“Engage the Rat Things?”
“Not unless they engage us,” I tell Zedic.
The ratones feos ignore us, aside from the one on top of the pile that screeches rat curses as we pass.
“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries … ” I say under my breath. We stomped out a few rats the previous day – today shall be no different.
Like clockwork, the three rat-men move to attack us. The battle starts and Zedic goes first this time, again with his ice arrows. Two freeze; the third attack misses.
I equip my Crappy Tees T-Shirt Launcher and a bag of baseballs, items 490 and 382 respectively.
“You’re on a T-shirt launcher kick, aren’t you?”
“I’ll give them the Dave Schultz treatment next time, don’t worry.”
Mickey Mouse on crack doesn’t take well to the baseball – it cuts his life bar to just a quarter full. He responds by giving me a nasty bite. The frozen status disappears from the other rat-men at the start of the next turn.
“Wanna try a combo?” I ask Zedic.
“Let’s do it.”
The long brass Victrola horn of the Gramogun mounts itself on my shoulder – item 458.
“Haven’t seen that before.”
“You freeze ‘em, I’ll shatter ‘em.”
I press the combo button floating in front of me; Zedic and I step forward at the same time. He freezes them and I activate the Gramogun, shattering the ratsicles into itty bitty icy bits. The trumpet chimes and I move up to level sixteen, unlocking an attack called Buster Buster.
~*~
We clean up shop on our way to the back of the Orc’s Keep. The most difficult to beat are the rat-men and orc combo teams, mainly due to the sage orcs, who continually cast healing spells. Luckily, my new attack, Buster Buster, proves to be pretty useful. The attack hits all enemies on the battlefield, stunning them for the next turn. It also decreases their defense by fifteen percent, giving us two rounds to stun them. The attack takes about a fifth of my advanced abilities bar, though.
“The coast seems pretty much clear,” I say as we reach the back entrance. The side of the cliff overlooks the large body of water, giving me a few butterflies even though I’m only in a virtual dreamworld.
“We’ve got company!” Zedic drops into a battle-ready position.
The wings of a colossal wyvern flap up over the cliff and land. An orc riding the beast bellows, his yellow teeth covered in frothy spittle and his eyes red as the devil’s taint.
“I thought this was going to be an easy assault!” I say to the sky.
Frances Euphoria: Hold on … notes! Here! Yes, that is the Orc of Thar and that is his cliff wyvern.
“So it can fly?”
Frances Euphoria: Not well, but it can flap its wings and cause a lot of damage.
The battle starts and we get the first attack.
“Any idea on how we should approach the wyvern?” I ask Zedic.
“We could go with the Mûmakil strategy – try and knock the rider off.”
“Good call. Roast him up with a Shaft of Feathered Vengeance.”
Zedic draws his bow and the large outline of an eagle forms all around him. He looses his arrow and the wyvern leaps backwards, dodging the missile completely.
“Crap,” I say as I scroll through my inventory list. “It looks like we’ll have to get a bit more creative.” My finger stops on my BolOcto Projector, item 69, that Frances called a net gun when it is clearly an objet d’art in weapon form. Clearly. “No … ” I keep scrolling, stopping at item 554, my mutant hack, and from there I scroll up to my Buster Sword.
The golden ax goes in one hand and my Buster Sword goes in the other. Real world physics may not apply – I’m pretty sure I look like an utter badass double-fisting two of the biggest weapons I own.
“Frances take a screenshot.”
Frances Euphoria: You’re like a little kid!
“What?” I ask, looking to Zedic. “I want something to show my pops next time I see him.”
Zedic asks, “What’s the plan?”
“I don’t really know … I just figured that equipping my hack would inspire me to think of something.”
Put away the useless sword.
“Useless?” I glance down at my hack. “So it’s you who’s been the voices in my head?”
Let me alone taste the wyvern’s blood.
“Well, when you put it like that.” I return the sword to the sheath on my back. The Khaleesi’s favorite pet snarls at me and rakes its claw in the dirt.
“Well?” I ask my hack ax. “And whatever you do, don’t miss.”
The hack grows up my arm, bubbles over my shoulder and forms another ax on my other arm.
“Now what?”
Spin.
I spin and apparently channel the spirit of Igor Sikorsky as my momentum increases until the entire world is a colorful blur. I explode off the ground at the wyvern, and my first hit connects, followed by my second, third, fourth all the way up to a tenth hit, rapid succession as if I were the Gillette Tasmanian Devil.
I reappear on my side of the battle.
So good! So good! More!
“Damn!” Zedic shouts. “A couple more of those and the dragon will be toast.”
Frances Euphoria: That’s if it doesn’t get you two first. And it’s a wyvern. Cast shield next round, Quantum!
“But then I’ll forfeit my turn!”
Frances Euphoria: It’s better than dying! If you die, you’ll respawn on the beach!
I glance down at the ax blade on my left. “Hackie, do you think you can finish him off next round?”
I know I can.
“Sorry, Frances, I’m going to override you here. I’ll explain later.”
The wyvern lifts into the air and swoops down in front of us. The Orc of Thar executes a flashy rodeo cowboy dismount and drives his sword straight into the ground. He stands, grunts, grabs his crotch in a decidedly ungentleorcly manner, and locks his flaming red eyes onto us. With that, the swordless Orc of Thar is quickly swooped up by his winged mount.
“You forgot something.” I say, acknowledging the sword that’s sticking out of the earth in front of us. A ridge forms in the ground, as if a team of oversized steam-powered gophers were tunneling beneath the soil. The ridge grows and quickly encircles Zedic and me.
“Looks like this is going to hurt,” Zedic says. “You sure you can get him on the next round?”
I’m sure.
I give him a not-so-confident thumbs up.
Pillars burst out of the ground, sending a shower of debris in the air. The pillars grow, spiraling as they increase in size. It doesn’t take them long to block out the sun, filling the circle they’ve formed in a thick shadow. The tops of the pillars bend and interlock and resemble the inside of a seashell.
“A trap?”
“Nope.” Zedic fingers one of his arrows.
The sword wiggles itself out of the ground and floats in a blue light at our shoulder level. Suddenly, the orc’s sword slingshots to the one of the pillars, hits it, springs back taking a swipe at Zedic. It continues like this, ping-ponging back and forth and using the barrier it created as a springboard. By the time it finishes its pong routine, Zedic and I are sitting not so pretty with our life bars at thirty percent.
“That was painful,” I say as the pillared wall crumbles apart. The sword flies back into the air, returning to the Orc of Thar’s clawed paws.
Frances Euphoria: Don’t be stupid, Quantum, cast shield!
“I know it sounds crazy Frances, but both of you need to trust me on this. I think I can end this now.” I glance down at my hack ax, which has since returned to one hand. “Right, hackie?”
~*~
The blade on my hack ax grows in size until I can no longer hold it up. The bottom edge is against the ground now; I’m doing all I can to keep the handle from falling by hoisting it up on my shoulder. Once it becomes too large I drop it, pick it up as if it
is a log.
“What are you doing!?”
The hack ax launches forward, dragging me along with it.
Like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, I hold onto the back of the ax as it rockets towards the orc and his dragon, the air whipping past my face as we approach our target. Hackie connects and the sky opens up like a zipper, releasing a giant bolt of orange lightning. The wyvern, the Orc of Thar and unfortunately, yours truly, are all fried like a GMO-free turducken at a South Carolina Thanksgiving dinner.
I’m deposited seconds later in my original position with my life bar at one percent.
“Ow…” I say, my vision pane flashing red.
The hack ax lies on the ground in front of me, smoking, and if I’m not mistaken, the handle looks a bit distended like it has just stuffed itself silly at the aforementioned South Carolina Thanksgiving dinner.
“You bastard!”
The trumpet sounds, indicating we’ve won the battle. EXP, a sack of rupees and a few life bar potions. Zedic downs one of the potions and tosses me the other.
“I guess the developers knew that the Orc of Thar would issue a good beating.”
I swirl the potion, which is in a blue figured flask that looks older than my grandma’s grandma. One pull of the bottle and my life bar starts to refill. I finish the rainbow-colored liquid off.
Frances Euphoria: You got lucky with whatever move you just pulled there.
“I call that …um … ” I shrug at Hackie, who’s still resting on the ground with steam coming off its blade and handle. “Ride the Lightning.”
Frances Euphoria: I didn’t know you listened to DJ Ride the Lightning!
“What?” I nearly shake my fist at the sky. “That’s not what it’s named after! My uncle was somewhat of a metalhead in his youth, an actual metalhead mind you, not like Chrono. This misappropriation of song titles is something the FCG and all those who share our common tongue should be worried about.”
Zedic shrugs. Frances is silent for a moment.
“Metallica. You guys know, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Fade to Black.”
“Ah!” Zedic says, “Both good DJs, but DJ Ride the Lightning is better.”
“Seriously? You two have never heard of Metallica?”
He cracks a smile. “Just playing with you, Quantum. Of course I know who Metallica is. Their holoconcerts are mahoosive in Eastern Europe.”
~*~
“So the dragon is behind that door?” I ask as I place Hackie back in my inventory list.
Frances Euphoria: That’s what the schematics say.
“Then why didn’t the whole team just use the back entrance?”
Frances Euphoria: This is why Steampunk’s info is vital – if all of you had used the back entrance, there would have been at least five wyvern-riding Orcs of Thar to greet you. The guild would have been overwhelmed. By dividing, the front team faces the bulk of the orcs and you two only have to take on one Orc of Thar.
“Got it. So all we have to do now is peek through that door and we’ll see a dragon?”
Zedic says, “It can’t be that easy.”
We take a flight of stone stairs and stop in front of a red door. I’m just about to start beating when Zedic points to a small, square gap next to the door.
“Think we can fit in there?”
“Let’s just use the door.”
“Not possible.” Zedic runs his hand along the door’s surface. “Feel it. This door doesn’t open; it’s just for show.”
“It’s a prop?” I take a few steps left and run my hand along the place where the hinge should be. Sure enough, it’s smooth as silk. “I wasn’t planning on spelunking today, but we’ve made it this far.”
Zedic drops to his knees and crawls through the opening. I follow suit, trying not to hit my head as I advance.
“Now here’s something I wouldn’t want to do in the real world!” I say, my voice dampened by the walls of the tunnel.
“How long will you have the cane for?” Zedic asks over his shoulder.
“I don’t think my Commando Survival Cane is going anywhere anytime soon.”
“There’s surgery, you know.”
“Not my style.” An arc of light passes over his shoulder; we’ve arrived at the exit point.
“Prepare for anything,” I say.
“Whatever is in the next chamber, it sure is bright.”
~*~
It’s not often that one enters a chamber in an Orc’s Keep to find a giant, mirror-scaled, blue whale-sized dragon chained to the floor. Every time it moves, it reflects the light in all directions. It’s beautiful in a retina-searing, migraine-inducing kind of way.
“It’s like the mother of all disco balls or something.” I raise my hand to cover my eyes. Triangular windows in the ceiling direct the light into the Orc Lair’s inner chamber; Mirror’s reflective armor does the rest.
Mirror turns to look at us, bares its teeth. It moves, rattling its shackles as they drag across the cold stone floor.
“Does it breathe fire or any of that stereotypical stuff?” I ask.
Frances Euphoria: Steampunk didn’t leave any notes regarding the dragon.
In answer to our question, Mirror lifts its body, screeches and spews a stream of silvery pixilated matter into the air. It pools on the ground, hisses, bubbles and steams like molten lava as it congeals.
“Well, it understands us.” I shoot Zedic a look.
“What?”
“What should I say to it?”
“Tell it the truth?”
“Alrighty ….” Keeping my back to the wall, I slowly make my way around the chamber until Mirror and I are face to face. The dragon locks its enormous lizard eyes on me it and rears its neck back to strike.
Frances Euphoria: Ooh, shiny! It’s so beautiful!
“Not when it’s about to turn you into a crispy critter grandé.”
“I’m not an it.” The voice is low and hoarse, but feminine.
“You can talk?”
“Of course I can talk,” Mirror says, “and for your information, I’m a lady.”
“A beautiful lady at that!” I give the mirror-scaled beast my biggest shit-eating grin.
“Flattery won’t get you anywhere.”
“Easy, Mirror,” I say as I approach her with my hands up. “We’re here to free you.”
“And ride me wherever you’d like?”
“You don’t like being … um … ridden?”
Frances Euphoria: What exactly are you two talking about?
“Listen,” says Mirror as two trails of steam roll out of her nostrils, “I’m not a Polynyian Griffin, got it?”
“I hate to tell you I don’t get the reference, but…”
She moves and her shackles scrape against the floor.
“I hate griffins. They get all the credit in Tritania. Good behavior, easier to manage, beauty.”
“So you aren’t like a griffin or you hate them?” I ask. Zedic is slowly walking in my direction, a puzzled expression writ large across his face.
I give him a shrug and continue laying it on. “Of course you’re not like a griffin why … why … you’re a magnificent beast!”
“Beast!?” she rears back and displays a mouthful of teeth the size of my arm.
“Don’t shoot! I mean spray … don’t spray me! Please don’t eat me would also be good.”
“I told you I don’t like insincere sycophants,” Mirror says, settling back down, “but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say nice things to me.”
“You’re the sexiest dragon I’ve ever met, a beaut, a real looker. Hell, if I were a guy dragon, I’d burn half a village just to take you on a date. In fact … ” My finger comes up and I scroll to item 23, a dozen fresh roses. “I bought these roses just for you!”
Mirror twists her head to the left, sneezes caustic silver dragon snot. “I’m allergic to roses!”
“Crap, don’t worry, pretty lady. I’ve got plenty more gifts, just let me have a q
uick look here … ”
“How about you unchain me.” She lifts her tail. It’s big and barbed, but apparently not enough to break the chains. “Then we can talk gifts.”
“Sure, anything.”
Keeping my eye on her snout, I move to her front left leg where I find a dragon-sized handcuff shackled to a loop on the ground. “How long have they had you in here?”
“I’ve lost track of time,” she sighs miserably, “and I haven’t seen myself in ages.”
I’m about to remind her that she is mirrored and damn difficult to look at, when I think otherwise. I’m close enough for her to tilt her head and snap me up like a jalapeno popper; frankly, I’d rather not end up as dragon fodder.
“Anything special about these shackles?” I ask as flick my finger against the metal.
“Aside from the fact that I’ve had them on for years, no,” says Mirror the dragon.
“Are they at least feeding you?”
“Yes, the occasional orc,” she says. “They can’t seem to get it in their heads that I’m a vegetarian.”
“Why don’t you just roast them or whatever it is you do.”
“Every time I do, they poison me and peel off my scales while I’m asleep.” She rolls her eyes, bats them most seductively. “I don’t roast those who oppress me, by the way. I melt them.”
“They pulled your scales off?” Zedic asks.
“Yes, from under my legs.” She lifts her leg just enough for me to see a pink spot with multiple scars.
“Why do they want the mirrors?”
“You really have no idea how vain orcs are, do you?” she asks me.
“Can’t say that I do.”
Frances Euphoria: Tick-tock, Donkey. Rocket and the others are almost finished outside. Less than five minutes before the timer resets itself.
I give Frances the thumbs up and Mirror asks, “That thumb for me?”
“Why of course it is! Now, about these shackles … ” A quick scroll through my list and I arrive at item 42, a pair of industrial grade bolt cutters.
“You think those will work?” Zedic asks.
“They’ll work,” says Mirror. “The chains are magicked to be impervious to my silver fire, but they’re nothing special otherwise.”
The Feedback Loop (3-Book Box Set): (Scifi LitRPG Series) Page 48