Battle Avatars

by Ed White

  The final cocoon opens to reveal yet another NPC—some local or settler or something.

  Mal steps away from the spider corpse, waving his arm. “Let’s go.”

  “Go, what about the NPCs?”

  A bemused expression falls over Malcolm’s face. “Exactly.”

  Remy shrugs.

  Mal waves his baton in my direction. “Recharge your baton, we only get six blasts before cooldown.”

  “Yes, I unlocked Charge Mastery, I’m not the noob you think I am.”

  “Look, Greywaters, I thought the game didn’t matter to you. There’s no quest invite anyway. Do you want to rescue these NPCs and play the game? I thought you wanted to find hackers. Make up your mind—you seem to have a problem doing that.”

  The prick, but he’s correct. Everyone waited for me, remorted for me. It’s an endless guilt trip.

  “I want to rescue the group,” I say.

  Remy pumps his hand. “Fellas, I can lead us out, trust me.”

  Mal scuffs. “Trust? We don’t know you, you’re only here on Greywaters’ say-so since he’s besties with Jonesy.”

  I laugh. “Could say the same about you. You’re only part of the group because you’re Kona’s boyfriend. What do we know about you?”

  Mal shoots a glare at Remy, thrusts his clawed finger at the masked man. “More than we know about him, more than I know about you.”

  “Well, aren’t they a sweet pair?” Ex steps into the glow of our batons from wherever imps lurk.

  Mal turns his claw on me. “We’re wasting time playing these levels all over again because of you. Me, I guess I’m enjoying it, because this time we’re getting paid and there’s shit like this I ain’t seen much of.”

  “That’s right, you haven’t.” I shoot an arm out toward Remy. “But he does. I found Remy down here, underground, and he’s got maps.”

  Remy tilts his head. “I do.”

  Mal laughs. “You haven’t shared them.”

  I double check first, finding party chat is still greyed out. “He can’t. Party chat is unavailable.”

  Mal shakes his head. “Noob. We don’t share maps by party chat.”

  Ex raises a hand. “I’m here for a reason lad, there’s another sedes nearby and likely a red sedes. But first, you must achieve level two.”

  Another sedes? I’m at about 900 XP from level two. I glance away from Mal for a moment, who’s giving Remy the stink eye and ignoring me. I don’t see the point in collecting sedes besides my possible future in the game. More time with Lisa. That glimmer of hope that I have a future here causes me to doubt the severity of our situation. It’s a dangerous hesitation. If we die we lose XP gained to this point and anything not soul bound to us—including the green sedes. Arguing down here delays us uncovering the hackers and burns up my limited time to fulfill my contract with the Conglomerate. We’ve got to find our way out and fight if we must, but I can’t die, or I’ll lose everything.

  ***

  Several minutes later and spiders dead, our HP dropping with each encounter, I do what I can, ley bending mana into each of us. I sense the ley energy is corrupted by the shadow wielding of the Chol, with each charge doing more damage than good. Or is that true? As rogues, both Remy and Mal display knowledge of the shadow skill tree, as does Kona. Even so, if we don’t find our healers, I at least, will fall unconscious.

  For the moment, we creep at a slow pace through the webbed tunnels on a gentle incline.

  “Both of you followed the Chol down here, right?”

  Remy nods, but Mal ignores me, focused on the next possible attacker in the darkness.

  “Where are we?”

  Mal grunts. “You keep asking.”

  “Well, it is fucking relevant.”

  Mal waves a hand at Remy. “He’s the one with the maps.”

  “Which I’m orienting to, given our last quest point and Haven.”

  I nod. “My point exactly. How far are we from where the first spider rider attacked us? The Chol are migrating or something, was I unconscious? How long has it been?”

  “Got it.” Remy points at the white gossamer-covered wall. “That way.”

  “Fine for you, ghost who walks, we don’t walk through walls.” I throw my arms up. This isn’t going well at all.

  Remy grips my shoulders. “We don’t walk through anything, we follow the passages. First, we find the others, then we find the central complex of this Chol city.”

  “The center? We’ll be surrounded,” I say.

  Mal laughs.

  “The Chol carve their cities from the rock in satellite caverns, often following natural fissures and caves, usually in limestone like this. We’re in only a small part of the city. This whole area provides only a portion of the scope of Lenscape. Ice Age Earth is where the crafting and settlement builders play and provide for the great armies fighting across the Realms.”

  “So?”

  Remy swings his arm in an arc. “There’s an entire world here, with cultures and ancient civilizations. A mix of NPCs and players living here on the Earth.”

  I shake my head. I’m well aware of the depth of Lenscape, and the possibility of exploring it should I find the hackers.

  Remy shakes me back to focus on him. “Know the lay of the land, know the enemy. The center of the Chol city is like all megalithic structures. All are echoes of one great pre-flood civilization.”

  “Atlantis.” What he’s saying strikes me, it’s obvious. City planning. Like the Grand Gate in Haven, there must be a gateway at the center of the Chol city. A sacred center. Of course. “There’s a gateway, an Eschen?”

  “Yes.” Remy says.

  “But where does it lead?”

  ***

  Remy leads us through the burrow to a carved series of tunnels in the rock, meant only for humanoid passage to keep the spiders, controlled as they may be, out of the habitation areas. It’s one thing to harness the spirit power of animals and to control them, but another to trust and live in harmony with them. Corrupt animystics indeed. Not that I’d feel safe living around spiders. Hell, most arachnids don’t get along with other spiders, the Chol are smart to keep them separated from their citizens.

  With the mass migration above, it appears the Chol lack the manpower to guard the tunnels or perhaps they never do.

  “Wouldn’t the game be more exciting if they placed guards for us to fight?”

  Mal scoffs, but it’s Ex who answers, stepping out of an alcove. “The Chol are fleeing the area of collapsed caverns due to the battle within the game instance you’re so keen to get to.”

  Why are the Chol, a bunch of NPCs, evacuating? I personally witnessed the reweaving of a location. A game patch. If the area will be reset, why run? I turn to Remy. “Are the Chol NPCs?”

  Both he and Mal laugh.

  “Every culture is payable, Greywaters. What don’t you understand about open world or total immersion?” Mal throws his arm in a dismissive gesture.

  Player vs player whether we want to or not? Maybe. Have players instead of AI. It saves on computing power. True random play, but for each culture their laws dictated, I’m sure, by who you can and can’t play. A complex system and amazing technology threatened by the hackers.

  “Hold up, fellas. If there’s a gateway in the Chol city, why didn’t they use it? Why are they spider-gliding?”

  Again, Ex speaks first, Mal ignores me and Remy studies his UI maps, unseen and as yet unshared to us. “Royalty aye, they’re free to use the gateway, a priest perhaps, but no others enter the sacred center.”

  “Sacred center,” I say.

  Remy nods, still staring into space at least from our point of view. “Your imp filled you in?”

  I definitely blush, my reddened cheeks hidden in the dim light of our batons. “Yeah, I suppose I should put more questions to him and learn.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, lad, you are rather slow after all,” Ex says. “Now consider, the Chol are running.”

&nbs
p; Mal grunts. “How about you focus on the now and forget the twenty questions? Think about how, between the two of us, me and the masked man, we know what we’re doing. Can you do that, Greywaters?”

  “Fine, I understand that you’ve been in the game longer, Malcolm, but if the Chol are running, I don’t understand why I was taken into the burrow back there.” I thumb back over my shoulder.

  Mal scoffs and edges ahead of us up the dark tunnel, past the man-sized portal, cautious and deliberate.

  Gripping Remy by the sleeve I force him to look at me and not his UI maps. “The Lemurians and Chol live down here. The Gryphons live above. Is there anything else living down here? Maybe, deeper? What about dwarves or goblins?”

  Remy turns slowly. “Well…”

  I shudder. “Well? Wait these lot worship undead gods and demon lords.”

  Remy laughs, waving his hand. “No such threats here, there’s no one in the Wilds with the level needed to fight something like that. Not without being part of campaign play. Armies and such. The War of the Realms, the psychic wars are directed by the gods and elder kinds.”

  I let Remy’s sleeve go and turn to my imp. Ex shrugs and I find I’m not comfortable with the imp’s expression.

  Oh shit. Danger, Will Robinson.

  ***

  The ground quakes and a fine mist falls from the tunnel ceiling, larger fragments caught and held by the silken lining of thick webbing create large bulges above us.

  “Battle must be outrageous up there,” Mal says.

  I don’t see how, the Battle Avatars challenged by the Scythe Warriors for this long? Maybe this will all be over and done with before I have a chance to identify the hackers, I mean the Scythes. Will the Conglomerate honor our agreement if I don’t have any hackers to hunt?

  “What if the game errors extend to level filters during a game instance?”

  Mal turns and frowns at me. “Errors? You mean like Fast Travel not working?”

  A deep rumble resounds around us.

  “Yeah, errors. What if the Chol are running from something else?”

  Mal rounds on me, shoving me in the shoulder. “Good God Greywaters, Jonesy never said you were an annoying whiner. Play the game and shut up.”

  “This is an RPG. We discuss and strategize and work together. Hell type of games have you played?” I say.

  “I wasn’t sitting around a table with dice! Retro wannabes. Fuck.” Mal stomps off up the tunnel.

  Remy glances at Mal but remains silent. Ex is still present but suspiciously silent. No sarcasm from the imp. Am I being the ass this time?

  The floor erupts, the wall on the right side of the cavern convulses behind the webbed lining. I fall, but Remy and Mal deftly work their rogue walk or whatever. Mal stares at me with a sneer of disapproval. I receive a grin from Ex. What does that imp bastard know? Mal is one thing, a complete asshole, but my imp is supposed to be on my side.

  Straining to study the state of the ceiling, with a particularly large bulge hanging in the shadows above, it occurs to me—is this a natural cavern the Chol made use of, or did they dig the burrow and tunnels? If the answer is neither, then what did create these, they’re three times the diameter needed for a spider to travel. Even the giant-ass spiders of the Chol.

  The ground shifts, the limestone below us, under the silken sleeve, crumbles and we’re soon suspended on the webbing.

  “Greywaters, get over here. Remy, time to share those maps of yours, we need to reach the surface.” Mal punctuates his statement with the point of a claw toward Remy.

  Remy nods, swipes his hand in an arc as I receive a notice—his shared maps of the area. Only the local area.

  Ex is at my side urging me to stand. “Lad, if you survive this, there’s still the red sedes nearby. Gain it and have mastery of Earth and further ley bending ability.”

  “I’m a little busy.”

  The tremors continue but the webbing holds strong as we walk, trampoline style, up the previous incline. We forego the narrow, human-proportioned passage in favor of making our way to the surface. Remy’s map of the locale doesn’t include our positions, but our dots show in a blank area Remy’s populating as we go, with obvious distractions. The indistinct outlines of the cavernous tunnel begin to appear on the shared map.

  Occasional shrieks, more easily distinguished from the stressful protests of rock and stone, arise from the darkness behind us. Are they the death cries of more spiders or other beasts crushed or falling to their deaths? Spiders wouldn’t fall, unless already wounded, so I’m guessing other animals or the cocooned NPCs.

  Mal presses his clawed hand to the large Setec protrusions pointed back on each side of his head. Lacking any earlobes, the Setec do have ear holes, but from Mal’s reaction, maybe the Batman things do serve an acoustic purpose.

  Mal catches me staring. “There’s a constant high-pitched screaming from below us. I don’t like what it might be.”

  “Bats?” I suggest.

  Remy and Mal turn their heads to me and even though Remy is in a mask I’m sure he’s got the same “poor you” expression as Mal.

  “I think the Chol are on the run from something even they fear. Do either of you know what that might be?” I glance at Ex who doesn’t appear troubled or in any difficulty walking on the webbing. He keeps any comments or useful insight to himself.

  Moving forward, Remy shrugs. “Wiki says they fear and appease their gods. Maybe you and the other cocoons are meant as a sacrifice.”

  “As a sacrifice to what? Demon lords and undead gods?” Eyes wide, I throw my free hand up to emphasize my point. It doesn’t impress Mal, who scoffs and stretches his neck, like Plastic Man, further up the web-sheathed tunnel into the darkness, out of sight.

  “Remy, do you have dark vision or is your mask providing sight beyond sight?”

  “All of my gear has bonuses. You’d do well to buy or fashion what gear you can.”

  I wave my baton at Malcolm’s body. “How the hell does he keep walking with his head way up the tunnel in front of us?”

  Remy taps his pecs. “Eyes in his chest.”

  “Serious?”

  I trampoline tiptoe forward on the webbing, leaning around Mal’s torso. Eyes glance at me. “Damn.”

  Shapeshifters.

  There is a shield-like mark on his bare chest, wrapping around his pectoral muscles and ribs onto his abdomen in the shape of a manta ray. At the center of each pec are his second pair of eyes.

  Creepy.

  A shiver runs through me and a great unease. I panic, expecting my guts to tighten with waves of nausea. They don’t hit, but relief is short-lived as the shrieks become a constant tone above the tremors and the crunch of stone.

  The webbing pulls taut, tossing Remy, Mal and I into the air. Something heavy has fallen on the webbing. We land on the cushioning silk as Mal’s neck snakes his head back into place.

  “The hell just happened?” Mal looks about to say more but grimaces with his hands to his head.

  A resonance starts in the webbing with the regularity of something large walking on it.

  Here we go.

  ***

  A honking great behemoth, terrible with its multiple dark eyes, pulls its enormous, armored body up along the web sheath, the swath of it black with vivid markings of golden glimmer. Massive bent legs black with spiked hairs, swing like tree trunks bent at bulbous joints high over its body.

  Random encounter: Great Spider.

  Rewards:

  700 XP

  Ley Crystal +2

  Creature

  Name: Great Spider.

  Species: Spider.

  Level: N/A.

  Class: N/A.

  Subclass: N/A.

  Affinity: Chol.

  HP: 30/80

  MP: 15/40

  AC: 18

  Attributes

  Strength: 25

  Dexterity: 100

  Movement/Speed: 10

  Combat Rate: 3.3

 
Constitution/Endurance: 14/25

  Physical Defense (PD): 5

  Energy Defense (ED): 5

  Body: 25

  Stun: 50

  Recovery: 10

  Intelligence: 2 (-4)

  Mental strength: 14

  Senses: Blindsight 10 ft. Dark Vision 60 ft. Perception 10 (passive). Websense (in contact with web).

  Presence/Charisma: 4

  Abilities/Skills

  Climb. Venom Spit.

  Weapons

  Bite. Melee attack: +8 to hit.

  DAM: 14 (piercing)

  Poison. Make save to CON 50%.

  DAM: 15 on fail.

  DAM: 10 on save.

  Web. Ranged attack: +8 to hit. Range 100/150 ft. AC 18, HP 8.

  DAM: Restraint. 16 STR check.

  Resembling enormous ground spiders, the Great Spider is worshipped and feared by the Chol.

  Twenty-five strength? The thing can lift almost a ton. Each leg is likely about half my damn strength, the beast able to crush us with its forelegs alone.

  Mal catches me with an extended arm, while Remy grapples and gains purchase on the silk-sheathed tunnel floor. We all share knowing looks laden with uncertainty—can we outrun this thing with its speed and movement rate four or more times our own? Do we have a hope in hell of killing it?

  “We’ll respawn and join your friends in Haven. Until then, we give this thing hell!” Remy yells followed by mad, hysterical laughter as he leaps from the incline down into the embrace of the web weaver, firing his baton’s icy blast.

  Mal’s arm releases me as I raise my baton, but Mal fires first.

  Great Spider 21/80

  The spider’s got less than half its HP. Almost a quarter after our strikes hit. If we kill this thing, we split over 230 XP. Two rogues and a noob. No healers and surrounded by corrupted ley energy?

  No sweat. Yeah right.

  My pessimism gets the better of me. “Guys, what do you think sapped so much of this monster’s health and mana?”