by Shawn Kass
Watching the lizard run off and begin climbing the closest wall, Sam called back, “Sorry, we just needed to work out a strategy.”
“Okay, so what is it?” asked Anna.
Sucking in a breath through his teeth, Sam answered, “Honestly, it’s probably best if you just close your eyes for this next part.”
Confused, Anna responded, “Close my eyes? What are you talking about?” and then she caught sight of the lizard clinging to the ceiling above her and slowly approaching.
“Like I said,” began Sam, “You might not want to watch this.”
Looking at the lizard and then at Sam, Anna hesitantly said, “I thought we agreed he couldn’t chew through this stuff?”
“Yeah, we did. That’s why he’s just going to burn through it.”
“What are you talking about, ‘burn through it’?” began Anna, and then she watched as the lizard stopped above her with one clawed foot on the webbing which held her and opened its mouth. What came next disgusted her, but she found that she had no time to respond to it as she immediately felt the line begin to give way. A moment later, Anna’s hair went from hanging down below her to flying up past her cheeks as she fell towards the ground.
As Anna yelled, Sam did his best to step forward to catch her. Her weight and momentum, however, proved to be just a little more than he could handle, and he found that while he was able to protect her head, the rest of her body hit the ground pretty hard.
“Are you okay?” asked Sam.
Taking a second to catch her breath, Anna raised her hand and wiped something from her face before she realized that the cocoon she had been in was now broken. Looking up at Sam, she excitedly exclaimed, “It worked!”
Forgetting that she didn’t know that they were in a game for a moment, Sam responded, “Yeah, but we both may have lost a couple health points on that one.”
“What?” asked Anna.
Thinking back to the thousands of hours he had spent on his JRPGs and how his characters could almost always eat something even when they were in the middle of a battle, Sam responded, “Um, I just meant that we should probably finish off the food you picked up earlier.”
“Food? How can you be hungry at a time like this? We have to save Peter and get out of here before more of them arrive.”
Thinking fast, Sam held up his hands in surrender and said, “I know that, but we’re going to have our hands full trying to get out of here, and we’ll need whatever advantage we can get if we’re going to succeed.”
Reaching into her pocket, she handed him the remaining package and said, “Here, now can we get Peter?”
Chewing quickly on the handful of dried fruit he had stuffed into his mouth, Sam said, “Okay,” and got into position beneath the boy.
On the ceiling, Tezukayoshi crawled over to the boy and repeated his previous move and allowed his stomach acid to do its work on the webbing once again.
As the boy fell into Sam’s hands and he managed to catch him, Anna asked, “How did you come up with the idea that your lizard could do that?”
Setting Peter on the ground, Sam said, “Well, considering what he eats, I figured his digestive system has to be pretty toxic.”
“Can you get him out of there?”
“Probably, I just need a rock or something to break into the cocoon.”
Looking left and then right, Anna tried to find him a good rock to use, but then she froze in place when she spotted another one of the giant spiders creeping forward towards Sam’s back. Reacting with the only thing she had left, Anna pulled the oil out of her pocket and yelled as she unleashed a violent stream of the stuff and sprayed the creature in the face. Its reaction was almost comical as it tried to rear backwards on two legs while simultaneously attempting to shield itself and wipe the oil away with the other six.
Unaware of what was happening, Sam spun around and thrust out his hand in defense. To his surprise, he watched as a small spark leapt from his palm towards the chittering creature and ignited the oil Anna had sprayed. From there, the beast was engulfed in flames, and both Anna and Sam found that they had to quickly back away from the searing heat. As Sam backed up, however, his step was interrupted by his heel catching on something, and without anything to grab hold of, he fell directly on top of Peter.
“Careful, we came here to save him,” reminded Anna.
Rolling off the boy, Sam snapped back, “Yeah, well, next time try telling me when there is a giant spider you hosed down with oil behind me.”
“I’m sorry, I just reacted. Is he okay?”
Looking down, Sam nodded and said, “He’s still unconscious, but it looks like we got the cocoon open. Let’s grab him and get out of here.”
“I have no idea where the mine entrance is from here,” said Anna. Then looking towards the creature which was still burning, she asked, “And what about them?”
Pointing towards the cave they had come through originally, Sam said, “It’s got to be up. So I say we go that way,” and then gesturing towards the remains, he added, “And as for them, it looks like fire will work. If you’ll hand me the rest of the oil, I’ll cover you while you take the boy.”
Handing over the container, Anna asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, just grab the kid and go. I’ve got a plan.”
“Okay, good luck,” said Anna as she reached down and picked up Peter.
To his surprise, Anna showed no difficulty in carrying the boy as she hurried up the tunnel, and then Sam remembered how his game characters could always carry somewhere between thirty to a hundred items no matter whether they were simple leaves and berries or full sized swords and axes. The weight a game character could carry was only rarely an issue and was just one of those weird breaks in physics that games tended to have.
As Anna disappeared from sight, Sam felt the now familiar tug on his clothes and looked over to find the lizard climbing its way up to his shoulder. Smirking at it, he said, “Okay little buddy, now we just have to come up with a way to save our bacon.” In response, the lizard tilted its head as it tried to understand what the human was saying and then took a second before it looked pointedly over to the burnt giant spider with the melted eyes. When it returned its gaze back up to Sam, he looked in that direction, too, and then grinned before he said, “Yippy Kai Yay.”
* * * It took Anna at least five minutes to make it back to the hole they had fallen through, but without a rope, it seemed impossible to climb back up, so she continued on past. When she came to a fork in the path a few minutes later, she followed the tunnel that appeared to have an ascending slope like Sam had said and raced forward. Finally after ten minutes of carrying Peter while running through near pitch blackness, she spotted daylight ahead and felt some relief. That was until she heard the scrabbling of feet on loose dirt quickly approaching from behind her.
Pouring on the speed, Anna pushed herself to make it out of the mine and into the sunlight with the irrational hope that once she was outside she would be safe. There was no reason to believe that the things in here wouldn’t be able to get them, but something inside her told her that’s where she needed to be. Even as the noises gained on her, she refused to look back and just ran faster. It wasn’t until she was out of the cave and twenty yards down the path that led back towards Anozira that she heard Sam’s voice and stopped running.
Looking back, she watched as he stood at the cave entrance squeezing out what looked to be the last of the oil from the container onto the ground. Not understanding, she called back to him, “What are you doing?”
Holding out his hand towards the ground, Sam replied, “Something I saw in a movie once,” and then closing his eyes, he focused his will and said, “Light ’em up.” As before, a small spark leapt from his hand and ignited the oil at his feet, but from there a trail of fire formed, quickly zipping its way back into the mine, illuminating the tunnel walls all the way down.
Stepping up to Sam’s side, still carrying Peter, Anna saw the flames grow
even brighter as the walls themselves caught fire and hundreds of spiders, ranging from the small sized ones Tezukayoshi had first eaten to the hundred pound level nine creatures which had tried to kill them, fell twitching into the flames. Looking back to him, she asked, “What did you do?”
In answer, Sam said, “At first I didn’t know what was going on myself, but then I remembered the story you told me about how the town was formed and what they used to pull out of this mine. Well, no matter how good people are at mining, they always leave residue and dust behind.”
“What are you talking about?” Explaining himself further, he said, “While I was down there, I saw the fire on that dead spider flicker and jump a few times. Then as a test, I tossed a bit of loose soil on it. Normally, dirt will smother a fire, but this time it made the flames burn brighter. That could only happen if there was something in the dirt which was flammable. That’s when I remembered the laoc.”
“So the fire is catching on the remaining minerals?” “Yeah, and the oil goes all the way down to the cavern where we started. I’d say, by this point, pretty much every spider down there has to be either on fire or dead of smoke inhalation.”
“Wow. How many do you think there were?” asked Anna out of curiosity.
Preparing to give a best guess answer, Sam was interrupted by the feeling the ground rumbling beneath his feet. Looking at Anna, he was sure that she could feel it, too, and then just fifty feet to the west, a massive pile of dirt was thrown into the air.
Spinning in that direction, Sam saw that the alpha spider was now making its way out of the hole he and Anna had fallen through. The difference was that the hole itself now appeared to be large enough swallow a Buick.
Hoping that either the oil or the laoc was on the creature, Sam pointed his hand at the creatures and yelled, “America!”
Instead of the spark he had expected, he felt his whole hand become white hot, and then a massive fireball nearly a foot across shot out towards the creature and hit it in the face. Realizing that he must have leveled up his magic from killing the rest of the spiders, Sam didn’t hesitate to step forward and unleash a dozen more fireballs, each one pushing the alpha spider back into the hole as they lit up various parts of its body. Finally holding out both hands, Sam concentrated on a mental picture of something he had seen in an anime cartoon once and yelled his catch phrase once again, “AMERICA!”
The fireball he unleashed this time was nearly four times as large and left him feeling exhausted as it flew from his hands, but when it reached its target, the alpha spider’s head blasted inward forcing the rest of its body to topple backwards into the hole.
As Sam dropped to his knees, Anna rushed over to his side and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” croaked Sam. “Just a little tired. How about you two?”
Looking down at the still form of Peter in her arms and then back at Sam, she said, “We’re fine.”
“Good,” replied Sam as he collapsed the rest of the way to the ground. “I think I’m just going to take a nap here for a few minutes. Then we can go back in there and look for any loot those spiders may have dropped.”
“Yeah, sure,” commented Anna, still not believing the power she had just seen him release. “I just have two questions. What is a movie, and what does ‘America’ mean?”
Chapter 7
The sight of dirt covered and exhausted Sam and Anna was so unexpected that, as they walked back into the town, Marvin, the unofficial greeter, nearly choked on his own words leaving them to come out strangled and garbled sounding. Sam, who was now carrying both Peter and Tezukayoshi, simply strode on past, but Anna stepped over and whispered something into the boy’s ear, and a moment later Marvin shot off, running into the town.
Seeing him run past, Sam stopped and asked, “What did you say?”
“I told him to get Ms. Kirkland and bring her to the inn.”
“Excellent, then we can finish this quest, and I can check in for the night all in one spot.”
“Quest?” questioned Anna. “What a weird way to put it. Do people where you come from generally consider favors like this to be quests?”
His shrug came off quite awkwardly due to the fact that he still held Peter in his arms and Tezukayoshi was riding on his shoulder with his head up looking around, but he
complemented it with, “Well, things like finding a lost child can be, but other times, things are just favors.”
Shaking her head, Anna said, “The place where you come from sounds very complicated.”
Nodding, Sam agreed, “It is.”
Turning at the next street, Anna led them through a short cut, and a minute later they found themselves once again just outside the inn with Ms. Kirkland, still wearing her green dress and white apron, running up to meet them.
Upon seeing her son in Sam’s arms, Ms. Kirkland put both her hands to her chest and screamed, “Oh my dear, Peter! Peter!” She then thanked them profusely as she ran up towards them.
As she approached, Tezukayoshi scurried off of Sam’s shoulder and down his backside where he quickly crawled around and burrowed into Sam’s pocket.
“It’s no problem, ma’am,” responded Sam.
Looking him over, she asked, “Is he okay?”
“I think so, ma’am,” began Sam, “But he has been unconscious since we found him. You might want to get him looked at by a healer or something.”
Placing one hand on Peter’s cheek and the other on his forehead, she gave him a more thorough inspection and tried to assess if he had a temperature as she asked, “A healer?”
“I think he means Doctor Brown,” interjected Anna.
“I will indeed,” agreed Ms. Kirkland. “Peter never sleeps this much. Tell me, where did you find him?”
“Like you said, ma’am, he was down by the old mine. Unfortunately, from the looks of things, he ran into some nasty spiders while he was there.”
Lifting her son from Sam’s arms, Ms. Kirkland said, “I see, well, I can assure you he won’t be playing down there ever again. That mine took his father, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it take my son, too.”
Smirking, Sam said, “Actually, after today, that mine is probably safer than it has been in quite some time.”
Not understanding what Sam and Anna had been through, Ms. Kirkland gave him a confused but stern look as she said, “Trust me, young man. My boy will not be going anywhere near that place,” before she turned and headed off.
Looking at Anna, Sam shrugged and asked, “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, you did fine, Sam. Just remember a lot of people died down there, and some of us are still grieving.”
Sam wanted to ask her more, but just then a man stepped out of the inn and said, “Anna, did I hear you right? Did you and this gentleman just save Peter Kirkland?”
“Yes, Mr. Dene. We did.”
“Well then, please, come on in here and introduce your friend.”
Following the man inside, Anna said, “Mr. Dene, this here is Sam. He’s new to Anozira.”
Shaking Sam’s hand, Mr. Dene said, “I see, and you just jumped right in and helped out Ms. Kirkland. I like that.”
Looking at Anna, Sam said, “I just figured that if I pitched in, then the search would go a little faster. To be perfectly honest, it was Anna who found him.”
“Only after you saved me,” protested Anna.
“Well, however it went down, I’m sure you two will be asked to tell the tale tonight at Nivek’s pub, and I’ll be there to hear it.” Then folding his arms over his chest, Mr. Dene asked, “Say, Sam, with you being new to our town and all, do you have a place to stay yet?”
“No, not yet. I was actually going to ask if you had any rooms here at the inn for the next night or two.”
Smiling, Mr. Dene said, “Actually I do have a room, and since you helped out Ms. Kirkland like you did, I’ll go ahead and let you have the first night for free.”
Surprised, Sam said, “Oh wow
, thank you.”
“Not a problem,” replied Mr. Dene. “If you wait a minute, I’ll get you a key, and you can head up. From the look of things, you might want to clean yourself up before you hit the pub for dinner tonight.”
Looking down at his dirt covered hands and torn clothing, Sam had to admit that he did look like a mess.
Seeing this, too, Anna said, “If you would like, I can stop by the store and pick you up some new clothes.”
“Sure, that would be great,” responded Sam as the innkeeper returned and handed him a key tied to a credit card sized wooden placard which read ‘Room 4’.
“It’s just up the stairs and down the hall on the right.”
Looking at both of them, Sam said, “Thank you,” and then turned and headed up the stairs.
When he went to the second floor, he found that there were five doors, two on the left, two on the right, and one straight ahead. Following the directions he had been given, he stepped over to the second door on the right where the number ‘4’ had been inscribed in the door and used the key to open it up. Inside he found the standard furnishings most hotels offer like a mirror, a bed, and a night stand. Oddly, though, there was no bathroom. While this fit with most video games, Sam had a moment of panic as he considered the ramifications of not having a toilet, but then he realized that in all of the hours he had been here, he had yet to feel the need to use one. For that matter, he still didn’t feel like he needed it, so he dismissed the concern and accepted once again that it was all part of the game world.
As he closed the door behind him, Tezukayoshi poked his head out from Sam’s pocket and glanced about the new room. Apparently finding it acceptable, he crawled out from his favorite hiding spot, made his down Sam’s clothing until he reached the floor, and, once there, scurried across the room to climb up the sheets and find his place on the bed. Flicking his tongue out a few times as he inspected things eventually made himself at home on the left side pillow by turning around three times before he finally curled into a ball and closed his eyes.
Seeing this, Sam smiled and said, “You earned it, little buddy,” and then continued his assessment of the room.