The Double Life of Danny Day

by Mike Thayer

  I waited just inside the tree line of Wishing Well Woods near the Lonely Island bridge. A notification flashed up on my screen.

  SpudMasterFlex clubbed StanTheM@n

  Ten seconds later, I saw SpudMasterFlex cross over the bridge, hefty club in hand. I leaned out from behind the trees and waved him over to the cover of the dense woods. He glanced around and sprinted toward me. I scouted the way to the middle of the woods, where a stone well stood in the middle of a small clearing. Players could drop an item down the well and crank the handle for ten seconds to pull up a higher-class item. You could do it as many times as you wanted, but the ten-second requirement left you exposed each time. With me on guard, however, SpudMasterFlex would technically be able to upgrade all of his gear.

  I crept into the clearing and scanned around before turning and waving Noah forward. He ran up to the well, tossed in his wooden club, and cranked away on the handle, pulling up a woodsman’s ax. I motioned for him to go again, so he dropped the ax into the well and pulled up a frosted broadsword, which could shoot ice shards as long as the player had full health. He turned to go, but I selected the “strut my stuff” emote, which made my character strut around like a supermodel on a fashion runway. It made my elf character look ridiculous, but it was the universal sign for showing off your armor. Noah got the message, removed his armor, and tossed it in the well … just as FreddieCougar hit him with a bottle of alchemist’s fire. SpudMasterFlex spun around to see where it had come from, but it was too late.

  FreddieCougar melted SpudMasterFlex

  “Are you kidding me?” Noah screamed as he shot up from his seat at the picnic table. A murmur washed over the other gamers as they saw the kill notification.

  I was sure Noah was boring holes into the side of my head with his eyes, but I didn’t look up. My cover was blown. There was no turning back now … or was there? I sprinted over to Freddie and Bronco as they sifted through SpudMasterFlex’s loot. I got their attention and dropped all my weapons at their feet. FreddieCougar stared at me and shrugged, not sure what I was up to. I selected an emote to make my character kneel and bow his head. She nodded before swiping at me with her newly acquired frosted broadsword. My player iced over, and she swiped at me again, shattering my body into a hundred frozen pieces.

  FreddieCougar shattered Texcalibur

  “What?” I yelled, doing my best to imitate an angry Noah. The move was risky. I willfully gave up one of my three precious lives early in the game in the hopes that Noah would still trust me. I could have used that life to get rid of other players or even go toe-to-toe with Noah, but eliminating SpudMasterFlex was not an easy task … unless I could walk him into another trap. After I did it a second time, he’d know something was going on and the gig would be up, but then he’d only have one life left, I’d hopefully have two, and Freddie might still have all three at that point. It was worth the risk.

  I respawned and dropped through the sky. I didn’t know exactly where SpudMasterFlex would drop, but I knew that he’d be trying to meet up with more of his cheaters, get geared up, and make his way to Fangthorn Peak as soon as he could. There were now other monsters to control, but the dragon would still reign supreme.

  The map was huge, and the chances of stumbling on Noah without a designated meeting spot were very slim, unless I went straight to Fangthorn. Dropping in on Fangthorn wasn’t something I typically did since I didn’t ever seem to get very good loot there, and without the wizard’s cloak, the dragon was useless. I needed to find Noah, however.

  I steered my glider to the east side of Fangthorn Peak about halfway up, where a small thatched-roof village sat perched on a ledge. Luckily, the houses hadn’t been looted yet, and I managed to scrounge together a steel breastplate, a magical throwing spear, and the Ring of Meteors, a pretty powerful magical object that could rain down chunks of flaming rock. It wasn’t very accurate, but if you needed to cause a lot of damage over a given area, there wasn’t anything better in the game.

  Two kill notifications popped up for Freddie, followed by a third. I smiled. She was on point today. I walked to the edge of the village to a large telescope mounted precariously next to the ledge. The village was high enough that I could get a decent view of a good portion of the map. I scanned from Joyless Jungle to Floating Castle, past Bandit’s Bog, Towering Trees, and Haunted Pines. Multiple skirmishes appeared in the distance, but I saw no sign of SpudMasterFlex. It killed me to play this slow and cautious. I wasn’t exactly as aggressive as Freddie, but I definitely wasn’t the type of player to just hide in a bush and wait the game out. I needed more gear.

  SpudMasterFlex darted FreudianSlippers

  I read the kill notification. It was from eighty-three yards out. An impressive shot with the blowgun. Nothing got me itching to duke it out with SpudMasterFlex in a long-range showdown like seeing him bag a snipe. If I was going to hang around Fangthorn waiting for Noah, I was at least going to loot the place, especially with the magical items no longer restricted. There were things like the Helm of Infinite Sight, which would let me find anyone on the map; Darkon’s Blackness, which would turn the whole map pitch-dark for five seconds for everyone but me; the Enchanted Timekeeper, which would rewind the last five seconds of gameplay if I ever got killed; and so on.

  I left the village and made my way around to one of the numerous caves that ran through the mountain. After checking out a few of the best spots, I unearthed a bow with a quiver of lightning arrows and a pair of ventriloquist boots, which made my footsteps sound like they were coming from a different direction. A neat little item, but nothing incredibly useful for what I would have to do. Two kill notifications appeared on my screen that made my stomach drop.

  MasterCheese116 splattered BuckinBlueBronco

  SpudMasterFlex mauled FreddieCougar

  “Revenge is sweet, baby!” Noah yelled, pumping his fist.

  “Crud,” I said under my breath. I glanced over at Freddie, who mumbled to herself. Noah had found Freddie, and by the looks of it, he’d also found his reinforcements. The game didn’t tell me where the deaths had happened, but how they happened gave me a clue. For a player to get splattered, they had to get crushed by a boulder. For a player to get mauled, they had to get attacked by a wild animal. Either of those could happen all over the map, but there were only a few places where both were likely to happen. I’d seen people get both crushed by falling rocks and mauled by sand panthers just outside of Spasm Chasm. Lonely Island also had some spots that had both steep cliffs and hidden beasts, but that’s where SpudMasterFlex had started this round. I didn’t think he’d go back there so soon. The other place was actually just northwest of Fangthorn Peak. Aside from a huge anti-dragon ballista mounted at the top of the tallest tower, Floating Castle had boulder-tossing catapults stationed all over its walls. The neighboring area, Joyless Jungle, was full of giant apes. Spasm Chasm was closest to where I had last seen Freddie at the wishing well, but there was a portal from the well to Joyless Jungle, so it was impossible to be exactly sure where they were. At least now I had a few spots to look.

  I sprinted back out to the telescope but stopped when I saw another player, ThePinkEraser, searching the thatch-roofed village. She wore full plate armor and rocked a flaming battle ax and an infinity bow. This chick was ready to do some serious damage. Luckily, she also had on a white sash. She turned her head to glance down the mountain as she drew her bow. She pulled the string back, and an arrow magically materialized, nocked and ready to fire. The infinity bow never ran out of ammo. It was one of my favorite weapons in the game. She paused, aiming for a second, then let the arrow fly, followed by another and another. Her arm cycled back and forth as fast as the game would allow, ripping a flurry of arrows into the sky. She either had really bad aim or a lot of people to shoot.

  I crept around a few large rocks and peered down the mountainside. Three familiar cheaters stormed up the base of Fangthorn Peak. BooterScooter commanded a small army of dog-sized scorpions, while CatHiss
Everdeen and RigaTortoise lobbed up vials of alchemist’s fire that fell short of ThePinkEraser’s position but started the nearby trees on fire, almost certainly blocking ThePinkEraser’s view. If they were storming up the peak, then they’d be clearing a path for SpudMasterFlex. Noah usually didn’t have his goons work together like this, but he wouldn’t be taking any chances on losing the Shoebox Game. Not with that much money and rep on the line. The gloves were off.

  A trio of kill notifications informed me that Freddie had just cleaned house with a lightning bomb. “Keep it up, Freddie,” I whispered to myself.

  I turned my attention back to ThePinkEraser. I could always drop a shower of meteors down on the three cheaters’ heads or run down the mountain and flank them, but SpudMasterFlex’s goons weren’t my goal. My goal wasn’t to cut off the arms of this beast; it was to go for its head. I retreated farther up the hill and watched the scene play out. ThePinkEraser knew her stuff and managed to kill off Booter, her scorpions, and Riga, but in the chaos of the attack, CatHiss looped around to her back and finished her off with a hunting spear.

  I waited and watched, my heart pounding like I was the one who had just battled to the death in hand-to-hand combat. Where was SpudMasterFlex? Would he still trust me? As if in answer to my worries, a kill notification popped up on my screen.

  SpudMasterFlex zapped ZanzibarLaser

  “Zapped?” I whispered to myself. “That means he has the…”

  A figure broke from the distant tree line of Joyless Jungle, floating in the air and draped in the wizard’s cloak. It was SpudMasterFlex. To his left, MasterCheese116 rode on the back of a giant ape, escorting SpudMasterFlex across the open ground to the base of Fangthorn Peak. They scaled the mountain toward my position near the top and were joined by CatHiss. This was the moment of truth. I selected the “hands up” emote and came out from my cover. I saw the group raise their weapons but stop short. They looked to SpudMasterFlex, who gave a thumbs-up before continuing to the top of Fangthorn Peak and the base of the dragon’s nest.

  I blew out a sigh of relief and followed SpudMasterFlex as he approached the dragon and shocked it with wizard’s lightning, causing the most powerful monster in the game to wake up, stretch its wings, and roar. The only question now was when and how to turn on Noah. SpudMasterFlex’s body would be defenseless while his dragon roamed the skies raining down destruction on the entire map. That’s what the two cheaters and I were supposedly for: to protect SpudMasterFlex while he had his fun. I could wait to kill him and make a grab for the wizard’s cloak, but CatHiss and MasterCheese would be on me like stink on a monkey before I so much as equipped the cloak. I could try to kill the cheaters first, then kill SpudMasterFlex, but I was the least equipped person on this blasted mountain. The best option was to level the playing field. Take away Noah’s biggest advantage before he even got a chance to use it.

  A string of notifications scrolled in the corner of my screen like Star Wars credits on fast-forward. Something gnarly was going down somewhere on the map. Freddie’s name kept popping up. One, two, three, four kills. She was playing out of her mind … until I heard her yell a pair of nonsensical cuss words. I looked over to see her face-palm, and I didn’t even have to check the notifications to know what had happened. She’d seen an opportunity to do maximum damage and hadn’t shied away. I looked around at the characters next to me. Maybe it was time to follow Freddie’s lead.

  “Things are about to get interesting,” I whispered to myself as I equipped the Ring of Meteors, aimed it at my feet, and called down the fiery heavens.

  “What’s happening?” I heard Noah say from across the way as large circular shadows dotted the ground of Fangthorn Peak. “What is happening?”

  Three seconds later, a shower of flaming rocks thundered down around us in a glorious explosion. A wave of kill notifications lit up everyone’s screens.

  Texcalibur obliterated MasterCheese116

  Texcalibur obliterated CatHissEverdeen

  Texcalibur obliterated SpudMasterFlex

  Texcalibur obliterated the Mighty Dragon of Fangthorn Peak

  Texcalibur—Quad Kill!!

  Texcalibur obliterated himself

  CHAPTER 30

  OUT OF THE SHADOWS

  (Sticky Saturday—Oct. 16th)

  The whole crowd gasped as they saw the notifications come across their screens. They either gasped from that or from the string of cuss words Noah shouted in my direction.

  “You friggin’ traitor!” Noah looked up and pointed at me from his spot on the park bench. “You stinkin’ Texas jerk face. You did let me die at Wishing Well Woods. I knew it.”

  The cat was officially out of the bag.

  “Let you die?” I shouted back. “Is everyone hearing this? You mean when you threw your armor down the wishing well and got jumped like a noob? This is a battle royale game, Noah. I would hope no one is letting anyone die, because that would mean that they had an obligation to protect them, and that, my dear friend, would be cheating.”

  I glanced up at Noah, whose face turned as red as a tomato. It was the kind of red only possible with the right mixture of nuclear rage and bone-crushing embarrassment. “Noah, if you’re upset at me taking an opportunity to trade one of my lives for yours, two other well-equipped players, and your favorite pet dragon, I would like to think that that was a pretty sound decision. What do you say, everyone?” I yelled to the group, who continued to murmur.

  “You’re gonna friggin’ pay,” Noah blurted, seething.

  “Don’t know about that, but I’ll tell you who’s not gonna get friggin’ paid today, ’cause there ain’t no way you’re getting that shoebox with one measly life left. Hey, everybody!” I announced. “Tons of loot at the top of Fangthorn. Spud’s on his last legs. It’s anyone’s game now!”

  The previously quiet clearing of fifty-four gamers burst into conversation. Players got up and ran to their best friends, disposing of all pretenses and huddling up in their shadow teams. Before I could think to move, Freddie plopped down at my side, black curls bouncing.

  “Hello, you booger-flickin’ bozo.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Freddie. Seen your name pop up a few times.”

  “Seventeen kills and counting.” Freddie gave a huge smile.

  “Where can I find you? I’m dropping in.”

  “Land right in the center of Lost Labyrinth,” she told me, “and then tell me I’m not your best friend ever.”

  I did as instructed, floating to the far northeast of the map. When I touched down, I saw FreddieCougar wave me over to a hidden side corridor. She wore a full set of angel’s armor, complete with large feathery wings, and had a bladed boomerang the size of a long sword. On the ground was a pile of gear.

  “Good heavens, Freddie,” I said, looking over the loot. “You’ve been busy.” I picked up some armor, elven sprinting boots, and a diamond trident.

  “Oh, and I’ve been saving these for you.” Freddie’s character dropped two more items.

  I couldn’t contain my smile. A sniper bow and the Helm of Infinite Sight lay at my feet. “Aw, you shouldn’t have.”

  “I had an extra sniper bow, although it’s not like I was going to use it anyway. Let’s get going, cowboy,” Freddie said, glancing at the corner of her screen. “There are thirty-seven people left, and they won’t kill themselves off. Well … I mean, they probably will, but it’ll be a lot more fun if we do it. Let’s go find Noah and finish this. Call them out.”

  “Yee-haw.”

  FreddieCougar took to the sky as I dashed out of the maze. My magical helm let me zero in with Superman-esque X-ray vision on whomever I wanted. I scanned the map for the closest sign of other players and found a group perched at the top of Floating Castle.

  “We got four on the castle,” I said. “One’s on the ballista up top, while three more are on the catapults. They’re firing at a group of three to the south on the hills above Bandit’s.”

  “I’ll go north and squeeze t
he group on the castle. You do your thing.”

  Freddie flew up and tossed her giant bladed boomerang at the catapults. She eliminated the first two before they even knew what hit them. The ballista flipped around and began firing huge spearlike arrows through the air, but Freddie was too quick. She twisted and twirled out of the way as I sighted her attacker. Having a sniper in games when someone was stuck on a turret gun or catapult was just about my favorite thing in life. With two shots the castle was wiped clean, and we turned our attention to the three north of Bandit’s Bog. They had control of a horde of bog vipers, but snakes weren’t much of a threat to a flying, boomerang-wielding death angel and her sniper partner extraordinaire, not that Freddie even needed me this time. She was through with the group before I even had a chance to scope them. She was going to win this thing, and she deserved it.

  I scanned the map, looking for SpudMasterFlex. He and three of his cronies were all the way over at Seaedge Fort, which sat at the end of a long peninsula on the far east side of the map. The game didn’t let you fly over the sea, so the only way off that peninsula was through Spasm Chasm. They had their backs against the wall but were heavily fortified. They had boxed themselves in for one final stand.

  We ran past Towering Trees and double-teamed a lone warrior riding on the shoulders of a huge ogre just outside of Peasantville. The kill notifications were coming fast and furious until a few caught my attention.

  BuckinBlueBronco skewered MasterCheese116

  TheReadyYeti poisoned CatHissEverdeen

  SpudMasterFlex sniped BuckinBlueBronco

  SpudMasterFlex sniped TheReadyYeti