Beyond the Boss

by Drew Seren

  Grabbing the edge of his cloak, Horc tore off a long piece of it and wrapped it around his face. That helped block some of the pain, but the storm was hitting so hard that every minute his health dropped a little bit. He wanted to sit down and wait the storm out, but he couldn’t abandon his team like that. He held out his hands and stumbled forward into the maelstrom.

  Since he couldn’t exactly see where he was going, Horc looked at the display showing the guild members. Everyone was still alive, although Baladara was down to under a quarter of her health, and quickly falling. The others had taken damage too, with Bigdaddybear and Stanoran being the two closest to full health, but they were the healers and that made sense.

  Something that felt like thin leather brushed Horc’s head. A huge shadow fell over him. Reflexively, he slashed out with the dagger. The sharp blade caught something. A loud scream of pain rewarded his efforts. Realizing he’d just cut a Dragon’s wing, Horc grabbed blindly, hoping he could catch the leading edge of the wing. Something came down hard on his outstretched arm. Pain shot through him, but he managed to catch hold with the hand not holding the dagger and yanked hard. Remembering Theodore’s inability to break the Dragon’s wings, Horc opted for another tactic with the Dragon as he slammed his dagger into the beast’s side where the wing joined with the body. The dagger sank deep and warm blood splashed out over Horc’s hand, making the dagger hard to hold onto.

  Since he was attacking the Dragon, its stat bars showed up on his display. Its health was down into the orange. Then the Dragon screamed again. It lurched to the side, shoving Horc hard. A short sword came through the Dragon’s throat, barely missing Horc’s head.

  “Hey!” Horc shouted as he jumped back.

  The Dragon’s health bar flashed red, then disappeared. The beast dropped to the ground and pixelated.

  Theodore stood on the other side of the vacant space. “Dude, that was intense.” His health bar was quickly heading to the orange with each second the storm continued to lash them.

  “Yeah, it was.” Horc took a deep breath and reached back into his pack, hoping to grab a couple of health potions before the storm killed them. His fingers curled around cool glass vials. He pulled two out and thrust one toward Theodore. “Here, drink this.”

  As soon as the Ursan Shaman took the vial, Horc uncorked his own and downed it. The taste was as bad as he remembered, a bit like salty fish water. But as the foulness faded from his mouth, his health went back to full. No sooner was he back at full than the damage from the sandstorm continued to pound at him and started gnawing it down bit by bit.

  “We’ve got to find the others,” Horc shouted.

  “Baladara looks like she’s in bad shape.” Theodore turned. “I think she’s over here.”

  “How can you tell?” Horc stumbled through the sand that was drifting around his feet even though he’d only been standing still for a minute or so.

  “The party map.”

  “What?” Horc wanted an answer, but something slammed into him from the whiteness of the sandstorm. It was smooth hide, not like the lizards, but like another dragon. He stabbed his dagger into the leathery flesh that hit him. A bone chilling cold hit him hard. He held tight to his dagger, determined not to lose it like he had his halberd and bow.

  “Damn!” Theodore shouted from nearby. He hit the Dragon hard with something.

  Horc stabbed the Dragon again, doing his best to ignore the cold that radiated out from the Dragon’s body. A Fireball came from somewhere in the storm and hit the Dragon in the head.

  “Hold him still.” Rambull’s voice was muffled by the wind, and Horc only hoped the Minotauren Shaman was talking to them.

  Horc grabbed hold of the Dragon’s head, and Rambull’s fingers brushed Horc’s arm, letting him know the Ursan was struggling from the other side of the Dragon. Then Rambull charged out of the storm. He had his head down and hit the Dragon with all his might.

  “Twist!” Theodore shouted and shoved against Horc’s arm as the Dragon staggered back under Rambull’s assault.

  Hoping he understood correctly, Horc pulled the Dragon’s head around as hard as he could. There was a resounding crack and the last bit of the Dragon’s health dropped away and it vanished into the digital world that formed it.

  “One more,” Rambull yelled as he staggered to his feet near Horc.

  “Horc, give me a healing potion for Baladara and you help the others finish off the last one.” Theodore put his hand out to Horc.

  Still not sure how they were seeing the other party members on the map, Horc figured it was Baladara’s best hope. He pulled another potion and put it in Theodore’s hand.

  Rambull headed off into the storm. “Follow me.”

  Horc rushed to not lose him. The sounds of battle were dying back, but the storm howled on. His own health was back to under three quarters due to the Dragon and the constant damage from the storm.

  Something glowed bright in the storm as Horc followed Rambull.

  A battle cry rang out over the howl of the winds. Horc kept going toward the cry. His foot caught on something and he fell hard on the ground, getting a mouth full of sand. His health dropped again.

  His head spun as he managed to sit and spit, trying to clear the sand from his tongue.

  Another battle cry fought the storm for dominance. Horc recognized the sound of Titanya triumphing over something, or someone.

  “That should be the last one,” Horc muttered, and remembered the party had a chat option. He quickly opened a window.

  Can everyone get this? Horc

  I can. Baladara

  I think we’ve got them down. I can account for three. Horc

  We can account for two. Bigdaddybear

  And if you were helping Titanya bring down the last one, it’s one of the ones I’m counting, so that makes four. Horc

  Sounds right. Titanya

  Then everyone come together on me. If anyone still has a mount bring it. I think it’s time to circle the lizards. Horc

  We’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Baladara

  Maybe you can get that shield up again. Tufkakes

  We’d like to get out of this storm. Jamica

  Nope. We’re just going to sit tight and drink healing potions. Horc

  Might be the best option. If we need to, we can cast healing on folks as we take damage. Stanoran

  It wasn’t the best plan Horc had ever heard, but it was a plan. They wouldn’t be stumbling into anything in the storm, and he just hoped the AI wouldn’t send anything else to hit them until after it was over. As the others gathered around, they sat in a tight circle, putting Baladara and Scarletcrest in the center to protect their smallest from the worst of the storm if they could. He also hoped it would give the casters a chance to help defend if something went bad before they could all see beyond the storm. Once everyone was circled and they spread their cloaks out wide, most of the damage from the storm was buffeted, and their health wasn’t taking constant hits. It gave Horc the hope they’d survive if the storm moved on like a storm in the real world.

  9

  Horc dug through another pile of sand, hoping to uncover one of his dropped weapons. The sandstorm had blown itself out after several hours.

  “What did you guys do to Mikey?” Baladara’s voice raised in irritation. She’d been curled up in the middle of everyone during the storm and hadn’t moved since. Her health was back to normal, and everyone had just assumed she’d gone AFK for a while and hadn’t been too worried about it.

  Horc hurried from the pile of sand to where Baladara, obviously being driven by Lisa, stood with her hands on her hips glaring at all of them. “What do you mean? Is something wrong with him?” Since Mike and Lisa were using VR goggles and gloves, they shouldn’t be at risk of game feedback like the pod users were. He’d have hated it if something happened to Mike, but the AI was figuring out how to kill players IRL.

  “He’s a drooling gibbering mess. Honestly, it’s not an uncommon sta
te for him, but normally I’m the one who leaves him that way.” She pursed her lips, then her face softened. “I managed to get him into bed, and he finally relaxed enough and went to sleep.”

  “Good.” Horc relaxed a bit. “She… ah he was trying to hold a magical shield against a sand storm when Dragons attacked. I think there was some magical feedback.”

  “But you guys aren’t using pods, he shouldn’t have gotten that bad a feedback.” Bigdaddybear came over, leading two of lizards by their reins.

  “I don’t think we totally know the rules at the moment,” Tufkakes said. “The AI is acting up pretty badly.”

  “You’re right there,” Baladara said. “If we’re the only ones using basic VR, maybe the AI’s using us as guinea pigs for something.”

  Horc shook his head, then pinched his nose. “I don’t like this. What if the AI finds a way to permanently hurt you? You’ve got kids.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Baladara replied. “There’s only so much damage a game can give someone who’s not in a pod. We’ll be fine.”

  “If you want to log out, we’re not going to think any less of you guys.” Horc frowned and had the urge to pace. He managed to push the urge down and put his hands behind his back.

  “We’re sticking here until everyone’s out,” Baladara said. “We’ve been through this mess this long, we’re here for you.”

  “Thanks, Lisa.” Bigdaddybear walked over and gave her a huge hug. Tufkakes and the rest of the guild walked up and joined the embrace.

  As Horc put his arms around the others, he felt a little silly at first, but there was something right and comforting about it as they stood there. Sure, he only knew Mike, Lisa, and Stan IRL, but the rest were quickly becoming friends and family. He couldn’t wait to get out of the game and meet David, Rick, Shelia and the rest. They were forming bonds in the game that he had no doubt were going to continue once they were all free of it.

  Horc let out a long sigh and stared at the swath of desert they’d spent hours going over, trying to find everything they’d lost in the storm. They’d gotten lucky and the lizards hadn’t wandered very far. The huge mounts had hunkered down a few hundred feet from where they’d started and waited for the wind and sand to stop. Everything that had been in their saddle bags was right there and only a little of the color of the bags had been blasted off by the force of the sand. The lizards had required some Druid healing from Bigdaddybear, since the Priest healing from Stanoran hadn’t worked on them.

  While digging through the sand, the party had managed to find everything dropped, except for Horc’s halberd. He hadn’t been real fond of the weapon, but it had been something for when they got into close quarters. None of the rest of the party was carrying spare weapons, so Horc was left with his bow and arrows. He was just going to have to make an effort to stay back from the main part of a fight and shoot arrows at their opponents. That had been working out so well of late he hoped they didn’t run into anything his dagger wouldn’t prove effective against.

  Horc grabbed the reins of his red lizard, then stopped and stared at the beast for a moment. “Look, no more running off, okay. From now on, you’re going to act like any good horse and just hang around when shit’s going down.”

  Theodore laughed behind him. “You realize that if these lizards had been horses, they’d have probably run for the hills when the Dragons showed up and would still be running as hard and fast as they could.”

  “I knew there was a reason I prefer motorized transport.” Horc put his foot in the stirrup and swung up on the lizard’s back.

  “But this is a fantasy game, so unless there’s a bit of steam power puttering around here, no motorized transport.” Theodore also mounted.

  “Some of the Gnomes have steam preferences,” Scarletcrest said, as he rode up alongside Horc, still looking small and out of place on the lizard, almost like a human toddler placed on a Clydesdale. “Maybe when the AI problem is dealt with, we can go explore some Gnomish areas and see what we can find.”

  Having Scarletcrest want to continue playing the game with the guild after the AI was fixed brought a slight smile to Horc. Even after all that had happened to him in Halfworld, he wanted to play more once it was safe to. He hoped the others felt the same way as Scarletcrest. It would be good to keep the guild together, and keep adventuring, especially if it wasn’t in a life-or-death situation.

  “Hey, we’ve got a locale!” Bigdaddybear shouted. “Rick’s sending us a quest now so we can find it.”

  Horc turned in his saddle and stared at him. “I thought the AI was interfering with the quests.”

  Bigdaddybear shrugged. “Rick or one of the other developers must’ve found a way around that.”

  A window popped up in Horc’s view.

  Find the Dragon, free the hostages and free Halfworld

  Accept - Decline

  Unlike other quests Horc had gotten in the game, there wasn’t a list of rewards or anything more than the very basic window. He focused on the accept option. The window blinked and disappeared. The quest icon on the bottom of his field of view flashed and a white arrow appeared on the map in the upper right corner of his vision.

  “Now we just follow the arrow,” Bigdaddybear said, and got his lizard moving back across the desert.

  Having a firm destination helped Horc feel better. Before it had felt like they were just going in a general direction and were all hoping they weren’t going to have to turn around and go somewhere else when they got to the Far North.

  “Wow, this is going to take a while,” Titanya said with a whistle. “Too bad we can’t take a flight of some sort.”

  “And risk the NPCs near the flight path turning on us?” Stanoran asked. He then shook his head. “No thanks. I’d rather spend another day or so riding along than have to fight our way in and out of a flight.”

  “Rick’s got some guys working on getting us a boat or something similar for when we reach the coast,” Bigdaddybear said. “He said something about trying to make it fast, but that could mean a lot of things.”

  “But before we can worry about that, we’ve got to get to the coast,” Rambull said. “I know there’s a lot of the map that’s not filled in for me, but that’s still a long way, through uncharted territory.”

  Horc pulled up his main map and frowned. He had to zoom out several times to get a clear idea of where they were going, and it was in the center of the frozen continent north of where they were currently riding. From what he could tell by zooming in and out between their currently location and their destination, there were several different zones they were going to have to traverse, much like when they’d battled their way through the Gnoll King’s dungeon. He just hoped this adventure was going to be easier than that one was.

  “We pass through the Procyan and Ursan starting area,” Tufkakes said. “It’s nothing hardcore and as long as we don’t get completely mobbed, shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Theodore nodded. “Yeah, lower-level small mobs shouldn’t slow us down.”

  Horc sighed, even if they were lower level the last time the two of them had been there, that was before the AI had gone rogue on them, it was entirely possible everything in the zone had been boosted and was just waiting for them to ride through to their deaths. “We’ll still want to avoid NPCs when at all possible. No cities. I’m going to rely on you two to keep us out of trouble.”

  Tufkakes nodded, then gave Horc a quick salute. “Roger that fearless leader. No towns or other centers of activity. The area is mostly forest and mountains. We should be able to go around the areas that lead to the caves where the cities are.”

  “There might be a slight problem with that,” Theodore pursed his lips, making his muzzle scrunch down and look odd, like he’d eaten something that hadn’t agreed with him. “The passage through the mountains goes through Winter’s Rest. If we don’t go through the city, we’re going to have to fight our way through the mountain pass that’s controlled b
y the Frozen Yetis.”

  Horc frowned. “Frozen Yetis? Isn’t that repetitive?”

  Theodore shrugged. “Game developers never claimed to be great at naming things.”

  “Geez, men.” Titanya banged her sword on her shield. “We’ll meet them with our steel out and smash their skulls in if we have to.”

  “As long as they don’t get the drop on us and do the same thing to us,” Stanoran said.

  “Stan, you were a Pally before you became a Priest, both are tanks, what are you afraid of?” Titanya turned in her saddle and looked back over her shoulder at him.

  Stanoran shrugged. “Another scene like back in Red Wind Terrace. Too many NPCs and not enough of us.”

  “It’s a low level area,” Scarletcrest said. “We’re almost at level cap. We should be fine.”

  “Yeah, we’ll be fine.” Horc said, trying to sound more enthusiastic than he felt. Heading into a pass full of Yetis might present a major problem, but he figured it was a safer option than going through a major city in a starting zone that would be full of NPCs of all levels. He just hoped they weren’t going to have to battle Yetis in a blizzard. After the struggle of the Dragons and the sandstorm, that wasn’t something he wanted to do. They still weren’t sure how much of things like tactics the AI understood. Would it know they were going to have to either go through a city or a mountain pass to get to it? Would it take steps to impede their progress? Would it be easier to just find other ways over the mountains?

  He doubted the last option would work. Most games he’d ever played, when faced with a landscape feature like mountains, there were normally only a couple of ways, or one way through or over it. They’d just have to deal with the Yetis and hope for the best.

  10

  Horc shivered and wished he had some winter clothes. After being in the desert, the cold of the high mountain pass was more than he wanted to deal with. However, it was their only way through. To that point, their journey hadn’t been too hard, the forest had presented a few minor mobs, mostly low-level monsters the party didn’t have trouble dispatching. The majority of them went down with single hits thanks to everyone’s levels being significantly above their attackers.