The Monolith

by Stephen Roark

  “That monolith you mentioned before. What were you talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” I scoffed, turning away to watch Wilhelm as he unloaded more bars of ore. “It was nothing.”

  “Come on, man,” Jacob protested, stepping in front of me. “Tell me. I want to try and make sense of what’s going on!”

  I thought back to the horrifying vision. “A city…” I said softly. “I saw a city, ruins, and rising up out of the ground was this enormous black slab, like stone. And a voice said, ‘Seek the monolith. Seek the monolith and find salvation.’ And then I woke up at home.”

  Jacob frowned. “That’s it?”

  “See? Why’d I even bother explaining it to you?”

  “Okay, I’m sorry!” he replied quickly, extending his hands in peace. “I’m just confused, so I’m asking questions. That’s all.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t have any answers.”

  20

  No Time for Loot Hunting

  “I was called a fool by many—most even—when I showed them my designs for Yaharan. ‘Impossible,’ they said! ‘The whole thing will fall down!’ Where are those voices now that the city stands tall and triumphant, casting its mighty shadow across their pathetic villages?”

  —from the diaries of Lee Corpicus, the Mad Architect

  The smoke rising from the chimney of Wilhelm’s hut was like the last bell of school interrupting a terrible lecture and gave me an excuse to quickly walk away from Jacob and our conversation that seemed to be going nowhere.

  “Hey, wait up!” he called out, chasing after me.

  The door to the old shack almost tore from its hinges as I pulled it open and was greeted with an acrid cloud of soot and ember.

  “Come on in, boys!” Wilhelm’s voice called out from within. As the smoke cleared, I saw his massive silhouette against the growing flames of the forge, which he stoked with a thick iron rod. It was like a toothpick in his enormous hands.

  “Alastor gave me this,” I told him, selecting the Scourge Steel Chunk in my inventory. It appeared in my hand and I held it out to him. The pale man smiled when he saw it.

  “Oh, he did, did he? And you want me to use that on your axe there?” I shrugged. “I’m happy to do it for you, but I’d wait if I were you. That’s just a starter weapon. You’ll be replacing it soon enough.”

  “Are these chunks that hard to come by?” I asked.

  “They ain’t fallin’ out of the sky, that’s for sure.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied, slipping it back into my inventory. “I’ll save it.”

  “Can you do anything with my bone, Smithy?”

  Wilhelm stopped and cocked his head to the side, flashing Jacob a mischievous grin. I chuckled. It took Jacob a second to get it.

  “Oh, come on!” he protested. “You know what I mean!”

  “Uh huh,” Wilhelm joked. “No, sonny, I can’t do a damn thing with your bone. For that you’ll need the witch, Grecia.”

  “And where is she?”

  Wilhelm shrugged. “She fled the plague same as I. But she ain’t in the woods, that’s for sure. Might be she’s found shelter at the Cragstone Plains. Real shit-on-the-boot kind of place, but what around here isn’t? If you’re lookin’ for her, I’d start there.”

  “Shit-on-the-boot?” Jacob whispered. I hid my smile and nodded.

  “Thanks, Wilhelm,” I replied. “And welcome back.”

  “’Preciate it, boys.”

  I stepped from the thick hut and back into the cool air of the night and looked up at the moon, bright and unwavering in the sky. It was hard to picture what the Weeping Hills would look like during the day. It was almost as if the place was born of the darkness and that was where it had to stay. In a way, I didn’t want day to come.

  “So, you wanna get going?” Jacob asked eagerly.

  “You know where it is?” I asked, realizing I’d forgotten that question entirely. But Jacob raised a hand and pointed beyond the dying fields behind town.

  “Beyond there, I’m pretty sure. A few of us went out there for a look around, but turned back at the Withered.”

  “Withered?” I asked.

  “These sort of man-wraith things,” he replied. “Blue and kind of vaporous…level 4s I think. We were level 1 at the time, so…”

  “I hear ya,” I replied, remembering the Firebomb in my inventory. Picturing what it could do delighted the gamer in me, and I still had a full head of steam behind me from my victory over Dorrin, so I was ready to go. “Yeah, let’s roll.”

  Jacob grinned and we set off. Passing through the town square, Jacob nodded and waved to a small group of Seekers grouped up around the lamppost. I averted my eyes as they waved back. I’d taken a leap of faith and allowed myself the possibility of making one friend and that was good enough for today.

  Baby steps.

  I strode quickly through town, my Young Seeker’s Boots clopping across the heaving cobblestones like the sound of horseshoes, until I reached the fields. As before, a ghostly mist hung heavily across the weeping vegetation. The thick stalks stood strong until they began to bow over at their tops, like the neck of a man dangling from a hangman’s noose. The spectral vapor made it hard to see. I estimated the visibility at around twenty to thirty feet, if that, and it seemed to only get worse as we progressed.

  Desiccated crops snapped and crumbled beneath our feet. I’d expected the fields to be waterlogged and rotten, on account of the mist, but it was as though the life’s blood had been sucked from the place—like a strong wind might turn the whole place to dust.

  “Do we need to worry about anything here?” I whispered to Jacob, my axe at the ready.

  “Not until we get a little deeper.”

  I nodded and kept moving. To our right, a cart similar to the one I’d brought Wilhelm back to town in lay shattered and splintered, one of its wheels cracked in half and splayed out like a bisected ribcage. Large gourds lay scattered here and there, a cross between a pumpkin and a squash, food for the silent crows that swept down from the black sky.

  From somewhere ahead of us came a creaking sound that reminded me of the rocking of the Midwife’s chair, but as we kept moving, the sweeping blades of a windmill came cutting through the fog. It turned slowly, like some internal mechanism that had grown tired still fought to keep it spinning. As we made our way towards it, something moved in the mist.

  “Jacob,” I hissed. He stopped beside me and I pointed. “Withered?”

  He nodded. I watched as the fog stirred, swirling and pooling around the thing’s shape, which slowly emerged. Jacob was right; it looked like a man, but its body seemed to be made of a ghostly blue smoke that peeled and drifted as it moved, circling nothing, doubling back on its track every few seconds like it was lost or searching for something.

  Withered—Level 4

  “Just one of them,” I remarked.

  “There will be more.”

  “Well, let’s take this one before they show up,” I told him, pulling my Firebomb from my inventory. It felt weighty in my hand, and I saw it was made from shards of metal, glued or epoxied together into something resembling a globe. I eyed Jacob with a grin as we stalked forward.

  Something snapped beneath my foot, and the Withered whirled to face me. Its eyes, impossibly white, seemed to flare with licks of blue flame. It opened its mouth to cry out, but that was when I threw the bomb.

  It hurtled awkwardly through the air, off kilter, wobbling like a badly thrown football, before striking the ghostly apparition straight in the jaw. Flames burst everywhere, spilling like globs of thick liquid that clung to the monster’s limbs. Some of them reached the ground, setting the crops alight, and I watched happily as the thing’s health plummeted to well below half.

  340

  “Damn!” Jacob cried out, raising his bone and firing. Jacob’s golden arrow appeared and sprang forth from the massive femur in his hands. It cut through the fog to slam into the Withered’s stomach, ripping away half of
what was left of his HP. Springing into action, I leapt forward and plunged my axe into his chest. Only a sliver of health remained, but as I followed up with a broad, backhanded swing, the force of my own blow almost tore my arm off.

  I’d expected to meet resistance as the blade found its mark, but the Withered had a surprise in store. Its body melted into blue and white smoke, maintaining the outline of its shape, but allowing my axe to pass right through it. My legs caught against each other and I toppled down among the corpses of the crops beside me. Dust of the dead vegetation sprang up, coating my throat, causing me to cough heavily.

  “What the Hell?” I grumbled, staggering back to my feet as the Withered took shape again. His ghastly knuckles met my nose with enough force to knock me back down.

  65

  Pain flared through my nose as a second arrow burned through the air above me. I heard the Withered’s tortured cry as it found its mark, and looked up as the vile thing died.

  “You could have warned me!” I shouted angrily as I got to my feet for the second time.

  “I didn’t know!” Jacob cried back as Quintessence swirled around me. “I told you we didn’t fight them.

  “Oh, right…” I grumbled. “Sorry.”

  “S’alright,” Jacob replied, bending down to check for loot. “Figures, he doesn’t even drop anything.”

  “Well, where would he carry it?” I joked. “He’s just a ghost man. What was that, anyway?”

  “What?”

  “That spell you cast.”

  “Oh, Mortal Arrow?” he replied. “Not bad, eh? You wanna check the windmill?” he asked. I glanced up at the blades, holes scattering the worn fabric of the sails as they creaked slowly above us.

  “Duh,” I smirked, walking over to the front door. I gripped the handle tightly and looked back at Jacob. “Ready?”

  He nodded, and I pulled hard.

  The door came right off its hinges and collapsed at my feet, exposing a single, milky black room within. The only light came from a shaft of blue penetrating a single shattered window high on the back wall. It appeared empty, but I kept my axe at the ready as I stepped across the threshold.

  A strange smell filled the air, what I imagined old grain smelled like, despite never having smelled such a thing in my life. The sound of the windmill’s mechanism groaned through the mortared stones as my eyes searched for any tasty loot.

  A single table lay three-legged on the floor. Heaps of broken wooden buckets were strewn about haphazardly, but in the corner sat a chest, intact, an iron lock holding it shut.

  “Bingo!” I grinned as I walked over to it. I tugged at the lid, but the lock was thick and heavy and despite a few hard blows from the handle of my axe, wasn’t going anywhere. “Locked.”

  “Probably need to find a key around here somewhere,” Jacob mused, kicking a pile of planks by the door.

  “Think it’s worth it? I mean—low level chest?”

  “Hey, you never know.” Jacob shrugged. “I mean, can you really pass up a locked chest? What kind of gamer are you?”

  “I’m more concerned with levels,” I told him. “Let’s find the witch so we can get her back to town. If we run into some special mob who has the key on the way—awesome. If not, you’re free to keep looking for it all you want.”

  I exited the windmill with a renewed sense of purpose. It angered me that I couldn’t spend the usual amount of time on loot hunting, lore hunting and side quests. But Rey was missing and there wasn’t any time to waste. We had to find the witch and get her back to town so Jacob would have somewhere to upgrade, and then I had to start gaining levels—fast.

  21

  The Cragstone “Plains”

  “Cragstone Plains, Cragstone Plains! Never ever venture to the Cragstone Plains! You’ll be maimed! You’ll be maimed! Never, ever, ever, ever seen again!”

  —old children’s song taught to those of the Weeping Hills

  We encountered six more Withered before we reached the edge of the field where the mist began to thin and the crops fell away as the ground grew rocky with long slabs of stone encroaching on the dark earth like carpenter’s joints linking two different lands together.

  The landscape sloped up as massive stone slabs sprang from the ground at awkward angles, creating jagged arches and buttresses creating a labyrinth of cramped crevices and passages leading off in all directions. It was an absolute mess.

  “Cragstone Plains,” Jacob observed. “How are these plains?”

  “More like Cragstone maze,” I replied, tossing my arms in the air. “I mean—pick a direction?”

  Jacob looked at me, pouted his bottom lip and shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Okay,” I replied. Closing my eyes, I raised one arm and started to spin. I heard Jacob’s chuckle as I counted.

  Five, four, three, two, one.

  I stopped, opened my eyes, and found myself pointing back at the mist where we’d come.

  “Try again?” Jacob suggested. I did.

  Five, four, three, two, one.

  This time I opened my eyes to a jagged triangle of stone the color of rotted banana skin. There was no way over it, but at its base was a tunnel. It was tight, but if we stooped down we were able to make our way inside.

  “Great place for an ambush,” I observed as we struggled through the cramped space.

  “Don’t say that,” Jacob said from behind me.

  “Scared?” I teased as the tunnel split into two directions. This time, I didn’t hesitate and just headed to the left. No point in trying to make sense of this mess. The only light fell faint and diffused through the small cracks above, filtering through dusty air before it reached us, giving the entire corridor a soft, dull glow that was barely enough to see by.

  “They sure don’t make this easy,” Jacob remarked.

  “That’s Mizaguchi for you.”

  A pin of light grew ahead of us. A tiny landslide of pebbles cascaded down ahead of us as the ground sloped down. Bracing against the walls, I moved carefully towards the light, which expanded as we grew closer, finally bursting into blinding moonlight as we came out into a tiny valley with sheer slopes all around us reaching high into the sky.

  “Now what?” Jacob growled as I looked around for an obvious way out. Aside from the way we’d come in, there didn’t seem to be one.

  “Hmmm,” I mused, scratching my chin with the back of my axe.

  “Look out!” Jacob shouted. I whirled around to face him just in time to see two Withered emerge from the stone and sweep toward him. They were different than the ones in the fields—bigger and darker, and each carried an enormous scythe.

  The one in the lead swept the sickle at Jacob, catching him in the ribs and carving away a good chunk of his health. It rose up for another strike, and I leapt in front of him and fired. My Blunderbuss blared slugs into the monster’s face. The bass cry of my riposte sounded out and I brought my axe down quickly, aiming for the thing’s neck.

  Blue and white vapor flared out like a spray of blood.

  Massive!

  160

  There was no hope of dodging the next scythe, so I Shadowstepped and swept my axe across both of them.

  89—65

  Jacob’s Mortal Arrow tore into the Withered I’d riposted. I rose up to attack, but this time I was watching closely, and saw the thing shift slightly. If I attacked, I knew my blade would simply pass through it and strike the rock wall on the other side. So, instead, I turned, and drove the handle of my axe into the other Withered as it attacked.

  25

  The damage was barely there, but my Rally bar was almost full. I dodged its scythe and heard Jacob cry out as the attack landed on him instead. I slashed out, catching the wraith in the leg and following up with a quick jab to the stomach.

  65—35

  My Rally bar filled and I brought my blade down with everything I had.

  100

  The thing screeched and slashed out, but I blocked the blow
with my axe and retaliated, finishing it off with a well-placed chop to the neck.

  Jacob cried out and I spun around to see him on the ground, his casting bone held in both hands in an attempt to block the incoming scythe attack. His health was below half, and there was a good chance that that blow would end him. I didn’t have time for a full swing. Instead, I fired my Blunderbuss into the thing’s back.

  22

  The damage wasn’t much, but it did what I wanted, which was to get the thing’s attention.

  “Heal!” I shouted, Shadowstepping out of the way of the creature’s next attack. As Jacob popped a Soothing Syrup, I unleashed on the Withered with a series of attacks that caused its health to almost vanish. It shifted, avoiding my final blow that would finish it off, then brought its scythe across my chest with a heavy blow that dropped my health to 50. I leapt back as Jacob fired a final Mortal Arrow that finished it off.

  “Jesus,” Jacob muttered as I downed three Soothing Syrups to get myself back to full. “Those things are no joke. Bet you’re glad you’ve got that cape of yours.”

  I heard the tinge of envy and spite in his voice that he was trying so hard to hide, so I decided to give it back to him.

  “Bet you’re glad you’ve got me with you.” I smirked as I gathered the Quintessence, and bent down as I saw another item gleaming at my feet.

  “What’s that?” Jacob asked as I examined it.

  Withered Scythe: Haunted blade of the Withered. Once used to harvest crops, this ghostly scythe now cries for the flesh of the living.

  Physical Attack: 95

  Attribute Bonus:

  Skill: D

  “Junk,” I replied, closing my character sheet. “Maybe Alastor or Wilhelm will give us some Quint for it. Hey, what origin are you using anyway?”