Thousand Tales- The Great Sage

by Kris Schnee

  "Yeah, but we're talking about whole worlds run by different people. This place... It's like a copy of the Endless Isles back home, but it only exists so we can fight Sunset for that island of his."

  Iris walked around the shore to inspect the fleet of the Saved. She was their admiral, basically. The biggest ship they had was Mighty Sprout, which they'd built themselves with two masts and some cargo space and cannons. But even that ship could only carry a fraction of the Saved's people and gear. The lesser ships ranged from a decent one-mast ship with twenty beds, to some dinky dinghies. The Saved all wanted something cool and special for themselves, and most of their parents wouldn't let them grow up as dragons or anything like that, so they put their creativity into making all kinds of crazy ships and weapons.

  Phoenix and Sig helped usher the nearly two hundred kids out here to the beach, and explained the situation. They were so busy doing that, that it took them a while before anyone thought to ask, "Uh, which direction is east?"

  The sun was straight overhead, and hadn't moved. Alma laughed. "It begins."

  "Did you plan this?" asked Volt.

  "Sunset didn't tell me much about what he had in store for you. I'm mostly here to make fun of -- I mean, cheer you on."

  Iris rolled her eyes. "Then we need scouting. Let's send out ships in each direction."

  Phoenix climbed the highest mast, then leaped into the air and flew in a circle. He managed to see most of Launch Island before having to land. "I found reefs and sharks in a few places," he said, and sketched what he'd found onto a digital map that he sent everyone.

  There was idle time while the ships explored in all directions with small crews. Phoenix got uncomfortable waiting. He said to Alma, "Is there anything useful to do?"

  Alma was relaxing on the beach with a book. "Study? Or help out the locals."

  Phoenix returned to the inn and found a tutorial book waiting, about menial robot work. Steering drones to pick weeds and plant trees. Boring. He came back to Alma and said, "I wish we'd gone to one of the high-tech bases, not one with robots digging ditches."

  The teacher said, "Why do you suppose the 'low-tech' base is the one where you're not under Ludo's control?"

  "Because if she ran it, it'd be richer and fancier."

  The squirrel-lady grinned wickedly, exposing her buckteeth. "That's one theory. Ask Lumina about that."

  Iris arrived from a scouting trip and leaped down from the prow of her personal ship, Rainbow Goddess. "We spotted the island, thataway. Can't get a clear look though; lots of fog."

  "Good enough!" said Phoenix.

  While they were loading up the army to start the attack, the two lieutenants of the Saved showed up. Their names were Eva and Malcolm, and they'd had most of 2040 to become leaders among the kids. Not that they had uniforms or real training.

  "What are we supposed to do?" said Eva. Both of them looked like plain humans, just dressed in cool armor.

  Sig said, "We'll fight whatever's on the island. Try to get around and attack from different sides. And knowing Sunset, there'll be a tricky boss battle, but we've done those before."

  Malcolm looked skeptical. "What about finding a save point?"

  "On the island? Yes, we'll want to do that too, if we can." Otherwise the team would need to respawn either on Launch Island, or on the only ships that had checkpoint crystals, namely Sprout and Iris' Rainbow Goddess.

  * * *

  Phoenix went with the fleet's second trip from Launch Island to Sunset's island, now that they knew where it was. Sig had gone ahead. After an hour or so of sailing through bright and featureless ocean, he saw a fog-shrouded island. As Sprout approached the fog rapidly lifted.

  Here stood a mountainous jungle landscape of flowers and fruit. Near shore the water began to shine like oil paint and the island itself shifted, drawn now in a different graphics style of living ink. It almost didn't seem real.

  The first wave of the army was there, setting up camp. Phoenix dropped anchor and led nearly everyone down to the shore, then let the ships turn back to fetch another group. He was about to ask the first wave about their setup, when the attack came.

  A flurry of spears shot out from a grove of jungle trees. Two of the kids got speared through the chest and a third took a grazing leg wound. Phoenix yelped and charged toward the enemy, shouting, "Catch them!"

  He summoned his spear again. He hadn't put on his leather armor yet, and nobody was ready to fight in a real battle line, but the kids at least had their armor and weapons. He led a mob of them toward the trees and heard animalistic hooting and screeching, followed by a whoosh. "Duck!" He flopped onto the grass just as rocks flew from ahead. One struck him in the arm, staggering him and giving him the flash of pain that he knew from long experience meant a minor wound. The kids with him yelped. He waved them onward to the trees; it was best to charge in.

  He was the first to reach the inside of the grove and find a gang of war-painted monkeys grinning from just above him, knives and rocks in hand. They jumped him and showed off their teeth, too. Phoenix fell screaming under their assault.

  * * *

  Words rose into his vision, like smoke in the darkness. [DEATH. Phoenix attempted first contact with the Monkey Tribe.]

  He woke up back aboard Sprout, which was already on its way back to the staging area. "Cheap! We weren't ready!"

  "What?" said one of the crew, maybe ten years old.

  "They're under attack by monkeys."

  "Cool. That's better than skeletons again."

  Another girl said, "Turn back?"

  "Uh... We'd better keep going to pick up more guys."

  The ship sailed on, and Phoenix looked backward with worry. The troops didn't have a save point ashore yet, so... Just then another kid respawned on the deck, yelping in pain. A shout came from Rainbow Goddess where the other save crystal was.

  Phoenix climbed the mast and leaped off to glide down to Iris' personal ship, a bulky thing with a heavy crossbow. "How many kills did they get?"

  Iris wasn't aboard. A crewman said, "Two here." Then a third appeared.

  That was going to make it slower to transport everyone, and some of the kids' gear had gotten dropped where they fell. The usual Talespace rule was that only your favorite few items were near-impossible to lose, so death could be annoying. The Saved tended to laugh that penalty off considering that they'd missed out on the real kind.

  Phoenix said, "Keep sailing. We'll make it."

  He spent the trip reading. Miss Alma had made them study something called logistics to plan the battle, and led them from there into reading about cargo containers. An old German griffin had lectured them about transport, his old business. That guy knew what he was doing; he ran the Iron Harvest Winery, which had only robots for workers. It was located on the site of a World War I battlefield where humans were still afraid to go.

  That guy... He was doing something useful as an uploader. Starting to take over the places that humans didn't want, just like Ludo was expanding into the remote Arctic and the deserts and oceans. The winery was her project too. Phoenix resolved to ask him sometime about whether he wanted to be free of her.

  Hours of sailing later, Phoenix climbed the mast and leaped down to the Launch Island beach, near the inn. "Problem," he told the others, and explained.

  Iris said, "I thought about borrowing more ships, but we're not in Talespace now. We can't just get other adventurers to help. So let's hurry and transport everybody to, um, reinforce our army."

  Again the fleet sailed out carrying everyone it could, the third quarter or so of the Saved. Volt was in command of this wave, so they hung out together aboard Sprout.

  Volt said, "Remember when we didn't have anything to do in here?"

  "Here?"

  "Well, back in Talespace. I had my mascot job at the hospital but we were just playing around, otherwise. Now that the Saved showed up, we have to help run things. It's a lot of work."

  Phoenix stretched out in the office
rs' cabin, which they'd filled with cool swords and pillows. "We're supposed to be heroes. This is all a test for us four, to see if we can get smart and strong enough to win a battle and manage a bunch of uploaders."

  The dragon girl said, "Iris is taking it seriously, with that battle spreadsheet she did. Focusing on the numbers sucks the fun out of it."

  Phoenix defended Iris: "But it's important. We almost forgot potions."

  "I used to focus on meeting people one-by-one and making friends. Now we're like admins. I can look up the kids' names and faces, but I don't feel like I know most of them."

  "Me neither. I'm not sure that Miss Alma would even know their names, without her upgrades."

  Phoenix had asked about getting mental upgrades like Alma and Sunset, so he could learn and memorize everything. But the important people had all said 'not yet' and seemed scared by the question. We're worried about you kids rewiring your brains before you're mentally grown up, even though nobody really understands how that works anyhow. Wouldn't want to do anything reckless while redefining what it means to be human.

  Phoenix said, "Once we get accepted as ready to take care of ourselves, we can upgrade. Then we'll start really being useful."

  Volt looked somehow disappointed as Phoenix went back up on deck to watch the sea.

  * * *

  They reached the island and hurried to get everybody ashore. Although most of the kids were still pretending to be normal humans, some had taken after Phoenix or Volt and gotten wings, so they glided down from the ship. Others swam with dolphin tails or used wind and water spells. How could anybody manage a group where everyone wanted special powers?

  Sig waved from the beach. "We keep getting attacked by these stupid monkeys. Lost two more people, and the critters won't stand and fight."

  Sig's team had built simple log barriers near shore for cover, but the army was still exposed. Phoenix said, "Maybe raid inland to find a save point?"

  "Tried it once, but we had to turn back."

  Volt cracked her knuckles, making sparks flicker along them. "That sounds like a job for the three of us."

  Phoenix grinned. "A stealth mission? Sure." Ideally they'd have Iris along, but with the monkey problem they shouldn't wait. He did a quick tour of the camp, where Sig had done a good job setting up the tents and the infirmary/buffet that they could use to heal in mid-battle. "I'm ready."

  Phoenix, Volt and Sig were about to head inland to search, but Lieutenant Malcolm stopped them. "What are you doing? We need everybody here to stick together."

  "It'll be a quick job. Stay here; we'll send you guys out on missions soon."

  The three circled around the island to find a way in, while the fleet sailed back for the fourth pickup. The jungle only grew thicker. Volt followed with several spells and her claws and lightning breath ready, while Sig led the way in armor.

  Sig made too much noise for proper stealth, but they didn't get attacked right away. They found a clearing where brown stone pillars blended in with the trees. "A shrine," Volt said, spotting a vault with a doorframe. "And... Chinese writing?"

  Phoenix was studying the carved squiggles when a trio of monkeys dropped from a tree onto them. "Get off!" he said, flailing and slamming the beast into the nearest trunk. He whipped his flame-tipped spear around to jab the one on Volt, making its flesh sizzle, and then Sig smashed his fist into one coming after Phoenix again. They all brawled, killing the things quickly.

  Both Phoenix and Volt had taken minor wounds, but they'd recover soon. Phoenix said, "I'm guessing the save point's in here. Can anybody read Chinese?"

  Volt said, "This whole island is some kind of gift from China, right? From the Jade Dragon." The Chinese government AI basically ruled the country behind the scenes, supposedly. "So the whole thing might be a puzzle, and to get started we need to know a little of the language."

  "How the heck does anyone read these squiggles?" said Phoenix.

  Sig took a camera out of his pack and photographed everything. "It's an obsolete language; it's not practical for computers."

  Phoenix would've answered, but more monkeys attacked. "Come on!" He stabbed and flailed, this time with everyone taking a major wound. "Do they even have monkeys in China?"

  Sig tried wrenching the vault's door open and Volt looked for more puzzle clues outside, but with no luck. Volt said, "Ugh; let's go back and translate."

  They returned to the beach in time to see a massive ape raid. Fifty assorted primates brawled with the Saved, some of them using spears or rolling boulders down at the camp. The kids' ranks were dwindling. Phoenix and company yelped and ran to attack. Naturally, they kicked butt, but everyone was badly hurt and Volt got killed at the last moment, dropping a few potions. Phoenix tackled the ape who'd mauled her and stabbed over and over.

  Sig pulled him away. "You're stabbing empty ground now."

  Phoenix sighed. "I hate seeing her get beat up."

  "I know. But she'll be fine." He gathered up her dropped items.

  Phoenix and Sig walked through the damaged camp, where an irate Lieutenant Eva stamped her feet. "You ran off!"

  "We were looking for the save point," Phoenix said.

  "Then we should've gone together. If you're really in charge, then stop acting like lone adventurers. We're a team."

  Sig said, "We've got another fleet-load coming. Once they're here we can organize."

  Phoenix said, "More than one load, what with more kids having to respawn." He sighed. "Just keep shoveling people over faster than the monkeys can kill 'em."

  Sig said, "There might be a limit on how many lives we get. Back in the Troll War the bad guys kept respawning until that Diver guy broke the stalemate. What'd he call it, 'war of attrition'?"

  Ah, the Troll War. The gang had helped out in a massive, weird conquest early this year, in a world where everybody had to be a magic horse. Phoenix thought also about World War I because of his contact with that German griffin. "Attrition isn't fun. What is Sunset trying to do? Hey Sunset, can you hear us?"

  No answer. "Ugh."

  Phoenix had the group repair their defenses and dug in until the next wave arrived.

  * * *

  The sun had come unstuck from its noontime position, and gradually sank. Night fell. Shimmering, surreal lights decorated the sky.

  Everyone was looking up at the aurora when the next monkey attack came. Hordes of them! Phoenix cursed, fought, and got killed in the dark.

  He woke up seeing only the words, [DEATH. Phoenix fell to Monkey Monk's Shaolin Style.]

  Phoenix grumbled and sat up as reality wavered back into view. He was on the beach of the inn island, with warm sand tickling his tail. "Who's writing the kill-quotes in this world? Tranquility, is that you?" Usually there was a caretaker AI handling music, sound effects, impromptu quests and post-death taunting.

  The reply came in a different font than he was used to seeing for system messages in the Endless Isles. Kind of an Asian style. [Talespinner Hokkusai at your service, taking a vacation. This little world came with interesting rules and sounds to play with.] Hokkusai began playing some laid-back string music with an unfamiliar tone.

  Phoenix called out, "The difficulty setting is broken. And, wait, I should've respawned aboard Sprout. Why am I back here?"

  The AI didn't answer. Phoenix saw Miss Alma, though, drawing a physics diagram for a group of the Saved who were waiting for a ride. He walked up to them and said, "Dread Pirate Blackboard, we're having trouble with this monkey island."

  The squirrel-gal smiled. "You haven't found the secret of Monkey Island?" Phoenix looked at her blankly, and she said, "I need to add those games to your recommended playlist. How about explaining your problem to the class?" She tossed him chalk.

  Phoenix sketched on the blackboard she'd conjured. "Too many d... darn dirty apes. And we keep getting killed before we can do any real army formations."

  "Do you recall the workshop on Roman army doctrine?"

  "Build forts, yeah.
But we haven't had the chance."

  "When did they fail?"

  "Uh. They got overrun by outsiders?"

  "Partly. It's complicated." Alma shrugged. "They lost major battles when they got ambushed or surrounded. They weren't good at everything, even with the variety of people they could draw on."

  "I don't get the lesson, ma'am."

  "Sunset has given you an adventure scenario to solve. He hasn't told me his whole scheme. But I can say that your frontal assault, your banging your head against a wall, won't work."

  The fourth ferry trip had to be heading back here to Launch Island by now. Phoenix's plans got disrupted when three more kids appeared on the inn's beach, freshly killed. So they, too, were no longer able to... "Oh, shoot. Did the monkeys take Sprout down?"

  One of the three new arrivals was Lieutenant Malcolm. "They sank her. They swam out like some kind of sea monkeys." Alma snorted; Malcolm gave her a confused look. "So now we don't have the ship checkpoint."

  Just then, Volt appeared on the island too, saying, "Come on!"

  "Monkeys?"

  The dragon-girl said, "Orangutan, I think." She came over and hugged him, making him blush. "We need a better plan."

  "Yeah. Miss Alma's hinting that we can't get surrounded, or something." He glanced back at the teacher, hoping to get more hints. Alma tried to look aloof but her tail kept wiggling.

  Malcolm said, "We didn't find any other islands. Can't loot the inn here for parts; I tried. The underwater scouts didn't find anything. There's literally nothing but this one island and the doom monkey island. The best we could do is chop down the trees to build another boat and ferry people over there faster -- and we haven't got much spare cloth or rope either."

  Phoenix summoned his spear and leaned on it, frustrated. "A puzzle, not just a battle. We're not drawing on all our resources. Okay, uh... I've got an idea. Miss Alma?"

  "Yes?" she said, looking hopeful.

  "We have access to AI technology. I want to get one of the enemy monkeys upgraded to a smarter AI so we can negotiate. Just Tier-II; I'm not saying make a real person. Let's talk and see what quest stuff we can do."

  Alma said, "I'll need to relay that request to Sunset. Excuse me." She cast a spell to conjure a portal and hopped through, oddly quickly.