The Grind

by Dante Doom

  Savannah nodded. “I will, and I love you, too!”

  And with that, Hem vanished.

  “Arrrrrgh,” Savannah groaned as soon as her father disconnected. Things were starting to spiral out of control. She had just wanted to Grind for a client and become a Noble, but now she was stuck conspiring against the King, who had plans to become a god. This was not what she had planned for.

  She glanced up to see that Timon and the rest of the gang had made their way to where she was.

  “You okay?” Timon asked as he walked up to her.

  “Just letting out some stress,” Savannah replied. “Everything is starting to get really crazy.”

  “Tell me about it,” Timon muttered. “Elanor said she has a plan.”

  Savannah glanced at Elanor. The woman had a smirk across her face, content with the fact that her alliances were secured.

  “Here’s the plan,” Elanor said to the group once they were all watching her expectantly. “Originally, I wanted to just gain more points than King Leopold; that way, it would make me the Queen automatically—but I’m growing more concerned about that happening before he figures out some way to kill me. My reports are informing me that he is indeed getting stronger. Therefore, we must take him down.”

  “We’re gonna kill a king?” Fingers asked. “Aw, hell yeah, I knew this was the right group to follow around!”

  “He’s got to have hundreds of people guarding him,” Timon said, “so I don’t think we could take him in a fight. Even if we did fight past his people, he’s got enough points to have all of the best weapons and armor in the game.”

  “We cannot strike him directly,” Elanor agreed. “But we do not have to. See, Leopold is not in this game legally; he is technically bound to someone else, the same way that Timon and Savannah are bound.”

  “That can’t be right,” Savannah said. “He seems able to gain points without it going to a host player.”

  “That’s because he has figured out some kind of bypass,” Elanor said.

  The tower flashed to Savannah’s mind. “I see…”

  “So the plan is simple—we locate where Leopold’s linked player is and kill him in the game. Since they are bound, hopefully, it will kick Leopold out of the game also,” Elanor explained. “With him out of the way, I’ll have enough time to gain the points necessary.”

  “Won’t he just log back in?” Fingers asked.

  “Yes, but all of his progress will be lost,” Elanor said. “He will be back to square one. Of course, he could use a Grind ticket to log back in, but he would be vulnerable to losing all of his actual points that way.”

  “I see,” Timon said. “So we go after the weak link instead of him; that makes sense. No doubt, one of his goons is quietly hidden somewhere. But wouldn’t he be guarded?”

  “I’m unsure,” Elanor replied. “But even if this linked player is guarded, it will only be by people who Leopold directly trusts. No thugs, no witless idiots. Only the best of the best.”

  “And so we get to fight them, right?” Fingers asked.

  “Yes. We find this link and then take him down. After that, my becoming Queen will only be a matter of time,” Elanor said.

  “This sounds good,” Savannah said, “but where is this linked player?”

  “That is where you and Timon come in,” Elanor said. She sighed and crossed her arms. She seemed less confident about this part of the plan. “I have no way of locating them, but the King does.”

  “So, you need us to somehow trick the King into revealing the location of his one weakness?” Savannah asked. “I somehow don’t see him volunteering that information.”

  “No, it’s going to be more subtle than that,” Timon said. “He would never give the information up willingly…”

  “But he would give you two the power to gain the information,” Elanor said. “There is a central database that has access to all of the players and their IDs. However, only the King can grant people access to the database.”

  “So, we need to find some way for him to grant us access,” Timon said. “I see. Then we get to the database and search for his player? Just as easy as that?”

  “You wouldn’t be able to find him without his ID number, which I have managed to obtain,” Elanor said.

  “How did you manage to get that?” Fingers asked.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think of different plans to take him down,” Elanor muttered as she tightened her fists. “I just didn’t have all the moving parts for this one plan, until now.”

  “So we trick the King, find the database, and then take out the King’s goon; got it,” Savannah said. “Anything else?”

  “No, I suppose not,” Elanor replied. “Just make sure that you keep your cool when talking to him and that you tell him what he wants to hear.”

  “I have some idea of what to say,” Timon said as he put a hand on Savannah’s shoulder. “I’ll coach you on what to say also.”

  “Great,” Savannah said as she rubbed her hands together. This plan didn’t sound so bad. It didn’t involve a direct fight with the King. Hopefully, this would work.

  “I would like to assist them,” Ten-Thirty said, speaking up for the first time. The group looked at the android in surprise at the words. “I will be able to search the database with great efficiency.”

  “Can you get us some kind of bypass so we don’t have to talk to the King?” Savannah asked.

  “Negative,” Ten replied. “You will need a key from him.”

  “Well, it was worth a shot,” Savannah said. “Alright, Timon, so Ten and I will wait for an opportunity to get this information from the King.”

  “And we’ll be waiting here,” Elanor said. “Be careful.”

  The whipping winds of the Abyssal Plains were nearly overwhelming to Savannah. Leopold had contacted her remotely a few hours ago and requested an update. After a brief discussion, she had managed to convince him that talking in person would be better than remotely. Surprisingly, he’d agreed without much question.

  Timon and Ten were walking behind her, and she shivered a little as the wind continued to press its assault against her, chilling her to the bone. Her heart jackhammered as she took notice of the King standing by the edge of a cliff, overlooking the expanse. The plains were rocky and arid, with a deep canyon separating two regions.

  This was it. She had rehearsed and practiced all of her lines, over and over again, steeling herself for the conversation to be had. There was still no word from her father, so she had no idea if he was safe or not. If she wasn’t careful, though, she could blow this entire thing.

  “You alright?” Timon whispered as they approached Leopold.

  “I’m trying to be,” Savannah replied. She took a deep breath and called out to the King. “King Leopold!”

  “Ah, there you are,” Leopold said as he turned to face her. He was standing at attention. “I have been eager to see you.” There was a sly grin on his face.

  “Well, things aren’t going so well,” Savannah replied. Timon stepped up next to her and bowed to the King, eliciting a nod of approval from Leopold.

  “I hope you didn’t come all this way to give me bad news,” Leopold said with a slight growl in his throat.

  “It’s half and half,” Timon said.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Leopold shot back.

  “Right,” Savannah said as she took another deep breath. “I was able to retrieve the Arc Rifle, but Elanor has managed to get her hands on some kind of high-grade armor. It will be able to protect her from the weapon.”

  “Yes, I was informed that she somehow managed to steal the Armor of Ghiveld from Kirius. I swear that moron is quite useless.”

  “In our discussions, we’ve come to a realization,” Timon said.

  “Oh? And what would that be?”

  “Elanor’s just too strong for us to kill by ourselves,” Savannah said.

  Leopold went to open his mouth to speak, but just as she had rehearsed, Sav
annah quickly continued before he could. “But, there’s another way to take her out!”

  “And what would that be?” Leopold asked as he crossed his arms.

  “Everyone who’s in this game illegally has to be linked to a legitimate player, right? So that means Elanor is ghosting someone, too. They probably aren’t nearly as strong as she is.”

  King Leopold smiled wickedly at that. “Aren’t you a clever Grinder? Finding her ghost was my first idea, but doing so is difficult. We’d need her ID, and I just don’t have access to that information, no matter how hard I’ve tried to get it.”

  “And that’s where I come in,” Timon said. “I have managed to gain that information.”

  Leopold raised an eyebrow. “And how would you, of all people, have managed that?”

  Timon looked at the ground and sighed. “A while ago, she asked me to support her rise to the throne.”

  “Oh, she did?” Leopold said. “And you must have accepted her offer.”

  “I only did so because she was growing suspicious,” Timon replied, throwing his hands up. “I swear, I’ve been loyal to you this entire time.”

  “Not bad,” Leopold said. “Although I wish you would have told me that sooner. I could have used you to lure her into a trap. Nevertheless, tell me about her ID. How did you get it?”

  “We traded our IDs as part of a sacred oath,” Timon replied. “We made a pact to serve one another’s houses and all that.”

  “You took a sacred oath with Elanor?” Leopold said as he shook his head. “Seems a bit of an odd thing to do.”

  “It gets weirder,” Savannah said with a groan and a well-rehearsed eye roll.

  “She may or may not, uh, be… interested in union that goes beyond just working together,” Timon said as he rubbed the back of his head.”

  “That damned Elanor,” Leopold chuckled. “I bet she couldn’t stop salivating at the idea of marrying into your household. Well, it’s to be expected.”

  Savannah held her breath. Did Leopold really believe this? Timon didn’t seem worried in the least.

  “So anyway, we have the number, although there might be a chance that it’s a fake. Still, we can’t kill her outright, so this might be the best way,” Timon said.

  “Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work and we’re back to square one,” Savannah replied.

  “I’d wager a lot that the number she gave you was a fake,” Leopold said. He turned slightly to look behind them and held up his hand. “Excuse me for a moment, will you?””

  A few soldiers, dressed in silver armor and carrying rifles, were approaching the group. At the back of the group was a moaning Kirius, being dragged along the ground by his legs.

  “Come on, let me go!” Kirius whimpered.

  “There you are, you coward!” Leopold taunted the man as he walked up to where the soldiers had thrown Kirius. He bent over and continued to taunt him. “You can’t find the shield, you can’t find the Arc Rifle, and you get your hands on the one item that Elanor would find most useful and she ends up taking it. Either you are incompetent beyond all measure, or you are secretly working with her. Either way, you deserve punishment.”

  “I did the best I could, I’m sorry!” Kirius protested. Leopold ignored his cries and reached down to grab the Baron. He hoisted him up and dragged him over to the edge of the cliff.

  “This girl here was able to do twice as much as you in half the time,” Leopold hissed as Kirius struggled in vain to escape the man’s grasp. “If you are so useless in here, I can only imagine how useless you are out in the real world.”

  “Come on, let me go—it was a mistake! Elanor jumped in and killed the team who had the armor!”

  “Yet she let you survive? Why?”

  “B-because she had a message for you,” Kirius whimpered.

  “Oh, how dramatic!” Leopold rolled his eyes. “And what was her message?”

  Savannah took a step closer so that she would be able to hear what the message was. Elanor hadn’t mentioned any of this. Either it was a lie from Kirius, or perhaps Elanor had more moving parts to her schemes than Savannah had initially realized.

  “She wants you to know that she found the secret path. The one that leads to the Kingmaker Realms. If you want to stop her, then you’re going to have to face her there. Those were her words. Now please, let me go.”

  “Let you go?” Leopold repeated with a shake of his head. “I think not. I still can’t figure out if you’re an idiot or if you betrayed me, but either way, the punishment is the same.”

  “Don’t kill me! I’m in here legally—I’m not ghosting! If I die, I’ll lose my rank.”

  “Oh goodness, what a terrible situation for you to be in,” Leopold said. “But then again, you were the one who was desperate to increase your rank.”

  “You promised me nobility!” Kirius begged.

  “I promised it only if you were worthy,” Leopold said as he grabbed Kirius by the throat and lifted him high into the air. “And you aren’t. I hope the peasants treat you better than you treated them, but somehow, I suspect that they’ll remember your deeds.” With that, he threw the Baron over the cliff. Savannah could hear his screams echo as he fell. She glanced over the side in time to see Kirius hit the ground hard. Thousands of red orbs came sailing up to Leopold.

  “Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?” Leopold said as he turned to face the two of them. “Now, what were we talking about? Oh right, taking out Elanor. It appears she wants to lure me into some kind of fight. I’m not interested in doing battle with her. I have far more important things to worry about.”

  “So we’ll start tracking Elanor’s linked player down,” Timon said. “The Machina should be able to track their movements.”

  Leopold looked at the Machina and back at the two. “Can it pinpoint?”

  “Negative, this unit can only detect which regions the player is moving through,” Ten-Thirty replied.

  Leopold shook his head. “Too much time.” He dug into his robe pocket and produced a small, golden amulet. “Here, take this. If you want to find another player, you’re going to have to use the registry system,” Leopold said. “It’s located deep within the heart of the Grind.”

  “How do we get there?” Savannah asked.

  “You’re going to need an access hatch,” Leopold replied. “There are sixteen in the world; I’ve managed to locate six. The nearest hatch is going to be…” he trailed off for a moment as his eyes darted back and forth. “It’s going to be located in the Mountains of Stone.” He pointed to a large mountain in the distance. “Climb to the top of the mountain and enter the cave. Look for a series of runic circles. Place this medallion in where it fits and the mountain will allow you to access to the registry.”

  As Savannah reached to grab the amulet, Leopold seized her hand and began to squeeze tightly. Pain surged through her, but she kept a straight face. He pulled her close and hissed, “I do not reward failure very well. Kill Elanor, or there will be consequences.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Savannah dove out of the way of the oncoming crystal shards, but there were too many for her to avoid them entirely. Flinching, she cried out as razor sharp crystals peppered her body from all directions. 100 damage hovered above her head.

  “What’s happening?” Timon asked as he dropped to the ground in an attempt to avoid taking damage from the shards himself. They were deep inside of a frozen cave and, seconds ago, the walls had begun to fire out blasts of crystals from all directions.

  “I believe we have sprung a trap of some sort,” Ten-Thirty said as some shards crashed into its body before bouncing harmlessly to the ground.

  “Well, unspring it!” Timon shouted as he scrambled across the cold ground, desperate to find some way to avoid the damage being inflicted upon him. His health bar was dropping rapidly, having moved from 900 to 700 since the bombardment had started up.

  “Calculating…” Ten-Thirty replied as it swiveled its head around. It strolled thr
ough the blasts of shards to the far cavern wall, reaching out to a lever. With one pull of the lever, the apparent trap stopped firing.

  “Nice work,” Savannah said as she moved from her position where she’d been pinned against a wall. She wiped crystalline specs from her body and they clattered as they fell to the ground.

  “Ugh, this whole place is a mess,” Timon said, glancing around. “Nothing but a network of tunnels leading to weak Virals.”

  “Yeah, I wish we had some way to figure out how to move up higher,” Savannah said. “Ten-Thirty, do you have any ideas?”

  “I have many ideas,” Ten-Thirty replied. “None of them pertain to finding the higher levels of this mountain.”

  “Okay, see, I think the more self-aware you’re becoming, the more sarcastic you’re getting,” Savannah said with a half-hearted laugh.

  Ten-Thirty approached Savannah and tilted its head. “My observations have indicated that sarcasm is the cornerstone of human communication.”

  “It sure is,” Timon said, inadvertently proving Ten-Thirty’s thesis correct.

  “Okay, focus, guys; the clock is ticking,” Savannah said as she pointed to a pathway leading to two separate tunnels. “We’ve got to find the maintenance hatch. Leopold said it would be at the base of the mountain, but he didn’t mention all of these tunnels.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find it somewhere,” Timon said. “It can’t be too far.”

  As they looked at the two tunnels, deciding which one to go down, the wall on the righthand side of Savannah began to rumble a little. The ground shook as a secret wall opened up, revealing yet another tunnel.

  “Pssst,” came an echo from down the tunnel. “This is the right one.” The voice was giggly and feminine.

  “I have surmised that that voice belongs to the Aspect, Kireen,” Ten-Thirty said. “We should follow her instructions.”

  Savannah looked at Timon. “What do you think?”

  “I’m not sure… you’d think that Leopold would have mentioned a secret tunnel or something.”

  “I’ll check it out,” Savannah replied, clapping him on the back before walking into the tunnel on the right. She glanced into it just after she crossed the threshold, but it was far too dark for her to see what was ahead. Her mind darted back to the times when Kireen had tricked her into needlessly dangerous fights. Still… a twinge of curiosity rose up inside of her. Perhaps this Aspect might have some kind of insight into all of the arguments and double-dealings that were happening all around her. Still, before they went anywhere, Savannah pulled up hers and Timon’s character sheets to see how they were doing.