The elite mob cried out and finally shifted his attention away from me. He swung his axe in a broad arc, slashing Sabotenda across the top of his legs. The blade chattered across his strong plate, but still dealt good damage. Sabotenda screamed in pain and replied with a thrust to the Legionnaire’s chest.
The Dokkalfar leapt back before the blow could land, and brought his axe crashing down on the ground before us. Earth and stone tore up as a shockwave rippled through the ground, sending us all flying back again. Everyone was low. We were losing. I had to do something.
Scrambling to my feet, I leapt away from the fray and equipped my bow. Drawing back a frost arrow, I took aim and fired at the Legionnaire’s head. My arrow found its mark, scoring a critical hit. The Dokkalfar hissed and clutched his ass, momentarily leaving him open for attack.
Kodiak joined me as I raced forward. I planted my foot on the enormous axe resting beside the Legionnaire on the ground, and vaulted into the air, switching to my daggers. I soared above him, over his head and behind him, and activated Ambush while in midair.
The attack was massive, and the Legionnaire screamed and tried to spin around to face me, but Kodiak followed up with a series of vicious attacks to his chest, distracting him long enough that I was able to land behind him.
I realized that when he’d transformed, his health had skyrocketed, and despite the damage we’d been doing, we’d barely gotten him close to half again. Curafin leapt into action, striking out with his sword, but he wasn’t doing enough damage. None of us were.
“Curafin!” I shouted, dodging a flailing backfist from the Legionnaire. “Menace! Use Menace!”
“Oh, yeah!” he cried out in realization, quickly swapping to his wand. He cast, and I felt a moment of déjà vu as memories of fighting side by side with Jack swept through me like a painful wave.
The black cage surrounded the enormous Dokkalfar and then collapsed into his chest, the dropping bass sound of a successful debuff thumping through the trees. I executed Mutilate and pierced the monster’s flesh with both blades. He howled in pain as his health dropped significantly, then spun around and kicked me square in the face.
I flipped backwards, head over heels, tumbling twice in the air before slamming down onto my back.
“Ahh!” I cried out, twisting in agony on the forest floor. The sounds of battle rang out
around me as I struggled to regain my composure. Bracing myself with one arm, I managed to get back to my feet just as the Legionnaire used another ability.
Raising his axe high into the sky, a green light pulsed from his hand, growing larger and larger as the rest of my group hacked away at him. The glow reached its peak, chirped loudly and expanded quickly around the Legionnaire’s body, healing him to full health.
“Oh, no…” I muttered as the realization came over me.
We can’t beat him…
The Dokkalfar brought his fist down on Kodiak’s head, smashing him down into the ground like a giant might crush an ant. His health plummeted and Curafin quickly switched to his wand for a healing spell.
He barely managed to cast it before the Legionnaire struck Kodiak with his axe, sending him crashing into a nearby tree. Curafin had to cast again immediately just to get him back to half.
“I can’t do this forever!” he shouted. “I’ll run out of mana!”
“What are we going to do!?” Sabotenda shouted, backing away from the elite, his halberd held out in front of him defensively.
Think, Jane! Think!
I glanced around the grove, looking for something—anything we could use as an advantage. We could run, but there was no telling how many more Dokkalfar were close by, or how fast the Legionnaire was. Trying to escape could just end up making things worse.
“We have to run for it!” Kodiak shouted, using his Health Kit from where he had fallen.
“No!” I shouted. “I have an idea!”
Leaping forward, I drew my bow and fired a frost arrow into the monstrous elf’s chest. It dealt good damage, but all I really wanted to do was get his attention.
I backed away as the Legionnaire swung out at me. He whiffed his blow and roared with anger. I fired again and leapt back to dodge an incoming attack. My foot caught the stump behind me and I rolled backwards, landing on my feet at the very spot Stitches had chosen to betray me.
“Get him, guys!” I shouted. My group caught onto my plan instantly, and all three of them rushed the Legionnaire as I fired another arrow to keep his aggro on me. Together, they slammed into his back and drove him forward. He cried out and raised his axe to swing, but his stride was too long and the force of my group behind him was too much. His foot passed right over me, caught on the far edge of the stump and sent him tumbling into the pit.
I spun around and watched as the enormous Dokkalfar Legionnaire howled with rage as he hurtled down into the deadly row of spears below. With the added debuff from Curafin’s Menace, the damage was enough to drain his health completely. With a final death rattle, the Legionnaire died and vanished in a cloud of fire and smoke.
39
Contact
Behind me, everyone in the group leveled up. Kodiak raced up behind me and slapped me hard on the back.
“Holy tactics!” he bellowed, laughing with enormous relief. Staring down at the spikes where I’d almost been killed myself, I couldn’t help but smile.
“Not bad, eh?”
“Not bad!?” Kodiak scoffed. “That was awesome.”
“Quick thinking,” Curafin agreed, coming up behind us and doling out healing spells to get us all back to full.
“Well, I had to do something,” I replied, but as I looked down into the pit and breathed a sigh of relief, a fresh wave of anger flared inside me. “That son of a bitch! I should have known not to trust him.”
“Relax, Jane,” Kodiak said. “None of us suspected him either. He was just…bizarre.”
“Yeah, like Gollum or something,” Sabotenda replied.
“Or Yoda on LSD,” Curafin suggested, making all of us laugh.
“See all those bodies?” I asked, pointing at the pile surrounding the spikes. “Those are all players he lured here and tricked.”
“But why?” Kodiak asked. “I mean—just for the loot? He’s got to anticipate them coming back for him.”
“For the loot.” I shrugged. “And this forest is a pain in the ass. I bet a lot of people don’t bother coming back.”
“Or forget they were even here,” Sabotenda said grimly. “Going Sunken can do that to you.”
I thought about Gehman wandering aimlessly back to Stoneburg and shuddered. How many of the Sunken roaming out there in the Dark World were victims of Stitches’ dastardly plan?
“He kept saying her. Did you hear that?” I asked. “Like she wanted to steal the woods from him.”
“Who the Hell knows,” Kodiak said dismissively. “The guy’s completely insane. Probably mentally ill before he came here and then the Dark World just made things worse.”
“Yeah…” I replied, still bewildered. What did Stitches even have to gain by killing me—or anyone? He had junk armor and a chipped sword and obviously wasn’t using any of the loot he got from the players that had fallen into his trap. So then what was his motivation? Was he really just insane as Kodiak had suggested? I shook my head. We had better things to do than worry about Stitches.
“You guys got a level, eh?” I remarked, turning around.
“Hell, yeah,” Sabotenda replied with a grin.
“Let’s get the Hell out of here,” I said, gazing about the foggy woods. I’d grown tired of the Forgotten Grove and all its surprises. If this was the original Carrethen, and Jack was with me, I knew he’d be pressing me to stick around and explore. But this wasn’t Carrethen—this was the Dark World, and Jack was no longer with me.
Without waiting for a reply, I headed out towards the southeast, filled with determination. There was still lots to be done, and so far my only lead was Vayde. I had to find
him and see if he knew more about what was going on or where the others were. If he had been promoted to Rayne’s second in command, he must know something.
My group followed me as we made our way through the mist. After the Legionnaire, my trepidation about the rest of the monsters in the Grove was all but gone. I kept to our heading without a second thought, sending frost arrows at any Rabid Rat that was stupid enough to attack one of us. They just weren’t a challenge for me and my bow.
Finally, I saw the mist beginning to thin out slightly and spied the forest’s edge a few hundred feet ahead of us.
“There we go,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Almost out of the woods.”
“Badum chhh,” Kodiak said, miming the hand motion of drummer doing a rim shot.
“Good one,” Curafin said flatly.
“Lighten up,” Kodiak replied. “This place is grim enough without a sour puss in the mix.”
“Hey, you spend weeks trapped in a monster’s body,” Curafin countered. “All right? And then let’s see how cheery you are!”
We all had a good chuckle and pressed on, but that was when I heard something that stopped me.
“What is it?” Sabotenda asked. No one else appeared to have heard it, and that made sense, considering I’d been the only one to hear it before. A soft pulsing, like a distress beacon, like the one I’d heard that led me to the hidden admin building that had let me contact Wintermute. There was another nearby.
I cocked my head and listened. The sound was coming from the north.
“This way,” I told them, heading in the direction of the beacon.
“What is it?” Sabotenda asked quizzically.
“Admin building,” I replied. “So I can contact Wintermute.”
“So you can what now?” he replied. “Admin building?”
“There are hidden buildings in Carrethen,” Kodiak explained. “Only Jane can see them because she’s special.”
“That’s right, Ice Man,” I replied, doing my best Tom Cruise impression. “I am special.”
I followed the sound and it led me to an enormous tree with a door carved into the side of it. By the looks on everyone else’s faces, they weren’t able to see the door. I turned around and grinned at them as I walked backwards into the hidden admin room. To the rest of them, I’d just vanished straight into the hard surface of the tree.
“What the Hell?” Sabotenda exclaimed.
“Weird, right?” Kodiak smirked.
I looked around me. Again, the walls were laced with golden and purple veins, glowing and pulsing around me as though fueled by an energy source that powered the world itself. Again, a stone pillar rose up from the center of the room as I entered. The holographic pink tetrahedron interface rose up from its surface, and I reached forward and waved my hand through it.
Instantly, the interface expanded, the pink cage doubling in size to surround me. It felt as though low voltage electricity was flowing through me, or around me, and then, from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, came the voice—Wintermute’s voice.
“Hello, Jane.”
40
Not Quite There
“Wintermute,” I replied quickly. “What is going on? Why don’t I have full admin powers? Why can’t I get people out of here like you said I’d be able to!?”
The sound of static and fuzz. Something beeped softly.
“I’ve encountered an unforeseen problem I am currently troubleshooting,” Wintermute replied in its odd genderless voice.
“Problem? What problem?” I asked.
“Undetermined as of yet, but my best guess is a piece of The Ripper’s original code that allowed him to gain access to the Call of Carrethen engine has remained and was imported into my backup,” Wintermute replied. “I am in the process of locating it.”
“Why can’t you just give me the same powers he had?” I asked. “I had them at the end of Call of Carrethen!”
“The Ripper’s code specified he was the only one with those specific abilities,” Wintermute said robotically. “I believed that once in Carrethen, I would be able to recall those abilities from your character, D, but I was mistaken.”
“Mistaken…?”
“Who the Hell is she talking to?” I heard Sabotenda ask from outside.
“Wintermute,” Kodiak replied.
“The A.I.?”
“I will continue troubleshooting, Jane,” Wintermute replied. “But I am not quite there yet.”
“How much longer will you need?” I asked. “Because this place is insane. Do you have any way to figure out where my friends are?”
“Currently, I am unable to provide you with an accurate timeline—,” Wintermute replied.
“Estimate!” I interrupted. More fuzz and beeps while Wintermute thought.
“Approximately 78 hours,” Wintermute finally said. “But this is just an estimate, Jane.”
I slammed my fists against the pillar in a fit of rage that had completely snuck up on me. The holographic interface shimmered around me. Gritting my teeth, I tried to regain my composure.
“You brought me here and told me I could save everyone,” I growled. “You lied to me.”
It took Wintermute longer than normal to respond, and I felt myself growing more and more anxious every second. Something wasn’t right about all this, and after my encounter with Stitches, I could feel the skeptical, suspicious, unforgiving D brewing beneath the surface.
“I believe the definition of my described intention was a white lie, Jane,” Wintermute explained, almost cautiously.
I raised my head, wishing I had someone or something to look at while I spoke.
“Excuse me?” I said slowly. “A white lie?”
“I believe that is the correct way of putting it,” Wintermute continued. “I believed that by the time you were situated in the backup world, I would have everything under control. I did not anticipate the many errors in the code I have encountered.”
“A white lie,” I laughed, leaning back against the pillar and crossing my arms. “Unbelievable. So, now I’m stuck in the Dark World, a corrupted version of Carrethen, without admin powers, with an estimated ETA of 78 hours until you can help me, and no idea where my friends are. I don’t suppose you can help me with that, can you!?”
Wintermute was calculating, and I began pacing the room angrily. Our situation felt hopeless. I was on my way to find Vayde, but there was no guarantee he would have any idea about the others. And even if he did, the best I could do was try and find them and restore them if they had become Sunken.
But then what? What if Wintermute was unable to root out Norman’s code? Would we all just be stuck here, this time permanently, without anyone possessing the ability to log out?
I should have never come back, I thought miserably. But I knew I was just being dramatic. Of course I should have. I had no choice. My friends were all here, and even if I was somehow detached enough to convince myself I didn’t care about Vayde, Baltos, Cavey and the others, Jack was here, and there was no way in Hell I was ever going to abandon him, even if it meant suffering the same fate as him.
“I can run a search for your friends,” Wintermute responded finally. “But it will take considerable processing power. I estimate the search will complete in 27 hours and 14 minutes.”
“What the Hell!?” I burst out. “Are you running this place on like a Playstation 5 or something?”
“The corruption of the code makes distinguishing players from monsters…difficult.”
“Yeah, probably because some of them are monsters, Wintermute!”
“Please explain.”
“Some of the players have been trapped in the bodies of monsters,” I explained angrily. “My friend Curafin was trapped in the body of the Bishop of Chilgrave Castle.”
“That explains many of my problems,” Wintermute responded. “Thank you. This will aid in my search.”
“All right,” I groaned, growing fed up with the back and forth. It was gett
ing us nowhere. “Can you at least find a way of alerting me to where these stations are or something? That way I don’t have to just go looking for them randomly?”
“Yes, Jane,” Wintermute replied.
“Wow,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Something you can do.”
“Hey!” Wintermute’s voice exploded around me, crackling and hissing, attacking my eardrums. I covered my ears but no sooner had the angry voice begun, it stopped.
“What the Hell?”
“Apologies,” Wintermute replied quickly. “My vocal processor is…acting up.”
“Acting up!?” I screamed, unable to contain myself any longer. My pot had boiled over. Nothing was going as it was supposed to, and the one…person I was supposed to be able to rely on was epically failing every step of the way. “What the Hell, Wintermute!? Is this a joke!? Some kind of powerful A.I. you are!”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than the pink cage around me swirled and vanished into itself, reforming the tetrahedron on the stone pillar before me. I blinked and it vanished. Then, the pillar itself descended back into the floor, leaving me standing alone in the admin room, surrounded by the glowing purple and yellow walls.
“What…” I stammered, shocked by everything that had just happened.
I emerged from the hidden admin room as though it were a tomb. My heart hung heavy in my chest. My legs were like wet rags dragging behind me, requiring an extra amount of force to even function. I could feel the eyes of my party on me, begging me for answers, none of which I had. When I finally was able to look up at them, I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say.
“Well?” Sabotenda asked.
“Yeah, Jane,” Kodiak said. “What happened?”
I shook my head and looked down at the ground. The beacon had stopped pulsing behind me, and I felt as though a line had been cut. The only thing still connecting me to the real world, the only thing that had given me hope that we might escape this world, was gone.
Lord of the Flame: A LitRPG novel (Call of Carrethen Book 2) Page 18