by Mark C. Wade
The man behind the counter looked like a lumberjack. He had on flannel and overalls and big leather boots. His eyes went wide at the sight of an octopus entering his store.
“What can I do you for?”
Henry rolled his eyes the obnoxious wording. This wasn’t medieval times. People should talk and spell things in modern English. Fortunately, Henry’s octopus head didn’t allow for the eyeroll, so the shopkeeper wouldn’t know of Henry’s sarcasm.
He flashed his newly acquired money at the shopkeeper, and the man lurched forward.
Henry said, “I’m going to need the best defenses this can buy. I’m not sure what you have. I can wear rings and some forms of armor.”
“Yeah… I’m not really a specialty store. You probably know this, but you’re going to need highly enchanted leather armor. If you try to put on anything heavier, like metal, it’s going to lower your success chance when casting spells.”
What the hell?
Henry wanted to get to Nyissa and give her a piece of his mind. She needed to warn him about stuff like this rather than giving him an “everyone knows this” lecture.
He didn’t even know that a spell could fail. He thought that if he had the mana and did the casting, it was required to work.
“What do you have?” Henry asked.
The man showed him some of the equipment and armor and rings. Henry bought it all and hadn’t even spent a fraction of his money when he left. It was very disappointing, but the man pointed him to a specialty shop where he could get the leather armor fitted and enchanted.
Once Henry had done that, he headed back to get the first legendary artifact of the Goblin King. He was feeling quite a bit more confident in his defenses. He had also spent time practicing some spell combinations while grinding. Quickness was of the utmost importance, as he found out last time.
He got back to the lake with a plan. Henry slithered along the path, keeping a lookout for the mummy. The fish jumped again, and Henry turned to watch. The mummy used that moment to ambush Henry from behind the bush.
He steadied himself. He was ready. Henry corrupted the necromancy spell so that this enemy couldn’t cast it again.
The mummy man said, “What the fuck?”
Henry grabbed the necromancy spell and used it himself. The skeletons clawed from the earth around the mummy. Henry cast sickness to weaken his enemy, and the skeletons overtook the foe. He fell to the ground and disappeared in a dusting of pixels.
Henry thought that was too easy. He slithered onward and into the rocky arena. The treasure chest sat there unprotected. Henry looked around for any traps. He didn’t see anything, and so he put two of his tentacles up to open the chest.
The lid creaked as it opened. A bright light emanated from inside, and a little song played. Henry grabbed the bracers, and they immediately shot up over his head. The item disappeared into his inventory with a red circle and slash through it.
What?
A message appeared in front of Henry: you have obtained the first legendary item of the Goblin King.
Henry moved to leave the area, and the ground started to rumble.
Seriously? Does everything come from the ground in this game?
Rocks jutted upward, suddenly forming a gigantic dome over his head and locking him into the area. Henry spun around quickly, but there were no exits left.
An intense and chromatic song started to play with a driving beat under it. The intensity set Henry on edge. Booming laughter came from the far side of the dome.
A shrill voice called out, “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? You didn’t think my decoy out front was powerful enough to guard a legendary item, did you?”
Large words scrolled across the screen:
Vrald
Mini-Boss
Fight for the Bracers
A small, ugly, green creature barreled at Henry. He had two short daggers, one in each hand. They glinted in some sort of artificial light.
Vrald wore spiked shoulder pads and skimpy purple clothing. Henry wanted to laugh at the strange creature in funny clothes, but the intensity in his face brought Henry to his senses.
The goblin came so fast that Henry didn’t know what to do. He relied on muscle memory from before.
But when he got into Vrald’s spell tree, he only saw one option called: nightmare.
Henry wracked his brain. Did he know anything about Goblins? They were dumb? He spun out of the way of the first attack while thinking of a way to outsmart the little man.
Those daggers looked painful, and he didn’t want to get hit by them.
The treasure chest had disappeared after it opened, and the only thing in the entire battle arena to hide behind was the stone table.
Henry grabbed the nightmare spell from the goblin. Its red eyes flashed with anger. Henry didn’t think it would do much. Goblins weren’t afraid of anything, were they?
Henry started with poison spray, but it seemed too weak. The red bar appeared over the goblin’s head, and it started the slow tick downward.
Henry panicked. There was no way he could survive in this room long enough for that to work.
He had no choice; he cast the nightmare spell to see what would happen.
The stone table transformed before Henry’s eyes into a large goblin woman. She shook her finger at Vrald, and he stopped for a moment.
Was it his mother? Henry wanted to laugh that getting chastised by his mother was this goblin boss’s nightmare.
It bought Henry some time, and he searched his abilities for something, anything. The goblin spun around and called out his war cry. The shrieking noise made Henry shudder. But worse, it had an actual effect, causing Henry’s strength stat to pummel downward.
Jokes on you, Henry thought. Strength is useless to me anyway!
Vrald finally figured out his mother was an illusion. Henry tried to cast it again, but the spell plus the poison had used up all his mana.
Shit.
Now he had nothing. He’d die and lose the bracers.
Henry thought some more: he had all these corruptor skills, but he’d never tried out his one octopode ability. The ability didn’t require mana, so he selected it.
The goblin swiped at the nightmare illusion, and it disappeared. He looked around, confused.
Why wasn’t he running at Henry?
Henry stayed perfectly still, and the goblin squatted low to the ground. He stepped carefully, glancing around the room. Vrald seemed to be looking for Henry, but that made no sense.
Then Henry looked down at his body and realized he’d become camouflaged. His body now blended in perfectly with the rocks.
Henry slithered as quietly as he could toward the far wall and away from the goblin. If he could stay like this long enough, the poison would finish off the goblin.
The goblin didn’t seem that dumb, because he knew Henry was still in the room. So much for that stereotype.
The goblin sniffed the air and then turned directly toward Henry. He could still smell his fishy body. The goblin jumped in Henry’s direction, swiping wildly. Henry slithered up the wall. The suction on his tentacles allowed him to stick there.
The goblin darted forward a few more times, and his knife struck the hard, stone wall. Vrald bounced back, startled for a second. Henry watched the corner of his screen as his stamina decreased at the effort of holding himself on the wall.
The mini-boss turned and ran to the center of the room, letting out another war cry. Henry’s strength went negative.
He slithered back down to let the stamina regenerate a bit. He noticed some mana had come back. He cast another round of poison, and the goblin’s health ticked down faster.
The goblin looked right at Henry. It was like he could see through the camouflage defense now. Then Henry looked at his body—it had worn off. He was fully exposed.
The goblin ran at him, wailing a shrieking noise.
Henry slithered up the wall as far as he could to do the suct
ion trick again. The goblin clawed at the wall trying to get up to Henry. Henry watched as his stamina ticked down slightly faster than the goblin’s health.
He’d fall before the goblin died. He looked through his inventory for anything that might help.
Nothing.
The stamina dropped to zero, and the goblin still had a few more seconds before the poison got him. Henry used the last bit of stamina to jump from the wall and slam down on the goblin with a tentacle strike.
It was so close to working, but Henry’s strength was zero, and so it dealt no damage.
The goblin still had health, but the strike made him stumble back for a second, enough for another tick of the poison.
But Henry would die.
Vrald struck Henry with his dual-wielded daggers. Once, twice. Henry screamed.
Henry’s new leather armor was putting in a lot of work in dampening the blows. The final strike came at Henry’s soft head, and the goblin vanished in a puff of pixels.
He’d just barely bought enough time for the poison to take care of him.
The intense battle music shifted to a triumphant fanfare. The words flashed on the screen:
Congratulations! You’ve defeated the first Mini-Boss on the Quest. You may keep the Goblin King’s Bracers.
Henry checked his inventory and found the red circle had disappeared from the item.
Chapter 16
Henry looked at his watch. He couldn’t believe how long he’d been in the game. The whole sequence of grinding and fighting the boss went by so quickly. He thought almost no real-world time had passed.
Now he was about to be late for the next round of the tournament. He had a job to do and a case to solve. He’d been so wrapped up in the game that he almost forgot about it.
Henry stood up and almost fell over. The world spun, and deep exhaustion hit him. He was so tired that he almost felt drunk. He shook it off as not being used to virtual reality and decided to grab a coffee on the way to the next match to wake up.
Henry bolted out the door of his apartment, and he felt a twinge of excitement to watch the next round. Now that he knew more about the mechanics of the game, he would understand it better. He could appreciate what the players were doing.
When he got to the convention center, he found the place littered with cops. They had vastly tightened security. Henry didn’t blame them after what had happened to Nyissa.
The place was even more crowded than before. It was like people wanted to see a tragedy happen. They wanted to be present for it and not just read about it later. They wanted to capture the video that would go viral.
Henry shimmied to his seat, bumping into far more body parts then he would have liked. He could practically feel the clammy sweat transferring to his own skin.
Lukas saw him and gave a cheery smile and a quick wave.
Henry groaned. This podcast was getting on his nerves.
Lukas said, “I didn’t think you were going to make it back.”
Henry glared at him and thought: we’re not friends.
In fact, Lukas had become the prime suspect in Henry’s mind. He had the means to hack the headset, and he proved it last round. Helping Nyissa could have been a way to fake Henry out and to make it look like he was the caring type.
Lukas’s podcast downloads had already increased after saving Nyissa. This controversy was lucrative, to say the least.
Henry asked, “Any idea how they’re planning on doing this? This must be a legal nightmare. Are they ensuring that none of the other headsets are tampered with?”
“It’s your lucky day because I know the answer to that.”
The lights went down, and the players streamed in like before. This time something strange happened. Instead of getting into their pods, they all knelt beside them.
Lukas said, “As I was saying, all the players were taught how to look for the tampering. The headsets were checked before the competition, but each player is now responsible to also check their own headset.”
Henry said, “Hmm. That’s reasonable, but I wouldn’t trust myself.”
“Well, then you think like several players. The field has narrowed. Many do not feel comfortable playing in the tournament anymore. It’s possible that whoever did this hoped that would happen. Maybe they’re trying to give themselves an edge.”
Henry said, “I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of motivation for murder in my life. Killing Nyissa in front of everyone like that would have been too risky and not worth it to maybe scare a top player out of competing. It’s almost a copycat. Maybe it was a setup.” Henry shot Lukas an intense glare. “Don’t go repeating that. I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this.”
By now, many of the players had gotten into their pods. Henry kept a close eye on Aeden. If Aeden wasn’t responsible for the murder, he could be in danger this round. Unfortunately, he was on the other side of the stadium, so it was hard to get a good look.
The game started up, and the players materialized in the starting locations: equally spread out throughout the battle zone. Since Aeden was the top seed, the camera on the main screen followed him first.
The landscape shocked Henry. He expected all these preliminary rounds to be fought on the same type of map. Instead, it looked like the Restin Corporation was going to keep things as unpredictable as possible.
It made sense. A lot was on the line, and it would be unfair for later rounds to have more knowledge going in.
Aeden stood on the edge of a cliff that looked out onto vast snowcapped mountains. They were large and craggy like pictures of the Rockies. Snow drifted in all directions, hampering visibility. Decrepit and broken-down castles and bridges lined the horizon.
Aeden seemed far away from everything. It meant he was safe for now, but he would have to travel the farthest to stay in the play area when it started to shrink. All it would take is one quick burst from a hidden character, and he’d tumble over the ledge to his death.
Aeden moved as quickly as he could in his heavy armor. He looked like a knight with a glowing red cape and helmet. He had a longsword that glowed blue.
Henry assumed the glowing pieces of armor and equipment meant it had been enchanted somehow. He recalled the goblin bracers glowed as well. Maybe it meant they were legendary items.
Aeden had made his way to the bridge leading to the main area. Halfway across, he encountered his first opponent. It appeared to be a mage. The mage stood there confidently, his robes flapping in the wind.
The mage pounded his staff into the bridge, and a visible shockwave emitted. A roaring crash filled the stadium.
Aeden crouched to ready himself for it. It whipped through him, causing the bridge to sway like tapped Jello.
The center of the bridge cracked. Aeden dashed across the widening crevice with blinding speed. The mage took a few steps back. He appeared confused that Aeden could have moved so quickly.
Henry almost laughed: like that shockwave was going to take out the top seed so easily.
The mage widened his stance and flung his staff forward. A dash of fire came out the end in a barrage of licking flames.
Aeden flew sideways through the air, spinning in an impressive acrobatic display. His own sword now left a blue flame trail as it spun around his body.
The mage realized what was about to happen and tried to put a shield up, but Aeden cleaved down at the mage’s head furiously. The sword cut through his body all the way to the ground, and he disappeared.
For the first time since the game had started, Henry became aware of the crowd. People around him stood and cheered. Aeden seemed to be the crowd favorite to win. Henry couldn’t wait to see him fight Nyissa.
She had stealth and speed, but he had raw power. Henry couldn’t even guess how that matchup would go, but he had a suspicion he’d get to find out.
The map shrunk, and the walls of red enclosed to a circular area near the center of the map. The camera didn’t show it, but the number left in the match dropped do
wn by one. Someone had died during the shrinking process.
Aeden kept making his way toward the center. He disposed of people in the blink of an eye. In no time, there were only two remaining, and the final fight would have to happen inside of the castle. Whoever had designed this, knew how to increase dramatic tension.
Aeden moved along the stone walkway up to the entrance of the castle. He had a slow, careful gait as he crept about the wide-open foyer.
Something crunched as one of the stones shifted downward, and then he pulled back. Poison arrows shot from the wall right at Aeden’s head. He darted behind a pillar.
Henry clapped in excitement.
The final fight would happen in a castle of traps.
Aeden worked his way into the first room. He had to cross a narrow bridge over an infinite chasm. The bridge had no railing—only wide enough for Aeden’s two feet. Halfway across, large blades swung back and forth, alternating over bloodstains.
He darted past the first blade and then the second. When he was in the middle of the sequence of traps, a bolt of lightning flew at Aeden. The one remaining opponent had found him in the middle of a precarious situation.
Aeden blocked it with his sword, but the force shoved him off the edge of the bridge. He grabbed onto the side and dangled for a moment before pulling himself up. The audience gasped in unison.
Aeden somersaulted forward and nimbly made it past all the remaining blades to safety on the other side.
He wasted no time going for the killing blow. His body burned a bright red. Henry recalled reading about this online. He had turned on his berserker ability. It gave him more speed and strength, but he would also take more damage.
This was listed over Aeden’s head as a passive ability. He had also turned on several other passives like precise strike for accuracy and flame shock to inflict burn damage when his sword made contact.
The opponent rolled back and triggered another poison dart trap. This time Aeden wasn’t so lucky. He’d been too focused on his opponent, so the darts hit him with sickening thuds.
