by A. J. Markam
“Oh yes. In fact, Tarka’s entire crew is made up of demonic slaves.”
“Great,” I sighed, then frowned. “Wait – how are we going to get to Alaria if she’s on an airship?”
“I guess you’re gonna need a ride.”
“Do you know anybody who’s got a ship?”
The orc jerked his head towards the back of the bar. I turned around to see a man slouched insouciantly in a booth at the back, his face obscured by shadow.
“Go talk to him,” Mirk said. “He’s the only one insane enough to do what you want.”
A window popped up:
When The Ship Hits The Fan
Talk to the mysterious stranger about booking passage on his airship.
XP: 500
Okay, I had to admit, I kind of liked that quest title.
I selected ‘Accept,’ slapped down a handful of silver on the bar, then looked over at Stig.
He looked right back at me. “Have fun, boss.”
“You’re not coming?” I asked, a little surprised.
“Nnnnnope. I’mma free imp. I’m jush gonna sit here and drink,” he slurred, then let out an enormous wet burp.
“Maybe I’ll summon Dorp to keep you company,” I said with a mischievous grin.
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “…you wouldn’t…”
“Not if you come with me to hire the pilot.”
Stig muttered under his breath, “What good is it to be free when you keep getting threatened by bos-sh all the time?”
“Did you just call me an ‘anus’ in Impish?” I asked, repeating what Alaria had told me a week before.
“Dirty anus,” Stig corrected me, then slid off his chair – and promptly collapsed face-first on the mushroom-carpeted floor.
“You all right down there?”
Stig didn’t bother to lift his head – he just waved me on from the floor.
“Go on. I’ll cash up,” he slurred.
I shook my head, turned around, and headed for the booth.
As I drew closer, though, something seemed wrong. The figure’s face might have been too dark to see, but something else about him was familiar. The pose, the feathered hair, the white shirt and black vest –
And then he leaned forward into the light and gave me that famous grin.
“Hark Silo,” the guy said.
“Oh HELL no,” I grumbled.
It was supposed to be an homage (French for ‘rip-off’) to the legendary smuggler – except it looked more like Mr. Bean with Harrison Ford’s hair. Couldn’t get too close to the real thing if you didn’t want to get sued, I guess.
‘500 XP’ floated up through the air. That was the only good thing about this situation.
The pilot smirked. “Shewy here tells me you’re looking for a ship.”
Which made absolutely no sense, since I hadn’t talked to anybody but Mirk. “Who’s Shewy?”
Han So-lame tilted his head towards a mountainous figure in the shadows.
I turned to look at it, noting that the height was right for a certain sidekick –
Then the creature stepped into the light, and I recoiled in horror.
It was like they’d used Nair on a Wookie, gotten him down to nothing but pink skin, and stuck Mr. Bigglesworth’s head on him. You know – Dr. Evil’s hairless cat from Austin Powers.
“Mwrowrrrr,” the abomination mewled.
“OH HELL NO!” I yelled.
Look – I am a Star Wars geek, but I am not a snob. I’m perfectly fine with poking fun at the movies. You can bag on the Prequels, rag on the Ewoks, tell ‘meesa Jar-Jar’ jokes all you want – but at least do it well.
This was a travesty. The campy quest titles had metastasized and become Stage IV (or maybe Episode IV) cancer inside the game itself, and now I was looking at a goddamn cheese-fest. The game was going to force me to go save Alaria inside a campy Star Wars parody.
“Shewy here tells me you’re looking for a ship,” the pilot repeated.
Old-style NPC. He had a limited range of responses, and he would probably repeat them ad nauseam unless I gave him something else to work with.
Actually, I take that back – he would repeat them ‘ad infinitum.’
‘Ad nauseam’ means ‘to the point of nausea,’ and I was already nauseated.
Let’s get this over with.
“How much?”
“I’m the captain of – ”
“A bad variation on the Millennium Falcon, yeah, yeah. How much?”
The NPC looked fairly pissed off for a mindless automaton. “The Century Chickenhawk.”
Of course it was.
They couldn’t even give it a cool bird name, like an osprey or an eagle. Not even a hawk. It had to be a CHICKEN hawk.
I expected Foghorn Leghorn to come around the corner any second. Boy, I say, BOY –
“It’s the – ”
“Ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs, I got it. How much?”
“The CASTLE run,” the NPC snapped.
Okay… that was kind of funny.
Sort of.
“Look, I need to track down a pirate named Tarka.”
“I’ve outrun – ”
“Imperial starships. How much?”
“Airships. And not – ”
“The local bulk cruisers, mind you, you’re talking about the big Corellian ships, and yes, that’s fast enough for me. Want to know the cargo? It’s me and the imp. Some kind of local trouble? Yes, and we want to avoid imperial entanglements, and that’s the trick, isn’t it? I’m sure it’s going to cost me something extra. NOW HOW MUCH?”
The pilot stared daggers at me. “Ten gold in advance.”
I paused.
No…
They wouldn’t…
I pulled up the computer window for the contents of my bag.
Two gold, 25 silver, and assorted bronze.
CRAP.
There are no coincidences in the game.
The game had set me up from the beginning for what came next. Game, set, match.
Well-played, assholes.
“I can give you two gold in advance,” I sighed, paraphrasing Obi-Wan’s famous counterbid in the cantina, “plus fifteen when we reach Tarka the pirate.”
I had no idea how I was going to get 15 gold, but I supposed I could figure that out.
A window popped up:
I’ve Got A Bad Feeling About This
Oh no you didn’t.
You bastards.
Book passage with Hark Silo and first mate Shewhocka on the Century Chickenhawk to go find Alaria.
XP: 1000
Cost: 2 gold
I even had to pay to be a part of this bullshit.
But there was no use fighting it. I just surrendered and hit ‘Accept.’
“Seventeen, huh?” Hark grinned. “Okay, you got yourself a ship. Docking bay – ”
“94, cool, we’ll be there,” I said, and got up.
“Don’t forget your imp.”
“Huh? Oh.”
Stig was still lying facedown on the mushroom floor.
“Stig?”
He just lay there.
I prodded him lightly with my toe. “Stig?”
No answer.
I sighed, heaved him up over my shoulder, turned back to face my local dinner theater Star Wars characters, and tried to look dignified.
I failed.
It’s pretty hard to look dignified with a drunk imp slung over your shoulder.
“See you in 30 minutes,” I said, and walked out of the bar.
I swear to God, if I ever cornered OtherWorld’s writing staff, I was going to give them a piece of my mind.
Mirk my words.
Sorry. That was bad.
3
And that was how I wound up on the deck of a flying airship thousands of feet above a turquoise sea.
The ship itself was pretty cool. The game designers had obviously copied the Millennium Falcon’s
circular shape, but other than that they hadn’t gotten too carried away. It was still a wooden ship, albeit one with two massive turbine engines bolted to the sides.
There were two masts with billowing sails, and four iron cannons that pointed out two to port, two to starboard. Hark stood at the ship’s wheel on the upper deck, and Shewy did whatever sailors do with ropes and rigging, leaving me to sightsee over the railing of the ship.
But after ten minutes, I’d had my fill of endless ocean, blue skies, and puffy white clouds. I figured I’d better do a little self diagnostic before the ‘ship hit the fan.’
I raised my Character window and checked out my stats.
Health 420
Mana 1280
Intellect 85
Stamina 52
Armor 38
Necklace: Sign of Bartok +3 Intelligence
Shoulders: +3
Cloak: +5
Shirt: +3
Vest: +5
Bracers: +3
Pants: +5
Belt: +4, +3 Intelligence
Boots: +6
Gloves: +4
Rings: +4 Intelligence, +6 Critical Strike
Trinkets: +7 Critical Strike, +5 Haste
Scepter of the Servant:
+40 Intelligence
+20 Stamina
+10 Critical Strike
Critical Strike: 7.5%
Haste: 2%
Translation for those who don’t speak Gamer:
‘Critical Strike’ meant that every so often, I would deal a supernatural attack that inflicted twice as much damage as usual. It happened 7.5% of the time – or about once every 13 times I cast a spell.
‘Haste’ meant that I could now cast spells 2% faster than normal, thanks to a trinket I’d picked up in the orcish wastelands.
The demons of Abaddon had given me new clothes before I left, and I’d picked up a few items during my time in the orcish wilderness. I still had my Scepter of the Servant, the one I’d used to summon the goddess Chalastia. It was attached to my back, magically held in place by the belt and shoulder strap I’d taken from the dead Bandit Mage in Fernburg. The scepter didn’t serve much purpose as a weapon, but it gave me a bunch of beneficial stats.
I still had all my supernatural powers, and they had become more powerful as I’d leveled up.
Darkbolt was a shot of dark energy that inflicted damage and took 2.5 seconds to cast.
Darkfire was a sort of timed-release damage attack that burned people’s souls over six seconds. It took 1.5 seconds to cast.
Unholy Quartet caused four imps who looked like Stig to materialize and fight for me.
Soul Suck allowed me to leech away my enemies’ life force and add it to my own Health, making me much harder to kill.
Summon Succubus was obvious, except it only worked partly now. Since I’d given Alaria her freedom, I couldn’t ‘banish’ her anymore, only summon her. The only problem was, I couldn’t summon her unless she died and returned to whatever plane she was from. Whatever the pirate Tarka was doing to her, he must be keeping her alive.
That fact made me a little uneasy.
Self-Sacrifice was a spell where I could transfer some of my own Health to either Alaria or Stig. (Or Dorp. Sigh.)
Mana Conversion allowed me to convert some of my hit points into mana, which was the magical ‘fuel’ that allowed me to cast spells.
Doomsday was a delayed damage spell. Nothing happened for 20 seconds after I cast it – and then BAM, my enemies lost 250 points of damage. It was often the knockout punch in a fight.
Terrify allowed me to – you guessed it – terrify my enemies, sending them running for the hills for 30 seconds before they regained their senses and came racing back. I could only hit one target at a time, though, so Terrify was mostly good for breaking up groups of two or three and letting me deal with assailants one at a time.
Reaching Level 10 had allowed me to summon Dorp. His illusions were sort of a ‘mass hysteria’ version of Terrify, which had scared the shit out of 20 orcs at one time.
The only downside was Dorp himself was annoying as hell.
Unfortunately, after Level 10 I only gained a new ability every other level. Most recently I had obtained All-Seeing Eye, which allowed me to send a tiny, invisible sphere out like a magical scout, and see in my ‘mind’s eye’ everything around the sphere. All-Seeing Eye had saved me from walking into several orcish traps in the wastelands.
All in all, I was a lot more powerful than when I’d faced down the Bandits or Jastoth. I was a little worried I might have a problem with this Tarka dude, but I was sure the game would provide some way for me to take him down. After all, it had provided Chalastia to deal with Jastoth, and both Chalastia and the demon slaves of Abaddon to help me vanquish Malfurik.
Things would go my way, I was sure of it.
The sun was shining on my face, the wind was blowing through my hair, and I was about to go rescue the woman I loved.
It was a pretty damn good moment.
…somewhat ruined by the imp vomiting over the side of the ship.
I winced as he let loose another barrage, feeding fish two thousand feet below us.
“Did you drink too much?”
“No, boss,” he wheezed, his grey face tinged with green. “I get airsick.”
Poor guy. I wondered if there was any herbal form of Dramamine in this world, maybe made from –
I was interrupted by a screeching meow from the crow’s nest. That’s what a bad parody of Chewbacca sounded like in this world: not a dog-bear, but a hairless cat.
“Shewy says he sees your guys off the starboard bow!” Hark yelled. “Get ready!”
He spun the wheel and the ship began to veer crazily towards the right.
A couple of miles in the distance I saw a dim, monstrously huge shadow moving through the clouds – and then it suddenly erupted into full view, trailing wisps of white mist.
Holy mother of God.
Even at this distance, the thing looked enormous – at least ten times bigger than the Chickenhawk. Its wooden hull was painted black, it had three oak-like masts with at least eight black sails, and it flew the Jolly Roger from the top of its main mast – except the skull was that of some demonic creature with fangs instead of regular teeth.
And it had seen us. It changed course with a speed that belied its massive bulk and headed our way.
“Oh crap,” Stig muttered from where he lay sprawled out on the deck.
“Shewy, get down here!” Hark yelled.
As the Chickenhawk listed to one side as it turned, I stumbled and skidded my way across the deck to Hark. “What’s the plan?”
He looked at me in angry bewilderment. “What do you mean, ‘What’s the plan?’ I thought you needed passage to meet up with these guys!”
“I needed passage so I can get onto the ship. Are we going to attack them?”
“ATTACK them?! You want me to attack that?!” he yelled, jerking his chin at the monstrosity bearing down on us.
“I thought that was the plan!” I yelled.
That’s when Hark Silo unleased the Finger of Doom.
Harrison Ford has this thing: when Han Solo or Indiana Jones gets angry, they point. More like ‘stab the air in a very aggressive and threatening manner.’
For all his other shortcomings, Hark Silo had the Finger of Doom down pat, and he unleashed it right in my face.
“That’s not a plan, that’s a suicide mission! We’re getting out of here! Shewy, secure the rigging and –
Multiple explosions blasted from the deck of the pirate ship, and fireballs raced towards us like meteorites in slow motion.
I guess in a magical world, you didn’t need cannons if you had demons who shot fireballs.
Two of the flaming projectiles went wide, but the third hit the side of the Chickenhawk with an impact that shook the entire ship.
“No amount of money is worth this!” Hark yelled. “New plan! We’re flying right at them!”
“What?!” I shouted. “Just a second ago you wanted to run away!”
“That was before they started firing at us! Shewy, get the cannons ready!”
Mr. Bigglesworth’s mutant lovechild swung down from the crow’s nest on a rope and raced for one of the deck’s four cannons.
Meanwhile, six more fireballs blasted from the deck of the pirate ship. Most went wide, zooming above our heads or below the ship – but one slammed into the main sail, catching the canvas on fire.
“Aren’t you some kind of magician?!” Hark yelled at me. “Can’t you fight back?!”
I could have if the ship were within 50 yards – but it was still at least half a mile away.
“Stig, can you do something?” I yelled.
Stig staggered to his feet, put his hands together, and shot off a bolt of fire –
Which went above 20 yards before petering out pitifully towards the ocean.
“Sorry,” Stig said, before grabbing the railing and puking over the side again.
Whoever was on that pirate ship shooting fireballs at us, they were powerful. They might have been firing blindly, but considering the distance they were able to cover and still hit us –
My stomach clenched with fear.
“Shewy,” Hark yelled, “get ready to make the jump to – ”
“You had better not say lightspeed!” I yelled.
“If you don’t like the way I run my ship, get your imp and get the hell off!” Hark shouted.
“Fine! Where’s the escape po– I mean, the lifeboat?”
Suddenly I felt a massive hand grab me by my cloak and lift me into the air. As I spun around slowly like a weight on a string, I saw Shewy scowling down at me like a giant, hairless Siamese cat.
“Stig!” I yelled as the giant carried me across the deck to a lifeboat. “Come on, we’re getting out of here!”
“Coming, boss,” Stig grunted as he staggered across the deck after me.
Shewy ripped the canvas cover off a lifeboat strapped to the deck by a couple of ropes. It was basically a rowboat with some kind of metal canister in the center, and its hull sat on a couple of greased rails.
Shewy plopped me down onto one of the narrow wooden seats, and Stig clambered in after me.