"Looks like I have a purpose in this fight after all," Evan said. "Put me in."
What's fair for the goose, Nika thought. If the champ could change monsters, so could she. Thinking quickly, she switched out Ash with Evan, hoping that the girl wouldn't take it personally.
The champ came at Evan even as his monsters mounted their attacks against Dean and Desert Rose. Evan had the champ down within minutes, and once the older man was out of the battle, it spelled the end of his back up monsters too. The monsters on the stage had already been dealt with by a grinning elven ranger and his powerful ElfShot.
Nika looked over to see Ash frowning. "We did win, right?" Nika asked.
"It would appear so," Ash said. "But where is our trophy? I'm pretty sure we are going to need that blue key in order to get to the Grand Master."
Evan heaved the large man over onto his back and pointed to him. "You gals talking about that key there?"
The blue key was hanging from the man's neck in plain sight. In all the excitement, they hadn't even noticed it. Evan reached down and pulled it over the man's limp head and handed it to Nika. She slipped it on to dangle by the green one, and they left the stage.
"Fire is next, right?" Nika asked.
"Yes, and I'm all set to go again," Dean said. Then he hesitated. "Maybe you should send Ash in with me? I'm not exactly fireproof, even if I wouldn't burn quite so quickly as a plant."
That sounded fine with both Nika and Ash. For the critter lineup, she went with ThunderClap again, paired with LeafEater. If this champ followed the others, they'd have a plant monster back up for the obvious water elementals most recruiters would have at the ready.
This champ was a very young boy, maybe ten years old. He was actually holding a small stuffed version of FireStorm. Nika glanced over at Ash and could tell she wanted one. Too bad she couldn't try to buy it from the champ once they won. Of course, getting it to the real world with them might turn out problematic. She'd just have to find the girl one there.
The fire champ fell quickly to the Dean and Ash combination as so many had before him. But this was the first time Nika actually felt a little bad about winning. At least the youngster took it all in stride, handing over his red key with a smile and a bow.
Now, with all three keys dangling from her neck, Nika and her crew headed toward the final stage.
This platform was much higher than all the others, with a long staircase leading up to it. At the bottom of the steps was a green gate. Nika inserted the green key into its lock and it swung open, granting them access. Mid-way up the stairs was a red gate and the top of the steps gave forth to a blue one. Each of them unlocked and swung open with the twist of one of the trophy keys, and finally, the small group stood before the platform of the Grand Master Champion.
Before stepping up the final few stairs leading to the dais, Nika turned to Ash. "Any pointers as to which monsters to use?"
Ash shook her head. "Not really. Just pick your strongest. We don't know what the Grand Master will throw at us. Could be anything."
She didn't know just how true her words would turn out to be. The group stepped up onto the stage and the final Grand Master Champion turned to face them.
"Ah, shit," Evan said.
Nika had to agree with him.
The Grand Master was none other than Gaia.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Reboot
When Louella opened her eyes and found herself back at the save fountain, she just couldn't help but laugh. They had rebooted! They were still alive.
Okay, so not really, but at least they still had some kind of life here in the game. What more could a ghost ask for than that?
She turned to see Cameron sitting on the stones of the fountain grinning at her.
"See?" he said. "I told you we'd be fine."
Louella laid back down and shut her eyes, feeling all the worry and stress of the past several days fall away from her. They'd made it.
Gaia and her minions had taken them down pretty easily once the others had left them, but that had been expected. Now, finally, everything was as it should be. Nika and the others were home, and Louella and Cameron in a very weird way were home too. Kind of.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Crap," she said. "We still have to get out of this cavern don't we?"
Cameron sighed. "I'm afraid so," he said. "In hindsight, it might have been more prudent to put the portal here after all."
"Yeah, I'm thinking so too," Louella said. She would have said more but just then a moan came from the other side of the fountain. With an uneasy feeling, Louella got to her feet and stepped around to see who it was. She was sure that she'd seen every one of the team cross through that portal. Had she missed someone?
Worse still, had the game thrown one back because they no longer had a body to return to?
Once her vision fell onto Striker, lying there with his head in his hands, she let out the breath she'd been holding. "It's Striker," she said over her shoulder to Cameron. "He rebooted here too."
The dwarf opened his eyes and struggled to sit up, still moaning. "What the bloody hell just happened?" he asked.
"You got beaten, just like us," Louella told him, reaching down to give him a hand up. "But, hey, we lived to tell about it, so all's well that ends well, right?"
"I suppose," the dwarf muttered. Then he looked about. "Where is my goddess?"
"She's gone home," Cameron said.
Striker staggered over to sit on the low fountain wall alongside Nika's father. "Can I go to her?"
Cameron shook his head. "I'm afraid not, friend."
Striker put his head in his hands once more. "Then what am I to do? My whole purpose in life is to be with my goddess. If she is not here, then what use is this pitiful life? I'd rather have died at her side than this."
"I would have thought your whole purpose in life would have been to serve your goddess," Cameron said thoughtfully. "There are still lots of ways you can do that." He paused a moment, grasping the dwarf's shoulder. "Besides, young man, it isn't as if you'll never see her again. She'll come to visit us often."
The dwarf cracked one eyelid and looked at Cameron. "She will?"
"Of course, she will!" Cameron said.
"And I can serve her even with her not here?"
Cameron leaned down to whisper into the dwarf's ear. "Didn't she tell you to protect me and Louella?"
Louella thought back. She did remember Nika saying that in an earlier battle.
Striker nodded, sitting a little straighter. "She did at that," he said. Then he looked back into the darkness of the caverns and lost a little of his excitement. "I guess that means I'll be fighting more cave cats, doesn't it?"
"Maybe," Louella said, looking at Cameron.
"Maybe?" Cameron asked.
She looked pointedly at the backpack the man still carried. The game hadn't taken it when they rebooted. "It will take us hours to get back to the cave's mouth and the portal," she said. "That's if we don't end up getting rebooted again. How long would it take you to program a portal here?"
In response, he opened the backpack and took out the terminal. "Not all that long, and if it takes longer, it will be well worth it," he said.
Striker glanced at the terminal and then back up at Cameron. "You might be able to make another of those magic swirling doorways here? One that can take us past the cats?"
"That's right," Cameron said. "But it will take a while. I'm afraid you might get a bit bored in the meantime."
The dwarf sighed. "Not bored at all if it means not facing those beasts again this soon," he said. "In fact, a nap sounds right pleasant about now." Striker looked over at Louella. "Promise you'll not leave me behind?"
"I give you my word," Louella said solemnly. Then she dug into her inventory. "Would you like something to eat before you go to sleep?"
"Aye," he said. "That would be grand indeed." He took an apple and in less than a minute, the core lay beside him as he curled up and drifted immediat
ely off to sleep.
"That didn't take long," Cameron said.
"I don't think he's been sleeping all that much lately," Louella said. "He's been too busy trying to watch Nika's back."
She looked over at Cameron busily tapping away at keys and fell silent. He didn't need her yammering to distract him from his work. Not for the first time, she wished they'd stolen two terminals instead of just one. She was feeling rather useless just watching him work.
When the first giant yawn hit, she realized she was being silly. She also realized that Striker must be smarter than she'd thought. He'd known a nap was in order right from the start.
Louella looked over at Cameron, hesitant to break his concentration. "Wake me if you need me," she whispered.
He nodded, his fingers never hesitating in their flight across the keys. She wished she could do that. When she was keying, the whole world melted away. She was rather jealous that he could stay tuned in even while working. Maybe he could teach her his trick. After all, they'd have lots of time together. The rest of their virtual lives, in fact.
It didn't seem like she'd been asleep all that long when she felt Cameron's hand on her shoulder giving her a gentle nudge.
"It's ready," he said.
Looking up, she saw the swirling magic doorway as Striker had called it, open and ready a few yards from the fountain. It was one of the most welcoming sights she had ever seen.
"Time to go home?" she asked, reaching over to poke Striker into waking up.
Cameron gave her a fatherly smile and a short nod.
"Time to go home."
CHAPTER THIRTY: Trial's Gaia
At least this Gaia was a smaller one, Nika thought, studying the goddess. She really wished there was some indication of how powerful she was though. The clerk had said the Grand Master would have critters around the fifty level mark, but that didn't tell her how high Gaia's level was.
The goddess did seem different though. For one thing, the wind wasn't moving her robes as it had always done in the past. In fact, if anything the goddess looked a bit confused to be standing there. Of course, her confusion ended when she spied Nika and her friends standing before her.
"You again?" Gaia asked, outraged. "I thought I dealt with your puny group once and for all!"
"Surprise," Nika said gravely. "Here we are yet again."
The goddess looked her in the eyes. "What will it take to get rid of you all?"
Nika shrugged. "If we win this battle, that would do it," she said. "We'll all go through the doorway that opens and be out of your hair."
Gaia’s brow creased as she raised a hand to comb through her hair.
"It's just a figure of speech we use," Nika said, trying out a smile. This form of Gaia was at least a little bit more approachable. Whether or not that meant anything was yet to be seen.
"You know I cannot simply let you win," Gaia said. "No matter how tempting it is to be done with the lot of you. You must take the win honestly," She paused. "Do you think you can do that?"
Nika thought she heard a wisp of hope in the goddess' voice. She must be as tired of them as they were of her.
"I certainly hope so," Nika said.
Gaia nodded, then raised to her full, towering height. Not quite what it had been in previous battles, but still impressive. And, yes, the wind came from nowhere to start blowing her robes in its breeze. Some things were just meant to be.
"I call forth Blood Elf and Desert Bandit," Gaia shouted, raising both her hands into the air. So much for this being a critter battle.
Nika thought quickly. As long as Gaia didn't take the stage, that should mean she wasn't in the fight, even as a healer. If that were the case, then Ash could sit this one out. Should Gaia step in, Ash could too to even the numbers.
"Tiger-man and Amazon," Nika called out, stepping onto the stage as she did so.
The others filed in at the stage's edge, ready in case Nika needed to call them in.
This time they didn't have the advantage of the monsters they faced having to take battle turns. This fight was real-time all the way. But without Gaia healing her warriors every time they got down to half-life and giving them added strength each time she did so, at least the fight was a fairly even one.
And Nika and Evan had something Gaia's warriors didn't have. A raging motivation to end this. That seemed to make a big difference. Within a very few minutes of battle, they had their two warriors down and both Nika and Evan were still above half-life. When her elf and bandit were defeated, Gaia stepped up on the platform and called forth two more blood elves.
Nika wiped the virtual blood from her lip and called in Ash. Even as she stepped onto the stage, the girl cast full party heal. From what Nika had been told, potions couldn't be used in the Trials' arenas, but then this wasn't your typical arena. There wasn't a critter to be seen right now.
Taking a small risk, she tossed Ash a large mana potion and was happy to see the girl smile. It must have worked. Good. Nika had a good supply of those, and she'd keep feeding them to Ash if the girl could just keep the party healed and fighting.
Gaia had still not made a single attack on them, leaving the fighting to her warriors. Though she did start to heal them. That wasn't a good sign at all. How were they supposed to kill them if she kept healing them at every turn?
Maybe the answer was to keep the goddess too busy to cast her spells. Nika raised her ax and darted between the two fierce elven warriors in a rushed run straight to Gaia. Taking the biggest risk of all, she used her AllOut ability and poured some of her health points into her attack at the same time she activated her ax's ability to give her even more strength and attack. Gaia stepped back in surprise, but she didn't seem to have the same powers as she did within the Gaia's Rebirth gameplay.
The goddess raised her hands as though she expected something to happen, but nothing did. A look of shock came over her lovely features as she realized her powers had been taken from her for this final battle. Then her expression turned stony and a glowing sword appeared in her hand.
Nika's Viking speed and strength that her ax lent her were enough to allow her to dodge the goddess' blade and circle around to her open side. Swinging her ax as hard as she could, she felt it cut into Gaia's side. But the goddess had speed and strength of her own. A quick twist of her body just as Nika's ax landed took what should have been a killing blow down to little more than a scratch.
The two women began circling each other, each watching the other for any signs of weakness. The rest of the battle raging behind them was lost to Nika, and she fervently hoped it was lost to Gaia as well. If she could just buy the others enough time to end the elves, they just might pull this off.
Nika ducked yet another sword slash aimed for her head and delivered an ax thrust of her own to Gaia's outstretched arm. It turned out to be a lucky blow and Gaia's arm was severely damaged. As Nika watched, the goddess gave a mighty roar, and the arm healed. But an amazing thing happened. Looking up at the air above the goddess, two stats bars suddenly appeared. The green and blue for health and mana. After her healing spell for her arm, Gaia was almost out of mana!
The game was limiting her as to mana. That was the best news Nika had been given since being trapped in the game world. Without having the mana to constantly heal, Gaia was just as vulnerable as they were.
Of course, now that Nika's berserker type speed was wearing off, she wouldn't last long against her more powerful opponent.
As Gaia took up her fallen sword in a single fluid movement, three arrows sprouted from her chest. Looking at them in puzzlement, Gaia turned to face the rest of the party just as Ash stepped over the remains of a blood elf to cast her chain lightning spell on Gaia, quickly followed by a full party heal.
As Nika watched, Ash's mana went down to zero, but it was worth the sacrifice. They were fresh for battle and Gaia was almost out of mana. They could do this.
Gaia raged, but with the three of them working together, the goddess never really sto
od a chance. Finally, she was forced to her knees before them. Her hand raised in abject defeat.
"I am beaten," she said, sounding more than a little surprised. Slowly she raised her face to the group before her. "Perhaps there is strength and faith in your kind that I have failed to see." She got to her feet carefully, hands still out before her. "You have won this time," Gaia said. "But should you and your kind continue to destroy my beloved creation, know that I shall return to her defense once more."
With those final words, Gaia stepped to the side and a glowing portal appeared.
"Go home, Warriors," the goddess said, giving them a weak smile. "You've earned it."
***
This time there was a slight difference in the portal. Another destination option appeared, just as the clerk had promised. Nika nodded toward Player's Lounge, the light around her flashed, and she found herself lying flat on her back. This time around, she didn't keep her eyes closed. They popped open of their own accord.
It didn't take long to realize that they had finally made it home. Within seconds, her bed was surrounded by people. Her nurse, Pam, was working quickly to disentangle the cords and tubes that had been necessary while she was in the game. The other people, two young men and a young woman, she didn't recognize right away.
As soon as Pam had her free, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. From that position, she had a much better view of the room. As the nurse went to help the others fully disengage from their support systems, Nika stood up holding tightly to the bed as she did so. She wasn't nearly as weak as she'd expected to be. Pam had done a great job keeping her body limbered up while her brain went off to play.
Nika looked the new people over more closely and vaguely remembered seeing them around the company. They must have been fairly new before the beta test. That meant they most likely weren't to be trusted.
Pam must have caught her giving them the evil eye because she called over to her. "Oh, don't worry, Nika," she said. "Those three are the good guys. Trust me."
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