The Superhero's Glitch

by Lucas Flint

  “Which will, in time, lead to the extinction of your people even if all of you guys live to your maximum possible age,” said Bait. “Right?”

  “Correct,” said Aeolus. He scratched the side of his face. “We suspect that the eggs are being taken into the deepest, darkest caves of the Tall Mountains. We Birdmen are masters of the air, but we do not handle enclosed spaces very well, especially given how short the ceilings of the caves and tunnels are. That is why I need your help because you outworlders are the perfect size for the low ceilings of the Tall Mountain cave and tunnel network.”

  A new notification suddenly appeared in my vision when Aeolus said that:

  NEW QUEST: Find the stolen eggs of the Birdman Tribe

  Aeolus, a seemingly influential member of the Birdman Tribe, has asked you and your friends to find and rescue the missing children of his people, which he believes are being held captive somewhere in the dark and mysterious caves of the Tall Mountains, where the Birdmen have little influence. This is a rare honor because Birdmen rarely ask outsiders for help with their problems. It is also a serious issue to address, because if the children are not found, then the Birdmen race itself will cease to exist in a few centuries.

  QUEST TYPE: Unique, Rare

  SUCCESS: Find the stolen eggs of the Birdman Tribe and return them to their parents

  FAILURE: Lose the eggs for good or die before completing the quest

  REWARDS: The eternal trust and gratitude of the entire Birdman Tribe, plus exclusive Birdman-themed equipment and items and 5,000 EXP for each party member.

  Y/N?

  I whistled at the rewards listing. I had no idea what ‘Birdman-themed equipment and items’ was, but that 5,000 EXP for each party member was appealing all by itself. It would probably bump all of our levels up to at least 10, maybe higher, so this seemed like a no-brainer to me.

  “What do you guys think?” I said, looking at Bait and Switch. “Think we should accept this quest? We’ll get a lot of experience from it, which will help us level up fast.”

  “It sounds like a waste of time if you ask me,” said Switch. “We’re trying to save your AI Valerie from Holly, right? Do we even have time to waste going on quests like this, even if the rewards are good?”

  “Did you say Holly?” said Aeolus, leaning forward slightly as if to hear what we were saying better. “As in, the Dark Sorceress who lives in the Tower of the Cursed on the other side of the Tall Mountains?”

  I looked up at Aeolus again in surprise. “Yeah, that’s her. I take it you’ve heard of her?”

  “Of course I have,” said Aeolus, with a trace of bitterness to his tone. “The Dark Sorceress has been giving us trouble as well. Her monsters have been invading our territory for a while, randomly attacking members of our Tribe for no reason. We don’t know if her minions are acting on her orders or on their own, but her dark power grows by the day and we are afraid she may attempt a full-scale assault on our territory if she is not stopped soon.”

  “Do you think Holly has anything to do with the disappearances of your eggs?” I asked.

  “Possibly,” said Aeolus, “but we are not sure. There are plenty of enemies in this world who would love to steal our children in order to weaken us more efficiently. It may be that the Dark Sorceress’ minions are the ones behind the kidnapping, but at this point, we do not know for sure.”

  I looked at Bait and Switch. “Hear that? It sounds like our interests overlap with the Birdmen’s interests.”

  “Sure does,” said Bait. “I think you should accept the quest. Besides, we were going to the Tall Mountains anyway, so it’s not like we’ll have to go out of our way or anything like that.”

  “I guess so,” said Switch, though she didn’t sound very enthusiastic. “I just hope that this doesn’t take too much time, because the sooner we save your friend, the sooner we can get out of this stupid video game.”

  I nodded in agreement and hit the ‘Y’ button, causing the notification to vanish from my sight.

  “Thank you, outworlders, for agreeing to help,” said Aeolus, bowing his head. “The Birdman Tribe will forever be in your debt if you manage to save our children. We are a fair race and believe in rewarding even our lessers when they do a good job.”

  “Lessers?” said Switch indignantly. “Who are you call ‘lessers,’ bub?”

  “You, of course,” said Aeolus, looking at Switch with amusement in his eyes. “Or have you already forgotten how powerful I am?”

  “No, no, I didn’t,” said Switch quickly, backing away from Aeolus’ tree with obvious fear in her eyes. “I just wanted to make sure I heard you correctly, that’s all.”

  Aeolus nodded. “Very well. Since you will need to travel to the Tall Mountains in order to complete his quest, I will give you a shortcut so you can get started right away.”

  Aeolus dug through the bag slung over his right shoulder and pulled something out and dropped it toward us. I caught the small object in my hand and looked at it. It was a metal coin with weird letters—maybe the Birdman language—carved into it. It also hummed with magical power, so I Scanned it to see what it was:

  Teleportation Coin.

  Item Status: Unique

  Quantity: 1

  Description: A piece of the Birdman Tribe’s currency infused with mana to create a portal leading directly to the Tall Mountains. This coin can only be used once and then it will become an ordinary Birdman coin again, though that hardly makes it worthless.

  “Teleportation Coin?” I said, looking up at Aeolus.

  “Yes,” said Aeolus. “With that Coin, you will be able to teleport all the way to the base of the Tall Mountains from anywhere in Keoria. That way, you can get started on the quest right away.”

  “How convenient,” said Switch. “For a moment there I thought we were going to have to walk all the way there.”

  “Might still make sense to do so,” said Bait. “If we walk, we can level up through random encounters. We’re still pretty low-leveled, after all. If we go to the Tall Mountains now, we might not be strong enough to take on the enemies there.”

  “Bait’s got a point,” I said as I slipped the Teleportation Coin into my pocket. “We should probably spend a couple of hours leveling up our characters before we leave. That way, we’ll be ready for whatever the Tall Mountains have to throw at us.”

  “A wise choice,” said Aeolus, “but please don’t spend too much time training. Every second spent out here is another second spent not looking for the eggs. I don’t want our children to perish because of your outworlder slothfulness.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, giving Aeolus the thumbs up. “We’ll complete this quest as fast as possible. You can count on us.”

  “I hope I can,” said Aeolus. “In any case, this is farewell for now. Once you complete your quest, please come find me at the village of Height in the Tall Mountains. Please be sure to bring the eggs with you and not to lose any. Until then, good luck and may the winds be under your wings.”

  With that, Aeolus flapped his wings and shot off into the sky. He flew so fast that my eyes barely followed his movements, and in seconds he was gone. A single feather floated down from the branch he had been crouched upon, the only sign that he had been here at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Well,” said Switch as soon as Aeolus left. “What a jerk. You can tell he thought he was so much better than us because he can fly.”

  “Can you blame him?” said Bait, glancing up at the sky visible through the gap in the treetops. “This is the future of his people we’re talking about here. If we can’t get the eggs back, then the Birdman Tribe will die off.”

  “I wonder what Holly could possibly want with the Birdmen eggs,” I said. I looked at Olga. “Any thoughts, Olga?’

  Olga shook her head. “No. It is possible that Holly might not even be behind this, though it seems likely, given how the thefts started around the same time Holly reappeared.”

  “Well, I guess
we’ll find out for ourselves soon enough,” I said. I patted the Teleportation Coin in my front pocket. “Once we level up enough, we can use this coin to head out to the Tall Mountains and complete the quest.”

  “Ugh, quests,” said Switch. “That just sounds so dorky. Why couldn’t we just call it a mission?”

  “Because that would ruin the immersion, obviously,” said Bait. He grinned. “Besides, I like the idea of us going on quests. Kind of reminds me of the Medieval knights. I wonder if superheroes could be thought of as modern day knights.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’re not going anywhere anyway. We need to find some monsters to kill so we can get experience points and level up. Olga, are there a lot of monsters in the Silent Forest?”

  “Yes,” said Olga, nodding. “Quite a few and all of them are low level and easy for new players to handle. You may have to wander around a bit before you actually run into anything, however.”

  I nodded. “All right, then. Let’s find us some monsters to kill.”

  As it turned out, finding monsters to kill was surprisingly easy. We ran into wolves, rabbits, and various other woodland creatures of varying difficulty levels. None of them turned were very difficult to kill, although the Forest Wolves gave us a fair bit of trouble due to how fast they were. We also found another Tree Golem, but it was lower leveled than the last one and we already knew how to defeat it, so it was easy to take it out.

  We didn’t just gain EXP, though. We also found what Bait called ‘loot,’ dropped items and equipment that the monsters would sometimes drop upon death. That was how Switch was able to upgrade from a Simple Staff to a Mage’s Staff, which was apparently a rare find according to the Mage’s Staff’s item description. Even Bait managed to find some Woodsmen’s Gloves, which apparently boosted his strength quite a bit. We also got some Health Potions for healing purposes and Mana Potions for restoring our magic, though I figured that Switch, being our team mage, would get more use out of those Mana Potions than either Bait or me.

  By the time we finished our grinding session, we had all reached Level 10. I was surprised by how quickly we all managed to level up, but Olga informed me that leveling up quickly was easy early on. As we progress through the game, however, it would become more and more difficult, though she didn’t elaborate on what she meant by that exactly.

  In any case, Level 10 seemed to be a good enough level to tackle the quest to me. As Bait and Switch sat on a log to rest, I checked my notifications, which I had ignored in order to focus on leveling up:

  Level up +7! You are now Level 10. Congratulations!

  +21 Stat Points! Total unused Stat Points: 24.

  Hmm. I remembered Olga’s earlier explanation about Stat Points and how they worked. I had put off distributing my Stat Points because I wasn’t sure where to put them, but since we were going to begin this quest soon, I decided that now was the perfect time to figure out where these Points should go.

  I pulled up my character sheet and looked at my current stat distribution:

  Name: Kevin Jason, AKA Bolt

  Level: 10

  Class: Swordsman

  Affinity: Good

  Strength: 20

  Defense: 10

  Speed: 24

  Dexterity: 7

  Health: 23

  Evasion: 5

  Mana: 10

  Stamina: 20

  I tapped my chin and considered my play style. The Swordsman class was supposed to specialize in physical fighting, so it made sense that my Strength and Speed stats were also my highest stats. My Evasion was incredibly low, though, and my Defense wasn’t much better. It was hard to know where and how to distribute my Stat Points because I didn’t play these kinds of video games that often and so I didn’t know what the best strategy was. It made me wish I had brought Shell with me because he used to play these kinds of games all the time and so he would know what the best distribution strategy was.

  Oh, well. Might as well play to my strengths. I put 10 Stat Points in Strength, 5 in Speed, and the remaining 6 into my Health. Now my character sheet read:

  Name: Kevin Jason, AKA Bolt

  Level: 10

  Class: Swordsman

  Affinity: Good

  Strength: 30

  Defense: 10

  Speed: 29

  Dexterity: 7

  Health: 29

  Evasion: 5

  Mana: 10

  Stamina: 20

  Satisfied with my current spread, I closed the window and looked over at Bait and Switch. “You two ready to roll yet?”

  Switch shook her head. She was leaning against one of the trees, her Mage’s Staff held against her body. “No. I feel like I did the most intensive workout of my life. Grinding is boring.”

  “Well, we did just spend a few hours fighting hordes of bad guys,” said Bait. He stood up from the log and picked up his shield. “You should feel like you just got a good workout after leveling up. It’s a sign you were really trying your best.”

  “Maybe next time I won’t do my best,” said Switch dryly, “at least if this is what ‘trying my best’ feels like, anyway.”

  “Right,” I said. I pulled the Teleportation Coin out of the pocket of my pants. “We don’t have time to waste, so you two need to get over here so we can teleport to the Tall Mountains and finish this quest.”

  “Sure,” said Bait. “Come on, sis. Time’s a wasting.”

  Switch sighed but followed Bait over to me nonetheless. Once the three of us were together, I held the Teleportation Coin above my head and then paused.

  “Um, Olga?” I said. “How does this Teleportation Coin work?”

  “It’s easy,” said Olga. “Just flip it in the air and catch it in your hand. It will then teleport you directly to whatever location has been programmed into it, which in this case is the Tall Mountains.”

  “I see,” I said. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

  I flipped the Teleportation Coin into the air. It flipped several times before falling into the palm of my open hand.

  Just as the Coin made contact with my skin, our environment changed. We went from standing among the cool, clear trees of the Silent Forest to standing at the base of a very tall mountain range. The change in surroundings was so abrupt that I thought it was a glitch at first, but when I checked my map and saw we were at the Tall Mountains, I realized that the Coin had worked exactly as intended.

  A notification appeared in front of me:

  You have used your Teleportation Coin. It has now been downgraded to a regular Birdman Coin, which can be used for currency among members of the Birdman Tribe. You cannot teleport with this particular coin again unless you enchant it with a new location.

  I remembered Aeolus warning us that we would only be able to use it once, so I wasn’t surprised. I just put the coin back into my pants pockets for later use and looked up at the Tall Mountains themselves.

  They were absolutely enormous, rising high into the sky, their peaks nearly reaching the clouds. Steep cliffs and empty-looking caves stood out along the face of the mountains, while a howling wind could be heard curling through the peaks. There even appeared to be snow at the top, though it wasn’t very much.

  “Whoa,” said Switch, staring up at the Tall Mountains with big eyes. “They really are tall, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah,” said Bait, his eyes scanning the massive mountain face before us. “See any enemies? Because there’s got to be some bad guys here.”

  “There most definitely are,” said Olga, “but you likely won’t run into any of them until you enter the Mountains themselves.”

  “What?” said Switch, looking at Olga in surprise. “You mean we actually have to walk all the way up there? Why didn’t Aeolus’ Coin teleport us directly into the Mountains?”

  “Probably to make this quest harder,” said Bait. “It would be too easy if we could just teleport to the nearest cave mouths. At least, that’s what I think.”

  Switch groaned. “
Does this game have an easy mode? Because I sure would like to play on easy mode right now.”

  “There’s no easy mode,” I said. “And even if there was, you’d probably still bitch about how hard it is. Come on. Let’s go.”

  I immediately began walking up a trail leading up to the Mountains themselves. I heard Bait and Switch fall into line behind me, with Switch muttering under her breath about how rude I was. I didn’t care, because I was getting more and more tired of her whining. I wondered how Bait could be so patient with her. Then again, considering how the two of them had torn apart the Academy’s gym over a dumb thing Bait may have said, perhaps he was a lot less patient than he seemed.

  In any case, we made our way up the Mountains, which was surprisingly easy at first. The trail we took was clearly one that had been made by someone long ago because the ground was smooth and easy on the feet. It might have been a trade route at some point, but it seemed like no one had used it in years.

  About halfway up the base of the Mountains, however, the trail became less and less distinct, especially when it became clear that we needed to veer off the trail in order to reach the nearest cave mouth. When we got off the trail, we found ourselves walking through rocky, uneven ground, forcing us to walk more slowly than usual in order to make sure we didn’t trip and hurt ourselves. Bait and I were fine because of our boots, but Switch kept complaining about how the rocks hurt her feet because she wore soft-soled shoes that were perfect for walking on smooth surfaces but absolutely awful for hiking through mountains. All I could do was shrug when she complained about it because we didn’t have any other shoes for her to wear and I figured that the cave floor would be smoother than the Mountains themselves.

  Luckily, it didn’t take us long to reach the first cave, which was about as a wide as a garage door. The cave within was pitch black, which made us hesitate to enter, at least until I got the idea of taking a stick I found and having Switch cast her Fire spell on it. With the resulting torch in hand, the four of us entered the cave, although slowly and cautiously, because we had no idea what might be lurking within.