Keeper

by Tom Larcombe

  Harmon shook his head.

  “That's no help,” he said. “Alright, we need to get you back to your assignment. Try not to screw it up again this time.”

  Olson quickly laid back down.

  With a few typed commands another Elite Goblin Warrior was standing in the clearing. Harmon tried to immediately transfer Olson into it, but something was already trying to inhabit it. A few quick keystrokes cleared up that issue and a moment later Olson's body relaxed again and the Elite started to move.

  “Alright, I'm going to send you back to Campbell now. Ready?”

  The Elite nodded, Harmon typed something on his virtual keyboard, and then Harmon was alone in the clearing again.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie stared at the door in front of him for a moment, wondering what the hell Karl was doing.

  “Karl, get back here and rejoin the group!” he called.

  There was no answer, the only sound was the rest of the group's breathing in the small room.

  “Karl?” Allie called out. “This isn't funny!”

  Still no reply.

  “What the hell could've happened?” Eddie asked. “Really, I don't think he'd just quit the group willingly. Is there a way to force that?”

  Allie's face darkened.

  “Mind control might do it, maybe? I don't know for sure. I'm going to find him though.”

  She stepped forward through the door Karl had last gone through on his scouting mission and started to stride off into the darkness.

  “Wait,” Tiana called. “Do you want some light?”

  “I can use my infravision,” Allie said. “See if he's right there from the heat. So wait a minute.”

  A couple of minutes later she came back.

  “No sign of heat there. So let's do the light.”

  Tiana muttered and threw her hand out, a ball of light establishing itself over Allie's head. Allie went back through the door and this time Eddie followed. He could track Karl, barely.

  Maybe because he was in stealth? I mean there's lot of things he would've had to disturb walking through here but I'm only catching a little bit of it, he thought.

  “Stop,” Eddie said, a few moments later.

  He'd lost the trail. Backing up a few steps allowed him to see signs of Karl's passage, but when he advanced beyond that, he couldn't find any tracks.

  “I lost him. I don't see anything past this point,” Eddie said.

  “We have to find him,” Allie said, “we have to.”

  “He might've been killed,” Dominic said.

  “You know as well as I do that we would've gotten notification of that before the message that he left the group,” Allie said. “Something must have him.”

  Eddie flashed back to Allie's story of why she hadn't wanted to go beyond the first tier goblin villages and understood her urgency now. If she thought that they had Karl and were torturing him then she was the only one with firsthand knowledge of how that felt and he was pretty sure she'd rather Karl not learn.

  “I'm going after him. He couldn't have come back into the room, the last door never opened and the first door is just another small room. He has to be farther down these stairs.”

  She gestured at the stairs that began about ten feet from where Eddie had lost the trail. Then she started moving for them.

  “Come on, we need to find him,” she said.

  Allie wasn't paying attention so when she reached the bottom of the staircase she simply stepped forward into the room in front of her. A muffled curse caught Eddie's ears, stopping him cold. Allie had stepped right onto a massive spiderweb, and was now struggling to break free. The magical light above her hadn't been caught and was hanging in the air in the midst of the web. The web stood easily twice as tall as Eddie and just as wide from side to side, but what caught his attention and had him drawing his sword was the black spot the size of his torso that was rapidly crawling down from the top of it.

  He jumped forward until his toes were very nearly in the web, then thrust up. His new sword was much sharper than the one he'd replaced and he felt the difference as it sliced its way into the spider's body. Even so, when he pulled back the spider kept moving, although now instead of creeping towards Allie it leapt from the web, directly towards him.

  The spider slammed into his torso, then slid towards the floor, but the stinging sensation on his upper arm, where it wasn't covered with armor, combined with a flashing notification to let him know that he'd taken damage.

  Health: 98/104

  Poison Resisted!

  “Spiders!” he called out, realizing that those behind him might not have seen them. “Watch out for their attack, they're poisonous.”

  Allie was twisting and turning, slowly tearing her way out of the web, but Eddie saw more dark shapes moving across the room on the other side of the web and there was still the spider on the ground at his feet to deal with as well.

  He thrust down again, cursing when he missed and sparks flew from his sword's impact on the stone floor. He stepped backwards, bumping into Jern, who'd been right behind him. Eddie slipped to the side to avoid knocking either of them off balance, then pointed directly at the spider.

  “Squash it, there are more coming,” he said.

  Jern, who'd already had his shield and weapon out, pivoted out around his shield, slamming his hammer towards the spider on the floor. The spider dodged away from it, but doing so placed it directly in front of Lucky, on the other side of Jern. The bobcat pounced, striking the spider with both front claws, then backed off when it tried to bite her. She swiped at it and sent it skittering across the corridor to come to rest in front of Eddie. This time when he thrust forward, his sword sank into the spider again.

  He must've made a critical roll since when he drew back the spider was left in two pieces. He wasn't willing to check his notifications immediately though since there were a lot more on the way. He sheathed his sword and pulled out his shortbow, hoping that he wasn't too close to get off shots at the spiders.

  “Allie, health good?” Dominic called out.

  “Yeah,” she replied.

  “Hang on then, this will hurt for a moment.”

  Dominic leaned out over Jern, his hands coming together, his outstretched thumbs and up-angled index fingers forming a triangle. A moment later a jet of flame rushed from the triangle he'd formed, striking the web over Allie's head and igniting it. She continued to tear herself away from the web and as the anchor points at the top of it burned, she wrest free, tumbling towards the base of the steps.

  Jern jumped over her falling body and set himself in the doorway, his shield blocking it from the ground nearly to the top of his head.

  “I'll hold 'em for a moment, get her free,” the dwarf said before growling and spinning his hammer up and over the top of the shield to strike a spider that was trying to climb over it.

  Eddie kicked the burning end of the web towards the spots that were still stuck to Allie. The web was burning much more quickly than she was tearing herself out of it, so that was the quickest way. Then he followed that up with a cast of Nature's Binding, figuring that the HoT (healing over time) of it would hopefully counteract any damage from the flames.

  “She's got a Nature's Binding on her,” he called out, “let the webs burn. We need to take care of the spiders.”

  Jern had his hands full. Despite the fact that only one spider could climb on his shield at a time, there were others climbing the wall to get through the open portion of the doorway above the dwarf's shield. He glowed several times as Tiana worked on keeping the tank up with her healing spells.

  Eddie stepped back up another two steps, then nocked an arrow and shot. It took a spider full in the body, tearing it from its precarious perch on the wall and hurling it back into the room. Dominic still had flames spilling from his hands and he targeted the spider trying to come over the dwarf's shield on the other side of the doorway, igniting it so it squealed and fell back into the mass of spiders in the room.
>
  “Dominic, do you have anything to clear the room?” Eddie called out.

  “Yeah, but I'd catch Jern in it if I tried.”

  “How much more room do you need?”

  “Get him back ten feet and it'll be clear.”

  Okay, I need to get Jern away from the door and up about three steps, all while keeping the spiders from getting through. Hey, I wonder if these guys are non-sentients?

  “Jern, when I tell you, go to just defensive, don't attack unless they attack you first, okay?” Eddie called.

  The spell hadn't been listed as non-combat only so Eddie was hoping this would work. He was pretty sure attacking from inside of it would cancel the spell though, hence his warnings.

  Cast Safe Site, he thought, focusing on the step he was standing on.

  “Jern, defense only,” he called out.

  Then he waited. One second, two seconds, three seconds and there were still no attacks coming in.

  “Phew,” he exclaimed. “Hey Jern, come back to the third step, would you?”

  He patted his leg and whistled softly.

  “Lucky, come up here with me.”

  Jern backed off, the bobcat returned to Eddie from where she'd been staring at the door, and the spiders stayed inside of the room.

  “There you go Dominic,” Eddie said. “Fire away.”

  “Uh, I would, but I can't cast spells from the inside of this spell to the outside.”

  “What?”

  “I can't attack. I tried as soon as Jern was up, but it told me that you cannot attack from inside the Safe Site spell.”

  Eddie glanced around quickly.

  “What's your range on it?

  “At my current level about one hundred feet.”

  “Walk up fifteen steps and try it from there. You should be out of my Safe Site then. We'll see if you can cast across it. If not, well shit I'll just dismiss it and we'll try something else.”

  Dominic climbed the staircase, counting off steps. When he'd reached fifteen he turned around.

  “Can't see the doorway now.”

  “How about if you sit or lie down?” Eddie called.

  Dominic sat down on the step and called out.

  “Clear the middle of the staircase. You don't want to be there when this goes through.”

  Then he started casting.

  A few seconds later a beam of white light, bright enough to leave a flashing bolt on Eddie's vision, raced through the air, went through the doorway, and hit the floor about ten feet into the room. A circle of flames grew around the point it struck and then rolled outwards, expanding, but maintaining its shape until it hit the walls. Once it did, it dispelled itself, but the sound of the small horde of spiders screeching in pain diminished rapidly. Eddie jumped down the remaining steps and glanced into the room. There were only two spiders still moving.

  A pair of arrows finished those two off and Eddie raced into the room. There was one other thing he'd noticed. A wooden chest in the far corner that was now coated in flames. He raced over and emptied his waterskin onto the flames. It was still burning so a quick Create Water refilled the waterskin and he dumped it again. Several iterations later the flames were out. One last Create Water refilled his skin before he dropped it back into his inventory.

  You have upgraded the spell Create Food/Water to (2). While most advise fighting fire with fire, you take the much more logical path of using water. How surprising.

  Alright, I'm used to snark from the game, he thought, but that's just downright insulting.

  By now, the rest of the group had come into the room as well. Allie's gear looked slightly scorched, by she herself seemed to be at full health. Tiana was behind her, apparently checking something in her screens, and Eddie guessed that she'd had to add more healing to Allie to top her off.

  “You're good, no more poison,” Tiana said.

  “Thanks, I hadn't even realized that one of those spiders managed to hit me,” Allie replied.

  Eddie hadn't either and now he was worried that burning the web off of her had been a bad idea. He was preparing to apologize when Allie caught the look on his face.

  “Don't be that way, you did the right thing,” she said. “Besides your plan would've worked fine if I hadn't been poisoned, the spell you did would've gotten me right back up to full.”

  Eddie sighed in relief. He still stung sometimes thinking about when she chewed him out for jumping into the front line. He'd been afraid this was going to be another one of those times, but evidently not.

  “So what do we have here?” Allie asked, peering at the chest Eddie had managed to save from the flames.

  “No clue, it was burning and I just got the fire out now, so...” he replied.

  Becky finally entered the room.

  “Nothing behind us. I couldn't get close enough to do anything to the spiders, so I just watched our back,” she said.

  You know, I'd say something, but it was tight quarters and none of us even thought to keep watch behind us, Eddie thought. So, yeah, I'll keep my mouth shut.

  “Shall we open it?” Eddie asked.

  “Wait,” Allie said. “What about traps? If Karl were here he could look for them, but of course he disappeared before he could be useful.”

  “Not worried any more?” Tiana asked.

  “Worrying about him almost got me killed, but that web blocked the whole doorway so there's no way he went through here. Either there's a secret door up there someplace or... I don't know what.”

  “Well, we can be pretty sure he didn't log out, he wouldn't risk his—” Eddie stopped abruptly, realizing that Becky didn't know that he and Karl were working for Light Online. His brain went into high gear for a moment before he finished his sentence.

  “chance at being first in a dungeon that way,” Eddie finished saying after only a brief pause.

  Becky hadn't been paying attention to him anyhow, something he realized a moment later.

  “Go in through the charred part?” Becky asked, pointing.

  Part of the lid on the back of the chest had burned significantly more than the rest.

  “We could probably just cut through that section,” she said.

  Eddie looked around to see most of the group nodding. He pulled out his utility knife and stabbed at the charred portion of the chest. The tip went right through and the whole chest shuddered in a manner that suggested it wasn't too sturdy to begin with.

  He punched at the charred portion several more times before he had a line of holes in it,

  “Here, let me,” Jern said, walking up next to Eddie.

  Eddie backed off and watched Jern choke up on his hammer. He brought it down with a hard tap on the chest, but the charred area held. Then he struck again, a bit harder this time, and the charred portions of the wood collapsed under the force of it.

  “Good, wouldn't have wanted to hit it any harder, might break anything fragile,” the dwarf said.

  “Allie, bring your light over here?” Eddie asked.

  She walked over and in the glow of the ball of light over her head, Eddie could see the inside of the chest.

  “I don't see anything that looks like a trap on the inside so I'm going to open it. Everyone back away from the front in case I'm wrong.”

  A moment later the chest was open and the party was staring at a pile of coins. It was mostly silver and copper, but Eddie could see a few gold pieces in there as well. What caught his attention though was the edge of a glass bottle protruding above the coins. He reached down and gingerly pulled it out, careful not to break it.

  “A potion?” he asked.

  “Yup,” Allie said. “Don't see many of those around here, although if they load here in the dungeon that might change.”

  “Well, let's go through this carefully in case there are any more,” Eddie replied.

  His caution was warranted. When they pulled everything out of the chest they had two more potions as well as several low quality gemstones. The pile of copper was quite
large, coming in at over two thousand coins, the silver was smaller at about five hundred, and there were only seven gold pieces.

  When Eddie tried to Evaluate the potions, the only results he got was 'unknown potion'.

  “Can anyone here Evaluate the potions?” he asked. “I can't get anything on them.”

  Dominic nodded.

  “Same here, but I do have a spell that will help. I'm not going to cast it in here though because it's got some serious drawbacks. I'll do it once I get back home.”

  “Okay, so we're in agreement that there's no way Karl went through this room?” Eddie asked, looking around the group.

  He got a bunch of nodding heads in return.

  “Well, then we should check for secret doors up where I lost the tracks then. If we don't find any, then I've got one other thing to check, but let's go look for doors first.”

  As they made their way back up the hallway, Eddie shot off a quick PM to Opron, asking if there was any reason for Karl to have been pulled from the game since he'd just disappeared. He knew he was far enough away that he wouldn't get an answer for a while, but he hoped that Opron would have a chance to look into it before he made it back to the inn.

  They spent a good half hour looking for secret doors before they gave up. Then they had to debate whether to continue without Karl, or come back when they'd found him.

  “If he died, he'll respawn back at the inn or his house,” Eddie said. “So I think we ought to head back that way. If he did log out? What happens then, do you load where you left from or at your respawn point?”

  “Respawn point normally,” Dominic said. “Makes it harder for people to cheat and just log out if they're in a bad situation, then log in at the same point after things calm down.”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Okay, then I vote for rescheduling this dungeon. As far as we know, no-one else knows it's here yet so if none of us talk, then it ought to stay a secret.”

  Surprisingly, everyone agreed, even Becky. Eddie had been sure that she'd want to keep going, but evidently Karl's disappearance had her a little freaked out. So they climbed back out and headed for the raft again.