by J. A. Hunter
NINETEEN:
The Long Road Down
We moved from the entry chamber into a circular stairway that drilled into the earth. The steps were slick stone; vines and strands of moss hung down from ancient archways, constantly brushing up against me as I moved. Once more, Cutter was gone—scouting—and Otto was out in front, treading carefully, searching for anything our resident Thief might’ve missed. This time, though, we had a new member to our party: the burlap-robe wearing prisoner, who turned out to be a mercenary Warlock, not a priest.
That’d be the same burlap-robe wearing Warlock I’d almost bludgeoned to death. He was still bound by the Flame of Holding, and he floated along between Abby and me—carried by a simple levitation spell.
So far, we’d made our way through passageway after passageway, always winding deeper into the heart of these old ruins. We’d run across tons of deadly rigged traps in just about every variety and flavor, but so far Cutter had proven to be as good a thief as he kept claiming. And he claimed to be the absolute best in Eldgard often and loudly. We’d also tangled with a near-endless horde of Corrupt Valdgeist, though no more NPCs, which I was silently grateful for. Surprisingly, the Corrupt Valdgeist were pushovers one and all.
Superficially, the creatures looked identical to the beasts I’d tangled with in the forest beyond the ruins, but that’s where the similarities ended.
These things moped about aimlessly, only attacking when you were in spitting distance, and even then a strong breeze would knock them over. Pitiful, really. The strangest thing of all, however, was the amount of EXP each one had: easily 8,000 apiece, which was larger than some low-level bosses. Yes, we had to split the EXP between four, but that was still 2,000 points per head, and we must’ve killed sixty or seventy of the things. Since we were in an almost constant state of combat, I didn’t take the time to pull up my character stats or check my skill notifications, but I was sure once I finally had some time to look them over, I was going to be as pleased as a cat with a ball of yarn.
The Corrupt Valdgeist didn’t drop much by way of gear, just like their counterparts topside, but they practically exploded with gold. Each kill netted us 50 gold—50 gold each. Most also carried a potion or two, which were certainly a nice bonus.
“So this is some kind of quick and easy grind for the uber rich, huh,” I mused out loud after collecting my share from yet another group of shambling mobs. At this point, I wasn’t really worried about making noise since the resistance here was basically nonexistent.
“Yeah,” Abby said from behind me, a slight note of scorn in her voice. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it? Everyone has to start off fresh in a new world, but guys like Carrera still find a way to game the system in their favor. It’s incredible.” She shook her head. “Really pisses me off, you know?”
“But you’re benefiting,” our hostage Warlock replied, “and you don’t seem to be complaining.” Other than the terse answers he’d provided during the interrogation, he’d been silent up until now. “If you were really so noble,” he said, “you’d leave this place untouched. Just turn around and walk away. The fact that you’re continuing onward suggests you don’t mind the benefit so long as it’s directed at you.” He sounded smug all the way down to his toes. The worst part was, he was sort of right. I shared an uneasy look with Abby.
Are we really doing the right thing here?
“It’s different with us,” she replied, a bit unconvincingly. “We’re doing what we need to in order to make it in Eldgard, and we’re going to help other people. To benefit the people who couldn’t afford to pay to cheat their way to the upper echelons in this new society.”
“Ahh,” the mercenary said with a slick grin, “so you’re an ends-justify-the-means kind of lady.”
“No. You’re twisting my words and skewing the situation out of context,” she protested. “All I’m saying is this stuff is here, and that means someone is going to get it—and I’m just saying it’s definitely better for people like us to get it than some cocaine-financed dictator.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding in agreement, working to convince myself. “Besides, what’s it to you anyway?” I asked the merc, my brow furrowed in annoyance. “You’re a mercenary who works for the highest bidder—I don’t think you’re in a position to judge us on issues of ethics.”
“No judgement,” he replied with a tight shrug, made awkward by the bands of fire encircling him. “You’re right, I’m a mercenary. Personally, I think your logic is flawless, but then I regularly do questionable things for money. I only bring it up because I think there might be an opportunity for us to work together in the very near future, supposing you all can get past your veneer of self-righteous hypocrisy.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You’ll see soon enough,” he replied, once more overflowing with smugness.
Abby gave him a hard look, her lips puckered into a tight line, and suddenly the priest had a gag of flickering fire in his mouth. It didn’t seem to hurt him, but it certainly prevented him from speaking further. “That’s enough out of you,” she mumbled, gaze downcast. She looked guilty. Maybe the mercenary’s accusations had gotten under her skin.
They’d certainly gotten under mine.
After a time, the hallway morphed into a natural underground cavern with jagged walls and a small burbling stream, studded with large boulders, that zigzagged its way through soft black earth. Bioluminescent moss clung to the ceiling overhead, shedding a pale green light that reminded me of a toxic waste spill. We walked on in silence for a bit longer, following the stream.
“I wonder why they didn’t give the mobs here even more EXP?” I asked idly, just trying to break the thoughtful quiet. “Not that eight thousand a pop is bad,” I said, “but if cheap leveling is the name of the game, it seems like the Devs should’ve just dumped a bunch of Corrupt Valdgeist with like, I dunno, a hundred thousand points apiece or something crazy like that.”
“I’m sure they would if they could,” Abby replied, the sound carrying over the muted clomping of our feet and the burble of the water. “Trust me on that. But the Devs only have so much control. Early on maybe they could’ve done something like that, but not now. Now, the Overminds are the real power in V.G.O., and once they were up and running, we could only tweak relatively insignificant things. Really, the Overminds do all the heavy lifting—they generate content, creatures, quests, everything—they’re basically in-game gods.
“Each Overmind has an underpinning of base directives that govern their ‘character’—keeps them from going completely rogue, but it’s like holding a lion in check with a leash made of bacon.” She paused and fidgeted with her robes, smoothing out fabric that didn’t need it. “Anyway, one of those essential directives is to prevent hackers and game modders from tinkering around in unsanctioned ways. Cheating the game, specifically. And this”—she swept a hand around the cavern—“almost qualifies.”
The cavern ended at a small cliff, the water from the stream cascading over the side and disappearing into a cavernous black pit without end. There was, however, a rocky slope that led to a dirt path running along the base of the cliff. Otto surveyed it for a moment, but since there was no sign of Cutter or any enemies, he quickly began picking his way down the rocky slope and to the path below.
“So to get around the rules and the Overmind screening protocols,” Abby continued as she followed Otto down, “I think the Devs probably created these restricted areas with a carefully balanced ratio of EXP, loot drops, and mob difficulty. I’ll bet a thousand gold the algorithm they came up with skirts just below what the Overminds will flag as unsanctioned modding. It’s still cheating, obviously, but it’s really smart cheating. The kind of cheating only insiders could come up with.”
After a little maneuvering, we made it to the bottom of the treacherous slope, passed behind the cascading waterfall, and started trekking along the path, which led into another natural cavern. One littered with tor
ches, burning merrily on the walls. “We’ve got something strange up here,” Cutter called, his voice echoing and bouncing from ahead, oddly distorted by the stone walls. We all picked up the pace a bit, following a natural bend in the cavern, only to stop suddenly in our tracks. Cutter was dead ahead, squat down on his haunches, one hand rubbing at his chin while he regarded a colossal set of double doors at the end of the earthen chamber.
They were huge wooden things, studded with bronze fastenings and carved with complex runic symbols. I’d played enough MMOs to know we’d finally arrived at the boss’s lair. No doubt in my mind.
“Can you ungag him?” I said, hooking a thumb toward the Warlock.
Abby nodded and complied.
“I’ve got a question for you—what were you and your team doing here?” I asked, sudden worry tugging at my mind. “Anybody could work their way through this dungeon without the help of a mercenary team,” I said, “so why were you put here?”
The Warlock smiled, a malicious glint in his eye. “We were specifically contracted to help with the thing beyond that door. Before this mission, my team and I were briefed about this dungeon. And your friend is right, this is a very special place. Drastically underpowered mobs scattered throughout—easy kills for weak players, granting significant EXP—but the tradeoff is a dangerously overpowered Guardian. One so powerful it raised the difficulty level of the dungeon as a whole.” He paused and offered a sly sneer.
“And I happen to know that without me, you don’t stand a chance of getting into that room”—he nodded toward the door—“and even if you do somehow manage to find a way in, you’ll never get out alive. But, as I mentioned earlier, I might be willing to help, assuming of course you can find it in your hearts to work with someone like me. And assuming you’re willing to pay my price …”
TWENTY:
Boss Battle
“Everyone ready?” the mercenary Warlock called out.
I took a deep, calming breath and stole one last final look around me. Cutter was invisible, as was I—both of us cloaked in Stealth. Abby was at my back, Otto my front, with a slew of conjured creatures flanking him on either side: a few walking skeletons with worn swords and basic long bows; a spattering of earth and flame elementals; plus, one very angry-looking demonic lord with blackened, heavy-plate armor and glowing red eyes. Minions, summoned by our Warlock friend, and future cannon fodder for whatever boss lurked in the next room.
“We are as ready as we will ever be, mercenary,” Otto replied tersely. “One thing though,” he added, turning and glowering at our former prisoner. “If you betray us as you betrayed your former master, I will find you. And I will end you. One way or another, I will end you.”
“Keep me well supplied with gold,” the mercenary Warlock said, “and we won’t find ourselves at cross purposes.” He paused, offering the Risi warrior a tight, feral smile. “Now, shall we?” He swept one arm out, muttering some strange spell, a ball of glowing blue light forming around his hand.
The massive door—which boasted a complex and unpickable lock—swung open on silent hinges. The Warlock hadn’t exaggerated in his claims; we literally couldn’t have gotten into the boss’s chamber without his help. Apparently, the Devs for this area had fitted the dungeon’s door with one final safeguard, ensuring that only the right person got through. And that safeguard was a custom key, soulbound to the mercenary leader. It was a stroke of blind luck that I hadn’t killed him, or I would’ve doomed this operation before it ever got off the ground.
We were luckier still, because it turned out the Warlock was willing to sell his loyalty, along with the key, for gold. A bunch of gold. A small mountain of gold. But that was one thing we weren’t in short supply of thanks to the easily dispatched Corrupt Valdgeist.
The doors finished opening with a resounding boom, which echoed around us like a warning siren. Otto bowed his head and muttered a quick prayer before heading in, accompanied by the Warlock’s conjured minions. As soon as they were through the grand entryway, I forged ahead, skirting around a flame elemental and a skeleton, stealing up the left, positioning myself so I could sneak attack when the moment was right. The door let out into another natural cavern—this one dotted with ancient stalactites and stalagmites so large they were nearly columns—which quickly gave way to the ruins of some sort of temple:
A massive circular chamber of roughhewn stone blocks liberally carved with runic symbols and horrifying pictographs, most of them involving human torture and dismemberment in one form or fashion. Bones, yellowed with age, littered the floor like trash on a highway. Weak sunlight streamed in from a jagged opening in the ceiling that revealed a glimmer of blue sky. Below, in the center of the temple ruins, illuminated by a single shaft of sunlight, lurked a twisted tree. A bent, bone-white thing like an arthritic finger, its stunted branches devoid of leaves or life of any kind.
At the base of the tree, surrounded by knobby roots, sat a heavy wooden chest heavily tooled with gold and bronze script.
Whatever was in the box was the real reward we’d come for, but the question was, where was the chest’s guardian? Where was the uber boss?
I moved further into the room, creeping slowly, continually scanning the space, looking for some telltale sign of our opponent. The room didn’t have any nooks or crannies a hulking super-guardian could secret away in. As I crept closer, I caught sight of a crude stairway at the back of the temple proper, jutting from the stone, winding its way up to a partially hidden tunnel high in the temple wall. The stairs were partially outlined in purple, meaning my Keen-Sight skill had kicked in.
I was pretty sure that passageway would, almost impossibly, connect back to the beginning of this dungeon. That, or let out directly into the wider world of Eldgard. The game Devs for this kind of RPG knew how tedious it was to backtrack all the way through an already completed dungeon, so they often built in a secret exit for player convenience.
I caught a brief flash of movement over by the right wall—Cutter, positioning himself just to the side of a toppled column. Still, though, I saw nothing else. So I crept closer and closer, moving toward the stairs. By now, Otto and the minion squad were almost to the treasure chest, their movements marked by nervous anxiety.
“Where’s the boss?” Otto demanded, glancing over one shoulder at the Warlock. “I told you betrayal would be met with swift violence, sellsword.”
The Warlock shrugged. “Just because I was hired for this quest doesn’t mean I know what we’re up against here. Not the specifics, anyway.”
“The chest, Otto,” Abby called. “Open the chest and I’ll bet we flush this thing out.”
The Risi warrior offered a grunt and a curt nod, turning back toward the tree. “Everyone take your positions,” he ordered.
Cutter and I were already in place, but the minions reacted as one, spreading out in a loose arc. The bow-wielding skeletons moved back a few paces so they’d be able to sink in a volley of arrows. The flame elementals, also ranged attackers, took up positions near the left and right walls, giving them a clear line of fire for whatever might appear. The conjured demon and the earth elementals—hulking things of stone and mud with gleaming obsidian spikes protruding from their backs, shoulders, and arms—made a tight circle around the tree.
They were the frontline defense.
Otto surveyed the scene with a practiced eye, grunted his approval, and edged past the demon and the earth-hulks. He knelt in front of the chest, rubbed his hands together, then extended one trembling limb toward the box. The second his thick fingers touched the clasp, the room exploded with movement: the ground trembled, the walls rattled, small baseball-sized stones clattered down from above, while that bone-white tree began to sway and surge upward in herky-jerk lurches.
Earth and dirt fell away in a shower as a massive something pulled its way from the ground of the temple.
The stunted tree rose into the air, directly attached to a bulbous, misshapen head covered in maggot-white fles
h, which was larger than a gas-guzzling SUV. The creature, a Greater Corrupt Valdgeist, sported a single bulging eye, milky and dead, situated above a monstrous maw riddled with jagged fangs. Its misshapen head sat perched atop a host of octopus-like tree root limbs covered in thorns the size of meat hooks, while more fat tentacles whipped and writhed in the air, sprouting from every free patch of skin.
Whatever Dev had designed this thing deserved both an award for horrific creativity and also a year-long voucher for psychiatric treatment.
Everyone stared for a tense moment, held captive in fascinated horror. That uneasy truce ended abruptly as the creature spread its massive jaws and issued a defiant roar, which rocked Otto back on his heels and sent a tremor running through the floor and up into my teeth. Then the creature surged forward, lashing out with a massive limb, smashing Otto in his breastplate. The Risi warrior let out a rumble of pain as he popped up into the air, cartwheeling head over heels before finally landing in a heap ten feet away.
“Attack,” Abby screamed, a thread of fear weaving through the words.
The Warlock’s minions responded to the command.
In an instant, everything was pure chaos—all manic motion and whipping tentacles, intermixed with the ring of steel on stone and the blaze of magical power. The Warlock’s hard-hitting melee minions threw themselves at the creature: skeletons unleashed a hail of arrows, flame elementals hurled fire balls, earth elementals charged the thing with spiked fists upraised, while the demon laid into the freakish beast with its massive two-handed sword. The fury of the Warlock’s summoned help was truly impressive, but the Greater Corrupt Valdgeist seemed to shrug off most of their attacks without sustaining much damage.