Towns and Towers: A New Land

by Shawn Kass

  Thanking the woman, Quinn promised that they would do all they could to help her son and then sprinted back over to her team. Looking down, she saw the monitor was all hooked up and that the machine showed asystole. Trusting her teammates to continue CPR, she dove into her bag and pulled out an IV kit before she moved back to the boy’s body. Spiking the bag, she checked to make sure the air was cleared from the tubing and then began tapping on his arm to try to find a vein. After the second attempt, Quinn found the vein and plunged the needle into his arm.

  Next, she opened up a second part of the kit and withdrew a syringe and a bottle of epinephrine. She used it as Mark and Damien continued performing CPR, and then she radioed the hospital to let them know of their pending arrival.

  “Unit eleven to seven twelve, trauma alert. We have a ten year old male MVA. No pulse with CPR in progress. IV established along with zero point zero two milligrams of epinephrine. We are fifteen minutes out.”

  “Copy that, unit eleven. We’ll see you in fifteen.”

  Thankfully, that’s when Damien announced, “We have a pulse.”

  Looking down at the monitor, Quinn confirmed that a rhythm had been detected. Smiling, she said, “Okay, let’s pack him up and scoot.”

  From there, the team wrapped a C-spine collar around his neck, strapped him to a long board, put him on the gurney, and loaded him in the truck. Quinn offered the boy’s mother a spot in the back of the rig on the bench seat, which she gratefully accepted, and then they were off. Fifteen minutes later, with the help of her rig’s sirens and lights, she pulled up to the hospital’s ER entrance.

  * * * Behind her, the driver of a large yellow Hummer laid on his horn, ripping her thoughts back to the present as he did his best to notify her that the light in front of them had changed to green. Nodding reflexively, Quinn waved and pressed the accelerator to head the last mile or so up the street to Sam’s place.

  When she arrived, she used her key to unlock the door but found that it was oddly enough already unlocked. Frowning, knowing that Sam usually kept the door locked whether he was home or not, she stepped in and announced, “Sam, it’s me.”

  Closing and locking the door behind her, she rounded the corner to the living room and saw that the area was empty. Turning the other way, she checked behind her and found that the hall lights were off, too. Unsure if he was in the bathroom or not, Quinn walked down the hall and called out, “Sam, you here?” but still received no reply.

  Taking a quick tour of the place, Quinn saw that Sam’s keys were in the bowl near the front door, that the TV had been paused on some show, and that he had received the package he had been talking about all week because the box was on the floor, and there were a few styrofoam peanuts on the carpet around it. The one thing missing was Sam.

  Hoping that he stepped out for just a minute, perhaps to talk to a neighbor or something, Quinn sat down on the couch to wait. As she did so, she took note of the soft music playing nearby and looked over to find Sam’s new game system plugged in and sitting on the cushion next to her. Reaching over to check it out, she saw that there were two characters running around on the screen, apparently in some sort of a field, who occasionally stopped to fight whatever creature attacked them. It looked like Sam’s standard type of game from what she could see, but the strange thing was Sam wasn’t playing it. Somehow, the game seemed to be playing itself.

  Shaking her head, Quinn realized that this, too, seemed strange, not because the game was doing its own thing, that could just be some kind of demo mode, but rather because Sam wasn’t known for leaving his games running if he wasn’t playing them. As a matter of fact, he had always been very careful with his stuff, never leaving even a fingerprint on his game discs. He was practically obsessive about these things. Now, it seemed he not only got the new system he had been waiting for, but he simply left it turned on and walked away. Shaking her head, Quinn considered turning the system off, but not knowing if Sam had saved whatever progress he had made, she opted to just let it be until he returned and that way he could save his progress if he needed to, and it would be his responsibility.

  As she set it down, her hand bumped the control stick, and she saw that the action on the screen dim as a new window opened up with a bit of text. Leaning in, she read the screen out loud, “Welcome, new player. Would you like to create a character?”

  She had no idea how this thing would work out having two characters in a game, but Quinn figured it might be cool if the next time Sam went to play, he found a character in the game which looked like her. Besides that, he would probably take it as a bonus that she had shown some interest in his gaming habit. Selecting ‘Yes’, she began choosing the options that would make her character look most like herself and hoped that she would be able to finish before Sam returned.

  Chapter 10

  “What can we do that a doctor can’t?” questioned Sam. “I don’t know anything about medicine. Maybe your mother could whip up some kind of healing spell or something.”

  Shaking her head, Anna said, “My mother is away again. She said she had some business to get to out of town. Besides, I doubt she could do anything about this. Doctor Brown said that whatever Peter has is something he hasn’t seen before.”

  Stepping into the doorway behind Anna, the older man with the lab coat and stethoscope said, “It must have been from those spiders you two encountered. If they were as big as you say, then there is no way they were natural to the area, and I would bet that it was their venom which did this to young Peter.”

  “Spider venom?” asked Sam. “That would be my guess,” replied the doctor. “He has a couple of bite marks on him.”

  Knowing how these things tended to go in other games, Sam asked, “So what do you need, some anti-venom from the next town or something?”

  “If only it were so simple,” answered the old man. “No, I’m afraid we need someone to fetch us a flower.”

  “A flower?” asked Sam.

  “Yes, a Daturamura specifically. They are used in making an herbal remedy which can cure any ailment.”

  Having experienced something very similar to this before in another game, Sam asked, “And let me guess, it’s only available in one spot?”

  “Actually, no. It’s available in several regions around the world,” began Doctor Brown. “The problem is, it only grows in elevations above fourteen thousand feet.”

  “Above fourteen thousand feet, you say.” Then remembering what Anna had said yesterday about the local area around the town, he added, “So you need someone to go into the mountains to get one?”

  “Precisely,” answered Doctor Brown.

  Nodding with a sarcastic look on his face, Sam faced Anna and asked, “Where the wolves and the bandits are?”

  Preparing to say something in response, Anna took a breath but was cut off by Ms. Kirkland’s plea. “Sir, please, you must help my boy. You were able to take on those giant spiders without any difficulty. Going out to pick up a simple flower should be no trouble for you.”

  “It wasn’t quite as simple as that, Ms. Kirkland. Both Anna and I risked our lives to bring your son back.”

  “Yes, and I thank you, but what will all of that be worth if he never wakes from this?”

  Unable to argue with her, Sam turned to Anna and asked, “What about the other adventurers we saw in the pub last night? Can’t any of them help?”

  “I’m afraid they have already gone into the Tower. Besides, I doubt that they would be interested in helping out us town folk. They’re only here for the fame of the Tower.”

  Seeing no way out of this and knowing that yet again this was an all too familiar trope in JRPGs, Sam sighed, and said, “Fine, but this time we’re not going out there unprepared.”

  “What did you have in mind?” asked Anna.

  “Weapons and armor. We need to hit the blacksmith before we go. If there is a risk of us having to fight off wolves or bandits, then I want to make sure we can protect ourselves.”

>   “Dire wolves,” said Anna.

  “What?” asked Sam.

  “The wolves in the mountains, they’re actually called dire wolves. They are larger than regular wolves.”

  “Of course they are,” said Sam sarcastically as he remembered his talk with her as they walked out towards the mine. Then just to add a little more mockery to the conversation, he asked, “And are the bandits dire, too?”

  “No, that would be silly,” answered Anna seriously. “Besides, I told you that there are no bandits. Anozira is a peaceful place.”

  “Okay, so we’ll be facing dire wolves. Is there anything else out there?” asked Sam as he turned around and looked for Tezukayoshi.

  Choosing her words carefully, Anna answered, “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “So you’ve been up there, and you know where we’re going?”

  “Yes, once. It was years ago with my father, but I think I remember the way.”

  Spotting Tezukayoshi sitting on the windowsill, Sam picked him up and said, “Okay, well, let’s go then.”

  Leaving the doctor and Ms. Kirkland behind at the inn with the hopes that they would keep Peter safe until their return, Sam placed his lizard familiar on his shoulder and followed Anna back to the blacksmith’s place which she had shown him the day before. As they entered, Anna raised her voice to be heard over the loud pounding in the back and said, “Kip, I have a customer for you.”

  Looking up from the oddly shaped metal he was working on, the man with the bulging muscles set down his hammer and approached saying, “Good morning, Anna. What can I do for you?”

  “We are going out to the mountains, and we need some gear.”

  “The mountains?” asked Kip. “That’s a dangerous area. What do you plan to do out there?”

  “Peter got bit by a spider yesterday, and Doctor Brown says he needs a Daturamura in order to fight off the venom.”

  “Well, I can sell you what I have, but it isn’t much. The Tempters came in here yesterday and all but cleaned me out.”

  Looking around, Sam noticed that what he said was true. Most of the swords and daggers he had seen yesterday morning were now gone, and the only armor left behind looked to be a set of traveler’s clothes which were too small for him. Ready to ask Anna if there was another blacksmith in town, his eyes fell on a pile of rocks in the corner, and he recalled what the blacksmith had said and instead asked, “Anna, do you still have that stuff we collected from the mine yesterday?”

  Nodding, Anna held out a small sack and said, “Yes, I put it in here. Why?”

  The sack was what most gamers referred to as a ‘bag of holding’, and while its dimensions looked small, inside it held any number of things which wouldn’t normally fit. In fact, many gamers often thought of them much like the TARDIS in the British sci-fi show Doctor Who, where the dimensions on the inside had nothing to do with its appearance on the outside. It didn’t make any more sense in the show than it did in the gaming world, and it was best not to try to dig too deeply into the physics of things related to sci-fi or gaming. For Sam, he simply chalked it up to some sort of spatial techno-magic and accepted it at face value.

  Taking the sack, Sam reached in and withdrew one of the large spider legs they had picked up after killing the boss creature. He asked, “You think you could make anything out of this?”

  Eyes wide, the blacksmith took hold of the leg and asked, “Where did you find this?”

  “Out at the old mine,” answered Anna.

  Turning the leg over, he braced his knee against it and pulled to test its strength before he answered, “Yes, I think if I had a couple more like this, I might be able to make something stronger than what you see on the walls.”

  “Great,” began Sam, “Because I have at least seven more of those in here.”

  Taking the huge spider legs into the back, Kip threw them into his forge and began stoking up the flames until they turned red hot. From there, he illogically pulled out what looked to be a large white brick of molten metal and began hammering away at it. With each blow, the brick of metal began to take shape, and on the seventh strike, the blacksmith picked up the newly forged weapon and stuck it in the cool water nearby. Repeating the process, Kip performed the same actions in the same way, but this time the weapon he created was completely different than before. Finally, he declared his work to be done not even two full minutes after he began.

  Chalking it up to the same game logic which had allowed their food to be made so fast the previous night and that sleeping could clean and repair clothes, Sam stepped forward and asked, “How’d they turn out?”

  “That has got to be some of my finest work,” answered Kip. Setting the first weapon, which apparently came with its own sheath, onto the counter, he said, “This here is a short sword. I call it the Spider Bite, and this,” setting the second weapon on the counter, “Is a powerful bow. I call it the Silk Weaver.”

  Looking over the weapons, Sam saw that both the sheath and the hilt of the sword were made from the smooth black exoskeleton legs of the spider. When he drew the blade, he saw that it had flecks of black in the purple metal which apparently came from the same source. As he concentrated on the weapon further he saw a bit of writing on the hilt which read:

  Lv: 8 Spider Blade, Adds +12 to attack. Seeing that Anna was looking more closely over the bow, Sam took a second to analyze it too. From what he could see, it appeared to be made of one large, slightly modified spider leg, but the string looked strange somehow. Focusing as he had on the sword, Sam found the writing engraved in the bow frame just below the arrow rest.

  Lv: 8 Spider Bow, adds +10 to ranged attack.

  Pointing to the bow, Sam asked, “Is that normal bowstring?” Smiling, Kip answered with pride in his voice, “Noticed that, did you? Good eye. No. That sir, is spider webbing. It’s a hundred times stronger than normal bowstring.”

  Not having given the blacksmith any webbing, Sam had no idea how the man had manufactured it, but then again the whole process having only taken seven hits each made no sense. Looking at Anna, Sam asked, “Can you use a bow?”

  “I used to, when I was a kid.”

  “Well, are you any better with a sword?”

  Shaking her head, Anna answered, “No, I don’t think so.” Shrugging, Sam accepted this and picked up the sword,

  asking, “So what do we owe you?” Looking the pieces over, Kip began, “Normally something like this would cost over twelve hundred gold apiece,” and he paused just long enough for Sam to realize that they wouldn’t have enough for both weapons. Then, Kip continued on with, “But since you’re with Anna, and you’re using it to help Peter, I’ll cut you a deal. How does two thousand for the both of them sound?”

  Doing a quick calculation, Sam realized that this would leave them with just over a hundred pieces of gold, and that they still wouldn’t have any armor. At the same time, he reasoned that these weapons were probably the best he was going to come by for some time. Hoping that they might come across some armor while out on their quest, Sam said, “Throw in some leather tunics, and you have yourself a deal.”

  Smiling, Kip looked at Anna and said, “On one condition.”

  “Name it,” said Anna.

  “You bring me more rare materials like this to work with.”

  Holding out her hand, Anna said, “As long as you’re willing to keep forging things for us, you’ve got a deal.”

  Nodding, Kip reached out and shook each of their hands.

  It took a few moments for the two of them to strap on their new gear, and Sam was a little surprised to find that while his leather tunic provided him with a little more defensive cover, Anna’s tunic seemed to pull on her clothing and make them bunch up so that it exposed her midriff. On top of that, she wore her bow loosely over her shoulder and across her chest so that the bowstring rode diagonally from her hip to her shoulder like a seat belt, clearly defining the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  To Sam, this was something that
he had seen in many of the games he had played over the years, and it never made sense. Female characters always seemed to be wearing less as the quality of their armor got better. It was just another one of those illogical game nuances which no one had an explanation for, other than the fact that the target audience was supposed to be teenage boys. To make matters worse, if you gave the same armor to a male character it would always, somehow, cover more of their physique even though the male characters were typically portrayed larger due to their huge irregularly shaped muscles.

  Making a conscious effort not to look away from her eyes, Sam said, “If you’re ready, we have one more stop before we go.”

  Leaving the blacksmith’s, Sam and Anna headed back over to the general store to purchase the last of the supplies they needed. At first, Sam wanted to buy a little of everything, just to make sure they were prepared, but considering the amount of gold they had left, he held back. He just picked up the most essential items like rope, food rations, a couple of bottles of oil (since they worked so well the last time), and a machete, just in case. Anna also selected a few things for herself, placing all of it in her sack, and by the time they left and began walking down the street towards the town’s exit, they had a total of only seven gold pieces remaining.

  Looking at the few coins in his hand, Sam said, “It doesn’t seem to matter where I go, money always seems to disappear.”

  “It’s all right. I’m sure you can earn some more over the next few days. Sekuri, over at the shop where you found your lizard, said she might have some work for you, and the guys down at the docks always look like they could use a hand.”

  On the inside, he was hoping that this little outing into the fields and mountains around Anozira would prove to fatten his wallet even more. While he was at it, he was looking forward to beefing up his experience points at the same time which he figured might lead him to learning a new skill or two. To Anna, however, he simply said, “That’s true, and thanks for introducing me to Sekuri and the others, by the way. I don’t know how I would have made it around town without your help.”