by Lucas Flint
You received ‘Feather Staff’! Check out its details in your item inventory.
You received ‘Birdman Blade’! Check out its details in your item inventory.
You received ‘Birdman Robes’! Check out its details in your item inventory.
You received complete ‘Elite Birdman Guard Armor Set’! Check out its details in your item inventory.
“Whoa,” I said, scrolling through the long list of rewards we just received, though I had to ignore the notifications popping up as my character leveled up thanks to the huge amount of experience I just got. “Thanks. I don’t know what to say.”
“You are welcome, outworlder,” said Aeolus with a short bow. “It is the least we can do after all of the trouble you went through to save our children. As well, you and your friends, even the Lizard Warrior, are all welcome to visit the village of Height anytime you want. Simply mention my name to the Guards at the village gate and they will let you in without further question.”
I wasn’t sure how useful that would be, considering how we had no plans to head to the Birdman village, but I nodded and said, “Thanks again. That is very generous of you.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Aeolus with another bow. Then he stood up straight. “But if I may ask, why did the Lizard Warriors steal our Eggs in the first place? Did they say what their goal is?”
“They were working for Holly, the Dark Sorceress,” I said. “She was trying to gather all of your Eggs to sacrifice them in a magical ceremony to increase her power. Luckily, we managed to stop them, but they were this close to pulling it off.”
“So you were right,” said Aeolus, running a claw through the feathers on his chest. “The Dark Sorceress was indeed behind this. That is troubling news, possibly some of the most troubling news I’ve heard in a while, but thank you for telling me that anyway. That knowledge will help me defend my Tribe better in the future.”
Suddenly, yet another notification appeared in front of me:
For giving Aeolus that piece of extra yet crucial information, you are now considered an honorary member of the Birdman Tribe. This is a rare honor, for the Birdmen are very hostile toward outsiders, especially outworlders, and rarely ever let them into their Tribe. Do not abuse this privilege.
“With that out of the way, I think it is time that my Guards and I return to Height,” said Aeolus. “Farewell, outworlders. May the winds raise you to ever greater heights.”
With that, Aeolus and his Guards flapped their wings and took off into the air. They flew so fast that I could barely follow their movements, and soon they disappeared entirely behind one of the nearby peaks, leaving the six of us standing alone on the slope of the Mountains.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Huh,” I said, looking at Mecha Knight. “They’re fast, aren’t they?”
“Quite,” said Mecha Knight, whose eyes were still on the peak that the Birdmen had disappeared behind. “The Birdmen are as majestic as I remember. Perhaps I should have picked a Birdman to be my character class.”
I was about to ask Mecha Knight what he meant by that when Bait said excitedly, “Who cares about that? Look at all of this experience we got. Oh, and also the awesome equipment.”
I had nearly forgotten about the massive amount of experience we had all gained after completing this quest. Pulling up my character’s screen, I saw the level up notifications:
Level up +10! You got +30 Stat Points!
You are now Level 22!
New Ability unlocked: Sprint. Rush to the aid of your party members in the middle of battle or flee an enemy you aren’t strong enough to take on just yet.
“Wow,” said Switch, who seemed to be looking at her own character screen. “I got a new spell! I can Heal people now. Yay!”
“I didn’t get any new Abilities,” said Bait, “but this Feather Shield looks pretty cool.”
Bait held up a new shield in his hands. It was tall and narrow, made of some kind of wood and covered in multicolor feathers that were absolutely beautiful to look at. “Gives me a huge boost in Defense and Health and even gives me an Ability called Fortress, which lets me defend multiple party members at once, though it takes a lot of Mana to use.”
Curious, I checked out the Feather Blade weapon I had gotten. It replaced the Cannibal Blade in my hands, which went straight into my item bag. The Feather Blade looked like an exact copy of the sword wielded by the Elite Birdmen Guards and this was its stats:
Feather Blade.
Status: Rare
+10 Strength!
+9 Speed!
+0.5 to all critical hits!
5% increase in landing critical hits!
A powerful steel blade forged and used exclusively by members of the Elite Birdmen Guards. The Feather Blade is a quick and devastating weapon, capable of dishing out immense damage by chaining long combos, taking huge chunks of HP off of even the toughest bosses.
Ability: Float. For five seconds, you can fly ten feet into the air. Cost: 5 Mana.
I frowned. Its stats weren’t anywhere nearly as good as the stat boosts provided by the Cannibal Blade, but seeing as I wasn’t a high enough level to even use the Cannibal Blade’s powers yet, the Feather Blade would have to do for now.
“What about you, Mecha Knight?” I said, looking up at him. “Did you level up?”
“Twice, actually,” said Mecha Knight, who seemed to be viewing something I couldn’t see. “Now I am trying to figure out how best to distribute my Stat Points to maximize my character’s potential.”
I nodded and decided to do the same thing now that we had the time, so I pulled up my character screen and looked at my current stat spread:
Name: Kevin Jason, AKA Bolt
Level: 22
Class: Swordsman
Affinity: Good
Strength: 30
Defense: 10
Speed: 29
Dexterity: 7
Health: 29
Evasion: 5
Mana: 10
Stamina: 20
Hmm. After all of the leveling up I did, I had 36 Stat Points to distribute. I would have to be careful about how I distributed them, however, because once I distributed them, I wouldn’t be able to use them again.
Our next fight was probably going to be against Holly. At this point, I wasn’t sure how we were going to beat her, because her stats didn’t seem to exist in-game. I still vividly remembered how easily she killed me when I first fought her. I’d gotten a lot stronger since then, but was I strong enough to defeat Holly? Of course, it might be easier now that I had four allies to back me up, but even then, it would probably be a tricky boss fight.
If I couldn’t beat Holly with brute force, then I would need to be fast and nimble, able to dodge attacks better than I could. It would help me survive against her, because the first time I fought her, I died because I was weak and couldn’t dodge her attacks.
So I dumped 15 Stat Points into Evasion, another 11 into HP to bring it up to a nice round number, and the remaining 10 into Defense. After I finished distributing my Stat Points, I looked at my character sheet again:
Name: Kevin Jason, AKA Bolt
Level: 22
Class: Swordsman
Affinity: Good
Strength: 30
Defense: 20
Speed: 29
Dexterity: 7
Health: 40
Evasion: 20
Mana: 10
Stamina: 20
That looked good. The increase in Evasion would be especially helpful, if only because it would help me avoid attacks that I couldn’t tank.
Dismissing my character sheet, I looked around at the others. It looked like Bait, Switch, and Mecha Knight were all still trying to figure out how to distribute their Stat Points, based on their focused stares and the way they swiped at screens I couldn’t see in the air. Okac was distracted by a fly buzzing around his head, which he was trying to catch with his hands, but every time he got close enough to grab it, it wo
uld zip out of reach and leave him looking frustrated but determined.
Olga floated a few feet away, watching Okac with amusement. She even giggled when he accidentally tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his chest, a stunned look on his face before he shook his head and jumped back to his feet and resumed trying to catch the fly again.
Seeing Olga amused reminded me of something I wanted to talk to her about. I waved at Olga, who looked at me and flew over to me with a puzzled look on her face.
“Yes, Bolt?” said Olga, stopping a few feet away from me. “Is there something you wanted to discuss with me?”
“Yeah,” I said, but then I glanced at Mecha Knight—who seemed absorbed in figuring out how to distribute his Stat Points—and said, “Let’s talk about it over here. It has to do with Okac.”
I could tell based on Olga’s expression that she had been expecting me to ask her about this. And I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
We retreated from the rest of the group a few yards down the slope until I was confident we were out of earshot. We stopped in front of a pile of rocks that looked like it had been standing here for centuries, though the age of those boulders was the last thing on my mind as I faced Olga, who sat down on top of one of the rocks with a resigned expression on her face.
“Olga,” I said, keeping my voice low but audible, just to make sure it wouldn’t carry back up to the others, “back in the tunnels with the Lizard Warriors, I should have been a goner. Kerco was going to kill me—he should have killed me—but then Okac miraculously had a change of heart at the last minute and saved me, which turned the tide of the entire battle against the Lizard Warriors.”
“I am aware of that,” said Olga without meeting my gaze, “I witnessed all of that just like you and the others—”
“I’m not finished speaking,” I said. “I just find it very coincidental that Okac would betray his clan at the exact moment we needed him to. My luck is pretty good most of the time, but it isn’t that good, no way, no how.”
Olga sighed. “What is your point?”
“My point is that I don’t think Okac did that entirely of his own free will, to the extent that a computer program can have free will at all,” I said. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder up the slope toward Okac. “I think you made him do it. I just don’t know why.”
Olga still didn’t meet my gaze, which would have convinced me she was human if I didn’t already know better. “I thought no one would notice, but … yes, I did take control of Okac and reprogrammed him so that he would turn against his clan and help you and your friends. Don’t worry, though. He isn’t going to betray you guys.”
“Why?” I said.
Olga looked up at me with a puzzled expression on her face. “Isn’t it obvious? I believe you humans are the only ones who can defeat Holly. If you had died back there, you would have been kicked out of the game for twelve hours, which would have been more than enough time for Holly to use Valerie to escape onto the Internet. I suppose your three friends would have remained, but I do not trust them as much as I trust you, so—”
“Why didn’t you do this before?” I said. “I didn’t know you could reprogram NPCs to help us. How much control over VO do you really have?”
“Is that why you seem so upset?” said Olga in confusion. “You are trying to figure out why I did not tell you I could do that?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “It would have made everything a whole lot easier if we knew you could do that from the start.”
“My apologies,” said Olga. She flattened the folds of her robes. “I have a tendency not to divulge important information like that. It was a flaw Genius noticed when he built me and one he always chided me for. It doesn’t help that it has been decades since I last interacted with humans, so I forgot that you don’t automatically know all the same things I do.”
I rubbed my forehead in frustration. “Okay, I get it, but that doesn’t explain why you didn’t do it earlier. Such as when we fought that Mother Tree Golem, for instance.”
“I would have stepped in to stop it, but Aeolus was faster than me and took it out before I could do anything,” said Olga with a shrug. “I thought you might be able to survive the game without my direct intervention, but it seems I must have overestimated your competence.”
I was pretty sure that Olga just called me incompetent, but I didn’t care. I just said, “Why don’t you just use your powers to program all enemies to help us? Or heck, why not hack us all up to whatever the maximum level is and give us a ton of Stat Points in the process?”
“Because my powers to intervene are … limited,” said Olga. “Deliberately so, programmed by Genius himself. He did that to ensure I would not have complete and total control over the Vaultwork, because Genius, as a general rule, did not trust AIs.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? Dad built a ton of AIs, like you, Freya, Valerie, even Holly. If he didn’t trust AIs, why would he give you guys so much control over so much of his technology?”
“That has nothing to do with trust and everything to do with the fact that AI can be useful for completing certain tasks,” said Olga. “Besides, you saw how Freya was and how Holly is. Imagine what would happen if either of them had control over the Vaultwork … or even worse, the Internet. Genius believed that AI could be corrupted just as easily as any human, which is why he put limits on all of us, though some are more limited than others.”
I nodded. “I see. So Dad limited how much you can directly affect the game world.”
“Yes,” said Olga with a nod. “I can, to some extent, reprogram enemies, cure normally incurable status conditions, even alter the weather, but it’s not easy and it isn’t always guaranteed to work. The only true advantage I have here is that my avatar, unlike every other in-game character, cannot die. Otherwise, I am fairly useless.”
“What about Holly?” I said. “Does she operate under any limits?”
“Yes and no,” said Olga. “She doesn’t have access to the Vaultwork’s base code—we wouldn’t exist if she did—but she’s a virus who can cause and exploit glitches to further her own agenda. That is what makes her so dangerous and why she is so powerful.”
“And still we don’t know how or why she came back,” I said. “Frustrating.”
“Perhaps so,” said Olga, “but what matters more is stopping her before she uses Valerie to escape to the Internet. You may think she is a threat now, but just wait until she is on the world wide web. The chaos she will create will be unlike anything you’ve seen before. That much I can assure you of.”
“I wish you couldn’t assure me of that,” I said. I shook my head. “Well, thanks for clearing that up for me. Let’s go and see if my friends are finished distributing their Stat Points yet.”
I turned around and began walking up the incline again, with Olga fluttering by my side, her tiny wings working hard to keep her in the air. While I was glad that Olga had been honest with me, I half-wondered if there was anything else important she had forgotten to mention to me and whether it would come to bite us in the back at some point in the future. Granted, this particular instance of her not telling us this actually worked in our favor, but that didn’t mean that luck would always be on our side.
Sooner or later, luck always ran out … and always when you needed it the most.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
As it turned out, Mecha Knight, Bait, and Switch had indeed finished distributing their Stat Points by the time Olga and I returned to them. Switch had apparently poured almost all of her Stat Points into her Mana, with a few scattered in Defense and Evasion for good measure, while Bait put most of his into those two stats while dumping the remaining into Health. Mecha Knight did not say how he distributed his Stat Points, but I suspected he likely increased his Mana and Health because he looked healthier than he did before.
Regardless, with our party now ready to go forward, we decided to make our way to our next and final destination: The
Tower of the Cursed, which, according to my World Map, was located on the other side of the Tall Mountains.
Luckily for us, Okac pulled through yet again. He took us down through the tunnels again, this time showing us a secret pathway to the other side of the Mountains that was quicker, easier, and safer than having to climb those darn things. He said it was the path that the Lizard Warriors had used to get from the Tower of the Cursed to the village of Height, so he knew it like the back of his hand.
In less than an hour, we emerged from the tunnels of the Tall Mountains yet again, this time on the other side of the mountain range. Unlike before, however, I almost wished we hadn’t, because as soon as we emerged out of the tunnel and into the light, the sight which greeted us was terrifying.
A massive tower rose from the earth, like the claw of some demon burrowing out of hell. It was completely black and gray, its surface pitted with scars and cracks from the ages. Hot fires were visible within some of the windows, while large flying creatures—too far away for me to make out in any detail—wheeled through the air above it. They looked kind of like vultures, but like I said, they were too far away for me to make out in any great detail.
The sky itself was pitch black. It didn’t look like the night sky in the country, but literal blackness, as if a portion of the sky had simply been deleted. The ground around the tower was bare and cracked, with a few dead trees and bushes scattered here and there. It was also eerily quiet. We probably would have been able to hear a pin dropped from the very top of the tower.
“There it is,” said Olga, pointing at the massive tower in the distance. “The Tower of the Cursed.”
“It’s so ugly,” said Switch, wrinkling her nose and staring at the Tower with obvious distaste. “Clearly, this Holly lady doesn’t have very good tastes in architecture.”
“That’s because it’s a glitch,” said Mecha Knight.
I looked up at Mecha Knight. “A glitch? What are you talking about?”
Mecha Knight gestured at the blackness in the sky. “Do you see that blackness? That’s a result of Holly’s infection, which has deleted a portion of the sky and rotted everything around it.”