by G. D. Penman
Lindsay was a blur of motion on the Ravager’s back, blades shimmering and dancing in the dim gray of Martin’s night vision.
[Night Ravager suffers 4 slashing damage]
[Night Ravager suffers 5 slashing damage]
[Night Ravager suffers 6 slashing damage]
It finally took notice of her, twisting its head around to snap at her wrist. Martin wasn’t standing for that. He tried to call up his Celestial Strike again, but it was still on cooldown, so he hacked at the Ravager with all his strength.
[Night Ravager suffers 9 slashing damage]
Nine damage was just a drop in the ocean, but where he’d hit the Ravager, close to one of its four wrists, the oil seemed to seep back a little slower. They were wearing it down.
He raised the sword to hack at the same spot again, but when he tried to bring it down, the blade jerked right out of his grip. Martin looked up. The sword was ensnared in the twisted mess of jagged teeth above him, looking no more out of place than any of the other metal protruding from the Ravager’s mouth.
The Night Ravager reared up to its full height, its arms spread wide like the jaws of some great bear-trap. Its claws opened out, each one half the length of his shortsword. Martin would be lucky if they found little meaty cubes of him.
The trap snapped shut, but Martin’s tiny paw was already outstretched and the swirl of his magic was already coiling around it. With every ounce of his concentration he thought the word Rebuke.
If he’d hoped to knock the Ravager off its feet, he was sorely mistaken. It slipped backwards as its claws snapped shut on empty air. It had balance like a cat. A skinned cat that someone had dunked in crude oil, but still a cat.
Lindsay’s balance wasn’t so good. With only her feet in contact with the slippery surface of the beast, she tumbled forward as it was flung back. The jumble of spikes around its mouth tore ribbons of flesh from her back as she fell past it.
[Tesra suffers 9 slashing damage]
The air was suddenly full of feathers, but through the cloud Martin saw his sword fall to the ground. Darting past Lindsay’s prone body, he snatched it up the moment it hit the stone and drove it up into the Ravager’s guts with all the momentum of that wild sprint behind him.
[Night Ravager suffers 12 piercing damage]
He tried to tug it clear, but the oil had slurped back into the wound and held the blade in place, like the proverbial sword in the stone. Martin let out a little hysterical laugh, then Lindsay leapt past him into the melee again. She twirled as she slashed at the Ravager, shedding blood and feathers in a spiral.
[Night Ravager suffers 5 slashing damage]
[Night Ravager suffers 6 slashing damage]
Those lethal claws swept down at her, but Lindsay was ready, diving through the Ravager’s legs and popping right up behind it again.
When it tried to turn and follow her, it found Martin straining against it with all his strength. He wasn’t strong enough to stop it, or even slow it. But he was gripping it hard enough that it had to take notice.
Martin closed his eyes for just long enough to pull up his list of abilities. Each one lay darkened, and had a tiny hourglass pouring out sand beside it.
All except for Rite of Retribution, which he triggered now as an afterthought. An extra critical hit or two might come in handy, after all.
The Ravager shifted above him. He could imagine those jagged claws even now rearing up like striking cobras, ready to sweep in and dice him up. Still, he kept his eyes closed and watched the last few grains of sand trickling down until Celestial Strike lit up once more.
His sword burst into radiant light inside the Ravager. All the sinews across its torso lit up from the inside, burning bright and red for one glorious moment. The oil leapt back from the blade and Martin was able to draw it free as if it were nothing.
With a roar that came out like a scream, he stared up into the void between the nightmarish bramble of jagged metal teeth and thrust the sword inside and into the roof of its mouth.
[CRITICAL HIT]
[Night Ravager suffers 12 piercing damage]
[ELEMENTAL WEAKNESS: DOUBLE DAMAGE]
[Night Ravager suffers 24 light damage]
The light blinked out inside the Ravager, and before Martin could pull back, its jaws crunched shut around his arm.
[Skaife suffers 21 piercing damage]
He could feel its teeth grinding together inside of him, the vibrations rattling up his bones as the Ravager tried to chew through. He should have been in agony, but the game protected him from everything but the spreading feeling of cold.
Two health left. The next attack would kill him. All the Ravager had to do was open its jaws and the fall back to the floor would probably finish him off.
It didn’t. It played with its food, flicking him from side to side with a turn of its head. It was mocking him. It had just been playing with them all along.
Martin was dimly aware that Lindsay was still slashing away at the back of the Ravager. The damage notifications were still popping up.
[Night Ravager suffers 4 slashing damage]
[Night Ravager suffers 6 slashing damage]
It wasn’t going to be enough. He could accept that now. It was the nature of the game. Some battles were just beyond the power of a pair of second-level characters, and this nightmarish thing from the depths of whatever hell lay beneath their feet was one of them.
His heels brushed the ceiling as the Ravager flicked him up and down.
“Lindsay. You’ve got to run.”
She danced away from another swipe of the Ravager’s claws. “If we die, we die together. Nobody ever won by running away.”
Lindsay had to get lucky every time it took a swipe at her. It only had to get lucky once. Martin fumbled for a lie.
“This time, that is exactly how we win. One of us has to survive. If neither of us make it, killing this thing won’t matter.”
He couldn’t see her through the bulk of the monster, but he could picture the incredulous look on her face perfectly.
“What are you going to do? Choke it when it tries to swallow you?”
“Will you just run?”
The teeth latched onto his arm seemed to be spinning like a food processor, grinding faster and faster through the bone.
When the bone broke, he would fall, and he would die. That was inevitable. There were only a few moments left to make a difference.
All around the wound, he was slick, not only with blood, but with the oil oozing from the beast’s head. It was slowly coating him.
The scent of the Ravager filled his nose and Martin finally recognized it. A mixture of tar and petrol. The creature’s skin looked like it was covered in crude oil… because it was.
With a blink, Martin summoned the mushrooms from his inventory. The heap tumbled out of his free hand to scatter on the floor below as he was flung from side to side for the Ravager’s amusement. Just a spark had been enough to set them off before – enough to douse a pig in flames, and the pig hadn’t even been coated in accelerants.
With a start, Martin realized that Lindsay must have finally listened. The Ravager had stopped whipping him from side to side and was now standing stock still. The only movement in the room was the strange slow motion of its spinning lamprey teeth grinding on his arm.
The electric-green neon eyes narrowed as it focused all of its eerily sentient attention on him.
Martin gasped, “I don’t suppose you can be reasoned with?”
It cocked its head to one side, flicking him around like a ragdoll. It was so tall that Martin was almost brushing the roof. He closed his eyes and pulled the Rusty Dagger that he’d started the game with from his inventory.
From the moment it appeared, the monster’s attention was locked onto the dagger, but the Ravager made no effort to stop him. If anything, Martin would have said it was curious. He supposed it had no reason to be afraid; it wasn’t like his puny little weapon was going to bother it.
<
br /> Drawing in a deep breath of the fume-clogged air, Martin slashed at the stone above his head, scoring a line right across it and sending a shower of sparks falling down around him. Over and over he swept the dagger back and forth.
Tiny motes of heat and light showered down, only to be swallowed up into the pitch darkness of the Night Ravager or to die out on their own long before they reached the explosive fungi.
With a scream of frustration Martin slammed the dagger into the Ravager’s face. The blade broke in two, barely piercing the hardened flesh.
[Night Ravager suffers 1 piercing damage]
It was surprised enough to drop him. He tumbled to the ground to land in a broken heap by its hooves.
[Skaife suffers 1 bludgeoning environmental damage]
The numbness was everywhere now. His night vision began to falter. Martin could swear that he was starting to hallucinate too. It looked for a moment like those merciless green eyes were looking down on him in pity. Like the silent terror of the Night Ravager was whispering, “Come to me.”
The cave grew darker and darker, but with raw willpower Martin was able to move his paw forward and drag the snapped remains of his Rusty Dagger across the stone floor. It was feeble, but it was enough to throw one spark onto the crackling mushrooms.
For one glorious second, the darkness was pushed back. A gout of flame burst out of the mushroom, setting off all the rest in a chain reaction.
With a distant whoosh, Martin saw the Night Ravager enveloped in fire. The oil on its skin caught instantly. A towering inferno. The only light in Martin’s world.
[CRITICAL HIT: DOUBLE DAMAGE]
[ELEMENTAL WEAKNESS: TRIPLE DAMAGE]
[Night Ravager suffers 102 fire damage]
Night Ravager has died.
Skaife earns 3080 experience.
LEVEL UP x 2
That last gasp of victory was short-lived. The oil that still clung to Martin’s already oily fur caught light, and he was so very glad for the numbness and oblivion that followed a moment after.
[Skaife suffers 21 fire damage]
Skaife has died.
Eleven
The Master and the Murovan
Martin didn’t know what to expect when he died. He supposed nobody really did. His current predicament was probably a lot like being a ghost.
The cave where he had died had already been dark, but now it was like he was looking at it through a thick black fog, the antithesis of the pale light that text coalesced out of when he was looking at the game menus.
Looking down, he realized he was disembodied again. The broken and charred remains of his character lay by his feet, the only thing that wasn’t shrouded by the damned fog. If he had a stomach, the sight probably would have made him feel queasy. As it was, he just felt a little uncomfortable.
After a moment of staring, one of the little hourglasses that appeared next to abilities on cooldown formed above the corpse. The grains of sand were falling quite rapidly. He had wondered how the game could stay balanced if people just sprang back to life again every time they were struck down, but just like everything else in Strata, it was all about timing.
[30 minutes until rebirth]
That wasn’t so bad. It was longer than any other game would have dared to slap on a player, but at the end of the day, Martin was willing to wait through nine hours of work to get back into Strata. Half an hour was small change by comparison. A slap on the wrist, really.
Martin had no eyes to close, but he found the shadows and mist around him reacting as if they were already shut. The menu appeared easily with just a little bit of concentration on his part. He was just about to log out when movement at the periphery of his vision caught his attention, and that distraction allowed the white text to fade away.
Lindsay had come creeping back into the room. He couldn’t hear what she was saying but he saw her beak moving as she took in the scene. She picked her way carefully past the Ravager’s scorched remains to give Skaife’s body a prod with one clawed toe. So disrespectful. Once she was sure he was dead, she started rummaging through the monster’s remains. Business as usual.
“Now, what were you doing all the way up here, my lost little darling? You aren’t meant to come wandering higher than deep thirty.”
If Martin had a body, he would have jumped. As it was, all he could do was swivel his field of view around to look for the source of the strange, soft voice.
A hooded figure was hanging immobile in the air above the corpses. Whatever features were beneath its cowl were lost in deep shadows. If it had limbs, they didn’t extend beyond the edges of the robes. The only hint of motion was the rippling of that tattered gray cloth, set in motion by some unfelt wind.
“Uh, hello?”
The hood snapped up and Martin saw for certain that there was nothing but darkness within.
“What? You? You did this? You laid this mighty creature low?”
There was a tiny bubble of pride in Martin’s chest that even the robed figure’s contemptuous tone couldn’t puncture.
“Yep. That was me. I mean, Lindsay… uh, Tesra… helped, obviously, but I’d say the majority of it was probably me.”
It drifted around to face him. The softness of the voice belied the venom in the words.
“But how could this be so? You are barely even arrived. This makes no sense. I had expected some veteran recalled from the lower deeps by the wailing of the victims. Not some noob— uh, newborn.”
If he’d had eyelids in that moment, Martin would have blinked. “Wait, you’re human? Who are you?”
The figure began to drift in a slow circle around Martin’s disembodied presence.
“Did you think that this dungeon sprang into existence fully formed? Or that it changes of its own volition? We are the Masters of Strata. The creators and the caretakers.”
That made sense. There was so much going on in Strata, it was no wonder it needed constant attention to keep everything running smoothly.
“Oh, you’re one of the game developers. Cool. I love Strata. You’ve done an amazing job.”
“Our beloved dungeon is a masterwork, is it not? Which is why we must work so tirelessly to correct any faults that we find within it before they can be exploited.”
The Master lunged forward suddenly, the darkness within its empty cowl suddenly filling the whole of Martin’s vision. It spoke once more, a voice drifting from the black void.
“We must prevent impossible challenges like this monster from being encountered by crusaders too weak to face them, and to ensure that the impossible cannot happen. So, you must tell me. How did you defeat the Night Ravager?”
Martin could just picture some douchebag neckbeard sitting in a customer service cubicle with a NIH strapped to his head, talking down to Martin like he was the grand high wizard in a fantasy novel. That image helped shake off the confusion.
Realization struck Martin just before he opened his mouth. If he told the game developers about the mushrooms, they’d probably be patched out of the game and he wouldn’t be able to use the same trick again.
Even if the Night Ravager had killed him, the experience had pushed him up two levels. He was level four. With a bag full of fungus firebombs, he might be able to dive right down a dozen deeps and power-level by exploding high-level monsters. Those stupid little mushrooms might have been the shortcut they needed to catch up with the rest of the pack in the race to the bottom.
Assuming that every monster they met was weak against fire attacks and willing to stand still for a few minutes while he scattered mushrooms around its feet. And assuming Martin landed a critical hit every time. Honestly, they probably weren’t all that useful at all. But now Martin’s curiosity had been piqued for other reasons.
He drifted away from the Master, watching out of the corner of his eye as Lindsay escaped back into the tunnels.
“If you’re a developer, can’t you just scroll back through the combat logs and see what happened?”
The robes stopped flapping for an instant, then resumed their animation as if nothing had happened.
“It is better for you to explain things in your own words so that we can be sure nothing… untoward happened. If you are co-operative, then there will be no reason to suspect that you have tampered with Strata in a way that might lead to your banishment.”
“Wait, you think I hacked the game?”
They couldn’t be serious.
“When something impossible happens that breaks the rules of the reality we have created here, we are forced to consider that someone has gone outside of those rules.” The cave had slowly faded away while they were speaking; now they were floating in the black void of the menu screens. “And of course, when the rules are broken, there must be punishment. So that there is fairness to those who were obedient.”
In the total darkness, the dusky gray of the Master’s robes became the only light, the only real thing in a pit of nothingness.
“I wouldn’t even know how to hack this game, or any game really. Even if I could, I wouldn’t do it. What’s the point of winning by cheating? Where’s the victory in that?”
There was a strange singsong quality to the Master’s voice now.
“If you haven’t broken any of the rules, then why are you so reluctant to tell me what you did?”
Martin didn’t consider himself to be particularly stubborn, but after a day of being slyly bullied by coworkers, he’d had enough.
“I didn’t use anything you didn’t put into Strata to beat your monster. If you really care that much, just go and check the logs.”