by Zeke Biddle
With spittle flying from between his clenched teeth, he practically growls his words. “They are not my army, you fool!”
He raises his hands straight out from his sides with his palms facing up until they are shoulder height. “Rise, my army. Obey your master, the great Jargot!”
I jump back when the skeletons all obey his command. “What the fuck? Ooooh. You’re a necromancer. Cool trick.”
I try to make it sound like my heart isn’t pounding and my palms aren’t sweating.
“Ah, the wizard is just mostly an idiot. Well done.”
“So the plan is to have your skeletons amble over to me and bash me with their bones?”
Jargot’s smile doesn’t meet his eyes, which are glowing a creepy shade of purple. “Something like that.”
The skeletons are shuffling in place, awaiting their next command. None of them appear to be capable of moving very quickly, at least. If they get me cornered, I’m screwed for sure, but in a pinch, I should be able to outrun them with a little careful kiting to buy myself time.
“What’s to stop me from just blasting you with a bunch of fireballs before your undead can tear me limb from limb?”
He lifts a tiny rodent skull that dangles from a chain around his neck. “I’m warded against fire, fool. I’ve watched you from the shadows since you entered the Cursed Woods. You’re a one-trick pony.”
The fact that he’s not wrong bothers me. My inability to learn any other magic will be the undoing of myself and the women who have fought by my side.
And I never even got to sleep with Alexandra before I died, damn it.
I force myself to focus on the pressing danger.
“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” Jargot asks. “I’ve got much to do yet tonight if I’m going to convince the prince to accept a tainted woman.”
“You really think I was her first?” I ask.
I know it’s not the right time or place but curiosity gets the better of me. Based on how confidently she’d dominated me that first night, I had trouble believing her when she said I was the only man she’s ever slept with.
He points at me and flicks his finger. The skeletons raise their arms out in front of their bodies and start walking toward me.
Jargot laughs when I take a step back. “How’s it feel, knowing if you’d only mastered something other than big showy fireballs, you might have a chance to survive? I mean, look at me. I love my undead minions, but I could have just as easily zapped you with a lightning bolt or poisoned you. Or I could turn the ground to ice and watch you fall on your ass over and over until you die from little bruises or starvation.”
My mouth goes dry as I start to realize just how fucked I truly am.
Jargot’s little speech isn’t over. “I’m just as scrawny as you, but infinitely more powerful. You can’t touch me with your fire. My skeletons, or any of my other magic attacks, will have no trouble disposing of you. If the gods do decide to let you be reborn, remember, idiot: never specialize before you diversify.”
I don’t feel like I’m in a good position to argue the point. After all, I don’t even know how I created the fireball in the first place. I haven’t intentionally specialized. If I knew how to cast lightning or ice or anything else, I’d happily do so.
But he does make me realize one potentially important fact.
I did learn one other thing. I can summon my familiar. I’m not sure exactly what good it will do me, except maybe give me the opportunity to watch my own death from the sky.
A childhood memory overwhelms me.
Every Sunday, my dad and I used to watch football together until I was old enough he couldn’t keep me from the VR games I loved. At the end of the half and the end of the game, he would always shout at the TV, “Never leave any timeouts on the field!”
It might have just been the beer talking, but my dad had played high school football, and he seemed to know all the important catchphrases to yell.
I’d asked him what it meant once, and after scratching his balls and finishing his fifth beer of the game, he explained, “They give you the goddamned timeouts for a reason. They don’t do you any fucking good if you don’t call ’em. Hell, even if all you do is buy your fat lineman a minute to catch his breath or make one of those scrawny-ass kickers have to think a little bit longer about how pathetic their life is before they kick the ball, it’s better than not using the damn things.”
If I had any timeouts, I would use them, but since I don’t, I improvise in what I hope matches the spirit of the advice and do my best to stall. I think my dad would have finally been a little bit proud of me if he was around to watch.
I summon my familiar and start running. Until I figure out how the eagle can help me, I need to keep those skeletons from trapping me. My plan should only take a minute to carry out, but I need to stay close to the generator. If I go running off into the woods in a panic, I might never find my way back.
I lose all my remaining nerve when I see Jargot’s army of skeletons closing in on me. Jargot has them spread out in a wide line so that if I cast a fireball at them, I can’t hurt more than a few at a time. I’ll be out of magic long before I can kill them all.
So what’s the plan, wizard? Fight my way through, get to the generator, and try for one last quickie before I die?
Tempting, but not practical.
The only practical answer is to find more help.
A horrible thought plays with the back of my brain.
Or you could just let them die. This is all just a game. They aren’t real people.
I skid to a stop and shoot a fireball at the skeletons. The beach-ball-sized ball of flame kills the three closest to me. Two more fireballs, one to the left and another to the right of the first one, open up a gap in the line.
Another one of my dad’s suddenly useful football rants pops into my head: “When the big meatheads open up a hole, you gotta run through that fucker without hesitation.”
I have no idea what any of it would mean on a football field, but it’s very clear what I need to do in a life-or-death situation when a necromancer sends his skeletons to try to kill me.
Unfortunately, I never was any good at any sports. The odds are still overwhelming. There’s no way I survive this battle all by myself.
As I turn tail and run, I try to convince myself that I’ll return with help.
The voice of my drunk dad snorts. Pathetic asshole.
16
I run until my lungs burn. It doesn’t take long. As Alexandra is fond of reminding me, I’m just a wizard.
I slow to a walk for a few minutes to recover and then pick up my speed into an aggressive jog.
The entire time, all I can hear are voices in my head.
Alexandra makes fun of me for being a pussy. Eulalia’s voice replies that we all have our own unique skills and she should stop picking on me. I haven’t been around Gillian enough to know which side of that fence she will fall on, but my imagination puts her squarely with Alexandra.
I don’t blame her. She’s going to die because of me.
After moving steadily eastward for another few minutes, I stop to listen for my pursuers. All I hear are birds chirping and the wind blowing through the leaves.
No one’s even chasing me.
I’m not even worth killing to them. No one cares if I come back to try to rescue the women because they know I’ll be an easy target if I do.
I flop onto the ground with my back against the tree.
Things are so much easier in the real world. Sure, I’m a disappointment to my parents and completely uninteresting to almost everyone at my school, but I never have to make any life or death decisions more difficult than deciding whether to risk a ticket for jaywalking in order to make it to class on time.
It’s all Kip’s fault.
Well, even that’s my fault in a way. I’d only started playing the game because I had nothing better to do on a Friday night, and the lure of getting laid in the game had bee
n too strong.
And what a game it is. Only in a game that felt like the real world would I even worry about three NPCs getting killed. They are just lines of code, but somehow the mere thought of Jargot killing them makes tears stream down my face.
But there really is no sense in going back. I’ll just die along with them. If I were stronger, sure. But I’m just a weak low-level wizard.
I hear breathing behind me right as a branch snaps.
I roll to the left.
Claws as long as daggers barely miss my head before digging deeply into the tree trunk.
I have plenty of time to scramble to my feet as a monster struggles to pull itself free. Frozen in terror, I look back and see another half-man-half-lion hybrid snarling at me.
My feet finally move, and I’m sprinting through the forest once again. I hold my arms up to protect my face from the branches and stumble over exposed tree roots.
If I survive the night, I promise myself I’ll come back and burn down every tree in this motherfucking forest.
Behind me, I can hear his bare feet crunching the dead leaves as he gets ever closer.
I won’t be able to run. He’s simply much faster than I am. I escaped Jargot and his skeletons only to find another way to die minutes later.
I’m clearly not fit to survive on my own.
The realization hits me.
Being alone isn’t my real problem. Running away is.
I ran away from my dad when picking a college. I ran away from college after college when I felt like I didn’t fit in. I ran away from the girl at the party.
And now I’m running away again.
Running has never worked for me. It just puts me in a new place with the same problems. The only way to change anything will be to stand and fight for what I want.
I want to live.
I want my women back.
I want to kill and destroy the generator so that no more of the hybrid monsters get created.
I want to settle down in this game world I’m trapped in and find a way to live a meaningful life.
The familiar heat of a fire building within me warms my heart in more ways than one. I do have options. I do have strengths. I can fight.
I will fight.
I turned toward my pursuer and smile. My magic may not be perfect yet, but it will get there. I’ll work hard to master it and I’ll never be intimidated by a fucking hybrid again.
“You picked the wrong wizard to mess with.”
I cross my hands and extend my arms. The ecstasy that courses through my body as the fire collects into a ball at the ends of my fingers is nearly orgasmic. “Fireball Explodium,” I say in a calm, steady voice.
A small moan escapes me as the fireball launches itself across the space between the monster and me.
The fireball is huge; nearly as big as the hybrid.
It appears I have been getting stronger; I just didn’t notice because I’ve been too busy being scared.
The hybrid turns to flee, too late.
The fireball crashes into its back setting its skin on fire. The fire burns brightly and roars for several seconds before disappearing with an audible whoosh, leaving behind a pile of bones that fall to the ground.
Free from the immediate danger, I have two options.
I can run.
Or I can return to Jargot and free my women.
“Hold on, girls! I’m coming for you!”
17
During the trek back to the generator shack, I encountered three more hybrid creatures. With my new confidence and stronger fireball, I made easy work of them.
Still, when I reach the camp, I don’t charge in, fireballs blasting.
For one thing, while killing the last hybrid, I noticed each fireball getting smaller. Despite growing stronger from my battles over the last few days, I still have my limits. Even more disturbing, I don’t really know what they are. The next fireball I cast could be my last that can do enough damage to be worthwhile.
So I need a plan.
I climb a tree just outside the clearing around the shack and lie down on the branch to get a better view.
Jargot is busy yelling at one of the skeletons who must be reporting that they lost me. That bolsters my confidence. He wouldn’t be mad if he wasn’t at least a little bit worried.
Still, with dozens of skeletons under his control and me nearly out of whatever fuels my magic, the best plan would be to sleep for the night and recharge. If I knew the girls would make it until the morning, I would do so in a heartbeat.
That’s not an option. Jargot appears to be ordering his troops into formation to attack the shack.
There’s no way I can kill them all and Jargot, too.
Hell, I don’t know if I can kill just him.
But maybe I don’t need to do it all on my own.
With the women at my side, we could combine our skills into something even more powerful than all of us individually.
If I can free them, and they aren’t dead or unconscious, they can help. I bet Jargot’s rat-skull won’t be much use against Gillian’s arrows or Alexandra’s sword. And Eulalia can probably maybe do something useful with the skeletons.
We’ll have options beyond just my fireballs.
You’re thinking too much! Just play the fucking game!
That’s another of my dad’s classic game-day phrases, and he’s once again very right.
I climb down from the tree. Before I can change my mind, I charge into the middle of the clearing.
Instead of fleeing, I shoot a fireball and run through the small hole it makes in the line of skeletons. I continue sprinting straight toward the shack, hoping for some more advice from Dad to tell me what to do next, but the prick chooses to go silent.
I burst through the door. Unlike the last shack, there are people working in this one. Two men and one woman are turning dials on the machine. They don’t hear me over the cacophony of sound the device makes.
My girlfriends and Alexandra lie unconscious on the floor nearby.
Better unconscious than dead.
It does ruin my plan of them helping me fight Jargot, though. That stupid skull is going to be the end of me. I’d give a million dollars to make it disappear.
A kernel of a plan starts to form in my head but gets cut short when the larger man in the room reaches to lift Alexandra.
“Hell, no! You’re not using my women to make your disgusting monsters.”
They start to spread out, making themselves harder for me to handle.
I shake my staff at them. “Don’t move, or I’ll blow this entire place up with one fireball,” I threaten. “I doubt peons like you could survive the damage.”
They huddle together to argue over something.
I use their delay against them and cast my spell. The fireball splashes off the first and hits the other two. All three of them die, but the fight leaves me with one less fireball I can cast.
I don’t have any plan for how to kill all the skeletons or Jargot with whatever magic I have remaining, much less all of them, but the longer I can delay, the better chance I have of coming up with something.
I drop to the ground with my back to the door to catch my breath before risking my life.
The women aren’t going to be able to help.
It’s entirely up to me to keep us all alive.
But I’m just a wizard who’s about out of magic. I could try to use Alexandra’s sword or Gillian’s bow, but that would just delay the inevitable.
We’re all going to die in this little shack. I glance at the machine they use to make the hybrids and remember what they’d been doing with Gillian when we found her. Or worse.
A bump against the door jerks me back to the moment. The skeletons are trying to get in to finish us off.
At least we’ll all die together.
My familiar squawks from on top of the shack.
Poor guy doesn’t even get the chance to die with the rest of us.
Alex
andra said I die if the familiar does. I wonder if the reverse happens when a wizard dies.
And then a plan hits me almost as hard as the skeletons hit the door.
18
“Come on out, wizard!” Jargot yells as his skeletons bash against the door once more. “Dying of starvation is a million times worse than having your head bashed in.”
“I’ll take my chances that either you’re wrong or you’ll get bored before I starve.”
I reach out to my familiar through our mental link. Seeing through his eyes, I struggle to get my bearings.
“I won’t need to wait all that long,” he says. “The full moon is nearly at its peak.”
Keeping him talking makes it easier to keep track of where he is. He seems to be pacing back and forth. I also hear him through the eagle’s ears. Jargot’s behind me…us…him. Using the familiar’s senses can be disconcerting.
Familiar, please circle back around.
The bird swoops with much less urgency than I desire but does comply with my request.
Stalling, I say, “I didn’t know necros could summon werewolves.”
“They can’t.” He sounds bored and almost sleepy.
But why should he worry? He’s got me exactly where he wants me. I couldn’t be easier pickings.
Even I know I’m going to fail. I’d be better off curling up against the women for my final moments, waiting for death.
That won’t happen, though. As much as I hate my dad, I am his child. Like my dad always used to say, you have to play hard until the final buzzer.
“Then why are you getting a boner about midnight?” I ask, only half-listening to myself. Remotely steering the stubborn eagle by telepathy is still much more difficult than it sounds. “If you can’t summon one, then the only reason to care about a full moon would be…shit. You are one.”
