by Dante Steel
Gary’s throat burned. Thirst ate at him, and he would give his left nut for an orange soda.
It wasn’t long at all before he felt lost. There was nothing to suggest a town in any direction. He supposed he could just take off, pick a direction and walk until he stumbled upon something, but what about Elena? Wouldn’t she be coming to the issue? Had she already? She might have been here and gone off by herself. He couldn’t see any other footprints in the sand. In fact, the slight breeze was able to shift the sand enough that he couldn’t even see all of his own footprints.
Great. Just great. How was he supposed to find Elena in all of this? And Olivia? She wasn’t going to be able to convince Nicoletta into transferring to the new issue, but would Olivia come through herself? If so, when?
It was a good thing Gary had such a large breakfast because he might not have anything to eat but bats if he didn’t find a town and soon.
In the end, Gary did decide to continue in this direction. He faced even more bats and scorpions. As he killed them all easily, he felt both powerful and tired.
Up ahead, a tumbleweed rolled. Gary didn’t think much of it until the tumbleweed altered direction and headed straight for him.
Amused, Gary darted to the right, but the tumbleweed slid over to cut him off. A weed uncoiled and snapped toward him, trying to wrap around his leg.
What the hell? This was an enemy? Seriously? First mages in a superhero game and now killer tumbleweeds?
Gary sidestepped the weed, but it reached for him again, so he stomped and pinned it to the ground. Instead of sending another weed, the plant grew thorns that detached and spiraled through the air straight for Gary.
He called forth his telekinesis, the blue circles of his power bright and familiar. With relative ease, he deflected all of the thorns but one. Thankfully, that one only sliced through his clothes and not his skin.
More thorn darts were growing, but Gary didn’t give the killer tumbleweed time to throw them. Telekinetically, he separated and unraveled the tumbleweed until it was no more.
Pleased with himself, he patted his hands and started to walk away. Crunch. He had stepped on one of the darts. Hmm. They might come in handy. Swiftly, he gathered the thorny darts. As he walked, he used them to kill bats or other creatures. In no time at all, guts and blood covered the darts, and he had no way to wash them. This desert seemed like a never-ending wasteland. It was miserable.
Thanks a lot, Haru.
Gary needed water. He needed an oasis. He needed a place to lie down and sleep. There weren’t even any trees that he could climb so he could get away from the mutant crabs or the scorpions. He was stuck on the ground, and he wasn’t about to sleep there.
At least his eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough for him to realize that something wasn’t right with the patch of sand before him. The coloring was darker. A scorpion was heading toward Gary, and he used his telekinesis to force the scorpion to walk into that darker area. The scorpion proceeded to sink until drowned by the sand.
Quicksand.
Gary headed north and tried to see how far the patch went. After a mile, he gave up looking east and just continued northward.
In the distance, so far he could barely see it, Gary spied a single building. It looked like it might be a tower.
In the first issue, Gary hadn’t seen any castles. This building, if he had to guess, was either a ruin or a castle, and Gary, because of Olivia, immediately thought of Dracula. That place had to mean a boss, possibly even the boss of the entire issue. No thanks.
Since the castle was north and the east was a barren wasteland of quicksand, Gary headed back west. It wasn’t ideal to essentially backtrack, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t stay here.
A massive number of bats were trying to follow him. Gary ignored them, not wanting to be bothered. His feet were getting sore, and he just wanted to sleep. If only he could find a cave, but there weren’t any mountains. There wasn’t any means to find shelter, not unless he headed toward the castle.
Another horde of bats sneaked up on Gary from the south, and the two clusters of the winged terrors combined gave him a massive number of foes to deal with. The darts helped immensely, as he sent each dart go through five or six bats at a time. He did manage to avoid being bitten somehow, but it had been a near thing.
Once they were all killed, Gary stood on a rather impressive hill of dead bats. Although they smelled, Gary shoved the bats aside and used them as a blanket and a way to try to conceal himself from any other predators. He was too tired to keep on going. This was far from ideal, but he wasn’t a real superhero. He wasn’t invincible. He was still human, and he needed to rest.
The next time Gary opened his eyes, he had no idea how much time had passed or if he had slept long. The sky was every bit as dark as it had been before.
Unfortunately, because there weren’t any trees around, Gary couldn’t start a fire, and he wasn’t about to eat raw bats. Although he didn’t feel as tired anymore, Gary felt hungry, a fact he had no choice but to ignore. He had brought supplies, yes, but he didn’t want to risk going through them too quickly. If he had seen signs of a town in the distance, sure, he would’ve eaten. Since he seemed to be all alone, he had to be careful.
He continued to head west, going as far as he could and only stopping to kill all sorts of creatures. There even was a cactus that shot thorns at him, but Gary yanked it out of the soil by its roots. Even though it required some energy to do so, Gary used his power to carry the cactus along with the thorn-darts from the tumbleweed and some of the thorns from the cactus. He had weapons all right but not traditional ones.
“Not much about me is traditional,” he muttered. “Only fitting.”
On and on he walked, and gradually, he was too hungry and thirsty to keep going. He dozed off, hiding behind his cactus, a boulder behind him. Sleeping while sitting wasn’t ideal, and his body was sore when he woke.
“Haru, this issue sucks,” Gary muttered as he resumed walking. “You should’ve realized I would need a town and places to eat and drink and sleep. This barren desert is for the birds… er, bats.”
Luck finally shone on Gary later that day, if it was day. Maybe it was only ever night here because Gary had yet to see the sun at all. He couldn’t even see the moon. Above him was only a blanket of darkness. No stars were visible either.
As he stumbled above a tall sand dune, Gary spied an oasis. Not far ahead was a small pond and a palm tree. Just perfect.
Only that oasis appeared to be a mirage because Gary thought it was only an hour away. He kept dragging himself along and finally, three hours later, he reached the oasis.
Gary drank and drank and drank. He ripped off bark from the palm tree and then left to find some bats. He killed three and brought them back to the oasis. Making a fire wasn’t the easiest, but Gary was turning into a regular boy scout… if you didn’t consider that he wanted to be with three women for the rest of his life.
The fire was hot and ready, and he cooked the bats. They didn’t have a lot of meat and were a little slimy, but Gary was too hungry to care. He ate all three and then slept.
When he woke, Gary wondered briefly if he should wait here forever. Just live here, eating bats, drinking the water, making do.
But eventually, the water would be gone. The palm tree would only provide so much bark for fires. He was banking on staying in Vampire War for a long, long time. Maybe even forever at the rate Haru and his developers were going.
Gary knew he was so far removed from his life that he didn’t see how he could ever return back to it. For now at least, this barren wasteland was his home. He might as well resign himself to that fact because having hope in Haru just wasn’t happening.
Chapter Eight
After eating some more bats, fresh ones that he almost burned, Gary drank some water and then headed off farther west. He wasn’t about to stay at the oasis forever. There had to be a town. At the very least, he had to find an NPC so he
could learn what the heck was up with this place.
By the time Gary had traveled for at least five hours, he finally went up a level. He had found and killed at least three hundred bats since he had come here. Three hundred. If he saw another bat, it would be too soon, and he was sure that was only a matter of time.
Another two hours, and Gary spied a tree. It looked so out of place in the middle of the desert. Gary was almost wary as he approached. A man was standing there, stiff, staring straight ahead. His clothes were gray, as was his beard that reached his elbows. The man’s hands rested on top of a gnarled staff.
“Hello,” Gary said.
The NPC slowly turned his head. “Hello, would-be hero. Are you ready for a quest?”
Gary groaned. More quests. Great. Just what he needed. And would-be hero? He had lost his superhero status? At least he still had his superpower.
“A quest? Sure,” Gary said. “Lay it on me.”
“You must travel far to the west and locate the lost ocean.”
“Lost ocean? How can an entire ocean be lost?”
“Within the lost ocean, you will find a mermaid. Be mindful you find the mermaid and not the siren.”
“How will I know the difference?” Gary asked.
“The siren will try to kill you.”
“Of course,” Gary muttered. “What about the mermaid?”
“She will give you another quest.”
“Great. Quest to quest to quest. Busy, busy, busy. Hey, do you know where a town is?”
“What is a town?”
Seriously?
“Do you know where any other people are?” Gary asked.
“No.”
Ugh.
“What about food? Water? Do you know where anything is?”
“You must locate the lost ocean far to the west.”
“Yeah, yeah, you said that already. What happened here?”
The man turned to him. “I am a wizard. I lost my powers. When the vampires came, they destroyed the world. All is a barren wasteland. The desert has no end and never will unless the lost ocean is located. Save us all.”
“You lost your powers? Your magic? Is there any way that can be changed?” Gary asked excitedly.
Maybe there was another Runed Ruby here or something like that. Gary would love to have a second superpower. Or maybe the wizard could have his magic again. Just because the guy was NPC didn’t mean he couldn’t fight with them, right? Not for the first time, Gary wished he was more knowledgeable about games in general. It was just his luck that the first game he had played would be the one he got trapped in.
“Head far to the west—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going. Go west, young man, right?”
Gary shook his head and headed west until his feet ached. Even then, he kept on going. All around him, the landscape was the same. He had traveled so far he couldn’t see the wizard’s tree anymore. All he saw was desert and sand.
Along the way, he found more bats. Seriously, the developers needed to change that because it was overkill.
Walking so far on sand wasn’t fun on Gary’s ankles, and after he climbed a tall sand dune, he hesitated. Down below stretched sand, sand, and more sand.
Before he started to descend, some of the sand shifted and congealed together to form a some kind of a sand goon. Darker sand zoomed through the body to form eyes, nose, and creepy looking lips in the deformed head.
Must be a supervillain.
Gary geared up for a fight. The sand goon slowly lifted its legs to walk toward him, but Gary was impatient. He rushed over to it and slammed his fist through the sand goon’s face. Although there was some resistance from the head, sand flew everywhere, and the sand man collapsed.
Wary, Gary hesitated, expecting the sand goon to come back to life, but it didn’t.
“Not a supervillain after all,” Gary muttered.
He groaned and kept walking. It was past time for Gary to sleep, but more and more enemies were all around him. Some kind of snake with a head on both ends. A basilisk. A massive sand worm. A rooster head with a reptile body. Gary thought that might be called the cockatrice, but he wasn’t sure. It sure was cocky, though. At least he hadn’t come across a Sphinx. He wasn’t in the mood for mind games on top of the life-or-death stuff.
He couldn’t dare risk going to sleep here. He thought about returning to the powerless wizard, but what would be the point? He’d have to come all the way back here tomorrow, and he had no idea how close or far the lost ocean was.
So, Gary fought all of the enemies, slowly gaining experience. One bat did eventually bite him. Honestly, it had only been a matter of time. Gary just took one of the potions he had that actually would cure him. He had ninety-nine more of them. If he didn’t have a means to buy more here… Haru wouldn’t have done that, right? Where the hell was the developer anyhow? Gary hadn’t seen him in ages, and honestly, Gary didn’t like the silence. No new wasn’t bad news, but at this point, Gary would rather get an update about no news than this radio silence.
But Gary wasn’t going to worry about that. In fact, he tried to kill the bats in the most creative ways possible. He tested his abilities and determined that he could send a bat high enough into the air that it would freeze to death. Now that might come in handy, although when the bat was covered in ice, he couldn’t control its descent, and it nearly landed right on top of him. The iced bat slammed into the sand and created a huge divot that sent powder flying everywhere. Gary coughed and gagged, covering his nose and mouth with the crook of his arm. At least the creatures were affected by the sandstorm too. He recovered first and killed them all.
By the time Gary was certain he had been walking for over an entire day despite the lack of a sun rising or a change in the depressive, gloomy darkness above him, he was beyond ready for a nap. There weren’t any enemies here, so maybe he could risk sitting and letting himself doze off.
But then, over the horizon, he spied something heading his way. It had no true form, and it wasn’t until it was covering him that he realized what it was.
A legit sandstorm.
Gary fell to the ground, covering his face. Sand swept over him in a terrible wave. The breeze was wicked and oppressive, the heat immense, and Gary knew he couldn’t attempt to walk through it. Even with his arms covering his face, he was still pelted with the gravel, the particles striking him so hard it felt as if they might be leaving tiny welts.
Gradually, the storm abated, and Gary had to struggle to get onto his knees and then to stand. The amount of sand on his back was impressive. Sand was heavier than he would’ve thought.
He continued on. The number of enemies had dropped off, so maybe he was heading in the wrong direction. He hadn’t thought that possible, but then again, it was hard to judge west from east from north and south when there wasn’t a sun, and no moss since there wasn’t anywhere for it to grow. What if he was heading east instead? He’d never find the lost ocean at this point. It’d stay lost forever and ever, and what was the point of completing the quest? For gold or some armor or weapon? It was ridiculous. He should just find shelter of some kind and settle down and make the best of living here in Vampire War.
But, no. Gary wasn’t about to give up and besides, there wasn’t anything he could use to make a shelter anyhow.
The more he continued on without having enemies to face, the lonelier Gary became. Where the hell was Elena? Hadn’t she come over? Had he been wrong to cross over without finding her first?
He desperately wanted to locate her, but how could he? This place was huge, and he was lost.
Maybe he should head back to where the countless hordes of enemies had been. That had to be the right path. Quests were never easy.
Gary turned to go back but felt that backtrack was wrong. He faced forward in time to see a dark funnel descend from the clouds above him. Sand swirled all around him in a tunnel that was heading straight for him.
He broke out into a run, his fatigue going away in
stantly, but whenever he glanced over his shoulder, the sand tunnel had changed directions, specifically hunting him down.
He tried to block it by having sand rise up like a shield, but the tunnel merely took that sand and added to its power.
Gradually, Gary whirled around and stripped sand away from the funnel, but it was too little, too late. The funnel swallowed him up, and he spun and spun. He grew so dizzy he was afraid he would vomit. It took him several minutes to get used to being spun around, and he managed to use his power to strip the sand away bit by bit, but then more came anyhow. He had to worry about the wind, not the sand.
Stopping the wind was harder, but Gary pulled and teased the wind. Controlling something you couldn’t see was nearly impossible, but he managed to send a slight breeze away, and the funnel slowed ever so slightly. Again and again, Gary pushed the wind away, separated draughts from the funnel until all that remained was a strong gust that blew the sand away as Gary collapsed to the dune on his rump.
That had been so intense that Gary just wanted to stay there. He didn’t, though, standing. He was so dizzy he didn’t attempt a step for five minutes, and he fell anyhow.
Maybe he slept some because the next thing he knew, he was ready to walk. He continued onward, no notion as to which way was he was heading. His bearing was entirely fucked up because of the sand tornado.
Gradually, though, Gary spied a sand dune that had lighter sand than the rest of the area. Something was different here, and different usually meant either something good or something bad.
Investigate or no? Might as well.
He used his powers to push the sand away. Soon, two walls of sand were high.
I’m the Moses of sand instead of water.
