by G. Akella
"So explain..."
"Well, you said it’d take us two hours to reach your office on foot." He smiled broadly. "Meaning we have some time to watch the monster a little. We can run the last bit of the trip if we have to. Sadly, we have nothing to record it with. Nobody will ever believe us."
"I can take a mental recording," Lita reassured him. "Then I can show it to others. Otherwise they wouldn’t believe it, you’re right."
"All right, Jaelitte!" the rogue nodded enthusiastically, and the next moment the Spinosaurus reached the bridge and, apparently too busy watching us in return, smashed its head right into the Golden Gate.
Though perhaps "smashed" was too gentle a word... The driveable portion of the Golden Gate twisted, and the monster’s face crashed into the left support of the nearest suspension tower, creating a din so deafening that it must have been heard all the way on the East Coast! It was louder than two trains at top-speed colliding. Into a massive gong. And then exploding... Cables snapped and whistled up into the air, and the tower groaned - but somehow, it survived! The furious, resentful roar that followed would have rendered us permanently deaf, I was sure, if not for the protective shield thrown up by my wife.
Roaring like a wounded elephant - a fifty-thousand-ton elephant - the monster swung at the metal with both arms. The supports clanged and bent dangerously inward, though the shield once again swallowed most of the sound, and yet by some miracle the bridge sprang back, hammering the Spinosaurus in the jaw. It rattled the monster’s skull, and the flailing giant collapsed backwards into the water. Ha! Checkmate, bitch! It’s no easy task knocking down a work of human hands, is it? The people around me burst into shouts of joy.
It was like they had known to expect a show! To be sure, Arkon was far more generous with spectacles than Earth ever was, but there were always exceptions to every rule. As massive blobs of spray slammed into the shield covering us, and the waves rose up to the level of the pier, we saw the monster return to its feet and rushing in for its next attack. It leaped out of the water and landed on the strained bridge. The blow proved fatal, to the latter. And I didn’t blame the builders of the Golden Gate - they could never have seen this coming. The supports collapsed, and the bridge fell into the water, along with the monster that had mounted it. The left side of the tower swung down as it fell and crashed into the reptile’s back crest, causing it to stumble, but it remained on its feet and was soon violently finishing off its defeated foe.
There were three things that I could watch forever: fire, water, and a monster violently tearing apart the world’s most famous bridge. But this circus might go on forever. And forever was more time than we had.
"All right, movie’s over! Lita, take to the air! The rest of you, let’s go!" I shouted into the channel, giving my voice some magic amplification and prodding a hesitant Reece in the back. Then I led them east.
A monster attacking the city proved to be quite the unexpected cause of mass happiness. For nearly the whole walk, the people in my party traded their impressions of what they had just seen. It was like leaving a movie theater after seeing a film that was better than you could have hoped. The characters’ big lines still playing in your head, the final climax in your mind’s eye, along with everything that might have gone differently, and you are eager to share what you’ve seen and what you think. And the epic tale of lizard vs. bridge did not disappoint.
Lita promptly cleared the way for us as we moved. I was at the head of the party, guiding our way. To an outside observer, we would have looked quite funny. Men and women in plate mail, chainmail and leather armor, wielding medieval weapons and running through a post-apocalyptic city with streets clogged with thousands of the living dead. Plus two twelve-foot dragons, a land-dwelling croc called Mopsy, and a living flamethrower suspended in the air. I’d never seen a single movie with a plot quite this audacious. And I had no doubt that what lay ahead would be even more unprecedented. The worst thing about all this was the unbearable smell, though, thankfully, the substance I had smeared under my nose dampened most of it.
Strangely, none of the former NPCs in the party were particularly surprised by the skyscrapers, the pavement, or the hundreds of rusting cars. Reece asked a few questions, of course, and Luffy was gesticulating his explanations to Tasha, but that was it. Nor did I notice nostalgia or any other form of enthusiasm about our environment from the players. Arkon had taken root in our minds. What interest did an elf or a demon or a dragon have in a bunch of rows of huge stone boxes?
Behind us, the city was ablaze. Lita created a scene more wild than even a drunk Salvador Dali could have imagined, as she scattered flames in all directions. The undead were consumed instantly, along with everything else that was flammable. Far behind us, the gigantic creature choked out another loud roar. Charred bodies lay smoldering on the asphalt. The wind carried the smoke to the east, and as I ran, I knew that this ancient and essentially redundant zone would disappear the moment we left it. This San Francisco was nothing like the one from the real world. Not because it was filled with undead, nor because the buildings had fallen into total disrepair. There was a pervasive but elusive falseness to it all, as if this zone was from a past version of the game, where realism barely pushed eighty percent. I wanted it to go away! It was terrible to see my old home, the jewel of the West Coast, in this awful condition. The streetcars sat motionless and rusting on the rails, the denuded mannequins stared out of shattered windows, and faded signs swung in the breeze from Lita’s flames! This place bore no resemblance to anywhere else in Arkon…
As we approached our destination, we saw more and more destroyed buildings. The undead had practically disappeared, but now our squad was slowed down by the rubble on the road. And more serious problems arrived once we were almost at our goal.
Lita came in over the channel. "You can’t go any further this way."
She landed on a pile of debris up ahead of us and assumed her usual form, then turned to face me and gestured behind her.
I climbed up and surveyed the obstacle with a stream of curses and an order for our party to halt. The office building, or rather the surviving part of it, was surrounded by an abyss on all sides, reaching nearly to its walls. On the bay side, it extended all the way to the water, and so it formed a moat filled with saltwater sloshing some fifty yards below. But that was not the worst of it. The building’s frame had been enveloped in some shiny substance which from this distance looked like black-colored spiderweb. Only one of the twenty four visible windows was free of the stuff.
Donut had ascended by now. "Is that it?" I nodded. "I hope the server room is in the surviving part of the building, Roman."
"Yes," I affirmed, nodding at the paneless window on the fifth floor. "On the floor with the open window. That’s our way in. The server room is seventy yards or so from that window. Through two halls and down a hallway. But I can’t see a damn thing, so I can’t cast a portal to there. And there’s nowhere visible to cast it to, either. I don’t see any platforms or ledges, and I doubt that webbing is just for looks."
"So what?" Masyanya offered, grabbing Donut’s hand for support as she reached the top of the rubble. "Just ask Lita to toss you inside, then cast a portal to where we are."
I looked at the huntress in surprise, then at the window opening. I grinned as I scratched my chin.
"Pregnancy has a strange effect on you," Bonbon remarked, giving Masyanya a suspicious look. "Soon you’ll be chanting multiplication tables. It's unnerving."
Masyanya countered with a sharp look of her own.
"Keep giving us more evidence we came from monkeys, Bonbon."
I failed to hear the rest of the conversation. Lita turned around, grabbed me with her left arm, and dove off the cliff into the abyss. My stomach threatened to lose itself as the dark water approached rapidly, but then I felt the pull of g-forces downward as we arced towards the window. I felt no indignation over my wife taking the initiative without even bothering to ask me if I felt l
ike going for a ride on this roller-coaster. Once we drew to within fifty yards of the window, I used Step through Darkness to surge inside so as to avoid risking Lita's life. Who knew what kind of creature had left that webbing? Or worse, what kind of creature that webbing was.
Stale dust clouded into my face, and shards of glass gnawed into my feet. I slipped on the glass, but avoided falling by grabbing a nearby desk.
"Thanks!" I said to my wife over the channel, then waved to the party and looked for a good spot for a portal.
This room was familiar to me. An open floorplan office roughly thirty yards across and fifty in length. Rows of desks and monitors, each the same as the last, filled the room, and four vending machines filled with the colorful wrappers of long-spoiled chocolates lined the wall, next to a black coffee maker. Given that the building was surrounded by water, I found the lack of mildew absurd. But that was only the start... Usually, when you enter a house, you can tell whether its owners have left or if they’re just off hiding somewhere. And if they left, you can, by some inner sense arranging the empirical evidence, estimate how long ago that happened... That sense told me that no one had ever been here. This was no better than a dollhouse. It was a sham, just like the entirety of the city outside.
Just a little more than an was hour left. I tore a dozen desks from the floor, threw them aside, and cast a portal in the vacated space.
My wife came through first. She looked around the hall with profound skepticism, sat on one of the chairs, and crossed her legs.
"So, you’re telling me the Creator of our world once lived in this wretched heap of trash?"
"Actually, this particular heap was home to PR," I smiled, nodding at one of the doors. "The room we need is that way."
Lita didn't answer. Like most of the natives, she was quite skeptical of our story of the creation of Arkon, but I didn’t insist, and she didn’t bother to argue. That was the secret to marital bliss.
The party was emerging from the portal now and shuffling off to either side, as was their habit, to avoid getting bumped from behind as more came through. George and Lola expanded the room a bit as they entered, and would have destroyed half of the furniture had Vaessa not ordered them to keep still. Some more surrealism to digest... Here were the characters from a game visiting the game developers' office. Through a portal made by a player who once worked on designing the game.
"Interesting," Alyona remarked as she brushed the dust from a desk. "Was this where your office was, Roman?"
"Office?" Donut nodded at the even rows of desks. "No, this is where they kept the slaves from overseas. I've seen a show about it on the visor once."
Bonbon nodded. "Yeah, every lunch break for them was ramen for five minutes, then back to work." He dug around in his bag, apparently looking for food, when the vending machines caught his eye.
The bald man grinned and clapped Kan on the back.
"Follow me, sir. I have some work that’s right up your alley..."
But the screens all blinked then, the lights sparked and surged, and the room collapsed into something the size of a familiar office.
I recognized it at once. A wide oaken desk with paper trays and a carved figure of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis. Six black leather chairs, a sofa in the corner, and the black matte body of a Titan 2037 Pro, the most powerful game capsule in the world. The man was dressed in a blue business suit with a white shirt, bottomed off by brown patent leather shoes. He sat at the table with his legs crossed as he lectured the person sitting opposite him. The guest was seated in an armchair, and from my angle I couldn’t see who he was. But I knew from his hunched posture and the hands covering his face that the man was in an intensely depressed state of mind. About ten seconds later, the sound started coming through.
"...the timer. All of the Z-blocks must disappear. The AI will go mad, and-"
The man sharply dropped his hands and raised his head with a gasp.
"Have you gone crazy, Adam? The first and second-gen capsules do not have adequate protection against a shock like that. Ninety-three percent of the players inside will die. That’s anywhere from seven to ten million users!"
"What do you care, Jake? Do you know them or something?" Cheney adjusted the flaps of his unbuttoned jacket and leaned forward intently. "Or is it a life sentence you’re looking for?"
"No, but-"
"Fifty million dollars," Cheney said carefully, "have already been transferred to your private Virgin Islands account. You’d like to be able to spend them, wouldn’t you, Jake? See your daughter grow up? Wouldn’t you?"
Adam spun a keychain with a fob off his finger, caught it with his hand, hopped out from behind the desk, grabbed the guest's shoulders and gave them a shake.
Then he smiled. "Come on now, Jake. Our capsules have protection, and we’ll have the perfect alibi. Now, go check your account, and make the right decision. We’re all counting on you."
Patting the other man on the shoulder, Cheney glanced at his watch, then quickly headed for the exit.
The image faded.
You’ve completed the quest: The Escape.
The last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. A red portal appeared in the center of the hall. Beyond it lay the cave of the Dark God, the final boss of the Prophecy. The timer had disappeared, so there was no need to hurry. I glanced around at the frowns on each face in my party, sighed, and reached for my pipe. It was clear that everyone had witnessed the scene. RP-17 had a strange way of presenting it to us, but I didn’t mind. Without saying anything, I took a puff from my pipe, sat next to Alyona on a desk, and considered my feet.
That son of a bitch had sentenced us all to die. Ten million people! I was no AI Engineer, but everything made sense now. Once he had learned from Clever that the FBI was investigating, Cheney and his accomplices had decided to cover their tracks. RP-17’s divided consciousness would be united, and then it, and the world with it, would go mad. I suspected that there would have been no trace of the Azure Valley. The company would announce that there had been an accident. Certain "privileged individuals" had had their earlier-generation capsules fitted with the necessary protection, but since Cheney had mentioned an alibi, that meant that this knowledge had been kept a secret. Of course, what RP-17 had just shown to us had been taken out of Jake’s head, as not everyone had been in the Azure Valley when the Patch hit. Most interestingly, Sage’s consciousness remained divided. He had pulled many out, saving them, but was unable to care for himself. With the death of the White Dragon, would a part of his consciousness disappear, or would the dragon’s death initiate the union he had been aiming for?
"Hey... How many of you guys were using the newer capsules?"
Bonbon calmly exhaled a puff of smoke and turned to the window with an evil grin.
"Anna, my daughter, all of you - they all died just to cover their asses." The warrior pointed at the portal. "The AI might just up and destroy these bastards, but if they don’t, then we sure will."
I nodded at Bonbon and raised my hand to gain everyone’s attention, then nodded at the red glow.
""Fifteen-minute smoke break. Potions, food, buffs, and we’re off. Time to crush this piece of shit!"
Chapter 18
Primordial Paths. Mkhageridon’s Lair. Closed zone. Level 600.
The bright orange sun hung over distant peaks of snow. A cool breeze, light but thick with the smell of mint and wildflowers, refreshed my throat and lungs. Beyond the colorful carpet beneath our feet stretched a hilly steppe, grazed upon by some kind of large beasts in the distance. A waterfall raged a quarter-mile to our left. Off the cliff it broke into four sparkling cascades, crashing against the rocks, then reuniting into a small blue lake down below. Some fifty yards ahead, we could see the dark entrance to the monster’s cave in the cliffside, adorned above by three viciously scowling dogs frozen in stone. Somehow I had imagined all of this very differently. For some reason, it had seemed we would end up in a dungeon. Not that it made any difference
. Though I did wonder what need a closed zone like this could have for a herd of cattle.
"As if we needed those to guess who lived here," Bonbon nodded at the hound statues. "Do you think he’s leveled up since the last time?"
"I’m sure he has," I shrugged as I waved the party towards the entrance. "Here we go! We proceed as planned."
We had decided there was no need to reinvent the wheel. The slaying of Mkhageridon would fall to my wife and me alone. She would cast her AoE spell at me, and I would amplify its power tenfold with Fury of Primordial Chaos. Lita could cast her mass effect spells from a few hundred yards away, so there was no need to fear any unexpected problems. Sure, it was a pity that Setara’s Shield was on cooldown, but I wasn’t about to wait three full days just to take advantage of it. My skill would protect me from the AoE, and I would find ways to dodge physical attacks... And if I died trying, my wife would finish off the bastard. The plan was simple enough. Max could cover the party with his Shield if needed, and Lita had plenty of protective spells as well, so we would pull through, no matter what. As long as I did what was required. To clarify, I had no intention of turning back or even hesitating, but I still felt rotten about killing a helpless creature.
Ragged colonies of green mushrooms cast a dim light on the ceiling, the echoes of our steps reflected off the walls, and the rustling sound of flowing water came at us from up ahead. The tunnel took a smooth turn to the left, and I walked along the right wall, about fifty yards ahead of the rest. I peered into the darkness, struggling to figure out why the cave was so quiet. Last time, the floor had been shaking from the plodding of Mkhageridon - and even his breathing was like that of a beached whale. Why was now different? Had the beast left upon sensing Vill’s demise? Or maybe it was just out for lunch? Neither of these things would bother me. It was the not knowing part that was unnerving.