Towns and Towers: A New Land

by Shawn Kass

  Nodding, the lizard hopped out of his hand and landed on Anna’s leg. Once there, Sam figured the little guy would come up with something, but he knew he didn’t have time to stand around and watch. Whatever Tezukayoshi came up with would either work or it wouldn’t, but in the meantime, he had to come through on his end which meant facing this thing and holding it off.

  Stepping behind Anna, Sam picked up his sword from the pile of their loot and stuff which had been pulled from their sack and then turned towards the cliff’s edge. What he saw was straight out of a video game nightmare. Standing nearly fifteen feet tall with horns protruding from its head and a thick coat of white hair covering most of its body was what Sam assumed to be a yeti. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he realized that this thing would either kill him or level him up.

  As his gaze swept up the yeti, looking for any sign of a weak point, an outpouring of drool poured out of the thing’s mouth and splashed against the cavern floor. Still a ways away, Sam had a moment to shiver at the thought of slipping in the gross mess.

  “Okay, looks like he’s noticed me and wants me for dinner. Now what?” Sam asked himself.

  Rather than get a response which might have proven useful, he watched as the yeti reached up with one of its massive long arms and ripped a stalactite from the ceiling, brandishing it like a five foot long club while he let out an ear splitting howl.

  Looking back at his own sword, Sam tried to cut through his own nervousness with humor as he said, “Great, as if this wasn’t scary enough, now this thing is giving me an inferiority complex about my weapon.”

  Stomping its hooved foot into the ground, Sam knew the yeti was tired of waiting for him, and a moment later it charged. Springing forward, it crossed the distance like a rocket. Had it not been headed directly for him, Sam thought he would have been amazed that something so big could move this fast. As it was, however, he didn’t have time to marvel at its breathtaking speed. The only thing Sam had time for was to brace for the impact of the first blow and hope he had the strength and skill to deflect it.

  The attack, as expected, came from the yeti swinging the stalactite down in an attempt to squash Sam beneath the blow, but Sam managed to step to the side just in time. The ground, however, shook beneath his feet as the makeshift club slammed down, and combined with his already shaking knees, it was enough to make Sam feel unsteady to the point of almost falling down.

  Knowing he didn’t want to give the thing a chance for a second swing, Sam reached out his empty hand and yelled, “Fire!” As expected, a ball of crimson flames shot out and engulfed the yeti, and the yeti reeled back in surprise of the unexpected counterattack.

  Grinning like a loon, Sam stepped forward and did it again. Hoping to find a hole blasted clean through the creature when he was done, Sam continued the barrage of fireballs until half a dozen had hit their mark, one after another, until all he could see before him was a cloud of thick black smoke and orange fire.

  Satisfied that this must have killed the yeti, Sam lowered his arm and waited for the smoke to clear. He half hoped to find that the creature would be laid out before him, burning in its own funeral pyre, while the other half of him hoped that it would have already disappeared like the wolves, snakes, and wild boars he had killed earlier, leaving a huge pile of loot behind commensurate with the size of the yeti itself. As it turned out, neither wish was fulfilled, and before the smoke cleared, Sam’s ears were assaulted with an unexpected roar which reverberated through his body and made his eardrums feel like they were about to burst.

  Staggering back, Sam didn’t even see the creature’s massive arm drop down before him. It was only on its upswing that he noticed it. By then, it was too late as the thing’s giant fist hit him like a wrecking ball in the chest. The shock of the impact traveled through Sam’s body like a boulder crashing into a still pond, and the waves of pain set every nerve ending he had ablaze as he flew through the air.

  Ten feet away, Sam’s back slammed into the cavern wall, and all of the air was immediately forced from his lungs. Dazed and having trouble breathing, Sam sat on the ground unable to focus on the yeti who was far from through with him. Instead, his eyes settled on the small rocks next to him, and he wondered somewhat absentmindedly where they had come from. Craning his neck around, he got his answer as he noticed the large crack in the wall behind him.

  The fight hadn’t been going long, and in between trying to fan the girl with his tail and dragging various items over to her from the pile of loot behind her, Tezukayoshi both saw and felt through his shared connection that his human hadn’t been winning. Up to this point, Sam had done minimal damage while taking quite a bit himself. Glancing back at the strange beast which loomed out of the smoke towards them, the lizard confirmed that aside from the thing’s fur being slightly singed, it didn’t look to be suffering from any other damage. Meanwhile, his human, Sam, had been knocked across the room and was momentarily stunned. Knowing that he had to buy Sam some time, Tezukayoshi gave up on the girl and rushed forward to meet the towering creature.

  Trying to think logically, Sam figured if this place held true to the typical video game tropes, this would be the perfect time to drink some miracle healing potion, but up until now, he hadn’t really come across any. Then remembering the fall from the tree, the last time he felt like his body was broken, he realized that if he ate something, he might be able to get the same effect. That’s when he looked towards Anna and their belongings and realized that Tezukayoshi was nowhere to be seen.

  Scared for the little guy, Sam searched the area hoping to spot the lizard hiding behind a rock or something but then felt the ground tremble beneath him and knew exactly where his familiar was. Tezukayoshi, a lizard weighing no more than a few pounds, who was small enough to fit inside one of Sam’s pockets, was doing his best to help Sam against a fifteen foot tall yeti, and, from the look of anger on the giant animal’s face, he was succeeding.

  Boom!

  Sam felt another rumbling vibration travel through the ground as the yeti stomped its cloven foot out again and missed one more of its attempts to squish Tezukayoshi. Sam knew he couldn’t wait much longer, but he needed some kind of a plan. Reaching out towards their stuff, he snatched a small packet of rations and dumped its contents into his mouth while he tried to come up with his next move. Fire had done practically nothing, certainly nothing life threatening to the yeti, and Sam felt like he had already been run over by a Mack truck by the hit he had just taken. Unfortunately, unless he wanted to just lie down and die, he was going to have to get up and face this thing once again.

  Leaning against his sword, Sam climbed his way back up to his feet and took his first full breath he’d had in just over a minute. He wasn’t back to full health, and he still hadn’t come up with a plan, but Tezukayoshi looked to be slowing down, and he couldn’t stand the thought of his little scaly companion getting crushed under the yeti’s next attempt. Tapping into the mental link he had with his familiar, Sam called it back to his side, and the lizard darted left and then right, avoiding a blow as the yeti attempted to club the lizard into the ground before he finally turned from his adversary and scurried back to Sam’s side.

  Looking down, Sam said, “Thank you, Tezukayoshi. I needed that minute, but I think it’s my turn now,” and then he stepped past the lizard and entered into battle once again.

  The yeti, upon seeing Sam’s approach, brandished its club up over its head as if it were gloating over their last encounter and welcomed the chance to finish what it had started. Feeling powerful and assured of victory, the yeti howled loudly, and its echo didn’t so much as bounce back as it bombarded the cavern walls.

  Knowing that he couldn’t stay in line with the beast and simply fight it head-to-head and that he needed to put some distance between himself and the others in case Anna came to and was able to make a run for the exit, Sam picked a point on the other side of the cavern and ran in a wide arc around the yeti. As he did this, the yeti’s
eyes followed him, almost as if it were calculating Sam’s intent, and then without warning, it leapt for the spot Sam had picked out.

  Skidding to a stop, Sam let a few expletives fly, and then, facing the fact that this was where the showdown would have to take place, he lifted his sword in front of him and took a wide stance.

  Finding that his prey had not come close enough to swat, the yeti sneered in his direction and then kicked off the ground and put everything he had into an airborne attack.

  “What the …,” was the only thing Sam could say as he saw this before he quickly dove to the right to avoid the attack. The dive itself didn’t turn out to be like the neat and graceful rolls that one sees on the late night kung fu flicks, but Sam remembered at the last second to tuck his chin and roll. The move provided enough for him to clear the stalactite coming at his head, but just barely.

  Using the momentum of the roll, Sam sprang back up to his feet and found that the once smooth ground was now broken and covered in small cracks which radiated outward from the yeti’s latest attack. The thought of what could have happened sent a spine tingling shiver down his back, but he shoved it, along with his fear, down into the pit of his stomach and focused on finding a way to survive the next sixty seconds.

  At the far end of the cavern, Tezukayoshi cringed at the sight of his human almost getting pummeled and remembered that he was only supposed to be buying enough time for the girl to be revived from her stunned status. Rededicating his efforts to the girl, he climbed up her body, across her chest, and bit down hard on her nose. As expected, this got her attention, but in the process, Tezukayoshi found himself being slapped at like a common bug.

  Anna wasn’t sure why the lizard had bitten her, and she had only hit it out of instinct, but now that she had come out of her petrified state, she took a second to glance around and tried to figure out where she was. The walls of the cavern looked familiar but foreign at the same time, like visiting a place one has been to before and finding a new room previously undiscovered. Then her cloudy eyes found the battle in the distance, and she was shocked to find Sam fighting something so big it defied its own small name. In a whispered voice that had no way of reaching him, she called out in fear, “Sam.”

  Seeing the next attack coming in from the side, and the wall all too close behind him, Sam found that he had nowhere to roll to safety this time, and so he chose to fall face first to the ground in order to duck out of the way. Again, it wasn’t an elegant move, but as the sound of the yeti’s club whistled through the air above his head, he counted it as a sound tactic.

  Rage filled the yeti as it realized that it missed yet again, and it went berserk for the next few seconds, swinging its club in every direction in a desperate hope to kill the thing which had invaded its home. It swung down again and again, crushing the ground around it on all sides until only rubble was left in its wake.

  To Sam, everything around him was a blur. No matter which direction he rolled, jumped, or dodged, it seemed like the yeti was there waiting for him with another strike. He tried to back up once he got away from the wall, but every time he thought he had made progress, he quickly found that he was still within the club’s reach. After a certain point, he had to wonder if he still had a shadow left or if it had somehow been unable to keep up with him and been destroyed for falling a second behind.

  Somewhere along the way, Sam saw the stalactite strike the ground only a foot away, and the force of the blow caused it to burst apart sending debris in all directions. A few of those stones hit him hard enough to make him wince, but he didn’t have time to worry about the damage they might have done because the yeti simply tossed the handle aside and began attacking with kicks and claws. The problem now was that the creature was so much closer, Sam didn’t have the space to watch for an attack and then maneuver out of the way. All he could do was keep moving, knowing that one wrong turn or one missed roll would mean certain death. There was no room for error in any of this.

  In the back of Sam’s head, a memory surfaced of the time he had taken his onscreen video game character into a dungeon which was easily ten levels beyond him in the vain hope of leveling up quickly. The first fight was enough for him to use up every healing potion he had and turn tail and run. Unfortunately, the game wasn’t done teaching him a lesson, though, as it forced one last fight upon him when he was only inches away from the door, and the creatures pulverized what was left of his digital self, forcing him to reload from an earlier save point.

  Knowing it was his brain’s way of telling him that he should just make a run for it and head for the exit, he couldn’t find it in himself to do so. Part of it was the fact that Anna and his familiar would be left behind, but the other part was that even if he did make it into the caves, he had no way of knowing if the thing wouldn’t be able to follow. In here he had the room to avoid attacks, but in those caves, there would be walls on both sides preventing him from dodging out of the way of anything. On top of that, he wasn’t sure he could remember how to get back outside through the twisting tunnels of the mountain.

  If Sam had any breath left in his lungs, he would have cursed his brain for replaying that memory just now, but all he could manage to do was focus on his next move as the yeti overcommitted itself to a tackle which was aimed at pinning him against one of the few remaining stalagmites in the cavern.

  As he came up out of his roll, he noticed a figure standing beyond the dust, and it took him a second to comprehend that the figure was Anna. From this distance, he couldn’t tell how steady she was or whether or not she could fight, but he didn’t want that anyway. All he wanted was for her to get a head start, and then he could try to make his own escape from this nightmare.

  Screaming with everything he had left in his lungs, he yelled, “Anna, run! Get out here!”

  Instead of doing what Sam said, she just stood there looking at him as if she were about to cry, and he tried to send a mental message to Tezukayoshi to get her moving. His attempt, however, was cut short by a sudden movement to his left, and he managed to jump back just in time to avoid a punch from the yeti.

  Trying to focus on the fight, Sam could only yell out for the two of them to run, but in the corner of his eye, he saw that she was still standing there. Frustrated by the situation as much as the fact that they weren’t listening, he gave up on the idea of the three of them escaping and directed his anger on the creature before him.

  As the next punch came at him, he waited a fraction of a second longer than he had before and then quickly stepped to the side as he swung his sword up. The resulting wound wasn’t enough to sever the thing’s arm from its body like he had hoped, to tell the truth, it was barely more than a scratch, but Sam spotted the damage and once he saw that the yeti could be hurt, he knew he had a chance of killing it.

  Inside, Sam felt a mixture of anger, satisfaction, and despair. He hadn’t come searching for this fight and knew he was woefully unprepared. He had no sure way of getting home, and he felt like he could die at any moment. The only thing he had going for him was that he had wasted literally thousands of hours playing games, and it was that time and experience which he found himself now betting his life on. Mentally and physically exhausted, he turned to face the enraged yeti with little more than desperation driving him forward.

  “Grrrrumph!” grunted the yeti as it launched itself forward for another attack.

  Quickly getting out of the way, Sam struck outwards with his sword but only managed to trim a few hairs off the beast’s fur despite making a solid hit against its outstretched arm. To make matters worse, he felt a vibration from the blow run up his arm as if he had hit a brick wall with an aluminum baseball bat. It was so much that he almost dropped his sword when the yeti came down with a second swing, and he was forced to dodge once again.

  Spinning around to face his attacker, Sam looked up into the yeti’s eyes, and his gaze locked on the sharp glare being returned. Somehow, the silent agreement between them had been reached. Only on
e of them would be walking away from this.

  From there, blow after blow rained down, and Sam was forced to duck and dodge, weaving his way in a chaotic dance with death as the creature’s strikes got closer and closer to finding their mark. In between maybe every third punch or kick the yeti threw out, Sam swung his sword at an opening, but none of them found purchase in the beast’s tough skin. About the only thing going for him was that the creature’s breaths were becoming more labored and ragged as its frustration and rage climaxed.

  Strangely, somewhere past Sam’s fifteenth or sixteenth counterattack Sam realized his own breath became calm and fairly even. He was covered in sweat, and he knew he’d exerted himself more than he had at any other point in his life, but somehow he no longer felt the bruises or the muscle aches.

  The truth of his situation didn’t dawn on him immediately. In fact, it wasn’t until after Sam had evaded the next few attacks that he finally put it together. Somewhere between the animals they had killed on their way here and the strikes he had managed to land against the yeti so far, he must have accumulated enough experience points to level up again. It was the only thing which could explain it, and it followed the same logics of most JRPGs. When a character leveled up, their base stats not only increased, but they commonly healed from most, if not all, of the damage they have suffered.

  As Sam rolled out of the way once again, the yeti roared in frustrated impotence, and it felt like the yeti was yelling at Sam, ‘Just stand still so I can hit you!’

  Smiling as he evaded another strike, Sam realized that his agility was now not only equal to the yeti’s, but possibly a little higher. That was when he decided to turn the tables and find out what else his shiny new level had given him.

  Waiting for the perfect hit to reveal itself, Sam let two openings pass by before he leapt in on the third and struck. This time, his sword gouged the beast much deeper than it had before. Rather than get greedy, though, and press the attack, he jumped back and waited for his next opportunity. He had played enough video games to know that attempting to stick it out for a killing blow early in a fight often led to his characters suffering for his impetuousness, sometimes with them meeting an unfortunate end to their adventure all too soon. This time, however, he knew it was himself in the fight and not just some character on the screen, so he let caution be his guide and err on the side of safety.