Irrelevant Jack

by Prax Venter

  “Up and shine?” he repeated, rubbing his hands over his bleary eyes. “It’s rise and shine, where I come from.”

  “Hmm. I’m going to start a catalog of our dimensional differences,” Jack’s virtual, imaginary friend responded within his mind.

  He checked the time and saw that he had fifteen minutes before he was supposed to meet Harrak at the Sparring Yard. He reequipped his armor and quietly headed down the stairs into the common room, but not before pausing to stare at Lex’s door for a few heartbeats.

  He expected the inn to be empty at this hour, but Garl and Demi were talking by the bar.

  “Jack,” Demi began. “Come over here, would you?”

  “Sure,” he said, “But I need to meet… someone at the wall for training soon.”

  He got a slight head tilt from the ordinary stoic innkeeper, but she put her curiosity to herself.

  “Hey, Garl,” Jack said and shook the old fisherman’s rough, outstretched hand as he approached.

  “Jack, it’s good to see you. I suppose this is your doing?”

  Jack was confused for a moment before a trade window opened from Garl.

  Trade Offered - Garl

  Fresh Crab - [Meat | Cooking]

  Then he was even more confused. “Why are you giving me a crab?”

  Garl and Demi exchanged a look before the stocky fisherman elaborated.

  “The Town Level, Jack. The stairs to the beach are back, along with this new catch from the sea. I came here to warn Demi before Sol wakes up. He’ll extort the Town over this new commodity.”

  Demi put it into crystal-clear terms. “If I get this ingredient before breakfast, the two of you’ll have a better Rest Bonus for the day.”

  Jack moved 30 coins over to Garl’s trade window and hit accept, but the other man shook his head and cancelled the trade.

  “I have to sell this to the Wharfmaster, Jack.”

  “I still don’t understand why,” he responded and then moved the coins over to Demi instead. Once the black-lacquer trade panel appeared, Jack tapped the green gemstone signifying that he accepted the transfer.

  “Is… this for the crab?” Demi asked, one of her eyebrows arched.

  “No, it’s for last night’s advice,” Jack said. “Spend it on what you want. I need to run though, so…”

  Demi reached out and accepted her blank side of the deal. “Great,” Jack said with a smile and then waved to both of them before heading out of the inn.

  Alt began to speak into his mind as he jogged in the cold morning darkness.

  “Can you believe the Town now has access to crab meat? I mean Blackmoor Cove is a coastal Town, after all, and seafood being a staple of such a location leads to lofty chances that the fishermen would still have pulled out fresh crab after the Level Up, even supposing the Floor 3 Boss was a giant cat head instead, but-”

  “Alt!” Jack interrupted the stream of chatter assaulting his brain. “The current Wharfmaster said ‘the Town’ picked him for the job. How does that work, exactly?”

  “The NPCs follow the rules of the game world, and it seems if there are no leaders present, the system will randomly assign Townsfolk to vacant positions. Give me more resources, and we may be able to do something about that.”

  “Why are there no leaders in Blackmoor?”

  “The Town has lost far too many levels. There are no governance buildings. Therefore, no Townsfolk can fill the role and impart intelligent guidance.”

  “What Level is the Town now? I never saw a panel popup or anything.”

  “Focus on the fountain, but it’s now at Level 2.”

  Jack jogged the rest of the way in silence and found Harrak standing out on the path waiting for him.

  As Jack came to a stop, the heavily armored and horned Kron appeared from the shadows cast by the rising sun and wordlessly stepped into the area designated as The Yard.

  Jack turned his eyes back to Lex’s father.

  “You are baking in your bad habits by training yourself,” Harrak said. “Before I get to fixing you, I need to know you have the smarts to learn.”

  Jack blinked. The bearded old man seemed clear-eyed and in control for a change. It was also the first time he had seen the guy without his pipe. Lex’s father continued.

  “You’ll step into The Yard with Kron. You get to make the first move. If it’s the right one, and you’ve a melon in that skull, I’ll invest my precious time into you. After the third wrong move, you’re a waste of everyone’s time. That’s the deal.”

  Jack looked over Harrak’s leather-armored shoulder and saw Kron standing in the Sparring Yard with his massive shield, waiting. He locked eyes with the old man again.

  “No hints?”

  Harrak snorted, and a bit of snot shot out of his bulbous nose out onto the ground. He then crossed his arms and turned to face the sparring arena.

  Jack nodded and equipped his shield as he stepped over the twine and into the tromped-down dirt of the Sparring Yard, gaining the familiar status effect. The giant of a man standing in front of him looked like he could break all his bones with his pinky. Jack gripped his blade tightly and squinted, trying to think what “the right first move” was.

  Something out of place caught his eye, and he glanced over to find the teenage girl he had seen before in the boat by the docks. It took a moment, but his brain recalled that her name was Haylee. She was standing among some of the stone rubble of the broken wall, and Jack had a feeling that no one else knew Sol’s daughter was there. Her expressionless light gray eyes remained locked on his, and Jack shook off the unease she radiated.

  He needed to focus on the eight-foot pile of iron across from him.

  The only viable attack for the heavily armored Kron was the same attack he used before… but Harrak had witnessed that fight. It didn’t seem like the right answer now. Yet neither did walking up and swiping with his sword randomly at the colossal Kron.

  “Ten seconds!” Harrak yelled out. “Inaction will count as a first move.”

  Jack swore under his breath and held out his sword. With a thought, he triggered his fiery Mining Laser.

  This time, however, Kron did not just take the attack. The man encased in metal rushed forward much faster than Jack expected and simply ate up the damage Jack was dishing out.

  Jack broke off his attack and brought up his shield to mitigate some of the damage he was about to receive, but it didn’t matter.

  Jack -74| HP 1/15

  He shook off the hit and sat up from his new position outside the arena.

  “Wrong move,” Harrak said. “Two more tries.”

  Jack stood up, dusted himself off and got back into the Sparring Yard. Kron had returned to his starting position and stood waiting for Jack to make the right move.

  What did that crazy old man want from him? Perhaps using his abilities was considered cheating. He did come here to learn to use his blade, not how to activate a point and shoot skill.

  Jack rushed forward, and Kron instantly pushed off the ground to meet him in the middle. Again, sooner than he expected, Jack was tossed out of the Yard and landed hard, square on his back.

  “Wrong again,” Harrak said. “One more mistake and you’re on your own.”

  “You people are all crazy!” Jack said, getting up and stomping back into the ring. “Always expecting me to know your rules without telling me a damn thing…”

  Harrak and Kron continued to remain silent. Jack stood with his blade drawn and his round wooden shield up, thinking. There wasn’t much time to work this out, and this was his last shot. He shook his head and sighed. Was training with this annoying old bastard really that important?

  Movement caught his eye, and he saw the Wharfmaster’s daughter hitch her thumb over her shoulder once. If he hadn’t known better, Jack would have thought she was an umpire calling an out. Then Demi’s advice, Lex’s anger, and his old Team Lead, Stevens, all came to the front of his mind. They were all telling him to give up and walk away
from an enemy he had no business fighting. It went counter to the very center of his being, but this had to be the lesson they were trying to teach him.

  Jack sheathed his sword and stepped backward out of the Sparring Yard’s influence.

  “Very good, Jack,” Kron said in his deep, rumbling voice. He exited the ring with a nod to Harrak and walked off toward the stone archway that served as the Town’s main gate.

  Lex’s father stepped up to Jack, his clear eyes pinning him down. After a moment of scrutiny, the old man began to nod slowly.

  “Sometimes, just staying alive is a victory.” Harrak spoke quietly, again out of character. Jack could tell that there was something more to this, something that distracted the old man and pulled his attention internally. Jack used the old warrior’s inattention to give Haylee a smile or a nod or something. Without her, he might not have figured out this trick answer. But when he looked to the shadow where she had been silently standing, there was nothing. The girl in the burgundy dress was nowhere to be found. Harrak continued.

  “If you live, you can always Climb again.” The old man’s glassy brown eyes hardened as if he remembered Jack was standing in front of him. “I still have my misgivings about that disturbing weapon you have, yet I must recognize an advantage when I see one. You are giving the people of Blackmoor Cove hope for a future… you are giving my daughter hope… and if you die in there because you think you are invincible, it will erase any hope and be the final death knell for this Town. Do you understand?”

  Jack nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Harrak crossed his thick arms. “Good. Now, I want you to-”

  “Attack! Attack!” He was cut off when one of the guards on the wall began to scream his head off.

  Harrak looked up to the guard and then back down at Jack. “Follow me,” the old man ordered. They both trotted to a stop next to Kron standing in the archway, his sword and massive shield both drawn. Jack followed his gaze and saw what he thought were three inside-out silverback gorillas charging toward the Town. He took a moment to really look and noticed some major differences. Besides the purple and black exterior dripping globs of corruption as they ran, their whole head was a tooth-filled mouth and their hands ended in long hooked blades.

  “Jack, take one with your magic fire!” Kron yelled, breaking Jack’s open-mouthed stun. “I’ll taunt the other two!”

  Jack snapped his mouth shut, drew his ARV Alternis, and fired his death laser at the monstrosity on the far right.

  Lesser Demon Spawn -11 | HP 33/44

  He held the beam for three more seconds before his target vanished in a swirl of dust. The other two disgusting creatures had closed to about fifteen yards away when Kron let out a challenging roar. A clear sphere of shimmering light radiated out from the heavily armored man as if Jack could see the sound waves from the shout.

  The Guardian then ran out to meet his foe, both of which now only had eyes for Kron. Jack saw him smash one with his shield. There was a terrible wet crunch, and the dripping monster sailed through the air. The other demon slashed its two-foot claws at Kron’s right side, but the huge man brought up his own sword to parry a flurry of attacks.

  Somehow, between the rapidly slashing claws, Kron stabbed his blade directly into its wide mouth, erasing it in one hit.

  The second creature had recovered and tore up the ground as it rushed back at Kron. The big man took the first hit on his shield, then hacked downward in one fluid motion, destroying the last attacker.

  Kron scanned the field outside the wall before sheathing his blade and unequipping his shield. With a soft clanking, the horned Guardian came to a stop in front of Jack and Harrak.

  “We’ll see more attacks now that the Town is leveling up.”

  “Aye,” Harrak agreed, nodding his long bristly beard sliding up and down his chest.

  Jack sheathed his sword. “Why did you need me to blast one? You could have easily taken all three.”

  “I might have lost HP facing three enemies at once. You lost a bit of Mana. You’ll gain it back when you eat breakfast.” The horned man turned his head back to look out to the horizon. “Now you can see why I must stay here. Almost all of these Townsfolk guards would have been ripped apart by just one of those lesser demons.”

  Jack looked back out onto the sprawling field of thick green grass stretching out beyond the wall.

  “We’ve work to do, Jack,” Harrak said and turned away from the entrance arch.

  Lex’s father took him back to the Sparring Yard and spent the next hour drilling Jack in the use of his shield. Harrak set up a pattern of high, middle, and low attacks and they practiced the sequence over and over. One of the first things Jack learned was that he should be holding the buckler away from his body so his arm could absorb more of the force, like a spring. This way he was more frequently able to mitigate more of the damage taken from successfully blocking an attack. At the very end, Harrak altered the pattern and hit Jack in the face with his wooden training sword. It stung.

  Jack -6 | HP 9/15

  “Wha-”

  “Next time,” Harrak interrupted him. “You’ll see past the lie and watch me instead.” The old Hero waved one of his huge gnarled hands in Jack’s direction. “Go get your Rest Bonus and don’t die.”

  Jack rubbed his face, but the pain was already gone. “Thanks, Harrak. Same time tomorrow?”

  The old man grunted, gave a slight nod, and then walked away. He took that as a ‘yes’ and started heading back up the dirt path towards the inn. The morning sun was still to his right, and the impossible Tower stretched into the clouds ahead. Jack’s eyes turned downward as one black boot fell in front of the other. The lush green grass hemmed him in to either side, and he felt his mind wander as his body settled into the monotony.

  Everyone was always trying to change him, and typically, as soon as he felt that “get-your-shit-together” attitude from someone, he was gone. Something was different now. It went beyond being trapped in this virtual battle zone. This was a real life or death situation. People depended on him now, and he had continued to think about this life as a video game. It took a few people hammering on him from different angles, but the recent lessons from those on the brink of the abyss combined with the ancient flares of anger he’d received from the people in his past began to break through.

  The restless, molten maelstrom that was his core hardened into something more useful at that moment… something deadly, shaped from the mold of responsibility.

  Jack pulled open the wooden door to the Eye o’ the Storm and found Demi and Lex at the counter.

  “Ah, Jack,” the silver-haired innkeeper said quickly. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with your meals.”

  He nodded and approached his normal stool at the bar next to Lex. He hadn’t known her long, but she seemed much more rigid than was normal. A moment of awkward silence filled the space between them while Jack thought of the right thing to say, but Lex broke it first.

  The woman with pointed ears turned her large, golden eyes up to his.

  “I’m sorry about last night…” she began.

  “Don’t,” Jack said, raising up his hand and held her eyes for a moment. “Lex, I need you to understand that I am not from your world. Swords, monsters, Hit Points… all of this is something out of fantasy from my perspective. But I see now. I truly see what is happening here and what I am to this Town.”

  He paused, trying to figure out how to phrase what he wanted to say without pissing her off again, but a bit of wisdom he’d heard earlier seemed like the perfect argument.

  “Please hear me out,” he began. “I still want us to join up in the Tower today- no, Lex, I need to join up with you. This is a new world and a fresh slate for me to learn to be something better. I’m only baking in bad habits when I go in alone.”

  “Wait,” she said, her dark eyebrows coming down.

  “You know I can make it to Floor 5 without being a liability,” Jack said quickly, then shut his mouth.r />
  “No-” She blinked. “I mean, I know you could, but… have you been speaking to my father?”

  Jack swallowed. “Yes. He’s training me in the morning now.”

  Lex’s already large eyes went wide, then the shadow of a smile tugged on her lips.

  “Baking in old habits,” she repeated. “It’s something my mother…” The Bastion broke off and turned her eyes to the floor, tears welling up.

  Jack reached out and put his hand on hers. Lex turned her beautiful face up to his, and he could see she was crying from re-living a good memory. She wiped the wetness from her face as she nodded briskly.

  “I’ll take you. I’ll show you.”

  Jack smiled and squeezed her hand. Lex turned it around, lacing her smaller fingers through his, and he felt the warmth of her palm on his.

  They had a small, wonderful moment alone before Demi came spinning out of the curtain and they dropped hands.

  “New item today thanks to our two Climbing Heroes,” the innkeeper said as she placed a bowl in front of each of them.

  Lex leaned in close and sniffed. “Is this… Crab Salad?”

  “I don’t know,” Demi joked. “Why don’t you try it?”

  Both Lex and Jack dug their bent iron forks into the pile of fresh-smelling seafood. He twirled his utensil and skewered some poached fish, crab, and seaweed.

  He stuffed the pile past his lips, and it was like the ocean exploded in his mouth. The crab was sweet, the fish was salty, and the seaweed was slightly bitter- and it all worked.

  “Mmm,” Lex moaned next to him and went limp in her chair.

  Jack nodded in agreement. “This is really good.”

  “And expensive,” Demi added. “Sol was in rare form this morning.”

  A scowl appeared on Jack’s face at the Wharfmaster’s mention, but it only lasted until he forked the next heap of seafood salad into his mouth.

  The Heroes finished their meal quickly, and Jack was delighted to see his rest bonus for the day.

  Rest Bonus - [+20 Health | +15 Mana | +2 Def | Gain 1 mana per kill | Duration: Exit]

  ~ A bounty from the sea to better your battles