“That’s a very non-D thing to say,” I remarked.
“Shut up,” she replied. “So I’m gonna slip up a little around you, okay? Just don’t—”
“Don’t tell the guys,” I said, finishing her sentence. “I know, I know.”
“So, what is it you doubt?” D prodded. “Whether you can cook chicken tikka masala? Whether the snow’s going to stop falling? Your sexuality—?”
“I doubt,” I said loudly, interrupting her. “That The Ripper, your boyfriend, is going to fight fair and let us go.”
“Okay, first of all—he’s not my boyfriend,” D replied. “And second of all, that’s not something you should be worrying about right now.”
“Oh, it’s not?”
“No,” D said, shaking her head. “You’re the highest level of all of us, probably of the entire server, and you have another 51 levels to go before you can even go up against him. There’s a lot to do between now and then.”
“Too much.” I sighed, balling up my fist and bringing it down on the edge of the fountain. “I—I really thought that Sparkling Arlan Stone would lead to something.”
“Hey,” D said, prodding me in the side. “We’ll figure it out, all right? I’m not about to let some stupid game beat me, are you?”
I smiled. I wasn’t used to motivational speeches from D that involved anything other than smack talk, but I didn’t mind it. Just another thing to get used to.
“No,” I replied. “I’m not.”
72
New Possibilities
Spirits were low as we made our way to the Ice Golem camps North of Mountain Retreat. But I didn’t know what else to do. I’d become the leader of the group and I was the only one familiar with the area, so I had to make a decision.
Everyone but Og was with us as we made our way through the falling snow to where I’d spent countless days grinding the icy monsters.
“Get ready for a lot of sapphire shards,” I’d told them as we began our trek, trying to lighten the mood, which was somber to say the least. D walked alongside me in silence. I’d been trying to find a way to get us back to where we were—back when we were just a couple of guys that met online and played video games with each other, but it was proving more difficult than I’d expected.
“So,” I said casually. “How ‘bout them Red Sox?”
D looked at me with surprise, then burst out laughing. “Oh, yeah, them Red Sox?”
“I dunno,” I replied with a shrug. “Trying to ease the tension here.”
“Yeah, I understand. Don’t worry too hard. This isn’t your fault.”
“Stop that!” I gasped.
“What? Stop what!?” D replied, sounding shocked.
“That!” I replied. “Being nice and supportive!”
“I’m—sorry?” D sounded completely confused by reaction.
“That’s not the D I know,” I explained. “The D I know would tell me to man up and shut up or something, not ‘don’t worry too hard’ or something!”
D looked at me like I was a yeti for a moment, then smiled and laughed. “Hah, all right. Come on, Jack! Man up or shut up! We’ve got to get out of here and sitting around moping isn’t helping anybody!”
“That’s better.” I laughed, looking up at the snow that was falling all around us. It was day again, but the sky was cloudy as it usually was. We weren’t too far off from the Ice Golems. The plan was to show everyone where the spawns were, then go off on my own to explore and look for more camps or higher-level mobs.
“You know, Jack,” D said. “I’ve been thinking. That item you got—what’s it called again?”
“Uh, Sacrificial Stone of Binding,” I replied, checking my inventory for the weird item.
“I think there might be more to it than we think.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you remember the Goddess chick that showed up?”
“Of course I do—weird right?”
“Yeah, and that’s my point,” D went on. “She looked unfinished. Old. Like she was part of an earlier version of the game.”
“I’m with you so far,” I replied.
“The rumor was, Call of Carrethen wasn’t initially developed for the Wellspring. It was just going to be another MMO, but once the technology was available, they changed the game to virtual reality.”
“And so the Goddess is a part of the old game?” I asked.
“Well, yes and no,” D replied slowly. “What I’m thinking, is that the Goddess is actually an old part of the game that they forgot to remove when they ported the game over to the Wellspring device.”
“So, basically like something from the Alpha version of the game?”
“Right.” D nodded. “I mean—think about it. Why would you create an item for players to use that would combine two characters from different accounts? I mean, who would want to do that?”
“I dunno.” I shrugged. “I guess maybe friends or siblings who were quitting the game and wanted to give their experience away?”
“Yeah…” D mused. “I mean, maybe. But then why mask it in some sort of quest line? Why not just make it an option in the interface, or some kind of pay option or something like that? Making it a quest item doesn’t make sense.”
“So, what are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure,” D replied. “But maybe… maybe it was for the developers back in the day. Like a shortcut for in-game Alpha testers. Just grab a Sparkling Arlan Stone, hand it in, and then use the Sacrificial Stone of Binding to combine a couple of characters for whatever reason.”
“So like, a sort of easy in-game developer interface?”
“Exactly.” D nodded. “World of Warcraft had GM Island. It was an island only the admins could reach. Maybe that cave you found was sort of like that, hidden away and the item you got was meant for any of those old Alpha testers?”
It made sense—sort of. Game developers often had roundabout ways of solving problems that the general public would never have to be involved in. I remember a game we played once that had a bunch of hidden locations that didn’t show up on the map or in the actual game engine.
You could walk right through them without seeing them. The models were there, the game developers had just simply made them invisible and allowed players to pass right through them, to avoid having to pull them completely out of the game. Some players found ways to glitch inside of them of course. How some people find stuff like that was always beyond me. Maybe D was right, and I’d happened upon some old part of Carrethen that had never been removed.
“Okay, let’s say that’s true,” I replied, going along with the line of thought. “Where’s that get us? I still can’t use it.”
“Yeah,” D replied slowly.
“Right?”
“I mean—yeah.” She nodded. “I was just thinking out loud.”
“About how people fall in love in mysterious ways?”
D turned and looked at me like I’d just told her I was Satan come back to Earth to eat her soul.
“What?!” she gasped. “Are you—hitting on me that openly?”
“No, no, no!” I stammered, waving my hands. “I’m quoting a song! Ya know, Ed Sheeran!?”
D breathed a deep sigh of relief and shook her head. “Nope. Don’t know him.”
“It’s an oldie,” I admitted. “I just wanted to keep up with you and your database of quotes.”
“Movie quotes,” D reminded me. “Not crappy pop songs.”
“Hey, it’s not that crappy…” I looked up and saw the first group of Ice Golems standing unmoving in front of us. “Oh, look at that. We’re here.”
73
Old Enemies
The rest of the group found grinding Ice Golems as monotonous as I had, and the long spawns had everyone rolling their eyes.
“This will take forever,” Xavier grumbled as he finished one off.
“I’m going to go look around,” I told them. “You all bound at the Mountain Retreat, right?”
>
They nodded.
“I’ll come with you,” D told me.
“No, you should stay,” I replied. “You need the levels. I’ll just do some exploring and either meet you back here or at the Retreat. Sound good?”
“Don’t get yourself into any trouble,” Cavey warned.
“Don’t worry,” I replied, puffing out my chest. “I’m Jack! The most wanted man in Carrethen. What kind of trouble could I possibly get into?”
Everyone had a good laugh and I picked a tree to the West, far off in the distance, and made my way in its direction.
But after ten minutes of walking, I’d come up empty.
It seemed as though the area surrounding Mountain Retreat was pretty much all the same. The valley where I’d found the Sparkling Arlan Stone was somewhere to my left, but I was more interested in a lone tree on the top of a bare hilltop to the North East. There wasn’t anything remarkable about it, other than the fact that it was the first lone tree I’d seen since leaving my group behind. That alone made it more interesting than anything else around me, so I changed direction and headed for it.
When I reached the top of the hill, I realized that the tree was just that—a tree, but I’d stumbled upon something much more interesting.
Down the hill, was a small stone building, not quite large enough to be a castle. It looked to be in ruin, but swarming around it, were countless small humanoid monsters. They looked like people who’d been possessed or lost their souls.
Their eyes were completely purple, with no white at all. They wore ragged leather armor in various states of disrepair. I inspected the closest one.
Undead Warrior—level 82.
“Wow,” I remarked to myself. There were tons of them. If the respawn rate was fast enough, this would be a perfect place to bring the others to level. But just as I turned away to head back to get them, a player emerged from the other side of the ruins. I recognized him instantly.
He was wearing a different robe than before. This one was deep green with a hood. His casting stone had been replaced with a thin wand made from crimson wood, but I knew immediately who it was, simply by the way he moved.
Bonecrusher—level 69.
I tried to step back so he wouldn’t see me, but it was too late. His eyes met mine and I felt that same fear I’d felt back in Stoneburg rise up inside me. As I drew my sword, two more players emerged from behind him.
Mikey—level 67.
Wrack—level 68.
Instantly, my sword was in my hand.
“Wait!” Bonecrusher shouted. “Just wait!”
“What are you talking about!?” I roared back. Just the sight of him had me on the verge of hysteria, and I was ready to take all three of them on if I had to.
At the sound of his voice, several Undead Warriors turned in their direction. Bone dashed away from them, followed by his two companions, just far enough to stay out of their aggro range.
“We’re peaceful!” Bonecrusher called out to me. “We don’t want to fight.”
“Bullshit!” I roared. I was ready for anything, but to my surprise, Bonecrusher actually put his wand away.
“Look, see?” he said as he walked slowly towards me. “Guys, put your weapons away!”
Mikey was wearing studded leather armor and held a set of double swords. He looked hesitantly at Bonecrusher then put them away. Wrack was a beautiful, fierce-looking girl with an axe almost as tall as her. Somehow, by the way she carried herself, I got the feeling that like D, the gender of the player behind the character did not match. He glanced at Bone skeptically, then put it away.
Bonecrusher began walking up the hill, but I held my sword out at him.
“Stay there,” I warned him.
“We don’t want to fight,” he told me. “Especially with you being level 75.”
It was a joke—an attempt to ease the tension, but I wasn’t in the mood, especially not from Bonecrusher.
“I should kill you for what you did,” I told him. “And your friends for just being with you.”
“Jack, I understand why you hate me,” Bonecrusher said, taking another step forward. “But please—I’ve changed. A lot’s happened since our last encounter.”
My first instinct was to not buy into anything he was saying. This was a liar and a killer and the partner of the man who killed Gehman. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he was telling the truth. Could someone as cold blooded as Bonecrusher change? I knew firsthand that two months of Carrethen could have quite an effect on a person. I guess it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities.
“We just want to level in peace,” Bonecrusher went on. “And we’re willing to let you use this place too. It’s good experience—fast spawns.”
“Uh-huh,” I retorted. “And then jump us when our backs are turned. How many more of you are there anyway?”
“It’s just us!” he protested. “Nothing sinister. I promise.”
“Nothing… Sinister?” I asked. “Is that like a play on words or something?”
“No, uh—” He stammered. It was strange to see him so… vulnerable. “I didn’t even mean to say it that way.”
“Listen,” I told him. “I’ll give you guys a chance to get the Hell out of here now, or I’m taking you all on right now.”
I pulled my wand out and aimed it at Bonecrusher, getting ready to cast Menace if he made another move towards me.
“Just wait, Jack,” Bonecrusher said, almost pleading. “There’s more—”
“Jack!?”
A voice far behind me. D’s voice.
Oh no…
74
Out of Options
“Jack!? Where are you?”
Bonecrusher’s comrades instantly had their weapons back out. I spun around and looked out at the terrain behind me to see D, Cavey, and the rest coming up the hill behind me.
This is bad, I thought, trying to remain calm.
“There he is!” Baltos said cheerfully. “Hey, we cleared out all the ice golems, we really need another place to level!”
“Okay, I’ll be back in a minute!” I said quickly, trying to keep them from coming all the way up to me, but there was nothing I could do.
“You are right,” Xavier said. “It is sparse up here. Difficult for a group.”
“Did you find anything—?” Cavey started to ask but stopped when he saw the three players behind me down the hill. Instantly, his staff was in his hand as he prepared to cast.
“Bonecrusher!” he roared, casting a fireball before I could stop him.
Bonecrusher leapt out of the way and fired back.
No, no, no, no!
“Wait!” I shouted, waving my hands in the air. But it was too late
D fired an acid arrow and hit Mikey in the chest. Baltos, Xavier, and Og raced down the hill, weapons drawn, and leapt into action. Only I stood alone, caught in the midst of another battle.
“Stop!” I shouted, but my voice was lost amidst the sounds of fire and metal. My group was larger, and some of us were similar levels to the others, but Bonecrusher and his two partners were very skilled. After all, they were more experienced with player-on-player combat than most of us.
But slowly, my group began to push them back. Og and Baltos were both ganging up on Mikey, who was trying with everything he had to deflect their onslaught of attacks. They were too fast for him though, and his double swords could only block so much, and his health was steadily ticking down.
Bonecrusher was racing around, casting frost bolts at every opportunity. He’d hit Xavier with some sort of freeze spell to give himself time to get some distance between himself and my party, but Cavey and D were firing at him with everything they had.
Wrack had managed to leap up onto one of the taller walls of the ruined castle and was casting down with some sort of slashing spell that sent enormous spiraling blades through the air. They took a long time to cast, but one slammed into D and dealt a ton of damage.
Do something!
I had no choice. Raising my sword, I dashed into the fray.
Mikey was the closest to me. I stunned him with Warrior’s Charge and unleashed all my abilities on him, dropping him to below critical.
“Stop!” I roared at my comrades as they raised their weapons to strike again. “We don’t have to kill them!”
Baltos and Og stepped back as Mikey recoiled in fear, his swords held in a cross in front of him in a last-ditch effort to block the next attack.
I whirled around to see Bonecrusher’s health dropping as well. We were winning. If I could control things, we could finish the fight without anybody dying, and that was all that mattered.
“Please, don’t!” Bonecrusher shouted, real panic in his voice. “I’m sorry!”
“Wait, D!” I shouted, as he pulled back his bow to fire another arrow. “Don’t kill him! We won!”
“To Hell with that!” D shouted back as he let fly. The arrow struck Bonecrusher, chipping away more of his health. He was approaching critical.
“Stop!” I shouted, but barely got the word out of my mouth before I saw something over Bonecrusher’s shoulder.
At least ten players rushing towards us. Three archers fired a volley of arrows in our direction. A mage sent a lightning bolt into Baltos. Another fired a volley of flames.
“Get down, Bone!” the mage called out. Bonecrusher hit the floor, along with the rest of his party, as the wall of fire cascaded over us. The damage wasn’t terrible, but it applied a debuff, Rotting Flames, that started to tick down on everyone’s health pool.
So that’s what he meant, I thought as I remembered what Bonecrusher had been trying to tell me when my group interrupted him.
“Just wait, Jack. There’s more—”
More men behind him. More members of his group. Whoever they were, they obviously didn’t share Bonecrusher’s sentiments for peace—if that was what he actually wanted.
He could have just been pretending to be friendly, while the rest of his group returned to join in on the fight. But whatever the reason, none of that mattered now. We were completely outnumbered. The two mages hit their friends with healing spells, restoring them to full, as their melee line charged into us.
Call of Carrethen: A LitRPG and GameLit novel (Wellspring Book 1) Page 31