by Lucas Flint
Cyclone looked very displeased upon hearing Aeolus’ short speech, but he didn’t dare voice any disagreements. I guess he didn’t want to disrespect Aeolus, but that was fine by me.
“Okay,” I said. “If you guys want to come along, that’s fine by me. Want to join my party? I think it would be more convenient for us that way if we’re all part of the same group.”
“Of course,” said Aeolus. “If we’re going to work together, then we might as well form a party.”
I nodded and sent out two party invites—one to Aeolus, the other to Cyclone—and was immediately greeted by this notification:
Birdman Chief Aeolus and Elite Birdman Bodyguard Cyclone have joined your party! All party members can talk to each other through the party chat and get unique Group Abilities in battle that allow for greater damage.
Oh, yeah. I recalled how Olga had explained to me that parties got access to Group Abilities which were normally unavailable to individual players. Unfortunately, Olga never explained what she meant by that in very much detail and I never got a chance to test out any of the Group Abilities, so I had no idea how to access them.
But perhaps we’d get a chance to use them against Mecha Knight and Abaddon later on. I hoped not, but I had a feeling that one way or another, we were going to have to fight Mecha Knight, especially if he was as dangerous as Aeolus and Cyclone said he was.
“All right, then,” I said. I rested the Cannibal Sword on my shoulder. “Why don’t we get this party started?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As it turned out, Mecha Knight was not very far from our current location. According to Aeolus, Mecha Knight was last seen heading to the city of Crystal River, a large, human-dominated city about a hundred miles from the starting forest where new players spawned. I had never visited Crystal River on my first visit here, but Aeolus claimed that it was one of the largest and most well-known cities in the entire continent, as well as one of the most well-defended. He said it had its own army of soldiers and mages who defended its walls from outsiders that would seek to harm it, although he doubted it would still be standing by the time we got there.
Walking one hundred miles seemed both inefficient and suicidal to me, but Aeolus told me we weren’t going to walk. Instead, we were going to fly, which made me wonder how until Aeolus picked me up with both of his claws and sent us soaring into the air, my feet dangling underneath me as we went higher and higher into the sky.
Now, I was used to flying in real life under my own powers and so completely lacked the fear of heights that so many other people seemed to have. But in-game was different, not merely because of how hyper-realistic everything was, but due to the fact that I had no real control over my flight patterns. Although Aeolus had a firm group on me and didn’t seem to be struggling at all to carry my weight, I was far too aware of the fact that I was just one slipped claw away from falling to my death. And I probably would die, because my in-game character was nowhere near as strong as my real life body. Even after I drank a Health Potion to fill my life bar back up to full, a fall from this height would likely mean instant death for me.
But it was hard to think about my fears when we flew so fast. Aeolus and Cyclone were practically as fast as jets, their powerful wings sending us soaring through the cloudless skies of Keoria as smoothly as a sled on snow. The entirety of Keoria stretched out underneath us like a carpet, which normally would have been very beautiful, but now I could see exactly what Aeolus and Cyclone had been talking about earlier regarding the glitches.
Whole swaths of forestland would disappear and reappear, or be replaced with barren desert or icy mountains that looked completely out of place in the world. Sometimes a mixture of different environments would appear together, such as a volcano rising out of a sea or a desert covered in snow and ice. It was at once both interesting and terrifying, making me wonder how it would feel to be right in the middle of all of that constant chaos. It surely wouldn’t be nice.
Luckily, Aeolus had a firm grip on me and soon the city of Crystal River appeared on the horizon.
From a distance, Crystal River looked like a beautiful city, surrounded on all sides by massive stone walls that had likely stood for centuries. Tall crystal spires rose out of the center of the city, while a stunningly clear river wound through the center of the city like a snake.
Yet even as we got closer, I could already tell that something was wrong. Smoke rose from the rooftops of several buildings, while one of the crystal towers appeared to have been tipped over and crashed into one of the towers standing next to it. The walls were covered in burn marks and even had a few small holes in them, while the massive iron gates looked like they had been torn straight off their hinges. Even stranger, I did not see any sign of life in the city, although it was hard to tell for sure from so high up in the sky.
“Oh, no …” I heard Cyclone say, despite the winds around us. “Were we too late?”
“No way to know for sure until we get there,” said Aeolus grimly. “Let us hope that Mecha Knight did not kill everyone, for if he did …”
Aeolus let that thought hang in the air, probably because Cyclone and I were smart enough to figure out how it ended.
We soared over the walls surrounding the city and came to a landing in the center of the city near what I assumed was either the courthouse or the governor’s mansion (if Crystal River even had a governor; I wasn’t sure about how governments worked in this game). As I thought, there were no signs of life anywhere. I did not see any people on the streets or in any of the buildings surrounding us, but neither did I see any corpses. The city was eerily quiet, to the point where it felt more like a graveyard than a city.
“Where is everyone?” I said, looking around at the empty streets that surrounded us on all sides. “Didn’t you say that Crystal River is a big city?”
“It is,” said Aeolus, his eyes darting around the place. “I’ve come here several times before, mostly on political missions. I’ve dined with Governor Roark, yet I do not see him or anyone else.”
“Did Mecha Knight kill everyone?” I said, glancing up at Aeolus and Cyclone.
“Possibly,” said Cyclone. He had drawn his sword, even though there did not appear to be anyone nearby just yet. “If so, then we may have been too late to stop him, which means that we need to look elsewhere for him, assuming he’s already moved on.”
I scowled in frustration. “Before we go running off anywhere, let’s try looking around for a bit. If we can’t find Mecha Knight, maybe we can find some survivors who can tell us what happened. At the very least, they might be able to tell us where Mecha Knight is.”
I took one step forward, but before I could get much farther, the street underneath my feet began to shake. It felt like an earthquake and nearly threw me off my feet, while Aeolus and Cyclone managed to maintain their balance, although they were now looking around even more urgently than before as they searched for the source of the tremor.
“What’s going on?” I said through chattering teeth, holding the Cannibal Sword with both hands as the ground shook worse than ever under our feet. “Are earthquakes common in Crystal River?”
Aeolus shook his head. “Not to my knowledge. As far as I know, Crystal River is not built in an area where earthquakes are common.”
“Then what’s—”
I was interrupted by the street cracking open like an egg before me. The crack widened and widened until, without warning, something big exploded out from the street. Dust and rock went flying everywhere as the giant thing—obscured by a massive cloud of dust—rose out of the earth underneath the street with a spine-tingling screech that hit me like a Mack truck, knocking me flat off my feet. Still, it didn’t actually hurt me, but it was still jarring nonetheless.
Shaking my head, I looked up in time to see a tentacle tipped with a claw shoot out of the dust at me. I rolled out of the way just in the nick of time, avoiding the claw as it crashed into the street before being retracted back into the
cloud. As I rose to my feet, a gust of wind blew through just then, scattering the dust cloud to the winds and allowing us to see the monster for the first time.
It looked kind of like a giant worm, with a slimy, disgusting pink body that was partially coated in dirt. It stuck up about halfway out of the earth and it had no eyes to speak of, although it did have a large, tooth-filled maw that reminded me of a trash compactor. Dozens of long tendrils topped with razor-sharp claws extended off its body like whips, whirling through the air in random patterns that were sickening to watch. A stench like death rolled off its body, making me wish I had brought a gas mask to filter the air so I wouldn’t have to breathe in that crap.
“It looks like we found the answer to your question, outworlder,” said Aeolus, staring at the beast with wide eyes. “The only question is, will we live long enough to do anything about it?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The beast unleashed another earsplitting roar and suddenly lashed out at us with all of its tentacles. Aeolus and Cyclone took off into the air, the two of them flying in separate directions to confuse the beast, while I Dodged and rolled behind a gurgling water fountain, just narrowly avoiding getting hit by half a dozen tentacles at once.
As I came to a crouch behind the fountain, a notification popped up in the corner of my eye:
Ability Level Up! Dodge (Level One) is now Dodge (Level Two)! You can now dodge faster than before, as well as cancel Dodge to return to a fighting position! Keep using Dodge to take it to the next level!
Huh. Well, that would be useful.
But I had to push such thoughts out of my mind and focus on the situation. Peering around the edge of the fountain, I saw that the worm monster was trying to catch Aeolus and Cyclone, who were flying above its head, occasionally swatting aside lunging claws or diving in quickly to get in a few small hits before flying away to avoid retaliation.
Scanning the beast, this is what I saw:
Name: Wormbeast
Level: 90
Class: Boss/Wormbeast
Affinity: Evil
Health: 200/200
Weakness: Fire
Monsters of legend, Wormbeasts rarely travel to the surface, choosing instead to spend most of their time miles beneath the surface, where they burrow out great, complex tunnel systems that are sometimes mistaken for mines. While rarely violent, Wormbeasts have been known to go berserk after an earthquake, especially if an earthquake destroys their nest and forces them to go up to the surface. Their sleek skin makes it hard to land solid blows on them with melee weapons, although fire spells have been known to be very effective against them.
My scowl deepened when I read its flavor text. The problem was that we didn’t have any magic users in our party. Mecha Knight was crazy and on the enemy’s side, while Switch was nowhere near Vault F, much less the VR headset she’d need in order to play the game. I guess that meant that Aeolus, Cyclone, and I would need to figure out a different strategy to take this monster down.
Luckily for me, the two Birdmen were keeping it distracted. I looked more closely at the Wormbeast, attempting to see if I could spot a weak point on it that I could exploit. Unfortunately, the Wormbeast’s slimy, disgusting body did not have any sort of weak point that I could see. Its only real limit that I could see was that it was only halfway out of the earth, but I figured it could pull itself out of the ground it if wanted to. It was weird because Scan should have shown me its weak point, yet it did not. Either the Wormbeast lacked a weak point entirely or its weak point was extremely well-hidden.
It was starting to look to me like our only real option was to whittle away its health bit by bit. That might take forever, though, given how much Health it had. Plus, even Aeolus and Cyclone, who were far higher-leveled than me, couldn’t do much more other than take a few points off its Health bar with every strike. And considering how they couldn’t even land any direct hits on it while its claws were there, this fight was going to take forever to complete. By the time we won—if we won—Mecha Knight would be long gone and we’d be back at square one. I needed to come up with a strategy to take this thing down fast.
Rising to my feet, I rushed around the fountain toward the Wormbeast. I lowered the Cannibal Sword until my sword stabbed directly through its soft, slimy skin:
CRITICAL HIT! Boss Wormbeast -50 Health!
I grinned at the notification, but then I heard what sounded like a whirling rope above me and looked up to see one of the Wormbeast’s claws coming straight down at me. I yanked my sword out of the Wormbeast’s side and Dodged just in time to avoid the claw. But then another claw came down after that one and slashed at me, forcing me to raise the Cannibal Sword up to block the claw.
I had thought that Aeolus and Cyclone were distracting it enough, but I guess it must have been tired of me attacking it all the time because now a few of its claws lashed out at me. I dodged and parried the attacks, forced to use every ounce of skill to avoid getting slashed or hurt by the claws. They came fast and hard, jabbing at me like snakes. I was so focused on parrying their attacks that I failed to notice the rock behind me until I accidentally tripped over it and fell flat on my back onto the street.
Before I could do anything, four of the claws grabbed my arms and legs and lifted me off the street. Alarmed, I struggled to free myself, but the claws gripped me so tightly that I couldn’t do much. I held onto the Cannibal Sword, but I didn’t have enough movement to be able to swing it freely, otherwise I definitely would have saved myself. As it was, I was powerless to stop the Wormbeast from lifting me higher and higher off the ground, until soon I found myself being held directly over its toothy, gaping maw.
“Outworlder!” shouted Aeolus. “No!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aeolus and Cyclone trying to save me, but the rest of the Wormbeast’s claws kept them at a good distance. I continued to struggle until a notification popped up in my eyes which read:
Boss Wormbeast activates Meal Time! Boss Wormbeast prepares to eat Swordsman Bolt!
Uh oh. Meal Time had to be some kind of Ability the Wormbeast had. It was pretty easy to guess what it was supposed to do, which was why I struggled harder than ever to free myself.
Then, without warning, the Wormbeast’s claws let go of me and I went plummeting into its gaping map below.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Right before I fell into the Wormbeast’s open mouth, I heard a swooping sound to my right and Cyclone, of all people, grabbed me by my shoulders and lifted me up into the air. We passed above the Wormbeast’s mouth, which slammed shut just inches below my feet. I heard the Wormbeast growl in anger at the loss of its meal, but I didn’t care. I just looked up at Cyclone as we flew and shouted, “Thanks, man! I owe you one.”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Cyclone with a grunt as we flew outside of the Wormbeast’s range. “The fight is far from over, even after that impressive blow you landed on the beast.”
Cyclone, of course, was right. The Wormbeast’s clawed tentacles were flailing wildly now, trying to hit everything at once. Aeolus broke off from the beast and flew toward us, the three of us landing on top of a nearby building as the Wormbeast let loose a terrible roar that sent goosebumps up my arms.
“This fight is impossible,” said Cyclone as soon as we landed. “Even my mighty silver sword is unable to do much more than scratch it.”
“Nothing is impossible, Cyclone,” Aeolus replied. “You saw the damage the outworlder did to it with that one attack. If we can get a few more like that—”
“Big if there,” I said as I rubbed my shoulders, which ached from Cyclone’s tight claws. “While the Cannibal Sword does have a decently high critical hit ratio, it’s not guaranteed. Plus, I suspect that the Wormbeast is not dumb enough to fall for the same trick twice. It’s probably going to be more focused on killing me now that it knows what I can do.”
“If only we had a Birdman Shaman with fire magic,” said Cyclone. “Unfortunately, Mecha Knight killed all
of them, so we’ll have to come up with something else.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say anything, the Wormbeast roared and began pulling itself out of the hole, coming straight toward us. I guess it must have been frustrated at how we stayed out of its reach, although the fact that it was coming after us at all was proof enough to me that this thing worked for Abaddon. It moved surprisingly fast on the surface, its long, wormy body moving smoothly along the ground like a snake.
Aeolus grabbed me and then we took off into the air. Just in time, too, because the Wormbeast crashed into and through the building we’d been standing on just moments ago, leaving it little more than a pile of rock and stone. I didn’t hear any screams or see anyone flee the building, but I still couldn’t help but shudder at the thought of what might have happened if anyone had been in there.
“We can’t keep running forever,” said Cyclone, glancing over his shoulder as we flew. “So long as the Wormbeast lives, it will never stop chasing us.”
“Do pray tell how we’re supposed to harm such a beast, Cyclone,” said Aeolus in an annoyed voice, “for its slimy hide is very good at deflecting most attacks.”
While those two argued about how to deal with the Wormbeast, I looked down at it below. The Wormbeast had to be at least a hundred feet long, maybe longer. Just watching its twitching form as it turned around to chase us was enough to make me feel queasy. I wish Dad hadn’t made this game so dang realistic, because then I wouldn’t feel so sick.
But then, as we flew past its tail, I noticed something. The tip of its tail was glowing slightly, which I knew from experience was Scan showing me where a monster’s weak point was. I guess that meant the Wormbeast had a weak point after all, though the trick was to get it.
“Hey, guys,” I said, looking up at Aeolus and Cyclone as we flew, “I know where the Wormbeast’s weak point is, but I’m going to need you guys to distract it long enough for me to attack it.”
