going to do a lady right and take her magic treasure? I’m like starting to look like a ghost I’ve been down here so long. I wonder if I’ll get sunburned if I go outside again.”
Darwin laughed while he answered, “Sure, yeah, lead t
he way. Also, does this mean we don’t have to fight?”
“Ewww, no, I don’t want to fight you. Even if I won, your sis would totally kill me. She totally dotes on you. It’s kinda creepy . . . I hope she doesn’t turn out to Jamie you like Cersei-- that would be AWKWARD.”
“I . . . did not know,” Darwin shook his head like he usually did. This was beginning to feel like he was trying to make that head shake into a trademark ‘Darwin’ action. “I just recently met her and all, so you know how things are.”
“Awww! I bet that was, like, one heck of a reunion. Anyways, we’re almost there, but you know I can’t be letting a player see the magic goods, right?”
“Hey! Why does he get to see them and not me?” Kass interrupted the two chatting away, unhappy at the idea that she had travelled all this way only to be left at the door.
“Because, like, you just can’t. Either Darwin gets to get what he came for without you watching, or you two have to kill me to take it, and, like, most people find that their attempts at that turn out a bit rocky. So, could you, like, wait here a bit? Kay, wallflower?” she said, making Kass want to hit her even more.
What's with her teenage, bubblegum attitude! She can’t even put on makeup right? It’s like she was trying to be a clown. Oh, wait . . . she can’t use a mirror I’m guessing with her powers or she would turn herself to stone. That’s probably why her lipstick is all over the place.
Darwin gave Kass a look that told her he didn’t want any trouble, and she should just go along with the whole thing. So she did. She watched Darwin and the stone-gaze girl walk off ahead of her.
Hmph. Dragging me all this way just so he can go off and check out the cheerleader’s treasure chest. This feels just like highschool all over again. I thought after college I’d be done with this.
“So, about my sister, did she ha . . .” she heard Darwin start to ask as he faded out of sight in front of her.
Kass sighed. I guess I’ve got some time to kill, she thought, and she opened up her skill menu to see how her spells were progressing. She was so close to Level 40 that she could almost taste it. She would definitely hit 40 by the time she got back to Darwin’s cave--if she actually went back to Darwin’s cave. Darwin was supposed to just be an EXP bot for her, but the whole situation with him was somehow getting more and more complicated. Those complications were something that Kass had to decide if she was comfortable dealing with . . . if she was comfortable with how fast he was advancing in the game without her.
Chapter 6: A Hop, Skip and a Pan Away!
Valerie:
Valerie took a deep breath. This was starting to rack her nerves. Each kill made her more nervous of their discovery. They had already gone so far into the ant-hill-like maze of the Fire-Walkers, and there was still no end in sight. Whereas the sky-city felt like an actual city, sprawled out with all of its parts connected, the Fire-Walker domain did not. It was chambered and segregated. Each chamber connected to several halls that connected to more chambers. The chambers typically had at most ten buildings, and each was dedicated to a specific task. Right now, the group had entered a blacksmithing chamber containing forges for the glass weapons they would make.
Valerie was trying her best to steady her nerves as Daniel and Mclean dispatched the seven Fire-Walkers still inside the chamber. We’ve come this far, and there hasn’t been a problem yet, Valerie told herself, looking around the room for anything they could use. We’re not just mindless murderers; we’re looking for evidence. I know we’ve got those three documents hinting at the plan, but if we don’t get something hard and concrete fast, then it’s likely we’ll be dismissed.
“Got anything in that stack of scrolls?” Mclean asked.
“No, nothing. It’s just more weapon designs and junk, like every other blacksmithing section we find.”
“Why couldn’t the documents be as plentiful as their yapping mouths. At this rate, we’ll have killed every Fire-Walker in the damn town before we find enough hard evidence to condemn them,” Daniel complained.
“I don't’ see what’s wrong with that. Might be for the best after all: if there aren’t any of them left, then they won’t be attacking while we lay siege to the White-Horns,” Mclean posited.
“Yeah, but don’t you think the Sun God Emperor will be angry if he found out we took out half of the Empire because we had suspicions it was going to attack the other half?” Valerie asked rhetorically. I’ve seen way too many dramas on TV to not know how this will turn out without evidence.
“Suspicions?! We heard them confess, Valerie! It’s not just suspicions; it’s fact!”
“Yeah, but, Mclean, you still have to prove it to the Sun God Emperor. He won’t know what we heard. They’ll just think we made up some stupid excuse to go murder a bunch of Fire-Walkers,” Daniel reminded her.
“It would be our word against theirs; I’m guessing our word isn’t good enough?” Mclean sighed.
“Yeah, probably not.” Daniel patted her on the wing. “It’s okay though. I’d still believe you over those hot-headed Fire-Walkers.”
“Daniel, that’s kind of racist,” Valerie said, hoping the joke would break the ice like her sister’s jokes always did when her family was about to break into an argument. We need the evidence, but we also need to stay calm and clear headed.
“Be careful with comments about race, Valerie, you might start a flame war,” Daniel replied, making them all chuckle.
They hadn’t realized what a divide there was between the White-Wings and the Fire-Walkers until they got here. In the city in the clouds, there wasn’t talk of Fire-Walkers at all, but down here the White-Wings were the subject of a thousand slurs and insults. They couldn’t sneak into a single chamber without hearing about how the White-Wings deserved to die.
“Well, shall we go to the next chamber and ‘investigate’ some more?” Mclean asked, already heading towards the nearest tunnel.
“Maybe, but at this point I think we need to start making a map. Do any of you know how to get out of here?” Valerie pointed out, causing them both to shrug.
“Of course I do. I’ll have you know I’m a pro gamer. We’ve been sticking to the left wall, so all we have to do to get back is turn around and stick to the right wall. Didn’t your dad teach you anything about mazes and video games?” Daniel said, clearly feeling smug.
“Actually, I didn’t even know that. Does that always work?” Mclean said.
“Mostly. Unless you happen to be playing Portal, you’re probably gonna be fine using the trick. Some games will complicate it though with circular dungeons or one way doors, but I don’t think this is one of those.”
“Neato, so all we have to do is turn around and stick to the right wall?” Valerie double checked.
“Yes ma’am,” Daniel answered. “Or you can just log out for the night when there aren’t enemies around and your login tomorrow morning will be back in the city.”
“So, I’m being paranoid thinking we need to draw a map and figure out where we are going?”
“Yeah, probably. Though I don’t know why the game doesn’t do it for us. It maps out every other dungeon for us.”
“It likely has to do with the fact we’re hostiles in a player town, so the town won’t show up on our radar.”
“Hostiles in a player town . . . how come we haven’t run into any of the players yet?”
“DUN DUN DUN!” Daniel said in a booming dramatic voice. “THE PLOT THICKENS!”
Valerie wanted to facepalm, but he was right. The plot had thickened. They had spent three hours cleaving their way through the heart of what should be the Fire-Walker player’s capital town, only to find that there weren’t any players. There were only NPCs plotting to overthrow the White-Wings, a fact that surely would have slipped onto the boards if the players knew.
“I don’t like this at all, but if there aren’t players, then that means one thing,” Mclean said, as if something just hit her.
“What? That no one here besides
us had pizza or ramen for dinner?” Daniel couldn’t help himself.
“No, that we’re probably the strongest things in this dungeon. Most NPCs barely scrape past 20 or 25, and we’re almost 40. I think that means we can be a little less cautious and a little more murdery.”
Daniel shuddered. “You weren’t murdery enough already?” he asked.
Mclean only laughed, did her evil smile, and dashed so fast at one of the corridors she might as well have been flying again.
“Ladies first,” Daniel said, bowing as Valerie followed after Mclean. “It’s a front row seat to genocide.”
Yeah, genocide . . .because every Fire-Walker in this cave is going to die tonight if we keep going like this, Valerie thought, trying to prep herself for what lay ahead We don’t have anything to worry about down here . . . Yeah. We’re going to be fine against them.
They tore through the NPCs one after the other. The dungeon-like design of the whole town made it easy for them to clear out the Fire-Walkers unnoticed. They never had to engage more than ten or twenty at a time, and for the most part it was just a handful here and a handful there. That’s when it finally happened. They entered into the large chamber that let them know this was a Boss fight. It was a grand room twenty times the size of the largest one they had come across before, and in the middle sat a Fire-Walker on a burning throne surrounded by twenty other Fire-Walkers. Fire skitted and shot out from his throne in all directions. This was their secret Emperor, this was their ruler, and if a normal Fire-Walker let off a few flames, this one exuded torrents of fire.