by Galen Wolf
The worm resists my vorpal effect which triggers with a blue flash. I guess it hasn’t got a head exactly, which is why I can’t decapitate it. I jab and it bites me taking me down another 450 and Spirit rears up and falls back, leaving me able to heal partly. I’ve got my shield raised while I glug healing potion and I risk a glance to my right. One worm has broken off and is going after the halflings who scatter with screams of panic, running off in all directions. That is not good. I don’t know what the heck will happen to their backpacks if the worm kills them. It might even eat the contents.
I have to do something to save the halflings. Spirit surges forward and I push back against the worm and jab it under my shield, connecting well with the smoky body. I don’t crit, but I do Doublestrike so I get two normal hits on it instantly. The thing explodes in a fetid pop. The stink of its exploding body makes me gag and I reel back confused, but I have to get my head straight.
The worm chasing the halfings catches one, biting his legs and pulling him off balance. The NPC halfling can’t have many health points, another bite will kill it. I spur Spirit after the worm, shouting my battle cry, hoping to distract the worm from its prey, but it just snaps again and then there’s a visual of the worm gobbling the halfling down into its smoky belly. The NPC disappears and the backpack along with it.
The worm lifts its head and sniffs after another halfling. Sensing that he is the worm’s next victim, the halfling scoots but there’s no way he can outrun the worms. The Smoke Worm fixes on its prey and zooms off like a paper dragon at Chinese New Year. It shoots across the ground and bites the halfling, taking off his arm.
‘No!’ I yell. 'We can’t afford to lose all the backpacks. The worm pays no attention to my shout, but Fitheach, who’s still dealing with another worm, sees what’s happening and extends his left hand. He mutters syllables and a beam of blinding light jets out from his fingers, zapping across the space to hit the Smoke Worm as it eats the halfling. He must have critted with his spell because the thing explodes. Thank the Lord I am not close enough to get a mouthful of its bad air.
Between them — Bernard with his alchemical sword glittering with runes and Fitheach with another beam of light, they finish the worm that was fighting the saint. Then Fitheach sends a glow of silver light to heal a stricken halfling, who sits up, blinking.
There’s an explosion of fire and I see a worm half on fire, turning tail and fleeing. Tye’s hit it with a Flaming Ray and streamers of fire wreathe the worm, illuminating the space in flickering light. The stricken worm gets so far and then instead of just flying off to the grey infinity; it stops and darts down vertically and disappears.
‘Damn thing’s got a hole!’ Tye says and runs over to where the worm went, staring down.
‘Well, damn me. They must burrow down into the ground,’ Bernard says.
Fitheach shakes his head. ‘It’s not really ground though. It’s stuff.’
I dismount and slide down from the saddle onto the ground, walking over to where Tye is peering down the burrow. He says, ‘I could get down there.’
Bernard eyes him. ‘Yes, but why would you want to?’
‘Because...’ Tye gets that far and can’t think of a more detailed reason.
Fitheach pulls thoughtfully on his white locks. ‘It might be a way out of the sphere.’
I can see problems with this idea. We might get down this hole and not be able to get back again, maybe dying and resurrecting outside the dome with all the delays and problems that brings, or we might not even die and be stuck there wandering around.
There’s no guarantee that down the burrow is anything other than a twisting nest of worm holes and there will be more Smoke Worms down there.
And even if we do get down, survive the worms, how does that get us to Caer? I shake my head. They’re all looking at me. I glance around, studying the grey infinity that stretches all around with no clue of how to progress.
It’s true. We could get stuck down there. But we’re pretty stuck here.
‘What do you think, Gorrow?’ Fitheach asks.
Maybe we’ll be damned if we do, but definitely damned if we don’t. I shrug. So maybe we will die. It can’t be worse than this. Finally, I say, ‘Okay, I’ll go down. You all stay here.’
‘I’m coming,’ Tye says. ‘You can’t go on your own.’
I say, ‘No, Tye, we can’t get the horses down and someone needs to stay to look after the halflings.’
‘We can come with you,’ Josh Maggs-Rimmer says.
‘No,’ I say even more firmly. ‘Not happening. We can’t afford to lose you and the supplies down there. We don’t know what the hell is down there, anyway. No, you guys stay here and I’ll go scout around down there.’
‘But...’ Bernard begins. He wants to help, but I’ve decided. I stare down the burrow. I don’t know what the heck I will find down there.
The hole goes straight down and it’s dark so I can’t see what’s at the bottom, or the bottom at all to be honest. The sides are shiny and smooth, like black glass. It likes like I’m going to slide down. Fitheach is standing by me peering into the hole. ‘I reckon you’re going to slide down all the way.’
‘Want a rope?’ Bernard says helpfully. That seems like a good idea but as he turns to get the rope from his inventory, there’s that breeze and smell of a rotten mouth and a smoke worm comes up from the hole, bites onto my arm and drags me in.
I go head over heels. Then I hit the wall. I’m sliding and it’s dark and that would be bad enough, but I’m being chewed my a big translucent purplish worm.
I wrestle for my sword.
This is not good. I get my health potion first and sip, but that delays me hitting the darn thing.
Damn.
I’m taking damage all the time and I’m down to 600 health before I can get my sword. I draw it when I must have fallen a hundred feet. I’m still falling.
I jab the Smoke Worm again and again, sinking my holy blade into the hilt, the worm’s foul blood oozing over my knuckles.
But I hurt it. I thank God for the light damage which is hurting it bad.
If I die down, here we’re sunk. I jab the worm again. My blade pierces its disgusting body and there’s a pop and the thing explodes in a stinking gust of air and its gone and I’m still falling down this shiny hole like a twisted helter-skelter.
Seconds go by as I pile down, sliding on my backside, banging my shoulders on the shiny walls.
I hit the bottom with a bang.
I’m in a cavern and I’ve taken damage from the impact. I’m down to a hundred and fifty health so I sit there in the quiet and dark and sip my blue health potion again and again when it comes off cool-down until I’m up to half health. Then I stand up and look around me.
It’s pitch black and so I take out my sword and by the light of the magical flames on its blade, I can see I’m a glass-walled cavern. The whole place looks to be a honeycomb of tunnels inside a black of smooth volcanic glass. This must be where the Smoke Worms live. Though I can handle one or two on my own, I really don’t want to face a big bunch, or God forbid some kind of Smoke Worm queen sitting pulsing out eggs onto a big soft pile of yet more eggs. I shudder at the thought.
An echoing voice from far away reaches my ears. ‘You okay down there, Goz?’
It’s Tye. Since when is he calling me Goz? Must be short for Gorrow.
‘Yes, I’m fine. Less of the Goz please.’
I hear his childish laughter from way up there. ‘Okay, Sir Gorrow, sir, boss.’
‘Want me to throw down a rope?’ Bernard asks.Their voices echo from far above.
I look up into the dark. ‘Sure. Thank you. But it’s a long way down.’
‘Gimme a minute.’
I can see nothing, peering up the
dark hole I’ve fallen into, so I don’t see any attempts from them at throwing down a rope. I do hear muffled cursing though, then Bernard says,’ It’s not long enough. You’re a long way down.’
Yep. I said that. It looks like I must find my way out myself. I shout up, ‘Never mind. I’ll see you soon.’
‘We’ll wait here then?’ Tye yells down, his tiny voice tinkling against the volcanic glass walls.
I yell, ‘Unless you’ve got something better to do?’
‘Might as well log for now. I’ll check back in an hour,’ Bernard says.
Thanks for the moral support.
But it sounds reasonable. What else can he do? No point them sitting around in an endless cave. But for me, I need to find a way forward.
The billowing flames from my sword create a multi-coloured ripple on the shiny glass walls, red, white and blue. It’s almost psychedelic. I go forward, the scuff of my steel-shod feet scraping on the glass floor. A film of glass particles covers the obsidian ground. Terrible for the lungs, if I had any.
The main tunnel looms ahead of me. That must be the way the worms go, though I can’t see any just now. Smaller round holes penetrate the wall in lots of places, just like shiny black Swiss cheese but those holes are too small for me to crawl into, even if I had a mind to do so, so I walk on, sword in hand.
After about fifty yards, the tunnel I’m in widens out into a cavern. I look up but the light from my sword isn’t strong enough to reach the ceiling of the cave. It seems a big space. I almost think of shouting out to test the echo, but I don’t.
Still no worms though.
There appears to be a big object in the middle of the cave though it’s hard to make out what it is from here so I edge closer. It’s not a creature, so I don’t feel worried. Then I see it’s a ziggurat. Yes, a stepped pyramid made of black glass, but it isn’t wholly glass, there are white squares in it, alternating with the black and they lead up in a staircase up the levels of the pyramid. It looks like the squares go all the way to the top, which makes sense because who wants a staircase that only goes halfway up?
Suddenly, I get a message on my HUD:
No quest giver, though. Still, why not? I hit
This all looks pretty questy, so I guess I’ll be climbing the checkerboard squares. I walk across the large open space until I come to the bottom of the pyramid. I arrive at the bottom and crane my neck back up to stare high up at the glass bulk looming in front of me out of the darkness. Then I notice the white squares are made of a kind of ivory and they seem to be luminescent. The sound of water catches my ear. It’s like fountains maybe with streams trickling, but they are out of sight. I get ready to start the climb. This looks like my only chance of getting back to the level I fell from then I can rendezvous with my party. Then we can try once again to find a way out of the sphere.
I venture up the steps. It’s a heck of a climb, but I keep going. The staircase goes up a way then makes a turn ninety degrees to the left, before continuing up again at a steep gradient. My feet plod up the stairs. It’s seems I’m climbing up forever.
I look to both sides of the staircase but there is just featureless shiny glass. After maybe a hundred steps, the staircase veers right. I glance up this new flight, preparing myself to slog up, and there to my surprise a beautiful dark-haired woman with unnaturally glowing blue eyes stands at the top.
‘Halt!’ she says.
I halt, more taken aback than anything. Will I have to fight her, I wonder? I grip my sword tight, just in case.
‘Think ye that ye know the lore of Camelot?’ she asks in commanding tones.
I study her closely. She’s wearing a shimmering silver shawl on top of a midnight blue ballgown threaded with mithril. Or mithral as they have to call it in the game due to copyright restrictions from Tolkein’s estate.
‘Maybe,’ I shout back up. I know a bit of lore. This must be part of the quest.
‘Advance then, Sir Gorrow.’
I’m about to ask how she knows my name, but I remember that she’s an AI plugged into the game intelligence so that’s why. I climb the stairs towards the blue-eyed lady.
She speaks again. ‘Know ye that I am Vivien who imprisoned the wizard Merlin in a block of glass. If ye fail this quest, ye too shall be entombed in glass forever.’
‘I better hadn’t fail then.’ I smile, but she’s beyond jokes, it wasn’t a good one either, so maybe she’s just showing taste by not laughing.
She says, ‘The first question is this: who is lord of this realm of Logres?’
I scratch my nose. ‘Well, that depends. I would say King Arthur, but it could be Lord Satanus by now.’ Another weak joke.
Vivien says, ‘What mean ye?’ Then she tilts her head, ‘Or can I call thee thou, as I feel I know thee well, Sir Gorrow?’
‘You can thou me if you want,’ I say. Though that should probably be “thou canst thou me if thou wilt thou me,” All the thouing is too hard to remember, so I’ll just stick to youing her.
‘What is thy answer, bold knight?’
‘I’ll go for King Arthur, still.’
She nods. ‘Correct.’
That’s reassuring.
‘The next question is: what is the name of King Arthur’s fair lady wife?’
Easy. ‘Guinevere,’ I say.
Vivian asks the next question with a knowing look. ‘And what is the name of Queen Guinevere’s lover?’
Cheeky. I don’t know whether to answer King Arthur, or Sir Lancelot. It’s an open secret of course so after a little hesitation, I say, ‘Sir Lancelot.’
Vivian smiles. ‘The two are wrapped in courtly love, ‘tis true. All the troubadours sing of it.’
I force a smile. ‘Any more questions?’
‘Several. Art thou ready?’
‘I guess.’
She goes on. ‘Despite Sir Lancelot’s sin, his son is the most perfect knight: what is Lancelot’s son’s name?’
I know this. As soon as I started in Camelot, I read up on all the Arthurian stories so I know the answer. ‘Sir Galahad.’
She smiles. ‘Very good, Sir Gorrow. Now only two further questions.’
They haven’t been so hard so far. I ready myself for the next one.
Vivian says, ‘The ugly hag that Sir Gawain met in the Forest of Inglewood — what was she called?’
I chuckle. This is too easy. Smugly, I say, ‘Dame Ragnelle.’
Vivian is so pleased she applauds, then she frowns.‘This is the final question now.’
‘If I answer it correctly what do I get?’
She says, ‘Thou gettest to proceed on thy way to the top of the ziggurat and win a great prize of fat lootz.’
‘And if I fail, do I get to re-sit the test?’
‘No,’ she says gravely. ‘As I mentioned, thou wilt be entombed in glass for ever, or in fact three game hours.’ She points with her elegant left hand and a spray of white light illuminates a haphazard pile of large glass blocks piled higgeldy-piggeldy in the corner of the cavern. ‘Those are thy predecessors who failed the test. Or at least the blocks they were imprisoned in.’
I stare over. It‘s just a cosmetic as they can‘t really lock away players forever. I don’t think Miskatonic would do that.
I muse on this. Three hours isn’t so long. I can just log for that period. And I need to finish this quest anyhow so I ask, ‘So, it’s just three hours?’
She nods then with an evil smile, that shows me that this smiling lady with lapis lazuli eyes maybe isn’t as nice as she seems. She says, ‘Yes, but when thou emergest from the glass block, thou wilt be stripped of half thy levels, rounded up.’
I groan. So that would make me a Level 9. That’s not so good. I grunt and tell her I’m ready. Still grinning, she says, ‘Dame Ragnelle asked Sir Gawain a question that he struggled to answer. I hope thou wilt have better luck.’ She nods knowingly to the pile of glass blocks sitting quietly in the
dark corner.
‘Fire away.’ I say.
‘The question is: what do women want?’
I’m taken aback.
I thought the question would be about Camelot or Logres or Arthur, or even about Lord Satanus, though he’s not strictly in the Arthurian legends. But this? ‘Really?’ I ask, almost dumbfounded.
She nods and smiles. ‘One hundred percent really.’
I tilt my head. ‘What do women want?’ This is a hard one.
‘Thou art free to repeat the question as many times as thou likest, but the key thing is answering it, Sir Gorrow. That’s what I’m after.’
I scratch my head and repeat in wondering tones. ‘What do women want?’
She clears her throat impatiently.
So my mind starts spinning. Is it something to do with acrylic nails? Or shoes? Then I think of how different womens’ minds are to mens’ minds. I think of all the times I’ve been in trouble with a woman and had absolutely no clue what the hell I’d done wrong and when I asked what was up, she said coldly, ‘You don’t even know what you’ve done — typical!’
I remember trying to guess why they were upset about something which was later still mysterious even when I found out because it was utterly pointless, or how they found offence in the slightest comment about their hair, or lack of comment about their hair. And how they thought me putting on a new shirt for work meant I must be coming on to the girls there. Or how they get each other little presents all the time, and cards, from the time they‘re at kindergarten to the old folks’ home, and how when they fall out with one single guy then all men in the universe for ever are complete pigs.
No, women are mysterious creatures. This is going to be a tough one.
‘Answer?’ she says, raising an eyebrow sarcastically. She’s one of them. Even if she’s artificial.
I shrug helplessly. ‘Give me a little more time.’
