by Dante Doom
“Cease struggling,” Yvgo said. “It is pointless.”
“What’s pointless is—” Sang’s words were interrupted by a hideous blaring noise, a sound so terrible that she felt as if her head was going to explode. The pain surged through her ears and she gasped, thinking that the psychic creature had done undertaken sort of attack on her senses. Only then did she realize that the sound wasn’t an attack, but rather the sound of Van’s bagpipes. He was here! Perfection! “Such a horrid sound!” Yvgo said, “what is it?”
“Bad news for you!” Sang said, realizing the noise had distracted the creature so that it had released its hold over her. She spun around and kicked it hard in the leg, causing it to drop to the ground. The alien made a horrible screeching sound as she ran in the opposite direction, directly toward the blaring of the bagpipes.
“I have never been more happy to hear that noise!” Sang called out as she ran as hard as she could. With her health having drastically improved, she now felt like she could run for miles and miles without stopping.
“Sang!” Van shouted as he moved into the corridor that she was running out of.
“Van!” she said, stopping sharply to avoid ramming him.
“Can’t talk, running from Trefor!” Van said, pointing to the angry paladin who was charging towards them.
“Uh, yeah, well, we’re in trouble then,” Sang said, pointing to the alien that was rapidly moving towards them from behind.
“Oh, what the hell is that thing?” Van asked.
“No time to explain—we gotta get out of here!” Sang said.
“I have just the items!” Van said, grabbing a smoke bomb. “And away we go!” He threw the bomb to the ground, but much to his surprise, it just hovered in the air.
“Enough!” Yvgo said in a voice that was loud enough to cause both Sang and Van to grab their heads.
“There he is!” Trefor said, coming to a stop. “My apologies, Messenger Yvgo; he slipped past using an exploit in the game. I’ll kill him.”
“You could not stop this fool from entering our sanctum?” Yvgo demanded, walking up to Trefor and towering above him.
“I’m sorry, I—” Trefor’s words were cut off as he suddenly began to float in the air. Yvgo held his hands up.
“What use do we have for fools?” Yvgo asked.
“It won’t happen again, I promise!” Trefor wheezed.
“Very well,” Yvgo said, turning to look at Sang and Van. Sang could feel the familiar sensation of kinetic energy around her whole body, freezing her in place.
Trefor fell to the ground with a large clatter as his armor hit the floor.
“Transport her to my private vessel,” Yvgo said as the alien turned and began to walk away. “And kill him this moment.”
“Yes, Messenger!” Trefor said, turning around and pulling out his sword.
“Can’t move!” Van said, struggling in vain to do something.
“Trefor, don’t be stupid! If you kill Van, you’re a dead man. The moment my people break open the door to your house, you’re a dead man!” Sang hissed.
“Well, as you probably saw back there, I don’t have a lot of options,” Trefor said, walking up to Van. “Sorry, buddy. I really am. But hey, it’s you or me.”
“Wait, Trefor—before I die, I have to confess something to Sang!” Van said.
“Oh God, are you going to tell me you love me?” Sang asked.
“Do you have to sound so disgusted?” Van asked.
“No, I’m just saying that we’re good friends, but I don’t feel anything close to romantic love for you at all!” Sang replied.
“Wow, way to hurt a guy’s feelings right before he dies. But by the way, I’m not into you at all either!” Van said. “I was going to confess to you that you were my best friend and that I’m thankful to have known you, but you kind of cheapened the moment.”
“Well, you ruined the moment by leading me on like that!” Sang said in return. She could see that Van was trying to move his hand somewhere, though, and knew she had to help him stall. Maybe fighting with him would amuse Trefor.
“Leading you on? I just said I had to confess something, that’s all! How is that leading you on?” Van asked.
“Enough, the both of you. Die with some dignity,” Trefor said.
“Hey, I didn’t get to confess anything yet!” Van said.
“You just—” Trefor’s words were cut short as a bright flash of light emitted from Van’s vest. The flash hit Sang right in the eyes, causing everything to go overwhelmingly bright.
“Ahhhh! I can’t see!” Sang cried.
“Gah, my eyes!” Trefor yelled.
Sang felt someone grab her hand and drag her forward. She followed along, completely blind for a few minutes. Eventually, though, her vision returned to her, and she could see that Van was pulling her toward the exit.
“Oh, you genius! How did you get out of the kinetic energy field?” Sang asked.
“Bardic Will! Grants me an extra resistance to mind control magic! Even though it was some kind of weird alien, apparently, it still uses these game rules as a law. I think it was running low on energy, which is why it told Trefor to kill me and take you to its ship,” Van explained.
“And the flash of light?”
“Oh, haha, a Flash Stick—super cheap and incredibly useful. It’s exploitable because it just overloads the haptic systems; the blindness isn’t even a game status. It actually blinds the player in real life due to a serious hardware error. It’s literally a bug they didn’t bother fixing!” Van said as they rushed out the door of the building.
“There, we’re here!” Van said. “We just gotta jump and we’ll be logged out!”
“No hesitation here!” Sang said as she ran toward the platform and prepared to dive off. “I can’t believe we’re getting out of this so easily!”
“Hey, that wasn’t easy at all!” Van said as he rushed to the edge with her, preparing himself for the leap. “I had to plan a lot, and there was some luck to this.”
“Well, I’m happy to get out of here and never look back!” Sang called out as she jumped. As she felt the wind whipping around her, she felt a burst of exhilaration of freedom. She was going to finally escape from this wretched game, and the best part was that she was still alive!
“Whhhooooaaa!” Van shouted as a massive Dragon came flying in behind them. Trefor was riding atop it.
“You really think you can run from us?” Trefor screamed as the Dragon came flying down at full speed. Its huge jaws struck out and grabbed hold of Sang. She screamed as she felt the jaws sink into her body, but her Health only went down by a few points. The Dragon wasn’t trying to kill her—it was just trying to hold onto her.
“Crap!” Van shouted as he continued to fall out of Sang’s line of sight.
“Argh, after him!” Trefor shouted. “Kill him immediately!”
The Dragon grunted as it flew after Van, who’d continued to plummet to the ground. He was fiddling with a potion, however, and after drinking it, he stopped falling and instead began to glide down.
“Blast him with fire!” Trefor ordered.
Sang heard a snorting noise from the Dragon. “Oh right, sorry!” Trefor said. “Just take us down! Snap her legs so she can’t run.”
The Dragon swooped down to the Earth; they’d managed to land in the forest that they’d been hiding in earlier. As it touched the ground, it spat Sang onto the forest floor. She tried to scramble away, but felt the beast’s sharp, piercing jaws latch around her leg and then heard the horrific crunching of her right leg’s bones.
“Gahhh!” Sang screamed as she felt the pain shoot through her entire system. This pain felt way more realistic than it had before.
“Don’t bother running!” Trefor screamed. “You’re done for!”
Sang glanced at her ability to log out, finding that her entire UI simply read ERROR SERVER ERROR.
The Dragon hissed at Sang before it turned its attention to Van, who was st
ill gently gliding down toward the Earth.
“Van! Look out!” Sang cried out as the Dragon took to the skies and darted towards the bard.
“Ahhhhh!” Van shouted as the Dragon unleashed a torrent of flames on him in midair.
It was hard for her to see, but Van appeared to be unharmed.
“Are you kidding me?” Trefor yelled. He hadn’t mounted his Dragon, but was rather standing next to the wounded Sang. “How are you still alive?”
“Potion of Elemental Immunity! Haha!” Van shouted as he landed on the ground and immediately darted into the woods.
“That moron!” Trefor shouted. “Exploiting every stupid loophole in this game.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty good at this kind of stuff,” Sang said, grunting in pain as she looked at her bloody and broken leg. There was no way she’d be able to escape with this kind of injury.
“Well... we’ve shut down his ability to log out again,” Trefor said. “Maybe we can rig the pod to suffocate him.”
“Come on, why are you doing this? Trefor, you’re better than this,” Sang said. “I saw what happened back there. With that alien thing. Do you really believe they want to make this world a better place? Do you honestly think that these horrible things want to be our friends?”
“You don’t understand Draco at all,” Trefor said, turning his attention back to Sang. He paused for a moment to give a long, weary sigh. “There is nothing we can do to stop them.”
“What if you were wrong? What if we could stop them?” Sang asked.
“How? Have you seen these things? These are aliens, Sang,” Trefor said. “You know, I used to think that things were so simple, but then, Bam, I learned all of this. You think we can overcome advanced beings from another planet? Humans can barely agree on borders between nations, let alone uniting against something like this.”
“The Others. They gave me a plan. Beamed it right into my head. I know how to defeat Draco once and for all,” Sang lied.
“And that’s why Draco wants you,” Trefor murmured. “Look, I’m in this too deep.” He shifted uncomfortably. His demeanor was beginning to grow less confident with each passing moment. She could tell that he was beginning to grow worried.
“There’s a chance for you to change it, turn it all around. I wasn’t joking about the CIA stuff. They’re going to be in your house soon. Do the right thing, man. Turn off our log-out locks and let us go! If we walk out of this thing alive, you get to walk out, too.”
Trefor shook his head. “You’re trying to control me!”
“No—no, I’m not. Yvgo? That horrible alien creature? That’s what’s trying to control you,” Sang hissed. “You’re way too deep in this. Are you ready to face the consequences of your actions? Are you ready to be brought up on charges of treason? Hell, you’d probably be lucky if you even got to see a jury.”
“Shut up!” Trefor snapped, abruptly turning away from her. She could see that he was growing visibly more nervous with each passing second.
“You have a choice: you can betray your freaking race, ally with aliens, and then end up hooked up to a car battery in a windowless room in real life, or you can help us. You get to play the hero and we never mention this again.”
“I… I never wanted any of this… I just wanted to play a stupid game,” Trefor hoarsely whispered. “I just wanted to play a stupid game and get paid.”
Sang could see that he was beginning to break down. “I know you did. Look, you haven’t broken any laws—you aren’t in trouble... yet. Just get us out of here and we’ll fix it. You can save us here. You can stop them,” Sang said. She was surprised that it was working, but he seemed to be responding to her words.
“No, I can’t, I can’t,” Trefor said, shaking his head. “These things are too strong!”
“Think about it, Trefor!” Sang said, leaning up. “Regardless of whether we can beat them or not, you have a lot to lose if you don’t side with us.
“And I’ll lose it all if I join you!” Trefor replied, taking a step back from Sang and looking to the woods, in the direction Van had run.
“No! That’s the thing—they won’t be able to hurt you! This plan, in my head? It’s going to screw them up. They’re freaking out, freaking out enough to do everything it takes to capture me! I’m with the government, and we’re going to foil them.”
“Your plan really has a way to kill them?” Trefor asked, his voice cracking a little.
“It’s as clear as day in my mind,” Sang said.
“I don’t know if I believe you…” Trefor whispered.
“It doesn’t matter, if you believe me or not. We know your address, we know your name. These aliens might be scary, but at least they’re in a video game. The CIA is in the real world.”
Trefor glanced at the Dragon and then back at Sang. “You’re bluffing!”
“8132 Cherrywood Lane, Baltimore,” she said. “That’s where you live. And we’ve got a van rolling in that direction right now.”
“Ah crap!” Trefor said, turning to face her. His face was white with terror. While Sang had no idea if the CIA was anywhere close to Trefor’s home, she at least had access to the address. This seemed sufficient enough to scare him into submission.
“Last chance, or I pull the offer,” Sang said. “I’m your only way out of this mess. Help us or…”
“Alright, fine!” Trefor said. “Just don’t let them lock me up!”
“Good, now let us log out or-“
Her words were cut off as the yellow Dragon’s jaws came down hard around his head, crushing it in a single motion. The Dragon snarled as it tore Trefor’s head clean off.
Sang gasped as the lifeless body slumped over and fell to the ground.
“Idiot boy,” the Dragon snarled as it pressed its face close to Sang. It snorted, emitting a little bit of heat upon her. “You filled his head with foolish dreams and hope. There is no hope. The New World will come and no one will stop it.”
“W-what?” Sang gasped in horror as she looked at Trefor’s body. Was he dead in real life? She glanced at her log-in credentials and saw that they were still offline. There was still no way to escape.
“Come,” the Dragon hissed as it latched its jaws around Sang’s undamaged leg. She gasped in pain as it picked her up and began to fly back up toward the platform. She tried to wriggle out of the creature’s tight jaws, but to no avail. She was hanging upside down, and nearly limp. She grabbed her longsword that was hanging off of her hilt and tried in vain to swipe at the beast, but it refused to let go of her.
Instead, the Dragon just hissed as it flew higher and higher into the air. Sang glanced down to see that Van was busy looting Trefor’s corpse. It wasn’t pretty to watch, but at the same time, Trefor was a high-level player. He must have had something important on his person. The Dragon turned its head and looked down, causing Sang to shift in its jaws. It snarled and threw Sang up high into the air, catching her with its tail.
“That fool,” the Dragon growled. “Will he never give up?” And with that, the Dragon dive-bombed straight down. Sang could feel her stomach turning as the g-forces began to press against her. The Dragon’s tail was squeezing her tight, but at this angle, she could at least do something. With sword in hand, she began to hack away at the creature’s tail. The Dragon roared as it flew downwards, tightening its grip around Sang. She felt her ribs begin to crack as the breath was squeezed out of her.
“Ah crap!” Van shouted as he narrowly dodged the Dragon’s fierce jaws, just avoiding their snapping shut around him. He rolled out of the way and pulled out a wand. “I’ve got the perfect item, Sang!” he shouted.
“Stop… stop talking about it and use it!” Sang gasped as she dropped her sword. She was starting to run out of oxygen, and felt dizzy. The tail was crushing her. She shoved her arms in front of her chest and pushed hard, freeing up just enough space for her to get some oxygen.
“I’m gonna use it on you! Get ready!” Van shouted as he aimed the wand a
t her. He muttered some magic words and a ray of energy struck Sang right in the face.
“Ah!” she yelped in surprise as she felt a strange surge of strength rush through her body. The words STRENGTH OF ANCIENTS appeared over her head, though, and she saw her Strength score increase to 50. She blinked again to make sure that that was correct. It was! She now had 50 strength points.
“Ha!” she said as she wrenched the Dragon’s tail open, freeing herself. She gripped onto the tail then, however, and began to climb onto the thing’s back.
“Fool!” the Dragon roared as it rolled in midair, aborting its second dive-bomb attempt.
“This guy is loaded with buff items!” Van shouted. “Paladins rule!”
Sang continued to climb onto the Dragon, despite how it tried to roll around and knock her off; she was holding on tightly. Her Climbing skill had increased when her base stat had skyrocketed. It was insane how powerful she felt. Her leg was still broken, but fortunately the game didn’t penalize her ability to climb because of that.
“You think you can hurt me?” the Dragon roared as it began to crash towards the Earth once again. “Prepare for impact, foolish woman!”
Sang gritted her teeth as she felt the forces of gravity push her against the Dragon as it hurtled toward the Earth. Her grip was tight, but she was worried the impact might deal too much damage to her, killing her. But then again, the Dragon wouldn’t risk killing her. It needed to bring her back to the Messenger.
“Give it your best shot!” she cried out as the Dragon rolled onto its back and smashed into the ground, crushing Sang in between its yellow scales and the hard Earth. Sang felt pain wrack through her body and she watched her Health drop down to 50 percent, but she was still alive. She let go of the Dragon and quickly wriggled out from underneath it. Unsheathing her bow, but still lying on her back, she carefully aimed and fired a shot right into the side of the Dragon’s skull. The Dragon roared as she watched the words 100 damage rise above it. The boost in her strength was also increasing her Attack power. This was a phenomenal buff.