by Shawn Kass
Snorting out a breath, the monster lowered its head, kicked back hard, and charged at Sam with everything it had. As it grew closer, Sam could feel the ground shake beneath his feet, and he knew there was no way for him block, counter, or parry the tsunami of force which was aimed directly at him.
Behind him, Sam heard the voices of the girls yelling, “Run!” and “Look out!” but it was Quinn’s tearful strained voice which said, “You can do this, Sam,” which rekindled the fire within him. Somehow, despite having watched every moment of this battle, she still believed in him and that he would save her. Somehow, she still held on to her faith in him that he would win.
Not wanting to let her down and fed up with his own feelings of defeat, Sam gritted his teeth and made up his mind that if he was going to get killed, then he would at least take a chunk of the minotaur with him into the gaming afterlife. Timing it so that his action was in the last moment before the minotaur reached him, Sam put everything he had into his sword and swung.
By the time the impact registered in his mind, Sam’s vision had already gone black, and his weightless body left the ground, but even still he knew he had connected. He had kept his eyes open as the beast bore down on him, and he had watched as his sword had dug into the left side of the minotaur's proffered face. Sam questioned what was next. He had no idea if he was being sent back home or if he had gone to some digital abyss, but the fact that he was still thinking made him cautiously optimistic. That was, until the pain finally hit, followed by his impact with something behind him.
Cracking open one eyelid, Sam saw that he lay on the ground clear across the room and that one of the thick support pillars in the room had been shattered. Unable to maintain focus with his eyes rolling left and right, Sam took in only some of the details about his surroundings. Large shards of stone were scattered about the ground, and even now, there were still a few which rained down around him. Casting his eyes upward, he saw that the pillar had been cleaved in two, and as the top half fell to the floor, he watched it roll away, stopping only once it reached the nearby wall. He had no idea how he was still alive, but considering the pain he was in, he expected his life bar was probably hovering in the red with just one hit point remaining.
Knowing that the minotaur was still out there and that it was surely in better condition than he was, Sam struggled to free himself from the dozens of stones which had come to rest across his body. He felt like all of his strength was gone, and the simple act of sitting up was next to impossible, but when he finally managed to, he found that blood poured down from a cut above his left eye, blinding him to the world around him with a curtain of red.
Nearby, Kat and Quinn came running up, asking, “Sam, Sam, are you okay?”
Half joking, Sam responded, “Did anyone get the license off that truck?”
“What’s a truck?” asked Kat.
“It's a vehicle from back home,” answered Quinn.
Pleading with her clan mate, Kat asked, “Raven, he needs help. Can you use your magic to heal him or cast a buff spell on him?”
With tears in her eyes as she saw how much Sam was bleeding, Quinn stared down at her dirt covered hands and said, “I can’t. I used everything I had to stay invisible.” Then, remembering what Sam had told her before, she said, “Wait, what about food? I'm out, but do you have any?”
“No, why?” asked Kat.
“Sam said it would help,” answered Quinn.
“It's possible Anna might have some, but she’s taking care of the others.”
Doing what she could to stanch the flow of blood, Quinn’s paramedic skills kicked in, and she tried to do a quick assessment of his condition. Unfortunately, just as Sam had said before, nothing in the game world made sense compared to her real world medical knowledge.
Reaching up to take Quinn’s hand, Sam said, “Please, go get the food. We don't have much time.”
Leaning in, Kat asked, “What can I do?”
“Go with her and make sure the others are all right. You may have to defend them with your arrows.”
“Okay,” agreed Kat, and after a quick nod, she took Raven by the arm, and the two of them ran off together.
‘You know she won't make it back in time,’ said Tezukayoshi.
“What are you talking about?” coughed Sam, even though he knew it was true.
Crawling up next to him, the lizard said, ‘I can help you.’
“How?” croaked Sam.
‘Use your magic on me, and I will show you.’
Feeling broken and out of options, Sam asked again, “How?” and received a mental image of what Tezukayoshi was asking for. Wide-eyed, he said, “I can’t. It will kill you.”
‘I don’t believe so, my human, but if that is the case, then so be it, for if we stay like this, then we shall both perish.’
Sam still felt broken on the inside, and his mental acuity lagged far behind than usual, but the fact that Tezukayoshi had called him, ‘his human,’ was not lost on him. The problem was, what his friend was asking could very well kill the lizard, and Sam had no wish to do anything which could harm his familiar. Racking his addled brain, he asked, “Isn’t there something else we can do, something which won’t risk your life?”
‘It is at risk already. Please just do it.’
Glancing up, Sam saw that the minotaur had already crossed half the distance towards them, and he realized that this was it. His body felt broken, and Sam knew he must have been in the red zone. There would be no way he could hold on to his last remaining hit point if the beast got the opportunity to attack. For that matter, he wasn’t even sure if he would be able to move his body to do anything, if given the chance.
Knowing the giant creature would be on him in seconds and that he would be destroyed, Sam did the only thing left to him. He trusted his friend, and hoped for a miracle.
Following Tezukayoshi’s instructions, he placed his hand on the lizard’s head and said, “Take it, my friend,” and called forth his magic.
At first, the power felt reluctant to come out, as if it didn’t want to cause injury to his familiar any more than Sam did. Sam pushed harder, trying to use what little willpower he had remaining and concentrated on the flow, envisioning a conduit of power from himself to Tezukayoshi. For another second or two, nothing changed, and only a small trickle of energy leaked out as if there was nothing left to give, and Sam felt the scales beneath his hand grow cold to the touch rather than the heat he expected from his fire magic. Then, as if Sam hit a tipping point he couldn’t come back from, everything changed.
The scales suddenly grew warmer and then hot, until finally the heat was so intense, Sam was sure it would blister and burn him, and he tried to pull back. Having surpassed the threshold, however, he found that he was unable to move and could do nothing to stop the reaction. Now that it had begun, it demanded to be let out, and nothing could hold back the torrent of power flowing out of him. Forced to endure it, Sam watched in horror as sparks began to shoot out in all directions, and every bit of the magical reserve within his body opened up and poured itself into Tezukayoshi’s body.
Sam had no idea what was going on, but he was sure that when it was over, there would nothing left except the blackened remains of his friend’s body, and so he closed his eyes tight, unwilling to watch himself kill the lizard whom he had grown so close to.
After what felt like several long minutes but was surely only a dozen seconds or so, the magical energy finally finished its work, leaving Sam to feel completely drained. Unable to bring himself to open his eyes and see the scorched remains at his side, Sam slumped back, feeling more defeated than ever before. Shaking his head, Sam let his hand slip from Tezukayoshi’s body and fall gracelessly to the floor as he cursed his own arrogance and impatience in entering this blasted Tower in the first place. Exhausted and weak, Sam felt like he had nothing left, and the idea that he had just killed his first real friend in this world made him want to just lie back and accept the minotaur’s coup de
grâce which he knew must be on its way by now. At this point, all that remained was for the inevitable to occur, and if he was lucky, he might awaken in his own world, having been ejected from the game for his failure. Deep down, however, he didn’t believe things would work out that way.
What Sam felt next, however, wasn’t the blade of the minotaur’s giant axe nor was it the crushing step of the minotaur’s hoof. Instead, he felt Tezukayoshi climb atop his exhausted body and lie down as if to cover Sam while he rested. As Tezukayoshi found his place, the lizard followed up by sending a quick message through their mental link, asking Sam to keep his eyes closed until he was finished.
Doing as he was told, Sam remained still with his eyes shut tight and watched as a stream of images washed over his mind showing him a land full of black rocks covered by steamy green and purple clouds of poisonous gas. From there, the image jumped to that of a much smaller Tezukayoshi crawling his way free from a darkly colored broken egg amongst a slew of other abandoned shells. The images continued, showing the lizard fighting with other small, but fearsome creatures Sam couldn’t recognize. Then the images switched again to show the long, cold lonely nights the lizard spent sheltered beneath the rocks, hiding from predators which were much larger than him and looked like dragons to Sam. Eventually, the visions finally found their way to Tezukayoshi sitting in a small cage aboard a ship, and the time he spent in Sekuri’s small shop. The emotions that accompanied these visions were of solitude, isolation, and fear, but it was all replaced quickly by the determination to live and a feeling that survival, even in spite of terrible odds, was worth everything. The last image Sam received was of himself walking into the shop and the feeling of happiness which Tezukayoshi felt.
To those who were still alive and conscious on the other side of the room, the area where Sam was suddenly burst with a brilliant light as flames consumed both him and his strange familiar. They had no idea what happened, and they thought it was some kind of magical attack done by the minotaur to finish Sam. Shocked by it all, they stood staring at it dumbfounded.
Then, just as the fire reached its pinnacle, it suddenly shrank back down as if there was a vacuum in the middle sucking the heat and light back in on itself. It took several seconds, but, finally, once all of the fire had been absorbed, the magic imploded on itself, and everything changed.
Kat, who had all but given up on the fight, was searching for a way out for herself and the remaining survivors. She was forced to cover her eyes as the area where Sam had been quickly went from flames of yellow and red to an intense white so bright it illuminated the entire room and vaporized every shadow from existence.
Quinn, on the other hand, knew that if there was a way her Sam would find it, so she squinted against the pain the light caused and tried to peer through her fingers to see what was happening. What she found was that at the center, the light was beginning to take shape, and while a few flames still licked at the floor and walls, the rest of it seemed to have coalesced into the form of a man. Fighting the urge to look away, she watched as the glowing figure stepped forward and slowly pulled the magic back within himself.
It took another minute before the radiating light surrounding him began to dissipate, but when it did, Sam found that his arms were covered in shimmering scales of blue and green and that his hands now looked more like talon claws than fingers. Experimentally, he looked down to see what else had changed and discovered that the scales weren’t simply restricted to his arms. Tezukayoshi’s brilliantly colored scales now covered his entire body like organic armor plating.
Unsure of what this transformation meant, or if he would ever see his friend again, Sam felt a moment’s worth of fear and sorrow for the little guy. His trepidation, however, was met by the now familiar voice in his head asking, ‘What is the matter, Sam? Are we not stronger now?’
“Tezukayoshi, is that you?” asked Sam with a rich smile spreading across his face.
‘Of course it is.’
“How did you do this?”
‘This is magic my kind only speaks of in legends. I didn’t know if it would work for us or even how to make it happen. I just understood that we had no other choice.’
Flexing his fists, Sam could feel the power course through his body, and he said, “This is great. We should fight like this all the time.”
With a tinge of caution and regret, Tezukayoshi said, ‘Sam, I don’t think we can stay in this form for long. Whether we are to flee or flight is your choice, but we must act now.’
Looking up at the massive beast as it stepped in front of him and began to swing its battle axe, Sam flexed his scale covered biceps and said, “Then let’s finish this together.”
Feeling the strength and magic course its way through his body, Sam focused and channeled it into the blade he held, and as he did so, he watched as green and yellow flames instantly sprang up along the entire length of his Spider Sword.
A half second later the minotaur’s axe hit, and instead slicing the human in half, the hit stopped short and gave off a loud ringing sound which sent a vibration back up along the handle, stinging the minotaur’s hands. Looking down, the creature saw with surprise that the human, who had already taken several of its best hits and was close to death only moments ago, was now standing confidently beneath its heavy weapon. Worse than that, the human had somehow managed to take a chip out of the edge of the monster’s axe with its own little blade. Rearing back in rage at the thing which wouldn’t die, the minotaur roared its frustration and tried to swing again, but this time the blade didn’t get blocked, and it didn’t hit its target. Instead, it smashed uselessly onto the ground in the place where the human had just been standing.
Tapping into Tezukayoshi’s speed, Sam waited until the minotaur was fully committed to its second attack and then he darted out of the way. In the next moment, Sam was surprised to find that he didn’t just dodge but actually covered half the distance of the room. Grinning, Sam turned back and repeated the move, holding his fiery blade out as he passed through the giant beast’s legs. His goal was to rob it of its mobility and power, and the easiest way he knew to do that was to slice through the muscles and tendons in its calves.
When Sam reached the far wall, he stopped and turned around slowly. He had to wait for a second for the pain to register, but once it had, Sam watched as the minotaur dropped to its knees and howled. Casting a glance back to the cuts he had made, Sam saw black spidery lines working their way up the creature’s legs, and he knew that Tezukayoshi’s toxic poisons were having just as much effect as his sword.
Had he been sitting on the couch at home, Sam knew that this would be the point when the boss would be vulnerable for a few seconds, and so counting on that strategy, Sam launched himself at the beast. Swinging his sword faster and harder than he ever had before, Sam sliced into the minotaur’s tough flesh over and over again, constantly working his way up the creature’s body from thigh to chest, until he finally found himself standing on monster’s left shoulder where, without hesitation, Sam buried his sword in the side of its neck. The scream which erupted from the dying boss was almost too much to bear, but Sam stood his ground, twisting his sword in further until the sound finally stopped and the minotaur began to collapse to the floor.
Withdrawing his sword, Sam quickly cut through the chain holding the key on the minotaur’s neck and then hopped down just out of the way as the beast fell and darted across the room to where his friends were. Stopping in front of them, he asked, “Is everyone okay?”
Speechless, Kat simply stood there with her mouth agape staring at the scales which covered Sam’s body, while Anna answered, “Everyone’s alive, but they’ll need time to rest.”
“What about you?” asked Quinn. “What happened out there?”
Shrugging, Sam said, “There was no way any of us could beat that thing. We were all getting knocked out too quickly, so Tezukayoshi offered to help.”
“But you’re okay?” she asked, and he could hear the c
oncern in her voice. Seeing that her eyes were staring at his arm, Sam followed her gaze and saw that a there was a patch on his new scale armor that was quickly turning yellow and spreading its way up the scales.
Feeling weaker all of a sudden, Sam took a step back and said, “Give me a second. Something’s not right.”
“What is it?” asked Quinn worriedly.
“It’s Tezukayoshi,” he answered. Then, reaching out with his mind, Sam tried to make a connection to his friend, but all he found was a hazy, murky wall of disjointed and incomplete thoughts. For a moment, it seemed like their mental link was broken, and it was going to be impossible to read him or communicate with him in any way, but
concentrating, Sam tried again and asked, “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
Weakly, Tezukayoshi responded, ‘That’s all I have, Sam. If we don’t separate, we will both die.’
Preparing to ask what they needed to do, Sam suddenly found himself lying on the ground with his cheek pressed to the cold stone floor and the light provided by the torches growing weaker by the second. Trying to get up, he found his body unresponsive, and when Quinn dropped down to his side, he attempted to say, “I love you,” and to tell her that he was sorry, but had no idea if the words made it past his lips before everything went black.
“What is it?”
“The first floor has been beaten.”
“How?”
“There is someone new, a man from out of town.” “I see.”
“What do you want to do about it?”