by Ramy Vance
At the Red Lion, Suzuki, the leader of the Mundanes, a nerdy kid with mousy brown hair, serious eyes, and an impressive number of small battle scars, sat at a table with three other humans, drinking mead over a game of cards.
Sandy, a young woman with long black hair, sat to his right. She was absentmindedly circling her wand around her hand of cards, making them dance. Sandy radiated coldness until Beth, a young woman across from her, rolled up a napkin and threw it at her. “Earth to Sandy,” she said. “It’s your turn to draw.”
Beth looked to be the opposite of Sandy. She hardly had any hair, and her face was as vibrant and alive as if she could see the special spark that all things held. If Sandy held herself as if she valued her frailty, Beth looked like she was challenging everyone around her.
At Beth’s side was a large teenage boy with the pockmarked face of someone who had once had very severe acne. He was the fittest of the humans, looking as if he’d stepped out of an ad campaign for the original Dungeons and Dragons campaign poster. Stew voraciously ate and drank while he talked loudly.
In the middle of the table, a purple portal opened, dropping Sarah into the middle of the Mundanes’ card game. She plopped down on the table, spilling mead and sending cards flying everywhere.
Stew was the first one up, ax drawn, shouting, “What the fuck is this shit?” before bringing his ax down on the table.
Sarah threw herself to the side, barely avoiding getting cut in half. She hadn’t been expecting any of the Mundanes to be so trigger-happy. “Hold on, hold on, Myrddin sent me,” she muttered as she stood.
The Mundanes collectively watched Sarah as the other patrons in the Red Lion turned back, minding their own business again. A portal opening in the middle of their establishment wasn’t enough to rouse them. How jaded this crew was, or how seasoned. These were exactly the kind of warriors they needed right now.
Yet, all of the Mundanes had their hands on their weapons. Seasoned and certainly not naïve. “I’m serious,” Sarah said. “He sent me to request you for a mission. He said he’d pay you the bounty himself if there isn’t enough loot for you.”
Beth and Sandy looked at each other before Sandy showed Beth her wand. “I’ve been wanting some new equipment. Everything I have has too many bloodstains, and I can’t wash them out. Even these,” Sandy said as she held up her robes.
Stew sighed loudly as he fell into his seat. “Another quest?” he whined. “Could we get a weekend once? My ass is still sore from the last one.”
Suzuki sighed and leaned his head back. “If you stopped trying to smother goblins with your ass, you wouldn’t have this problem.”
Stew leapt up, pointing at Suzuki. “What do you mean, trying? I ass-smashed six goblins. Beth saw it. She can attest to these glutes.”
Beth shrugged as she sat and stole a mead from the table next to her. “I saw it, but Suzy’s right. Stop trying to kill things with your butt, and it’ll stop hurting all the time.”
Sarah listened to the Mundanes bicker. They were children. She couldn’t understand how this group of kids could be the legendary MERC squad responsible for nearly squashing the Dark One’s plans in the Shire.
She’d never seen such a group of childish warriors.
Suzuki held up his hands, cutting everyone off. “All right, all right, all right. We’re doing it,” he said. “We could use the practice. The last quest was rusty. We need to be keeping ourselves sharp. Plus, if it’s from Myrddin, it’s probably important.”
The Mundanes’ leader turned to Sarah. “How can we help?”
Chapter Eighteen
Kravis came out of the portal at the Wasp’s Nest and landed on a soft bed. He looked around to get his bearings. It looked like he was in a dorm room. Specifically, a young girl’s dorm room. This was not the place for him. He scrambled to his feet and headed toward the door.
The door opened, and a teenage girl stepped in. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen, which made the bleak look in her eyes all the more disorienting. It was like looking into the eyes of a dragon. She wore a tank top, which allowed Kravis to see the second most interesting thing apart from her dragon-black eyes: a cybernetic arm.
The girl, Alex, and Kravis froze, staring at each other. “Uh, I can explain this,” Kravis stammered before making a break for it, trying to slide between Alex and the door.
Alex tried to punch Kravis, missing him by a hair. The impact of her strike tore a noticeable chunk out of the wall.
Kravis ran down the hall, trying to figure out where he was heading. As he turned the corner, he saw Alex run out of her room after him. “Shit, she does not look like she’s going to give up,” he muttered to himself.
Kravis turned another corner and ran into a gnome. They both fell backward. The younger gnome shook off the fall and started picking up his books. His red beard was very strong for his age. A good grade of red and no patches.
“Hey, Brath! Stop that gnome!” Alex shouted from the rear.
Brath, the teenage gnome Kravis had knocked over, looked at the elder with a bored expression. “We’re not in the field,” Brath shouted. “You don’t get to boss me around unless it’s official business.”
“Brath, that creep was in my bedroom!”
“Dude, Jaws is going to flip when he hears you had some random-ass gnome in your bedroom.”
Kravis was on his feet and running around Brath as Alex was catching up. “I didn’t invite him into my room,” Alex shouted as she ran past Brath.
“Well, what the hell was he… Oh. OH!”
Brath was up and running after Alex as fast as he could.
Kravis still hadn’t figured out where he was going. It seemed like every hallway led to more hallways. He was starting to feel much more lost than before.
“Gotcha!”
Kravis felt his feet lift off the ground, and before he could do anything, Alex had slammed him face-first into a wall. When Kravis managed to open his eyes, Alex had a plasma pistol trained on him. “You better start talking because my trigger finger is getting real impatient,” she threatened.
Brath leaned over to Alex and whispered, “Your trash-talking is getting better.”
“Shut up, Brath. This is not the time.”
Kravis held up his hands and pleaded, “Hold on, hold on. This is all a huge misunderstanding. I was sent here by Myrddin to find a team called Boundless. Alex Bound is the leader.”
Alex jerked her robotic thumb at herself. “You’re looking at her. How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I have paperwork. And—”
“Anyone could have paperwork. Let me check.”
Alex approached the wall, which had a built-in hand-scanning pad jutting out. She pressed her hand to the pad and waited for a moment. Myrddin’s face appeared on the wall, slightly distorted by the crystals that made up the Wasp’s Nest. “How can I help you, Alex?” Myrddin asked.
Alex pointed at Kravis. “Some pervy gnome appeared in my bedroom and said you sent him here on a secret mission to find Team Boundless. Just wanted to check and see if he was lying before we blasted him.”
Myrddin picked up a stack of papers and began to thumb through them. “Hm, let me see. I do believe I have a note for that. Oh, yes. I did send a gnome named—”
“Kravis,” the gnome shouted as he stood, catching Myrddin’s attention.
“Oh, yes. That would be him. Kravis, what are you doing scaring the children?”
“The Gate was a little less specific than I might have wished.”
Alex folded her arms, looking disapprovingly at Kravis and Myrddin. “Next time you guys are planning on opening a portal in my room, you could do me a favor and warn me. An email would have been nice.”
Myrddin clicked his tongue and said, “Alex, you know it’s your responsibility to check the daily dossier. Or at least have someone in your team take care of that.”
Alex blushed bright red and looked at her feet. “All right, all right, Myrddin. T
hanks for confirming. Bye.”
Myrddin’s face disappeared, and Alex leaned toward Kravis, watching him closely. “I’ll meet you with the team in the cafeteria after I go over the mission parameters,” she said. “Then we’ll talk.”
Alex turned to return to her room, looking over her shoulder and shouting at Brath, “Get the team together! And we’re officially on a mission, so that’s an order.”
Brath sighed as he gave Kravis one more look and wandered down the hall.
Kravis sat there, caught off-guard by everything that had happened. He didn’t know many operatives who had Myrddin on speed dial, nor did he know any teenagers who had already been given their own squads. They must have been extremely talented for Myrddin to request them by name.
Kravis stood and began the confusing task of finding the cafeteria.
Chapter Nineteen
Terra burst into the dining hall, where the other fighters were gathered. Many of them stood around, looking as if they had already lost a battle. Perhaps it was the fight within them that they had forfeited. The only two to look up with anything other than loss in their eyes were Nib-nib and Cire.
Both rose when they saw Terra run in.
Even though Terra’s bones ached and she wished to rest, she put on her best face and tried to look as if she were anything other than exhausted. But when Nib-nib came close enough, Terra couldn’t help leaning to the side, allowing herself to be supported.
Nib-nib hacked up her healing goop and was pressing it to Terra’s body as Cire stepped closer to speak to the other fighters. “We can hear you out there,” Cire said. “We’ve heard the dragons too.”
Terra held up one finger and laughed harshly. “Only one dragon at the moment. Managed to knock one of them out.”
Nib-nib and Cire looked at each other in disbelief. “You knocked out a dragon?” the orc asked.
“Yep, clocked his punk ass. But, he kinda knocked me out too. So, as long as I’m the spring chicken, we should be good. Those things hit like a motherfucker. Could have sworn I was going to die at least fifteen different times. But I’m not back here to brag. I’m back here to see what the hell all of you are doing just sitting on your asses?”
“Initially, when you were brought out, there were guards keeping your small mantiboid friend and me from following you. Once we returned, we—it would not be unkind to say that we assumed you were dead. The fight above us sounded…it sounded as if you were outnumbered. No one would risk fighting the guards, only to find you dead.”
Terra shrugged, obviously surprising Cire. “I thought you would be ashamed of us,” he said.
Terra shook her head. “I don’t think you can fault people in situations like this. Not being courageous isn’t the same thing as cowardice. You guys didn’t think you had a fighting chance. Orcs might give you shit about that, but where I come from, people make those decisions all the time. Sometimes it’s the only thing that lets you keep going. When you go above that, knowing you might fail, that’s a cause to celebrate. But I ain’t talking shit about anyone who didn’t get there. Shit, I didn’t get there for most of my life.”
Cire seemed to understand what Terra was talking about. “Is that an invitation for us to be courageous?”
“You were the one who said you’d follow me anywhere. Is that just something you said, or did you mean that?”
Cire pressed his right hand to his chest. “You are my chieftain, and I will follow you to death if you were to ask.”
“Well, I’m going to ask you to follow me over there so I can talk to everyone. We’ll talk about the whole death thing later, all right?”
Terra made her way to the bulk of the other fighters. She climbed onto the table and grabbed one of the jugs of wine, tossing it back and drinking deeply of it. “Listen up,” she shouted. “There’s a horde of orcs, a dragon, and one too many balrogs up there. They are not making this easy whatsoever, but I’m out there fighting. There’s a shit-ton of people up there I’ve never met who are fighting to shut this place down. I think it’s about time we all went up there and gave it our all.”
The fighters looked from one to the other, uncertain of what they should do. Terra could see it in their eyes. Weighing their chances of survival. But then, if they were to stay down here, how much longer until they were forced into a fight that would end their lives?
One of the fighters stepped forward, a human with a scar running down his chest. “Where are the weapons?”
“Oh,” Terra said. “I thought I’d have to do more convincing. I have no idea where they keep the weapons, but they can’t be too far. We can find them, and then take the fight to the Game Master for a change.”
The fighters burst into cheers, chanting Terra’s true name.
Terra leapt off of the table and was met by Cire. “I thought that was going to be a lot harder,” she admitted. “Was kinda looking forward to giving a huge-ass speech.”
“We’ve been watching you fight against odds that would have crushed any of us,” Cire said. “We have been inspired by you for some time, and I know there are more than a few orcs here who want to know if they can survive a Terra-level fight. They were just waiting for a little kick.”
“All right, let’s go find some weapons.”
Terra and the fighters broke apart the chairs and tables in the room, providing each fighter with a club to hold them over until they were able to find something sharp and deadly. From there, they stormed down the halls, tipping over lanterns as they went, setting fire to the arena as they searched for tools to aid them in their vengeance.
By the time they found the weapons cache, the heat from the burning tunnels had nearly forced them out into the openness of the arena. Terra didn’t mind. It was about time to get back to the fight.
She really needed to punch something.
Chapter Twenty
Abby was busy consulting with Creon to get the Dark Gate working for Sarah’s new plan. Sending through a couple of people wouldn’t have been a problem, but two different squads and dragons presented a complication and they weren’t coming through this Dark Gate.
Not in one piece, at least.
Creon was muttering through different solutions while Abby stared warily at the Gate, which was fluctuating between purple and red as if it were angered by the prospect of transporting so many bodies. “Any ideas, Martin?” Abby asked.
Martin was quiet for a few seconds as he tried to process the question. “Well, if you think about it, the Gate is really just a transponder. It grabs the frequency and does something with it. Technically, the Gate isn’t the important thing. The frequency is.”
Abby nodded, following Martin’s train of thought. “I got you. And we have the frequency.”
“We could scrap some of the tech from here so it’s easier on you—”
“And I could just build my own Gate. In the arena!”
Abby reached behind the Dark Gate and grabbed the frequency transponder she’d seen in the schematics Sarah had shown them all earlier. Then she returned to the arena, hoping she wasn’t too late.
By now, the shock from the microchips had worn off. Anyone who was able to stand was fighting.
The horde was growing. Reinforcements had been sent to the arena, and nearly all were focused on Anabelle. The few who could spare their attention were busy trying to aid the balrogs in the destruction of Blackwell and Naota.
The two humans and their squads were doing more damage than anyone would have expected. They hadn’t managed to take down any of the balrogs, but they were able to contain the threat. The balrogs weren’t able to advance and interfere with anything going on in the ring as long as the humans were suppressing them.
It was a task that both Blackwell and Naota seemed to be quite taken with. Both of them, back to back, firing at anything that moved and wasn’t human. They looked like they’d been working together for years. “This the first time you’ve seen one of these?” Blackwell shouted.
Naota pus
hed up his sunglasses as he threw his tasers, which were attached by a magical wire courtesy of HQ, at one of the balrogs trying to make a run for it. The tasers chattered through the air, snapping at the balrog before Naota retrieved them. “Everyone who’s seen Lord of the Rings has seen one of those things before,” Naota replied. “I thought they were bigger.”
“They usually are. Guess the Game Master was expecting to draw out the fight a little bit. Give the crowd a more entertaining battle. Also, I don’t think he was expecting us to bring so much firepower.”
The balrogs were backed into a corner, the human squad surrounding them. The humans were laying down fire that, even though it wasn’t damaging the balrogs, was too furious to move past. But it was only a matter of time before they ran out of ammo. Granted, it was going to be a long time, but it was going to come eventually. Blackwell didn’t want to think about what they were going to do when that happened.
Across from the humans, Anabelle was still trying to take care of the orcs. She had slid back into the Path. Her body was her own to command at the moment, the manna flowing smoothly through her body, easily picking up whatever was cast off by those around her to replenish her own stores.
But there were still too many orcs, more than there had been before. Anabelle wouldn’t have been surprised if some of the orcs from the stands had jumped into the arena to join the fight. More likely, the Game Master had a much larger force than he’d initially let on.
Anabelle still hadn’t seen any orcs as large as the ones who were guarding the Game Master, so that was something.
Anabelle drew her manna up through her stomach and into her throat as she wove in and out of the orcs, trying to stay on the move and keep from having an individual duel. That would be problematic. If anyone were able to stop her for a second, box her in, there’d be a dozen swords and axes ready to hack her to pieces from every side.
Once the manna was in Anabelle’s throat, she concentrated on the heat in her chest, spinning around, blowing fire through the orcish ranks, latching onto the flames with her connection to her manna, and scorching as many orcs as she could.
