by Paul Bellow
“The Four Wizards brought Thero and me here then sold us into slavery,” she said. “I escaped and bought a permanent illusion to appear as a woman and hide in plain sight.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re a female playing a male character using an illusion to look like a female? I’m supposed to just believe you?”
“Trust me,” she said. “And I’ll get us out of here. I’m working on a plan. You need to be ready at a moment’s notice. I could show up at any time.”
“You have a plan or you’re working on one?”
“It’s complicated.” She turned her head toward the door then back to me. “The suggestion I planted in the wizards’ minds won’t last long. Can I count on you, or not?”
The Tower of Gates had turned me into a cynic, not really trusting anyone. At the same time, something about Monky made me want to believe anything she told me.
“You can count on me,” I said. “Anything else you can tell me?”
“Not now,” she said. “The Four Wizards are intelligent, and my suggestion won’t last long after they realize there’s no pot of water boiling. I need to go before they return.”
“Okay, but…”
She turned and walked to the only window in the room. I stared as she climbed onto the windowsill then leaped out of the building.
After rushing over and leaning out, I saw her gently floating to the ground several stories below. Ferris cleared his throat behind me.
“Where’s that strange woman?” he asked.
I turned and replied, “They all ran away.”
“Why were you looking out the window?” Sherlock asked. He walked over and peered out then said, “I don’t see anything.”
“Maybe he was thinking about jumping,” Aaron said. “I would if I were him.”
“Do you guys really have to sell me?” I asked.
“Yes,” Ferris said from just inside the doorway.
“We don’t need you anymore,” Thom said.
“Thanks for tonight,” I said to change the subject.
I hoped they wouldn’t bring up Monky again.
“We need you happy and well for the sale,” Ferris said.
“Yeah.” Sherlock stepped over and patted me on the cheek. “Like a fat, happy sow.”
I controlled my rage, not wanting to give them a reason to torment me. Whether it was Monky’s mind magic as a psionicist or the ineptness of the Four Wizards, they didn’t bring her up. They teleported me back to my cell where I slept on the cold, hard floor.
Getting back to the lower levels of the game and finding Eric and Sarah sounded more possible with Monky’s assistance. She impressed me in so many ways. After so many months on my own in the game, it didn’t feel like I had a girlfriend anymore.
That should’ve terrified me, but it didn’t.
30
Enter the Wastelands
Josh
Seven days passed swiftly as I waited for word from Monky. I began to wonder if I had hallucinated the whole encounter with her. On the seventh day, as I rested, she arrived.
“Yorg? Can you hear me?” she asked in my mind.
I glanced around the windowless room with no doors.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Underneath you,” she replied.
I looked down at the stone floor.
“Where?” I asked again.
A section of the floor slid down a few inches. I stepped back as it continued sinking. Monky poked her head out of the new hole in the floor and smiled.
“Ready for a rescue?” she asked.
I nodded earnestly then walked over to the square hole in the floor. Peering over the edge, I saw Monky standing on a ladder that dropped to the room below mine.
After she climbed back down, I went down without giving my cell a second look. With so many hours spent locked up, I had memorized the room. It would be with me forever.
“Thank you,” I said as I reached the bottom.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “We’re still not free.”
I glanced around the room filled with shelves.
“We’re on the first floor,” she said, grabbing the ladder. “Come on.”
I followed her to another square hole in the floor on the other side of the room. She lowered the wooden ladder. Pungent smells hit my nose as we descended.
“The basement?” I asked. “Don’t we want to get outside? Can’t you just use your mind magic to plant a suggestion again?”
She sighed.
“They’re too powerful when they’re ready,” she said. “And they’re ready and waiting for me. There’s a price on my head on this level.”
“Oh?” I raised my left eyebrow which looked silly on a half-orc.
“Someone framed me for murder. We don’t have time to talk now.”
I once again followed her down the ladder. At the bottom, I saw a workshop with numerous beakers, vials, and other magical equipment.
She waved for me to follow then headed across the wide-open room underneath the Four Wizards’ tower complex. Their building took up an entire city block. On the other side of the basement, I saw another square hole in the floor.
“How did you burrow your way in here?” I asked.
She smiled and held up a wand.
“It’s good for precision cuts in stone,” she said. “Dwarven.”
“Nice,” I said.
She stepped toward me and reached for my neck. I flinched.
“I need to get your collar,” she said.
As she leaned against me to remove the spiked leather collar from around my neck, I took a deep breath. Was it really happening? Could we escape?
“There,” she said then stepped back. “We should get going. The Four Wizards are asleep, but they could wake up at any time.”
“Fine with me,” I said. “They have my sword and everything.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “We’ll be fine. I’ve planted a fog in their minds. They won’t be able to track you with your items.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Trust me,” she replied.
I took a deep breath then nodded. She climbed down the ladder leading underneath the tower complex. The smell got even worse as I followed her into the darkness.
“Nasty,” I said as I reached the bottom and stepped in water.
“Sewers can be,” she said. “Hold on.”
A moment later, she held a glowing light aloft. It hovered in place as she took her hand away.
“That’s nifty,” I said.
“Come on.”
She motioned with her hand for me to follow.
I stayed quiet as we walked through the murky brick tunnels. The level of realism inside the Tower of Gates never ceased to amaze me. Working sewage disposal would be a necessity in a city of any size. I hoped my thick leather books would continue keeping my feet dry.
“That smell,” I said then coughed.
“What kind of half-orc barbarian are you?” she teased.
“The urban and civilized kind,” I said.
She chuckled and kept walking. We turned left and right a few times, taking side tunnels. As we kept going, I felt weak due to the lack of buffs from the wizards.
“Can we slow down?” I asked as I stopped and leaned against the wall.
The cold, wet bricks against my skin mimicked how I felt all over.
“It’s buff-sickness,” I said when she turned around and gave me a quizzical look. “The Four Wizards pumped me full of so many spells on a daily basis my body needs them.”
“Your body doesn’t need them,” she said as she walked over to me.
She put her palm on my forehead.
“You feel better,” she said.
“I do feel better…”
She took her hand away and smiled.
“It’s not permanent relief, but it should help,” she said.
“You’re so powerful,” I said as I straightened up.
“Ready to keep going? We’re almost to the wall.”
I nodded. She turned and kept walking down the sewer tunnel. Whatever she had done had helped. I didn’t feel fatigued as I followed her.
“We’re at the northern wall,” she said a few minutes later.
I continued following her. The architecture of the entire city—even the sewers—impressed me. What would the other city-states be like? I wondered.
A bright light further down the tunnel caught my attention. The foul smells faded a bit as we got closer. Freedom at last. I smiled, excited to get out.
We reached the exit and stepped out onto a muddy river bank. The sludge from the sewer tunnel ran into a river of sorts. Across it, I saw nothing but sand, rock, and the occasional cactus for miles. The sun had almost dropped to the horizon.
She walked down the river bank, hugging the tall white wall surrounding Midgaard. How would we get across the sludge-filled water? Did she have a plan? Some of my questions were answered as we came to a flimsy wooden bridge.
“Be careful,” she said. “It’s not the safest. We need to find shelter before the sun goes down.”
I nodded, following as she crossed the bridge made from planks and thick rope. As I walked behind her, I glanced down at the brown, putrid water.
“What happened outside the city?” I asked. “Pollution?”
She chuckled.
“That’s part of it. During the City Wars, every city-state stripped every available ounce of resources out of the land surrounding their cities.”
We reached the other side of the bridge.
“How do the cities support themselves now?”
She stopped, sighed, then turned around.
“You ask a lot of questions for a barbarian,” she said.
“I’m more than a dumb brute,” I said, maybe too defensively.
She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head back.
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I asked you to help.”
The sun sunk lower as we stared at each other a moment.
“Come on,” she said then turned.
I followed her away from the city. The temperature dropped as the sun slid around to the other side of the globe. We kept walking until the city looked tiny in the distance.
Monky stopped and glanced around.
“We’ll camp here for the night,” she said.
Two mounds of dirt and sand sheltered us somewhat.
“We should’ve brought supplies,” I said. “Aren’t you starving?”
She smiled and pulled a large sack off her back.
“Can’t be a lot in there,” I said as I walked over.
She opened it and reached in. After she pulled out a two-handed blade, three logs, and a live chicken out of the sack, I got the idea.
“One of those ‘hold everything’ bags,” I said, nodding.
“Hold this,” she said then handed me the chicken.
It struggled to get away as I held it by its legs.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Get it ready for dinner.”
I snapped the animals neck then proceeded to pluck the feathers from its body. Monky prepared a fire and pulled out two folding chairs for us to sit on.
“Did you bring the whole city?” I joked.
She smiled, but it didn’t look sincere.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“We’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m just worried about gruesnipes.”
“Very funny,” I said. “My older brother took me snipe hunting once.”
“I’m serious,” she said, not smiling anymore. “They’re deadly out here.”
“You’re good at this,” I said.
“Don’t believe me if you want,” she said as she set the logs on fire. “They’ll attack you in the dark. If you don’t have light out here, you’re a goner.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, still not convinced.
The kindling underneath the logs lit up. I glanced around, realizing how quickly it had gotten dark. The cool night air chilled me.
“Are you done with that chicken yet?” she asked.
“Just about,” I said then resumed my work.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. “Don’t leave the fire.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need a bit of privacy,” she said. “I’ve got a magic light that repels the gruesnipes, so it’s fine. You can use it later if you need to.”
“Oh, I gotcha…”
“The gruesnipes are too tough for us to kill,” she said. “They’re serious business.”
I nodded as she walked away from the fire and into the darkness while the floating magical light followed her behind one of the mounds. I finished plucking the feathers from the chicken then proceed to gut it. Halfway through the process, I heard her scream.
The shrill shriek stopped as suddenly as it had started.
“Monky?” I called out as I stood.
The flames of the fire flickered in front of me. I looked in the direction she had gone, but I saw nothing. The lack of sounds made the scene even spookier.
“Monky? Are you okay?”
Should I go check on her? Or stay by the light? Even with a sword, I wasn’t sure how difficult it would be to kill a gruesnipe in the dead of night. She had done so much to save me, but she told me not to go outside of the light. Why hadn’t she listened to her own advice?
I continued standing, unable to come to a decision. A fierce, primal growl nearby got my attention. I looked in the direction of the sound but still saw nothing in the darkness.
“Monky? Can you hear me?”
The growling got closer. I stooped down and picked up my sword. Bring it, gruesnipe, I thought as I held the weapon up in front of me.
The beast growled one last time then stopped.
I remembered her warning that we couldn’t defeat one of the creatures. Would light from a fire keep it at bay? And what about other creatures of the night? I sighed as I sat down.
The thought of Monky getting eaten by a gruesnipe weighed heavily on my mind as I tried to distract myself by finishing supper. I wanted to run away from the fire and help her, but I resisted the urge. Brains not brawn were what mattered in the Tower of Gates.
I wanted to survive, and to do it, I needed to be smart. As the chicken on a stick roasted above the open flames, I dug around in the bag to take stock of my inventory.
She had packed enough to last the both of us a few days. I had a rough idea of where to go to reach Asangard, the nearest city worth visiting according to the run-down and almost-dead player I had found begging on the streets of Midgaard.
No roads or even trails led through the wind-ripped landscape of the wastelands, but I continued on my way the next morning. I wanted to make sure Monky’s death wasn’t in vain.
31
Another Huge Monster
Josh
I walked north for a week, still not reaching the next city state. Every night, I sat around a fire and fixed what little food Monky had stocked in her magical sack.
After a hard week, I forgot about getting back to level one-two and concentrated on survival. The gruesnipes weren’t the only beasts I had to worry about.
While they were the only ones who came out of night, during the day, huge, violent creatures wandered about looking for anything to feed themselves.
I gradually returned to my normal strength as the effects of my buff-sickness wore off. Even at my best, I couldn’t defeat one of the massive day-beasts.
Right after that thought, I caught sight of a lumbering monstrosity up ahead. It walked upright, but its misshapen head with dozens of dark black eyes and tall height made it look less like a human and more like a monster. Did it see me? I wondered.
The giant experiment gone wrong continued shuffling forward with the power of two muscled legs. I moved to a dirt mound to the left and sat down.
My heart rate increased under the glaring hot sun as I worked on controllin
g my breathing. Barbarian rage would end up getting me killed. After so many days of walking, I had to be close to Asangard. The nameless player had said it would take a couple of weeks. Or had he said a few? I sighed as the hot rays of the virtual sun scorched me.
Almost eleven months after spawning back into the game, and I still couldn’t believe what was happening to me. Hungry, tired, and almost dead, I clung to a faint hope of finding someone to help me get back to Eric and Sarah—if they hadn’t already left the game.
Would they do that to me?
I heard a deep growl on the other side of the mound. After turning on my belly, I carefully inched toward the top. When I popped my head up, I saw the many-eyed monster defending itself from a newcomer, a minotaur with long, curved horns.
Great, I thought as I kept my eyes on them. Maybe they’ll kill each other.
The passing thought looked more like a possibility as the two figures at least double my height locked arms, wrestling with each other. I wasn’t sure who to root for as the minotaur lifted the misshapen monster then slammed him to the ground. A cloud of dust rose around his body.
Determined not to end up as someone’s lunch, I slid back down the mound. On the bottom, I crawled towards the opposite direction. The sounds of a fierce battle continued behind me as I crept away from the area, hoping to get away from the monsters.
When I couldn’t hear them anymore, I straightened up and glanced around. The wasteland looked the same in every direction, so I glanced at the sun. I needed to go to my right then turn a mile or so away to continue north. Would I ever reach Asangard?
Every mile that I finished left me hungrier and thirstier. I had cut down my food intake to stretch out my supplies, but I wasn’t sure how I would make it. Would I die on my own in the wastelands? The thought of dying wasn’t so scary, which frightened me. Suicide was no solution.
* * * * *
Later that evening, as the sun headed under the horizon, I pulled the last log from the magic sack. Would a gruesnipe eat me once it burned away? The thought terrified me, but I pushed the fear aside as I prepared what would be my last fire. Once again, thoughts of death nestled themselves in the forefront of my mind, acting all cuddly and warm. Suicide wasn’t a source of relief in the real world, but I wasn’t in the real world. Did suicide have repercussions inside the Tower of Gates?
