by Deck Davis
Rynk huffed. “It’s no good. They’re cutting me off. I can’t get to you. Eddie-boy, Harry, hoist her up. She might weigh a little more than you expect; she started comfort eating when I dumped her.”
“But—” said Glora.
“Just hoist her up! No sense in both of us dying. I’ll keep them distracted while you get the hell outta here.”
I didn’t know what to say. He was right, I knew. If the two members of Team Elk had cut off his route to the pod, then he was stuck. And if Glora waited around for him, the wave would hit her, and slowly, but surely, she’d die, too.
“Damn it,” I said. “He’s right. We better take her up.”
“Thanks, Ryan,” said Eddie.
Then there was silence over TeamSpeak. A few seconds later, I heard Rynk grunting. And then, he said: “Don’t call me Ryan, kid. And don’t sweat it. Just remember this sacrifice when it comes time to divide our bonus.”
Eddie and I both grabbed the crank handle and turned it around, around, around. The handle creaked and groaned and moaned, but Glora and her pod started to ascend. Up a foot. Then another. With the turn of a handle and whine of cables, we heaved her up the side of the cliff to safety.
Chapter Eleven
91 Teams Remaining
By the time Glora’s pod smacked against the cliff side, sweat smothered my skin. I let the crank handle rest, and I exhaled. It was a long breath, one that didn’t just release the air from my lungs but also some of my tension and my weariness, and the breeze stole my breath away with a sweep of its arm and sent it swirling up, then around, then it swooped down, before finally carrying it away long over the battle field into the distant places that I couldn’t see.
Eddie and I crossed the cliff and helped Glora out of her pod. She ignored our outstretched hands and pulled herself up. “What gentlemen you are,” she said, “but I’m not your grandma. Get yer mitts off me.”
Once she was on the summit, she kneeled at the edge of the cliff and looked down. I took a few cautious steps forward. I didn’t know why, but something told me I could do it, that I could look over the edge without my stomach contents dancing. Maybe it was the fact I’d just battled two VBR fighters while suspended twenty-five feet in the air, supported by nothing but a creaking pod of wood.
I walked until I was two feet away from the edge, and then I stopped. Okay, big guy. That’s close enough for today. It’s amazing you could even get this near to the edge. The ground was so far below us that it was hard to tell what was happening. Up high, I could see that the quarry surface was vaguely curved, though the angle was so soft that I hadn’t been able to tell when I was on the ground.
It was nothing like Bluejaw Quarry over near Duisben (not far from my ranch). Now, that was a quarry. It was so deep that it looked like a rocket had smashed into it, and it was full of impossibly dark water that resembled oil. Bill used to tell me that quarry sharks lurked in its darkened depths. He said it to scare me in that big-brother way of his, but I didn’t let myself get worked up. Rather than show fear, I used to take cuts of chicken and tins of tuna and throw them in the quarry for the sharks to feast on. I kept this up for four months, and not once did I see any sign of a fin.
They were good times, before the stuff with Lucas, before the accident. Just as I felt the warm fingers of nostalgia needle around in my brain, another memory came flooding back. This was a more jarring one, cold, like ice water pouring over my head non-stop until it froze my skin and made my throat sting with pain.
I remembered being at the quarry. It was me, Bill, and Lucas. We were fooling around, picking up slanted pieces of rock and skimming them across the quarry waters thirty feet below us, seeing who could make them bounce the most times. Lucas and Bill started getting competitive about it. Bill had just thrown a mythical seven-bouncer. With that feat accomplished, he turned to Lucas and winked in the most obnoxious way he could manage.
“Good luck following that, Lukie.” Bill had said. He meant no harm in it; he was just messing, but, from the look on Lucas’s face, I knew Lucas was in a funk.
Lucas stood up. He grabbed the thinnest, sharpest rock he could find. He walked up to Bill with it. A mean look was written on his young face. I thought he was going to throw it at him. Then he walked passed Bill and stood at the side of the quarry, overlooking the waters way below. He stood so close that a quarter of his sneakers were over the edge. Even thinking how close he was to the drop made my stomach twist, even years later. Lucas cocked his arm and got ready to throw when he lost his footing. He screamed and fell. He tried to grab the ledge as he dropped, but, instead, he banged his head and then plummeted, yelling, into the black waters thirty feet below.
My throat closed like someone had shoved a fist in it. I managed to make my feet move close enough that I could look down. The air left my lungs. I couldn’t see him. I needed to jump down. Lucas was somewhere in the oil-black quarry water. He was sinking into its depths, where I imagined that Bill’s quarry sharks would suddenly become real and surround Lucas as a pack and play with him before going for the kill.
I had to jump in and help him, but my legs weren’t working. All I could think about was the fall. I guessed that I had a fear of heights even before what happened to Mom, Dad, and Bill. As I grappled with my own fears, I saw a shape leap off the cliff to the right of me, and suddenly Bill was diving down. While he found Lucas in the waters and pulled him out, I at least recovered myself enough to use my holo-menu to get help.
Lucas learned what happened after that. He knew that I’d frozen up there. I admitted it; I wouldn’t hide it from him. I was just a kid, not much older than him, really. Maybe it was understandable that I had frozen. The thing was, though, I knew he had never forgiven me. He somehow got it into his head that I’d pushed him, and he’d blamed me for the whole incident ever since then. Now, all these years later in Eden VBR, was I supposed to think the presence of a quarry on the map was an accident?
“I can’t really see what’s happening,” Glora said, peering down.
“Rynk’s in trouble,” said Eddie. “They’re closing in on him.”
Glora punched the stony ground. “Damn it! They’ve moved next to the cliff. Can’t see them at all now.”
There was nothing we could do. We were up here, and Rynk was trapped below with two members of Team Elk and a wave to contend with. Unless he got to a pod so we could winch him up, there was no way we could help him (not that we were in any condition to, anyway). Eddie’s Assault Leader boost had worn off now, giving me back my original stats.
HP: 99/199
Stamina: 30/172
Mana: 230/261
George from Team Elk had taken a good chunk of HP from me with his critical crossbow hit while winching Glora up had drained my stamina. Glora and Eddie were in a similar condition. The short guy had caught Glora with the edges of one of his lightening-nets and drained seventy-five percent of her mana and half her hitpoints while Eddie had seemingly born the brunt of Rindelfa’s ice blasts.
“There must be something we can do,” said Eddie, pacing.
I checked our team page on my holo-menu. Rynk was still there and he still had HP, which meant Team Elk and the wave hadn’t killed him yet. Despite that, I could see that his hitpoints were steadily dropping as the wave lashed over him, inflicting a point of damage per second as punishment for not fleeing it.
“We can’t get to him,” I said.
“He’s right,” said Glora. “Not a bloody thing we can do.”
I shouldn’t have felt anything about it. I hadn’t wanted Rynk on our team, after all. He just was a necessity, a drafted fourth member there to make up the numbers so that we didn’t forfeit with an incomplete team. I hadn’t trusted him from the start. Yet, was I wrong? I mean, sure, he’d tried to charge me to swap an axe with him. He’d sold us a stolen VBR map that turned out to be incorrect. He was no saint. But then, he must have had his reasons for needing the bits so much. I’d never bothered to ask him because I
had judged him straight away. I’d spent the whole of five seconds appraising him, and then I deemed him to be a slippery guy, and in my mind, Rynk had worn that label from then on.
This was the problem. People weren’t completely one thing or the other, I realized. You could be a mix of everything. Take Eddie. He was brave, and he was completely committed to Perlshaw, yet he sometimes took stupid risks to get his kicks. People had different sides to them, and why should Rynk be any different? Maybe I should have given him a break. In a career like VBR, you needed to hustle a little to get by. I’d learned through bitter experience with my old team that loyalty and VBR weren’t dance partners. You didn’t make friends in a career like this, and, as long as you accepted that, you were fine.
Even as I had that thought, I watched as Glora peered over the edge of the cliff and Eddie put his arm around her shoulders. And I felt a warmth. Something told me, deep down, that I was wrong. You could trust people in VBR. And you could make real friends.
“Okay, guys,” I said. “We better get ourselves healed and move on.”
As I said the words, a combat message icon displayed in the corner of my vision. I opened it.
99 Teams Remaining!
“You guys get that too?”
“Yup,” said Eddie.
“Uh huh,” answered Glora. “Now that the first wave has hit, teams are gonna start dropping quicker than phat beats in a New Eden techno club.”
“That’s a weirdly specific analogy,” I said, “but there were a hundred teams just a minute ago. Think that was team Elk that got eliminated?”
Eddie shook his head. “Rynk couldn’t have taken them out on his own.”
“Well, he’s not dead,” I said. “He’s still on the team sheet. He has HP and mana.”
I switched to TeamSpeak. “Rynk, you there, buddy?”
There was no answer.
“His HP’s dribbling out,” said Glora. “Thirty-nine…thirty-eight…”
I focused on Rynk’s character sheet on my holo-screen. Glora was right; Rynk had thirty-seven hitpoints now, and the wave was sapping it by the second. Despite that, something else was happening. Rynk’s mana was draining like rocket fuel burning in a missile launch.
280/301
265/301
240/301
Down and down his mana went, but I couldn’t figure out why.
“His hitpoints are in the twenties!” shouted Glora.
I ran to the edge of the cliff. I managed to get a foot away from it now, and being so close amazed me. Would I have been able to do that yesterday? Not a chance. I looked down. The sight of the ground and the tiny mine cart and steel drums hit my vision so quickly I felt like I’d plunged off the cliff. I staggered back, feeling the dizziness of vertigo. Okay, so maybe I was getting better with heights, but I wasn’t cured completely.
Still, in my limited time looking down, I hadn’t seen any sign of Rynk.
“Fifteen hitpoints,” called Glora. “Fourteen…thirteen…”
I checked the team menu again. Rynk’s mana had plummeted all the way to seventy-five. What was he doing to drain so much mana? Was the wave sapping it? Had the overseers modified the waves so that they drained mana as well as hitpoints?
“Seven…six…five…” said Glora.
“He’s done,” said Eddie, shaking his head. “Thanks for the help, Rynk old buddy.”
“Four…three…”
I pushed the vertigo away and forced myself to get to the cliff edge. And then I had a shock. Rynk was there. He was just a foot away from me, stuck to the side of the quarry cliff. The blue light of the wave covered him. I reached out, grabbed his hand and dragged him up, out of the danger of the wave and onto solid land.
“One…and now it’s stopped falling,” said Glora.
“Err, Glora. Your boyfriend’s here,” said Eddie.
Rynk was alive. He was down to a single hitpoint and his mana was gone, but he was alive. He had the remnants of a lighting net stuck to his shirt like cobwebs. Blood smeared the blade of his scimitar, while a nasty gash on his right cheek and his neck suggested he’d had a close encounter with a giant’s mace.
“Pump this sucker full of potion, stat!” said Eddie. “I’m not losing another patient. Har, hand me the scalpel.” While Eddie pretended to be an ER doctor, I checked my inventory and found that I was out of health potions, because I’d already given mine to Rynk. Luckily, Glora passed one over to him.
Rynk grumbled a little, then sat up. He drank the potion back and topped up his hitpoints.
“What the hell happened?” said Eddie. “How’d you get up here?”
Rynk rubbed his cheek, smearing blood on his index finger. “I took the elevator,” he said.
I’d worked it out by then. “He used Wall Walk after all,” I said.
Rynk shrugged. “I managed to take care of the giant and his buddy, but the wave was hitting me. No time to try and walk around the cliff, so I had to try Wall Walk. Only thing I could do. Didn’t think I’d make it to the top, but here I am. Now, about that bonus…”
“We’ll talk bonuses later,” I said. “Right now, we’ve got a few problems.”
Eddie stood up. “Problems? What problems? We’re in the top hundred already, Har. And with the wave hitting, the other teams will start dropping. That’s good going so far. We’ve leveled up, we’ve got weapons…”
“And yet, we got ambushed and almost died,” I said. “Something’s going on, and we need to figure it out.”
“Mind if I level up first?” asked Glora.
“No problem.”
I remembered that I had post-battle messages of my own to check. I accessed my holo-menu and selected the text.
Level up to level 5!
- HP increased to 227
- Stamina increased to 201
- Mana increased to 300
Choose new skill or upgrade existing:
-Armorer 2/5 [Axe and Crossbow proficiencies stolen]
-Terrain Drain 1/5
- Abmeleon 1/5
- Skill Steal 0/5
With my level-up acknowledged, my hitpoint, stamina, and mana bars topped up. Next, I needed to boost my skills. This time, spending my skill point was an easy decision to make. I had three out of four skills, but it was time I started playing with a full deck.
Skill Steal unlocked! 1/5
“Hey, Harry. C’mere a sec, partner,” said Rynk.
When I closed my holo-menu and looked at him, Rynk was holding the waraxe in his hand, the one he’d tried to barter with me for an extra cut of our VBR profits. The axe had a slender but sturdy grip, capped by a humongous blade that looked like it’d chop right through the trunk of an elm.
“Take it,” he said, holding the axe out.
“I thought we’d talked about this. We all agreed to five percent, Ryan. I’m not giving you more.”
He grimaced a little when I used his real name, but then gave me a slight smile. “Just take it…before I change my mind.”
I took the axe from him. The weight felt good in my hands. It was bulky, and my attacks would be a lot slower than with my wood-felling axe, but I could almost feel the brute strength of it.
Waraxe
An axe designed for slow but powerful blows. Few armor types can withstand it.
[+105 damage]
I equipped the waraxe. Since my inventory bag was only level one, it meant that I’d hit my carry capacity. With a shred of reluctance, I dropped my wood-felling axe.
“Bye, buddy. Thanks for all the help,” I told it. Then, I faced Rynk. “I guess I don’t know what to say.”
“You gave me a potion for free. Got me to thinking… Maybe we’ll get more bits if we work together. And that’s all I’m focused on, so don’t get any ideas. Bits, bits, bits. Nothing else.”
“Sure. Well, thanks, Rynk.”
He shrugged. “Maybe when all this is done, we’ll have a sleepover and braid each other’s hair. But for now, Harriet, we need a plan.”
We gathered in a circle on the summit, near the pole and crank handle. Up high, the temperature changed from one second to the next. First, the wind was so hot it felt dry, and then its direction would change, and it would send an icy blast slapping against our faces. I guessed it was because the quarry cliff was slap in the middle of where the sand dune and tundra quadrants crossed.
“There’s something I need to talk to you guys about,” I said. “There’s no doubt now that Team Elk was waiting for us at the quarry, right?”
“Two hidin’ in the pod, two on the ground,” said Rynk.
“And there was nothing at the quarry. Nowhere to loot, no NPCs to fight. Hell, the only way to escape the wave was to use the pulley system. Not exactly efficient. There was no reason for them to be there.”