by Rachel Ford
“Well…it might not be quite that simple.”
“Why?”
“You know I can’t tell you what to expect in the game.”
“Jordan, come on.”
“But – well, you might be getting ahead of yourself.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t tell you.” He started to protest, but she held up a hand. “I could get fired – and where does that leave you? But what I can say is…well, think about the name of the game.”
“Dagger of Doom?”
“That’s the series name. What’s the game’s name?”
“Iaxiabor’s Revenge,” he answered.
And she nodded. “Exactly.”
Jack groaned. “Fiddlesticks. Are you telling me I don’t get to stop Kalbidor? Are you telling me Iaxiabor actually returns?”
“I’m not telling you anything. I can’t.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. You and Richard both.”
She grinned. “Now, stop complaining. Tell me what you got planned. Tell me if you need anything.” He started to speak, but she added, “Other than coffee. I gotcha covered on that already.”
He grinned as a series of messages floated through his thoughts.
Added to inventory: steaming hot latte x 2
Added to inventory: hazelnut cappuccino
Added to inventory: iced latte
“You, Jordan, are a godsend.”
She rolled her eyes in turn. “You are way too easy to please, Jack.” She glanced over her shoulder then frowned. “Oh. Well, I should go.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Just…Nate’s here.”
Nate was one of the support team developers, and Jack’s experience so far with the other man made his appearance about as welcome as a venereal disease. Except, that’s probably not fair to the STD. He’d acted like Jack’s imprisonment in the virtual reality system was a personal slight intended to inconvenience him, since it meant he needed to put in more hours. “Ugh. Well, good luck with that.”
“Thanks. Take care of yourself, Jack. And if you need me – call me.”
“Always. Catch you later, Jordan.”
Then she disappeared, and the game resumed. The characters went back to whatever they were doing. Migli glanced around, a bit confused, but then shrugged and rubbed his head. “I don’t know what was in that ale, but it’s definitely worse the second day than the first.”
Jack felt a little sad after his conversation with Jordan. He supposed that was because of what she’d told him. Or, hadn’t told him.
The game wasn’t about to end. He wasn’t about to face the final boss. Kalbidor was just another stop along the way before he could finally kill Iaxiabor – and get the hell out of the machine, and back to his real life.
He should have seen that coming. He’d played thousands of hours of videogames, and everything Marshfield Studio had ever put out. He knew how this worked. It would be a long series of increasingly more difficult trials, until the final boss fight. He’d tracked Kalbidor all over the world. He’d catch up to him soon – and probably, there would be a boss fight. But it wouldn’t be the last one. Iaxiabor would come back, somehow, either before Kalbidor died or just after. Then the chase would start all over again.
Of course he was depressed. He’d been looking forward to getting back to his life. Not that it was much of a life, if he was honest with himself. He worked as a contract web developer – and probably had lost all of his clients in his time in the machine.
He didn’t have much of a social life.
Okay, he had no social life. At least, not the kind of social life normal people meant when they used the term. He had plenty of friends, and some of them good friends, online – friends he’d never met, and would never meet. Friends he had no interest in meeting, but friends all the same.
He knew about their spouses and their kids, their pets and their hobbies. He knew the things they feared and the things they loved. He knew the geeks and the amateurs, the casuals and the hardcore gamers. He had friends among them all.
They probably figured he’d just gotten busy with real life. Maybe they decided he’d met a girl.
Somehow, that brought his thoughts back to Jordan. And he felt a little stupid about that. He’d never even seen Jordan in real life. He knew what her in-game avatar looked like, when she was playing her own character and not just utilizing the supervisor interface. She was tall, dark-haired, light-eyed and damned pretty. And he knew she’d modeled the avatar after herself. So in a way, he kind of knew what she looked like.
But it wasn’t the same thing. They’d never seen each other face-to-face. They’d never actually met. So why did his thoughts go back to her? It didn’t make sense, and that annoyed him.
So he was depressed as well as annoyed as they forged into the countryside that morning. He didn’t pay much attention to the road or the country around him. It all blended together after a while: green, flat, and endless. He tried to drown out his companions’ chatter, too – their singing, their squabbling, and their speculation.
Ceinwen wondered why Fox’s Crossing would have allowed a demon’s keep to stand for so many years, so close to their town. Iaxiabor had been defeated thousands of years ago. Surely, she speculated, that would have been enough time to demolish his minion’s castle?
Jack didn’t really care. It was a videogame. It didn’t have to make sense.
Karag kept going back to William the Wanderer. He knew a killer when he saw one, he said.
“Takes one to know one,” Arath had shot back.
Which had prompted Karag to spin one of his several familiar cover stories: he was a simple wine merchant, plying his wares upon the open road, and certainly not a killer. “But any fool could see the look in his eyes.”
“Especially when he spotted you. As I say: it takes a killer to know one. And he pegged you for an Obsidian Isles operative, sure as snot.”
Er’c, meanwhile, wondered what had befallen Mayor Ashford. “A month is a long time. He can’t still be alive.”
“If he is, he must be a prisoner,” Ceinwen said.
As for Migli, well, the dwarf seemed to be in a melancholy frame of mind himself. He ignored all the discussion around him and sang about lost love and broken hearts.
Which, of course, did nothing to lift Jack out of his funk. He was about to tell the dwarf to put a sock in it when he took a step – a completely ordinary step – forward.
And the game froze, and Jack’s vision went dark.
Chapter Six
A second later, light seared his corneas. At least, that’s what it felt like: like he was staring into the sun after a month in a windowless basement. He groaned and tried to shield his eyes.
But his arms – and his entire avatar – had vanished. The light faded, and shapes and figures emerged out of it. Jack saw a castle courtyard – old and crumbling stone, lined with iron spikes upon which severed heads and charred corpses hung. In the center of the courtyard clustered an army of terrible, twisted forms.
Cutscene, he realized. Whatever invisible boundary he’d just crossed, it had triggered an in-game cinematic. He recognized the castle, too. Not that he’d seen it in person yet, but he’d caught glimpses of it in an earlier cutscene. It was Kalbidor’s lair.
And in a moment, he saw Kalbidor himself: the humanoid shape, with its red eyes and all the glowing symbols emblazoned on its face.
The viewpoint camera panned out a little, until Jack could see a blue ocean on the horizon in one direction, and an endless sea of green on the other – the seemingly eternal plains country.
But something else caught his eye. Something far more interesting. Hundreds and hundreds of bound figures – humans, elves, dwarves and other races – hung from the castle walls, and filled dungeons and cages outside the fortress. He saw rows upon rows of packed cages, and more columns of chained figures beyond. Some squirmed and struggled, and others lay still, resigned to their fate
s.
Kalbidor’s voice carried loud and clear over it all. “The souls of one thousand heroes: that is what we need. Very soon, we shall have a thousand heroes, my loyal band.
“Then, we shall bring a darkness unlike any darkness this world has ever known. The courage of men will break. The strength of dwarves will fail. The resilience of elves will vanish.
“All the world shall bow before Iaxiabor. And we, my surly scum, shall rule at his right hand, bringing death and pain and sorrow everywhere we go.”
The demons cheered, and so did the goblins and trolls in their midst.
Despite himself, despite knowing that this was only a videogame, Jack shivered. At least, his brain registered something like a shiver of fear. Kalbidor seemed to have amassed an army of all the evil things, all the wickedest and foulest creatures of lore, into one place. Their cries could curdle blood, so full of bloodlust and malice as they were.
The cutscene faded, and Jack returned to the brightly lit day – demonic cheering still ringing in his ears. “Sugar,” he said. At least, that’s how the game rendered the word. “We’d better hurry.”
His companions stared blankly at him, and he realized they probably weren’t privy to his visions. Player privilege, and all that. He didn’t bother to explain. That would surely only confuse them more. Instead, he just shrugged and said, “Kalbidor’s got to be close to capturing the thousand heroes he needs. And once he does that, he’s going to steal their souls to unlock the dagger and bring back Iaxiabor.”
“Poor old Lenkins,” Arath murmured. Lenkins had been the ranger’s partner – up until he’d abandoned the other man to Kalbidor’s forces in order to save his own skin, anyway. “I don’t suppose there’s any helping him now.”
“If we find Kalbidor in time to stop him, we can save Lenkins,” Jack said. But he didn’t say it with much conviction. After his conversation, or nonversation, with Jordan, he had little reason to believe they would actually stop the arch demon. Which was more than a little terrifying.
The thought put the entire band in a sober frame of mind. Even Migli gave up his singing for a while. And when he resumed it, his tales were of battles lost and heroes forgotten; of campaigns gone dreadfully wrong, and armies annihilated.
They walked in this way all through the day, and Jack decided to press on as the sun set. No one argued – not even Arath, though he did mention his weary feet several times.
The howl of wolves sounded far off in the distance, but they spotted none of the creatures. Once or twice, a shadow passed overhead. Ceinwen would touch the hilt of her sword, and say, “Be on the lookout. There are things that patrol the heavens that will as soon devour you as look at you.”
But they ran into no trouble. Dawn broke, and the sun rose. And still, no castle appeared on the far horizon.
Jack turned the cutscene over in his head. It was the second time he’d seen Kalbidor’s fortress. And each time, he’d spotted the same features: the old stone, the endless plains, and a great, blue ocean on the far side of the castle.
An idea had been rolling around at the periphery of his thoughts – not quite cogent yet, but enough to trouble him. He couldn’t put his finger on it. But something…something wasn’t right.
The more he considered it, the more the idea began to take shape. The plains country was supposed to be massive. Surely, they could not cross it in half a week on foot. And in order to see the ocean by Kalbidor’s fortress, that would mean they were crossing to the far side of the island.
Unless we’re following the coast, and he’s not on the other end of the plains country. He tried to think of the shape of the island as he’d seen it on the flight in. The fact was, he’d been able to make out very little of it, and certainly not enough to inform his conclusion now.
Nor did he have any kind of detailed map. His world map showed him a huge blob of brown and green territory, with fuzzy borders – fuzzy, because he hadn’t explored them yet. Now – too late – he thought that it might have been worth finding a shop after all, and trying to locate a map.
But, well, that ship had already sailed. They were days into the wilderness, which presumably put them near Mayor Ashford’s disappearance – and Kalbidor’s fortress, unless he’d made some kind of faulty connection between the two.
And he really hoped he hadn’t. He hoped they’d made a somewhat circuitous route back to the coastline, where they would find the demon horde and Mayor Ashford, or whatever remained of him.
By midday, though, Jack’s hopes started to vanish. He didn’t see a coastline or a bright blue sea. He saw mountains instead.
Migli saw them too, with what seemed an equal measure of consternation. “Ivaldi’s Hall lies that way.”
“Ivaldi?”
“The ancestor of my people. That is what our kingdom is called, in your language: Ivaldi’s Hall. It is not just a hall, though it started as one. Now it is much, much more: a kingdom, grand and beautiful, and full of treasures beyond comprehension. The sons and grandsons of Ivaldi have tended it these long years. And now it is in my father’s keeping.”
“Wait, so you know this area?”
Migli nodded. “Of course. I spent my long youth here.”
Jack frowned at his companion. “You didn’t think that was pertinent earlier?”
The dwarf made no reply to that. He just stared blankly.
Stupidly, Jack thought. So, forcing himself to be patient, reminding himself with an effort that Migli was only an NPC after all, he said, “So if you grew up here, you must know where Kalbidor’s fortress is.”
“Me, Sir Jack?”
“Yes, Migli: you are the one who grew up here…”
“Of course. But Kalbidor’s fortress isn’t here.”
Jack gaped at his companion. “It’s…not?”
“No, of course not. You think dwarves would have left something like that in our backyard?” He laughed, like the idea was absurd. Then he shook his head at Jack – like Jack was the one being absurd. “Oh no. That fortress is nowhere in the area. If I had to put my money on it, I’d say it was south of here, over the mountains or around them. Probably out by the coast somewhere.”
No videogame character had ever provoked in him the level of hostility that Migli somehow elicited. Jack fumed at the hours – days – he’d wasted scouring the countryside on some wild goose chase. He understood now, of course, why the game hadn’t updated his objectives to find out the location of Kalbidor’s fortress even after his conversation with Mrs. Wellington: because his conversation with Marsha Wellington had nothing at all to do with Kalbidor. She’d sent him off after Ashford.
And he, like the fool he was, had questioned no further.
Now, filled with rage and a desire to murder Migli, Jack had to make a decision. He could either circle back around, avoiding the mountain range and ignoring the Ashford side quest. Or he could follow the road for a little way longer, until he discovered what had happened to the mayor.
Part of him wanted to abandon the search forthwith, since it had nothing to do with his main quest. But the more rational part of his brain urged him to be sensible. He’d come all this way, after all. What would be the point in turning back now, a few hours perhaps from a successfully completed quest? He’d already wasted days. He might as well have something to show for them.
“Can we go over the mountains?” he’d asked Migli.
The dwarf had laughed. “Can you sprout wings and fly, Jack?”
“That’s a ‘no,’ then?”
“There’s passages, alright. But they’re open to dwarves. I’d be breaking dwarven law if I showed them to you. I’m sorry. You know I’d do anything for you and our cause, Sir Jack. But family honor must come first.”
This had done nothing to quell his anger toward the dwarf. But finding no way to persuade him, and already knowing he was unkillable as an essential NPC, Jack decided to let it go. Worrying about what couldn’t happen was a waste of time.
So he thought lo
ng and hard and decided in the end to keep walking. If by nightfall he hadn’t found Mayor Ashford, or his earthly remains, he would turn around – reward be damned. But if he found the mayor, or evidence of what happened to him, he would collect whatever bounty Wellington had in mind. And then he would question the locals, and buy a map, and figure out the real route to Kalbidor’s fortress.
Chapter Seven
They walked for two more hours before they caught sight of a trail of blood. Karag hissed out a, “Look here.”
The blood spatters led off the road. Jack couldn’t tell where they originated.
Ceinwen, meanwhile, pointed to medium-sized canine tracks in the mud by the blood. “A dog,” she said. “Or a coyote. Too small to be a wolf.”
“A dog? What’s a dog got to do with this?” Jack wondered. He had assumed the blood belonged to Ashford. It didn’t make sense, of course, that a man would disappear a month ago, but his blood trail could still be fresh. But this was a videogame. It didn’t have to make sense. That was the beauty of the game world – you could do anything you wanted. You could spend weeks ignoring the imminent destruction of the world, chasing side quests or, hell, picking flowers and alchemic ingredients. It didn’t matter. The world would still be there, waiting to be saved, when you were done.
Just like a blood trail would magically wait for the hero to stumble upon it a month later.
“My guess is, it’s injured,” she said.
“Wait, the dog is injured?”
“Or coyote.”
He frowned. “What does this have to do with Ashford?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But we should check it out, Jack.”
“I disagree,” Migli said. “This is not our business, Sir Jack. We need not be mixed up with wild animals, or errant mayors.”
“We do have a demon to fight,” Arath said. “Pest control isn’t really a priority, is it? Let’s hope not, for Karag’s sake anyway.”
Jack ignored them both. “Let’s find the dog.”