by Harry Nix
I don’t know why I did it really. I was enjoying watching her stalk my way, sunk into entrance, anticipating what would come next.
Then, for no good reason, I focused on shaking entrance off me.
It required an act of will, pulling my focus off her. The nick in the floor from the Echo Knife helped. I looked at that and then entrance sizzled away, like a water droplet on a hot frying pan.
“What, you don’t want this?” Scarlet said, stopping and putting her hands on her hips, pushing her graveyard rag dress in.
“You are very... entrancing... but you don’t have to be with me,” I said. I put my staff on the floor beside the bed and beckoned her over.
For a moment she stood there, wearing the expression of curiosity and sexual interest and then suddenly it fled. She crossed her hands over her chest, forming a physical barrier.
“We need sleep,” she said, taking the long route around the end of the bed, staying well out of my reach, and slipping under the covers on the far side.
I gave a double-blink at the sudden change in mood but figured I’d roll with it. She was still in bed with me, after all.
Dropping my graveyard shirt on the floor, I then got under the covers too. In contrast to real-world girls who often had cold feet, Scarlet was warm, and heating the bed already. I reached out and touched her back with a finger. She was still fully dressed. I heard her sigh.
It seemed a good sign so I began lightly tracing patterns on her back. A figure eight. Letters spelling out her name. She giggled at one point as I tickled her and sighed in other moments.
After maybe twenty minutes of this, her sighing vanished. I could almost feel her mood plummeting.
“There shouldn’t be a city here,” she eventually whispered. She was so quiet I could hardly hear her, as though she was afraid to speak it aloud.
“Maybe time isn’t the same in the graveyard.”
She rolled over to face me, brushing some hair off her face. Once again, seeing her curled horns sticking up was slightly strange.
“Time is the same there. What’s not the same is me. I remember many days of being stuck there, thinking it was a few months... but I think I must have been as dumb and silent as the statues just... waiting for something. You maybe.”
For game logic it made sense. NPCs did sit and wait for the players to arrive. They were often only summoned into existence when the player came to them.
Scarlet was digital bits in the shape of a character... but apparently had a memory of the long wait for a player, me, to arrive.
“You’re out now. We’re in Bron... which I suppose was named after your hermit. Maybe he’s still around or we can find someone who knows the history.”
“He was my friend. He helped me before I went into that graveyard to—”
She blinked and frowned.
“When I went to... why did I go in there?”
A tear trickled down her face to the pillow. I caught the next one with my finger and the one after that with a kiss on her cheek.
“We can find it out together,” I said.
Some part of me was watching this, a step removed, the observer of the game. There was no entrance on me. It was just... me... pulled in by her. Yeah, it was a game but the brain is stupid stupid thing. It doesn’t know the difference between imaginary and real.
I let the fiction take me as I gently kissed away her tears.
At some point, she reached up and clicked her fingers twice. The candles went out and I nearly laughed. They had a fantasy version of The Clapper!
Scarlet rolled away and pressed her body back into mine. She was soft and warm and although the moment could have gone another way, there was a kind of peaceful bliss to it that I didn’t want to break.
The feeling of a girl resting against me, the soft sound of her breath... it was something I needed far more than a hot night.
I could really be in trouble here.
9
It was seven hours before we saw the first spider.
That morning we’d left at the crack of dawn. Ori was nowhere to be found so Scarlet and I shared a bowl of stew, spending my last copper, grabbed the quest on the way out and began walking to Greenwood Forest. Along the way, the little demon came running up from behind us. He was back to his usual size after a night in the soil.
We marched out of Bron and into the desolation of the destroyed forest. It seemed most of the wood was going to the mines, being burned for smelting iron ore, which made me wonder if they’d heard of coal. Some of it was being used to build shanties for more workers.
Five hours to reach the forest proper and then two more hours following the basic map in before we came across the first webs and then the spider.
If I’d had any money, I would have bought antidotes, because I was expecting poison. Some armor, rather than grave rags. But we were dead flat broke and I didn’t feel like picking flowers for five coppers a day.
The spider that dropped out of the trees was the size of a Saint Bernard, but skinny as hell. Instead of tiny bristles of hair all over it, it was more like dreadlocks of mud and web, tangled and filthy. It fell, crashed sideways into a tree and then struggled to its feet while the three of us waited.
Even from a distance we could smell it. It was like old yeast and when it finally got closer I saw it had red mold streaked across its body and up to its face. It had eight eyes but half were crusted over and leaking a pinkish pus, stained by the mold.
“Let it come to us,” I said as the spider careened our way.
A dog-sized spider would scare the hell out of anyone but I was surprisingly calm. It just looked... sick. Barely worth killing because it was going to die in a day or two anyway.
As soon as it came into range, we all threw what we had. Ori got ink in its eyes and blinded floated up. Scarlet hit it with a fireball dead on and then I shot a lightning Bolt that collapsed it to the ground.
It managed to get up, weaving towards us and screaming like it was drunk so we hit it again. This time Ori landed inkballs near its feet and like a slapstick comedy it went over on its back. Two more fireballs and two more lightning strikes and up rose the gold. It was dead. Didn’t even need to get our weapons dirty.
The bounty paid one silver for two fangs. Five dead defanged spiders was five silvers plus a bonus five silvers. Ten silvers was a gold, so we just had to grind thirty spiders to make six gold. We’d probably do more than that just to build a cushion, get some better clothes and maybe throw in a night of drinking.
That was the plan at least... then this. A sick spider infected with red mold. I didn’t even want to touch it.
When it died, its mouth sagged open, revealing two sharp fangs. I used my staff to knock at them. It was bad dentistry but I managed to crack both of them loose. Scarlet used a stick to flick them out of its mouth. I grabbed a handful of leaves to avoid any accidental venom and finally dropped them in my bag. One spider down, a whole lot more to go. If they were all like this, it would be a cakewalk.
Up close the yeasty sour smell was much worse. It was like a bakery gone bad in summer. Even in the few minutes it took us to get the fangs out, the red mold had turned liquid and was trickling off the spider.
Then Ori poked it with a stick that punctured right through its body, like it was made of papier-mâché. Brown goop that looked like Ahab’s stew came trickling out. It was acrid and despite my misgivings I dipped the end of my staff in it.
Greenwood Spider (Corrupted)
What is a tuffet anyway? A small hill of grass? An ottoman? Whatever it is, any kid sitting on one needs to Bolt if this spider comes down beside them. They’re venomous, poisonous and worst of all—really sick.
With just two fangs we now had enough to complete the bounty and not get stung with the ten-gold penalty.
I prodded the spider a few more times, trying to see if the red mold could be absorbed but no dice. In the process I accidentally snapped off a few of its legs. Now that it was dead, it was frag
ile and breaking down quickly.
“We go slower now, see if we can fight them one by one,” I said.
Greenwood Forest sounds lovely, trees and flowers and bees happily going about their business. The first real edge of the forest after we got past the logging was that. Bucolic and cheerful. But deeper in, the trees were blocking out the light. There were old webs strung between branches, their strands as thick as rope. Sometimes things skittered out of sight and it wasn’t lazy rabbits nibbling grass that came to mind.
We crept on, leaving the dead spider behind, moving as quiet as we could between the trees. Ori kept tripping over because he refused to take his gaze off the high branches, afraid another spider would drop on us. I eventually picked him up, carrying him toddler-style on my hip, staff in the other hand.
“Your staff will snap to your back, you know,” Scarlet said, watching me juggle it and Ori.
I placed my staff across my back and let go. It snapped to, sticking to me like I’d slid it into an invisible holster.
“Anything else you know about Summoners?”
“They’re really good in... forests,” Scarlet said, spinning the graveyard spike in one hand and the Echo Knife in the other and giving me a wink.
“Shh,” Ori said, clutching my neck.
We slowed to a crawl but didn’t see anything. No spiders hiding in the treetops.
The next half-hour was pure nerve-wracking fear. The forest grew colder and darker and more rotting webs hung from trees. Something snapped a branch off our path but when we got there, there was no enemy.
Then we found the ax.
The Barbarian’s ax.
It was lodged in a tree, pinning two spider legs to the wood. The dirt was disturbed by footprints but otherwise there no sign of what had happened. I put Ori down and started investigating. I knelt down beside a broken fern. There was a clear footprint sunk in the soft damp soil beneath it.
CSI: Nine Realms
In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as... damn, wrong show. Crap. Okay, if you study the natural world, you’ll get better at it. Detect traps, discover hidden magics, figure out what happened to the oiled Barbarian...
I laughed to myself and then pulled the ax out of the tree. It had an etched wooden handle with spiraling vines carved down it. The head was iron but there was a rim of gold on the sharpened edge. No gold text floated up when I looked at it, making me wonder if my ability to identify was so low that it wouldn’t even tell me the name of the ax.
Hefting it in my hand, it had a good weight to it. I was about to put it away when two massive spiders dropped out of the trees above. Behind Scarlet the earth opened up, a woven mat lifting up to reveal a third spider.
These ones were covered in red mold too but not as far gone as the first spider. One of them crashed into me even as I was diving sideways. It was like being hit with a bag of cement and a quarter of my health vanished.
I somehow managed to roll, seeing a flicker of golden text I couldn’t stop to read, and landed on my feet. It had barely been a second and we were already seriously in deep trouble. Ori had liquefied and tried to choke one of the spiders but the red mold burned him like acid. If you’ve never seen a black puddle of ink scream in pain, I don’t recommend it. Despite being burned, he slipped across to three of its legs that were free of mold and constricted them, half-toppling the spider.
The one that had come out of the trapdoor had sunk its fangs deep in Scarlet’s arm. She pounded a fireball with her free hand right into its face but it didn’t let go. The one that had crashed into me was now getting to its feet and I had to choose: Ori or Scarlet?
Ori’s spider was flailing at him with its free legs but couldn’t yet get a grasp on him. I knew he’d start to solidify in a moment but for now, he was okay.
I ran to Scarlet, swinging the barbarian’s ax. Without realizing it, I cast Bolt at the same time. The lightning zapped down the hilt and out to the blade just as it sunk into the spider’s side.
This one didn’t collapse like papier-mâché. It was solid, like chopping into the tree. The lightning burst over it and then hit Scarlet too, running up her arm to the shoulder before dissipating.
The spider screamed in pain and Scarlet got her arm free but then immediately fell backward, one of her legs collapsing under her.
I heaved the ax out and swung again, aiming for the face this time. In the frenetic craze of battle I didn’t cast Bolt again. It didn’t even cross my mind that I had it. I was just thrashing away at the spider, trying to hack it to death... which is how the other one caught me by surprise.
Scarlet may have yelled, I can’t be sure and then I was smashed up against a tree, my head ringing. A moment more I was on my back, kicking my bare feet at the spider’s legs as it snapped at me. The ax was gone and so was my staff, pulled off my back somehow. In my terror I cast Bolt again and the lightning burst out of my hands, Emperor-frying-Luke style.
Critical!
The spider was knocked off its feet and pushed back by a burst of lightning that left me blinking spots out of my vision.
I scrambled to my feet, spotting my staff. I intended to run to it but it shot up from the ground, snapping to my hand, clipping the trapdoor spider as it went but not doing too much damage. It was bleeding heavily from the ax wounds but still dangerous.
Scarlet was getting to her feet, which was good because Ori was in trouble. He’d started to solidify and the spider had hold of him. It was jabbing a sharp leg into his body, piercing through it. Although he’d held it in place by wrapping its legs, he apparently hadn’t done much damage.
The ax was nowhere to be seen so I only had my staff, and sadly just the one spell that would hurt Ori too but there was no other choice. The demon had lost half his health just casting Choke and now it was dropping with every stab.
I dodged past the trapdoor spider, which had been slowed by its wounds and cast Bolt as I jabbed the staff right into the spider’s mouth. There was a crack as the lightning burst and something sharp flung back, cutting my cheek.
Poisoned! (minor)
Bolt had smashed a venomous fang out but caught me with the shrapnel. There was a three-minute timer on it. A numbness spread out from my cheek, quickly followed by heat and a wave of nausea.
Although Ori got shocked, he managed to slip free, landing in a wet splodge on the grass. Before I could pull him away from the spider, he soaked into the ground, leaving behind only a black smear of ink.
I turned to see Scarlet fending off the trapdoor spider. She was waving the Echo Knife at it. Her other arm was hanging like a dead lump of meat.
“Ori, if you’re there, attack the trapdoor spider with me!” I shouted.
The spider I’d zapped in the mouth had collapsed to the ground but wasn’t out by a long shot. I figured we needed to focus on a single enemy at a time and kill it before moving to the next.
It was easier said than done of course. The spider I’d hit with the critical was back up and circling over to Scarlet.
She wasn’t looking too good either. She was trying to keep the Echo Knife up but then she hunched and threw up, a thin stream of brown that splattered on the forest floor. The trapdoor spider leaped forward but she stabbed it, a shallow wound in its leg that mirrored on another.
I spotted the ax stuck in the ground so I grabbed it and threw it at the trapdoor spider. I was hoping for some perfect slo-mo through the air and then slicing into its face but I hit it hilt first, only distracting it for a moment.
It was enough though. Despite her sickness, Scarlet jumped at the trapdoor spider, stabbing at it with the Echo Knife. There was no duplicate wound for the first stab but on the second, again to its face, a deep gash opened in the existing ax wound in its side, exposing organs and veins. Scarlet barely got the knife free as I cast Bolt, stabbing the end of the s
taff into the wound. It sunk in damn near halfway, the lightning exploding inside the spider.
Chunks of spider shot up and then rained down on us as I pulled the staff out, the end soaked in brown, which I guess passed for its blood.
Gold rose up and I saw my experience bar fill a little more but there was no time for that. We still had two spiders to go, both mostly unharmed. One was missing a fang and the other had been critically electrocuted but were now ready to kill us.
“That one!” I yelled, pointing to the spider I’d hit with the critical. My thinking was it still had both its fangs.
“Yeah,” Scarlet said but then threw up again, dropping the Echo Knife. It stabbed her foot and an identical wound opened up on the back of her numb and useless hand.
“Ori!” I shouted.
Ink rose up from the ground around the spider’s feet. It was barely enough to hold it in place but gave me enough time to grab the ax, cross the clearing and sink it deep into its face, nearly splitting the spider in two.
Critical!
I lost the ax then. It was wedged too deep in the dying spider for me to get out.
I turned around as Scarlet went down on her knees. She cast a fireball but completely missed the spider. It shot off into the undergrowth, bursting against a distant tree.
There was just one spider left. It only had one fang but also one target: Scarlet, near crippled by the poison.
I wasn’t fast enough to stop it sinking its fang into her working arm. She screamed in pain. I shot Bolt, knowing it could hurt Scarlet and missed, actually hitting her direct rather than the spider. The lightning went down her arm and hit the spider though, shaking it free.
Scarlet was down to a quarter health and Ori too, both dropping rapidly. Both their icons were a sickly green in my HUD, the universal sign for poisoned. The spider fighting liquid Ori must have bitten him somehow.
Bolt was on cooldown so I pulled the baseball trick again, swinging for a home run. I managed to smash the spider in the face and there was another enormous crack. The spider stumbled back, a stream of brown pouring out of its mouth. Its last remaining fang slipped out and landed on the ground.