by Shawn Wyatt
An Imp stepped out of the portal and stretched. “That was a good nap I was having,” he said, his voice as high-pitched as I remembered. The demon glanced at us and turned his mouth down in disgust. “So you’re still here.”
“Nice to see you, too,” Bastion said.
“Yeah, yeah." The Imp gave a heavy sigh. "What do you need?”
“I need a disguise,” Wish said. “Something that conceals me, but does a better job than…that.” She pointed at the dress Quinn held, but refused to look at it.
The Imp took a single look and burst into laughter. “I think you should wear that,” it said. “It suits your bright eyed, bushy-tailed personality.”
“I will send you to the land of the Care Bears,” Wish hissed.
The Imp laughed again, unconcerned with her threat. He muttered a few arcane words, and the air shuddered with each syllable. Wish vanished. In her place stood a boy of around eighteen with the haircut and styles of a grunge-rock vocalist.
If I focused hard enough, I could see through the illusion, but at a glance she looked nothing like the wanted posters.
Wish glanced at the single mirror on the wall. “I hate you, you know,” she said to the Imp.
“You’re welcome. It’s better than that dress.”
“It’s...” Her voice trailed off. “You know what, never mind. Thanks. Now get out of here before my patience ends.”
The Imp snickered and vanished in a puff of smoke. Wish turned to the rest of us.
“One word out of any of you about this, and I will sic the wolves on you.”
Quinn made us wait in his cabin until nightfall. He dropped dinner off later in the day, but most of our time was spent dozing in the cool darkness of the ship’s hold. Only after the sun had long fallen below the horizon and the moon taken its place in the sky did Quinn give three quick raps on the door. “Come on up,” he said. “Should be safe now.”
I yawned. I had taken full advantage of the rare chance to nap, but a hammock didn't offer the same support as a bed. Tension gripped my neck and shoulders.
Quinn had weighed anchor. Though still in port, Betsy floated far enough away from the docks that no one could jump aboard. We were safe from bounty hunters, if anyone knew where we had fled.
The commotion we left behind in the alley should have thrown anyone off our trail.
“Welcome back,” Quinn said.
“You need chairs in that hold,” Bastion groaned.
“Chairs? Why? The hold is for cargo, mate.”
“We just spent at least six hours in it.”
“Like I said, cargo.” Quinn laughed and held up his hands at Bastion’s glare. “Kidding. Anyway, I thought it best that we go ahead and make way for Napari. We’ll leave when the moon reaches its peak.”
I looked out over the sea. At night, the depths of the ocean took on a sable hue, but near the shore bioluminescence danced in the breaking waves. The moon shone full overhead, its small frame dwarfed in comparison to the other realms that crisscrossed the sky at regular intervals. On the horizon, eerie lights on strange creatures rode the surface of the water like an aquatic will-o-wisp. Here one second, gone the next.
The moon bore no real distinction from Earth’s own stellar companion, and the sight of it full against the black of night stole my breath away. At times like this, I found it hard to believe the world we inhabited existed only in a virtual capacity. In the darkest moments, at times I admitted to no one, in moments I refused to dwell on, I had begun to wonder if Earth itself was just a scrap of imagination.
Stars speckled the sky behind the moon, like a carefree painter had strewn them about the cosmos with a flick of the wrist.
Evey caught my stare. “Do you think they’re real?”
“What do you mean?” I cleared my throat. A lump had started to form.
“The stars. Do you think there is anything up there, or are they just graphical assets the AI used to bring more realism to this world?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We traveled across the void to reach Shella from Toris, and the stars felt close enough to touch there. I think, if the AI decides to do so, they could be very real.”
“I hate this,” she whispered. “I hate not knowing what exists and what doesn’t. Even if we can’t reach them, we know our stars at home—the Big Dipper, Sirius, the Pleiades—we know they all burn just as real and hot as our own sun. Here, nothing is real. Even things we accept, like the ship under our feet, is just an asset the AI could snap out of existence.”
I pulled my gaze from the sky overhead and looked at Evey. Her bottom lip quivered, and tears brimmed in her eyes. “You’re real,” I said. “So is Bastion. Wish. Quinn. We’re all real.”
Boris nudged her from behind and let out a soft whine. Evey reached out to scratch his ears. “For how long?” she asked. “How long are any of us real, before a bunch of ones and zeroes and unfair algorithms drop our HP bars to zero and take away what little we have left?”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said.
“You can’t know that.”
“That’s not going to happen.” I had repeated the phrase to myself time and time again until it became a mantra. And I had begun to believe it. "You can't lose hope. Once we stop believing we can make it out, then we lose any chance of success. Despair will win."
Evey took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “You’re right,” she said. “We can do this. We can win, and we can go home.”
“Of course we can.”
A small smile played across her lips. "Thanks," she said. "Sometimes it's just so hard to stay positive."
I nodded. Whether we would survive until we made it home or not, I didn’t know. But we had survived another day in this world, and that was a victory worth celebrating.
With that thought in mind, I sat down near the masthead and leaned my head back against the taffrail. My thoughts floated away against the majesty of the sky. At some point, I dozed off, the quiet of the morning hours and the soft, playful slap of waves against the hull lullaby enough to pull me down into sleep.
When I next woke, the distant torches of a city stood silhouetted against the orange blaze of a sunrise, carried on massive fins.
Chapter Fifteen: Water Elementals
Quinn gestured to the pathway in front of him. “Come on,” he said. "Let's go before observers get here."
“Observers?” I asked.
The Swashbuckler rolled his eyes. “There's an observation platform that descends down to Napari’s head. It’s so the citizens can speak to the Great Turtle directly. It gets crowded with players seeking quests and townspeople seeking blessings. If you want a chance to speak to Napari without interruption, we have to go. Now.”
I held my hands up in surrender. "Okay, lead the way."
“I’m trying.”
I had never seen Quinn quite so impatient. His long strides carried him ahead of us on the plain dirt pathway. He ducked underneath low-hanging palm trees and paused in front of a wrought-iron gate. “Here’s the entrance,” he said. “From here, Evey should go first. Should still be empty right now."
I looked around. The streets remained quiet and empty. When we had docked, the sun had just risen over the horizon. Only bakers and fishermen had been awake to greet us.
Our disguises shrouded our faces. For all intents and purposes, we looked like high-level adventurers wandering the city. And it had the added benefit of explaining our early-morning arrival. Quinn said no one would question a group of adventurers coming back from an expedition. For our sakes, I hoped he was right.
The iron gate led to a wooden walkway, worn and weathered by saltwater and sea air. Evey tested the path with her foot. After a moment, she put her full weight on the walkway. The wood held.
Evey led the way until Napari’s mottled head came into view. The wooden platform ended in front of the Great Turtle. At our arrival, Napari opened his eyes.
“I sensed your arrival,” the turtle said. He spok
e in the same way Tarawi had, in a voice ponderous with age, but I sensed a hint of mischief in the Great Turtle’s tone—like that of an old man that knows he can get away with most things.
“We’ve come with a request, Great One,” Evey said, with a small bow of the waist.
Napari was larger than Tarawi by an order of magnitude. When the Great Turtle lifted his head from the waves, he showered us with sea spray. “Oh? And what might that be?”
“We ask that you lower the magical barrier you have placed around the corruption in this realm. My friends and I believe we can stop its spread, but we must be able to reach it first.”
Napari chuckled, a deep rumble that sent ripples racing away from the city. “You have no need to bow to me, Beast Tamer. I am large and can swim quickly, but those traits hardly make me worthy of your deference. And since you request to find the corruption, I know you have spoken with my younger sister. There’s no need to confirm. I sense her magic upon you.”
It hit me then. Napari was like an old southern preacher: slow to speak under normal circumstances, but absolutely plodding when his congregation started to squirm and look at their watches near lunch time.
“We have. She gave us a quest."
Napari nodded. “Tarawi is the youngest of us, and quite headstrong. Even so, she displays good judgment. And though I say she is the youngest, her age would surprise you all. The lifespans of humans compared to that of we turtles is insignificant. To our eyes, your lives are as fleeting as the evening breeze, but you hold so much potential in each moment. That is admirable.”
“So you’ll help us?”
“I will, but first, I have a request of my own. My powers are great, but they make me the target of many malicious forces. There is one such entity, a sea witch, that wishes to claim my magic for her own. For creatures that live on the sea, changes in weather pose little threat. Unfortunately, this means my own weather magic is ineffective against her. I would ask you slay this witch and eliminate the threat she poses to me. Do this, and I will drop my part of the barrier surrounding the corruption.”
A quest prompt flashed in the air in front of me.
<<<>>>
Quest Updated: "The Walls That Bind"
A sea witch threatens Napari and wants to take his powers for her own. Slay this witch and remove the threat she poses to the Great Turtle. In return, Napari will lower the barrier.
Barriers remaining: 4/5
<<<>>>
Evey nodded. “Consider it done,” she said. “Where can we find this sea witch?”
“To the northeast. She rides the waves and waits for a chance to strike. You need only sail for two hours’ time to find her vile presence. Do not underestimate her. Despite her nature, this witch is quite strong.”
I cleared my throat and spoke for the first time since we arrived. “We are stronger.”
I almost had the sense the Great Turtle was smiling. “Young Ren, of that I have no doubt. Now go. She gathers her strength for another attack, but her magic takes time to weave. Strike before she finishes the spell and you have the best chance of defeating her.”
“We’ll return soon,” Evey said.
Napari nodded his head and lowered it back into the waves.
No sooner did Quinn unfurl the sails than a strong wind whipped to life and rocked the ship forward. The Swashbuckler raised an eyebrow and glanced at the sky. "Napari said he controls weather magic?"
“Yeah.” I squinted at the sails. “Looks like this might be his way of helping us out.”
“Let’s make sure we stay on good terms. This kind of speed boost would seal Betsy’s place as the fastest ship on Shella.”
Evey stood near the masthead and stared out over the waves, one hand twirling an arrow. The talk with Napari left her subdued, just as it had been the first time when she spoke with Tarawi. I left Quinn struggling with the helm and walked to where she stood. “What’s on your mind?”
“Just thinking,” Evey said. The wind whipped her hair around her face, and she stashed the arrow away before tying her hair back. “Did we bite off more than we can chew with this? We know nothing of this sea witch. We aren’t even sure what kind of monster it is.”
“We haven’t known much about most of the creatures we’ve fought,” I said. “We’ll figure it out when we get there.”
“The monsters get stronger as we go on, Ren. We can’t keep taking chances like that.”
Evey was right. Our luck had held out so far, and we had won every fight we'd been in—even if those victories came at a cost. “Well, we all leveled up back on Fenua.” I fought down the knot in my stomach when I thought about exactly how we gained that experience. “I haven’t distributed those points. Have you?”
She shook her head. “No. It didn’t feel right.”
Nothing about it was right. We had killed someone. A player. In the real world, it would have been murder. At the least, a justifiable homicide. The player’s face had haunted my thoughts since then. “It’s not right,” I said. “But it wasn’t intentional. We fought to defend ourselves. And you weren’t the one that fired the shot. I was.”
“Does telling yourself it wasn’t intentional help?”
I gave a rueful laugh. “No. Not even slightly.”
Evey shook her head. “You may have fired the shot, but we were all part of it. I just think that if I had noticed the player sooner, maybe that kill shot wouldn’t have hit the Dervish. Two lives were lost then, and we’re responsible.”
“Then we don’t let them be in vain,” I said. “Yes, we leveled up from it. So let’s use that strength to give ourselves as much of an advantage as possible and escape from this twisted world. Killing another player should not give so much experience."
Evey sighed and squeezed her eyes closed, but nodded. I closed mine as well and pulled up my character menu.
I had ten free points to distribute.
I wanted more Constitution after the battle against the Arciteuthis. Five of the ten went into that. But I couldn’t ignore my offensive abilities, either. Two points went into Intelligence to round out my mana supply. Two more went into Dexterity to increase my accuracy. The final point I threw into Luck. I still had no idea what the stat did, but it existed for some reason. Maybe I would eventually find out.
<<<>>>
Character: Ren
Class: Marauder (Subclass Duelist)
Level 23
Strength (STR): 16—160 lb. Carry Capacity
Dexterity (DEX): 47 (+13 Equipment Bonus)—+60% Accuracy
Constitution (CON): 45 (+10 Equipment Bonus)—550 HP
Intelligence (INT): 25—250 Mana
Wisdom (WIS): 13—29.5% Mana Regen
Luck: 5—Unknown
<<<>>>
I wouldn't get a new skill until level 25, but the increased Dexterity would help with damage output. Everyone in the party had grown so much stronger since those first battles back on Toris, but it didn't seem like enough. No one knew the max level in this game. I didn't know how strong I could become—or how strong I would need to become.
I glanced over my stats one more time before I accepted the changes, and then cleared the character menu. It took only a few more minutes before Evey finished distributing her stats.
“All done?” I asked.
She nodded. “It feels wrong to use that level up for anything, but those few stat points could be the difference between life or death.”
“Yeah.” I fell silent, but one thought continued to gnaw at me. “Do you think what we did was murder?”
Evey shook her head. “No. It was self-defense,” she said. “It’s just that…we took a life. A human life. Somewhere in the real world is a body without a soul because of actions we took. Two bodies, if you count that Dervish. And we have to live with that.”
"And how do we do that?"
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
I gave her a grim smile. Were it so easy.
“Looks like thing
s are about to get hairy, folks!” Quinn’s voice cut through the silence. “Look up ahead.”
Beyond the bow, the sea writhed and surged like a mad thing. The water boiled and climbed into the air. The displaced water created waves that rushed out and crashed into the ship.
I gripped a pistol in one hand and held tight to the taffrail with the other. The water rose until it towered over the ship in an inverted teardrop shape, tapered from top to bottom. I braced for it to collapse at any moment.
Instead, the strange wave split in the center and loosed a roar from a frothy maw. Text appeared above it.
Water Elemental, Level 20.
***
She collapsed, panting, on the rocky soil.
Seven steps behind her, the world fell away into a black chasm. It had happened before, but never had she been so close to its epicenter. She had barely seen the opening appear, a pinpoint of black on darker black, before it began to eat. The ground collapsed. Trees, boulders, and mountains fell into the void and left behind nothing but a sea of darkness that stretched on forever.
The creatures in this world fled from the void, but many fell. Only the strongest escaped.
One monster stood a room’s length away, its attention turned toward her. It opened its twisted mouth and screeched, a grating sound that sent shivers racing up her spine. She pulled herself to her feet and drew her blade.
“Can I just catch my breath? Please?”
Other monsters crept out of the darkness behind the first, pulled along on slimy tendrils, drawn by their comrade’s cry.
Light flooded the darkness as a portal flared into life behind the horde. The girl braced her sword in front of her. “Move out of my way!”
This was her chance. No portal had ever been so close. She dashed forward and swung her blade, and four of the monster's appendages fell to the ground and dissolved into puddles of ichor. The creature fell to its side and screamed.
Its comrades turned and leapt for the portal, vanishing when they touched the light.
“No!”