by Shawn Kass
Per his request, each arrow found its mark and embedded itself roughly two feet distant from one another so that combined, they made a sort of pegboard which he could use to climb up the creature’s side. When the last arrow finished its long arc to the top and sank its way into the beast, Sam waved his hand for Kat to get the mages ready for their next attack. Per his direction, the mages would focus their spells towards the kilopede’s face in a concentrated burst and were meant to distract it from what Sam was attempting as well as anger it into another run about the room.
Taking a quick breath to calm his nerves, Sam mentally reviewed his experience in the tree when he had first arrived and reminded himself that climbing in the game wasn’t the same as climbing back home on Earth. Here, all that seemed to matter were a person’s stats, and he figured with the leveling he had done since then, climbing should be something he could manage. So taking advantage of the setup the archers had provided for him, Sam raced forward and grabbed hold of the first arrow while quietly reciting the few lines from the movie he remembered about not letting his fear control him.
His plan, as it turned out, had worked, and the arrows made for perfect hand grips, allowing him to swing his way up from one to the next, just as if he were on a children’s jungle gym. Before he knew it, he had his hand on the last arrow shaft, and he was able to find purchase with his feet which allowed him to climb atop the kilopede’s body. When he made it to the top and began to stand, the mages unleashed a blinding array of spells at the creature’s face.
From the vibrations which ran through its body, Sam could tell that they had given it their all trying to do as much damage as possible, and as predicted, it provoked a repeat of its last reaction. The insect took the hits, got angry, and reared back, intent on doing its charge attack once again. Sam, on the other hand, had other plans.
This time, while the kilopede had its head reared up, Sam ran along the length of its back towards its front end, and just before it slammed back down for the charge, he managed to grab hold of the thing’s antennae and hold on tight. He had hoped once he had them, he would be able to stop the charge or at least distract it long enough so that the rest of the group could do some extra damage. What actually happened was that the kilopede took off like a racehorse with Sam holding on like amateur jockey.
It was a good thing that the people on the ground had all scattered when they saw it lift its head off the ground, otherwise several of them would have been hurt. Now the only issue was Sam, and he was clinging to the giant monster for dear life without a clue as to how he could get down safely.
Making its way to the opposite end of the room, the creature banked hard to the left, forcing Sam to almost lose his balance, but at the last second, with a tight pull on the antennae, he managed to stay upright. To his surprise, however, he found that when he pulled on the antennae, the creature reacted. In fact, after testing this reaction once or twice, he determined that the kilopede would adjust its course more the harder he pulled. Having no clue what he could do that would act as a brake pedal, Sam opted for the only thing available to him. Pulling hard on the right antenna, he forced the creature to turn back the way it had come and drove it headlong towards the opposite side of the room. When the massive insect tried to turn, Sam pulled again and kept it going straight as he built up more speed. After two more attempts, the kilopede ran out of options and space and crashed face first into the wall, knocking itself unconscious.
As for Sam, the forced collision was more than enough to cause him to lose his balance, but thanks to his tight grip, it only left him hanging from the side of the kilopede’s body. Looking down, he realized he was unfortunately still a healthy distance off the ground, and he didn’t feel comfortable about dropping from such a height. Faced with falling or trying to climb his way back up, Sam’s mind flicked to an old pirate movie he had seen when he was a kid, and he came up with another alternative.
Drawing his sword, Sam tried to stick it into the side of the kilopede, but disappointedly found the blow simply glanced off its armored hide. Stubbornly refusing to give up on the idea, he looked left and right and found a joint between two segments just a foot away. Smiling, he used his feet to brace himself against the insect’s body and used the antenna as a rappel line so that he could ease his way over and try once again. This time, Sam hopped outward, putting some distance between himself and the kilopede, aimed his sword for the crack, and as he swung back in with his full weight behind the sword, he pierced into the side of the creature. Putting everything he had into it, Sam was pleased to find that he had managed to sink the blade in deep.
From there, he let go of the antenna and let all of his weight hang from the handle of his sword in the hopes that he would be able to make a controlled descent to the floor like the pirate had when they cut through the main sail of whatever ship they were plundering. The result, in this reality, wasn’t exactly what he had expected.
As he dropped the first few feet, Sam found that he was going slower than he had expected, and for a while he thought it was a good thing since there would be less of a chance that he would end up hurting himself when he reached the floor. Unfortunately, it was at that point when the foul smelling mucus and green slimy blood which used to be in the creature’s inside began to spew out and assault his olfactory senses. It was as if he had cut into a three week old rotting kiwi, and its natural juices were now coming dangerously close to giving him one of the most disgusting showers imaginable.
Without many options left available to him, Sam began yanking down on his sword, hoping to speed things up or at the very least, get close enough to the ground that he could avoid injury from the fall. His efforts, however, caused his body to swing, and within a few tugs, he found that his boots were already spotted with the revolting green mucus. Seeing this, Sam decided to abandon the effort and take his chances.
Wrenching the sword free, Sam tried to angle his fall so that he landed on his feet, but his efforts only resulted in him awkwardly bouncing off one of the kilopede’s legs before he slammed into the ground. Knowing that he had lost some hit points but that he was otherwise all right, Sam pushed himself off the ground and tried to assess the damage the kilopede had received.
“Are you okay?” asked Hugo as he jogged up.
“Yeah,” groaned Sam. “Just remind me never to go on that ride ever again.”
“That was amazing! How did you know that would work?” asked Kat as she ran up and joined the others.
“I didn’t,” admitted Sam as he looked back to the kilopede again.
Smirking and shaking her head, Kat said, “Well, I can’t promise you that your technique won’t be talked about once people get out of here, but to be honest, if I hadn’t seen it myself, I would just assume it was another one for the rumor mill. I don’t think anyone is going to believe you were crazy enough to try that.”
Glancing back, Sam said, “That’s okay, I can hardly believe it myself.”
Racing up to Kat, Rue said, “Ma’am, the front line is saying that the kilopede is still alive. What are your orders?”
Looking at Sam, she asked, “What do you think? Personally, I’m leaning towards all of us sneaking out of here while it’s dazed and injured, but I’m willing to hear you out if you have another idea.”
Looking at the massive kilopede which stood behind her, Sam thought about the potential experience and loot something like this might drop and said, “Maybe it’s just because I don’t like leaving things half finished, but I say we kill it while we have a chance.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Yeah,” answered Sam with a nod. “We have our front line split it open at a couple of the seams in its exoskeleton and then have our mages go to work on it since their magic has already shown to be the most effective.”
“That’s going to require some work. What if it comes to and tries to attack us?”
“It’s a risk, I’ll admit, but I don’t want anyone to have to face it on the
ir way out. Besides, I don’t see the passage back to the previous room open yet. What if we go onto the next room and someone gets injured or decides they can’t continue? They would then either have to face this thing and finish it off on their own or find an alternate route.”
Taking a second to think over her options, Kat finally nodded and said to Rue, “Let do it. Have the front line start opening it up and tell the mages to begin casting as soon as there’s an opening.” Then to Sam, she asked, “What about you? Are you using your sword or fire magic?”
Considering the potential of getting Kip to make him what might turn out to be some epic gear from the parts of such a huge monster, Sam gave her a wicked grin and answered, “Both,” before he took off towards the kilopede.
Approaching the front of the monster, Sam used his sword to quickly chop through a couple of its legs, being careful not to get any more of the greenish fluid on himself. When he had three of them detached and lying on the ground, he moved forward and began to work on cutting off one of its four foot long poison-filled pinchers.
His first couple of strikes simply bounced off the creature’s hardened mandibles, but Sam wasn’t about to give up just yet. Channeling his magic into his sword, he watched as the blade erupted into flames and then he swung again. This time, the sword cut halfway through, which caused the venom within to begin pouring out. Not waiting for it to finish draining, Sam pulled his sword free and finished removing the appendage with another quick swing.
With that out of the way, Sam stepped into the space where the pincher used to be and looked into the open mouth of the unconscious monster. The kilopede had no tongue, but sharp teeth were protruding from every direction eagerly awaiting prey, and Sam thought that if nothing else in this game world did it, this might be one of the things which would give him nightmares for the rest of his life.
From further along the creature’s body, Sam heard one of the other groups cheer, and he knew that they must have finally broken through the insect’s hard exoskeleton. For a second he thought about running back to them to see if he could carve off a whole piece so that Kip could maybe make it into some sort of shield, but when he felt a gust of warm stank air hit him in the face and saw the other pincher twitch, he knew the thing was waking up. Figuring that the mages had already started their spell casting on the new hole, Sam quickly raised both of his hands towards the open mouth before him and hoping for a critical hit, called out, “Fire in the hole!”
The resulting fireball was larger than any Sam had created before. As it shot forward, it carved its way through the kilopede’s digestive track incinerating everything in its wake for the first dozen feet until it burnt itself out. In response, the creature’s side’s quivered and writhed, which drove Sam on to create three more successive balls of plasma and send them each rocketing down the remains of the kilopede’s throat until finally there was a yelp of surprise from somewhere down the line.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Sam cautiously stepped around the side of the gigantic beast and found that a plume of flames was emanating from the hole the other group had made thirty feet away. Realizing that there was no way it could still be alive and that he was simply cooking the remains from the inside out at this point, Sam gave up on roasting it any more and decided to collect the pieces he had carved off earlier.
Looking back at the front of the creature, Sam found Tezukayoshi crouching next to the kilopede’s pincher which he had cut off, busy lapping away at the pool of venom which had been draining from it. Shaking his head, he reached over the lizard, picked up the appendage, and looked it over. When he flipped it on its side, he found the inscription:
Lv: 27, Kilopede pincher, venom, rampage, roll Understanding the first two abilities well enough, Sam was thankful upon reading the third that the kilopede hadn’t had time use its last one while he was still riding it, the result of which would have probably left him looking like a roadkill pancake, game world or not.
After stuffing the pincher into his sack, Sam turned around and went to pick up the legs he had sliced off but stopped at the sight of Tezukayoshi already gnawing away on one like a dog trying to get to the marrow inside. Deciding to let him have it, he grabbed the others and stuffed them into his bag just as Anna ran up.
“Collecting more disgusting monster parts?” “If by ‘disgusting monster parts’, you mean supplies for future equipment and clothes like the cloak you’re wearing, then yes. Personally, I’m just going to call them trophies.”
“Well, the others saw what you did, and they wanted to thank you. They said that it would have been a lot more work for them to have defeated it their way.”
Shrugging, Sam said, “It’s no big deal. I mean, it was scary as hell, but the main thing is that it worked.”
Looking down for a second, Anna said, “Well, there are a few of them who have asked if you would be willing to formally join their clan when we get out of here. They said they could easily vouch for you with their members and that you would be able to immediately start earning rank within their clan if you did so.”
Knowing that offers from major clans weren’t handed out lightly, Sam knew that he would have to take some time to consider his options. In past games, he had always found a multitude of quests available, but in some of them solo players missed certain quests entirely because they were only offered to clans. Worse, however, was when particularly beneficial quests were only offered to clans of specific ranks or were based on their affiliation with different factions within the game world. In those cases, players had to make sure that the clan they joined was in good standing with as many factions as possible.
If he were back in the real world, Sam would have paused the game at this point and spent an hour or two online researching the clans on various forums and Wiki pages to find out as much as he could about them. Unfortunately that option wasn’t available to him here, which meant he had to make a decision based on the little bit of knowledge he had gathered so far.
Opting for the only rational choice he could make at the time, he said, “You can tell them that I’m flattered, and I’ll think about it, but for right now I’m not looking to join any clans. I’m just here to help save Raven.”
In response, Anna lifted her head and said with a smile, “Oh, good. I was worried you were just going to join up with one of them and become another Tower Tempter.”
Purposefully ignoring the last half of her statement, Sam said, “To be honest, I think we’ve been doing pretty good for ourselves so far.”
Suddenly from the right side of the room, Kat yelled, “Damn!” drawing everyone’s attention towards her while simultaneously causing more than a few of them to reach for their weapons. When she turned and noticed their reaction, she said, “It’s all right. There isn’t another monster or anything. It’s just that the door which is usually here is missing.”
“Missing?” asked one of the knights from another clan. “Does that mean we’re trapped in here? What about your maps?”
“I think we established the maps were pointless a while back,” responded one of the mages. “This place has been changing things since we first walked in here.”
“Well, what about the others who went back earlier? Do you think they made it back all right?” asked Anna.
“Forget about them. What about us?” asked the knight. “The passageway back is sealed off, and we have no door forward.”
“If we stay calm, I’m sure we will find something,” said the mage.
Raising her hand timidly, Rue said, “While I was collecting the loot, I saw that the passage back the way we came had reopened and that a new door was now available.” Pointing to the left, she added, “It was other there,” which caused everyone to look in that direction. Unfortunately, because of the size of the room and the few number of torches in place, the area she was pointing to was covered in shadow.
“Are you sure?” asked the knight.
“Yes. I saw it while I was picking up our loot.”
“Okay, let’s go check it out.”
Taking one of the torches from the wall, Rue led the way, and when the group reached the door, Kat and several of the others spent a minute studying the strange marking on its frame before one of them asked her, “Is this it?”
With a nod, Kat responded, “I think so. It’s not supposed to be here, but those are the symbols we saw the last time we were in the Tower.”
“What does it say?” asked the knight from earlier. “Is it another monster?”
“Actually, I think this leads to the boss room,” answered Kat.
“I thought that was a ways away yet,” said one of the mages.
“Normally it is, and considering how the Tower has made things more difficult for us, I thought it would have been at least that far if not further away, but I think this is it. These symbols here were the same ones we saw before with Raven.”
“Why would the Tower suddenly be nice and give us a short cut to the boss room if it’s been making things more difficult for us ever since we entered? That doesn’t make any sense,” said Anna.
“I don’t know,” began Kat, “But everything about this place is different this time. It could be just the way the Tower decided to do things, or that we changed things ourselves. I mean, I don’t think anyone has ever defeated the kilopede before. We’ve always just sneaked by it. Perhaps that’s what did it. I don’t know.”
“So if we walk through here, we’ll be in the boss room?” asked Sam.
Shaking her head, Kat responded, “No, not yet. At least, that’s not how it was last time. Before, when we lost Raven, we sneaked through the kilopede’s room, never having seen the water trap room before, and went on through half a dozen more areas. In the last of those rooms, there was a door that looked like this and it led to a short hallway completely clear of monsters where we found the doors to the boss’s room waiting for us at the end.”