The Monolith

by Stephen Roark

  But this is just a game!

  The thought was of little comfort.

  Tell that to Rey, I thought. Or Jacob!

  I wondered where they both were, and had to tell myself that scavenging across the world to find them was the wrong course of action. Finding the spider, the monolith, and discovering their hidden truths—that was what I needed to do, and in the end it would help them.

  I drew my axe and gripped it tight, cycling through all of my abilities and combat skills I’d learned since my first log in. I tried to picture Quelan, the city on the edge of the continent, the City of Eternal Flame, as the Fortune Teller said, but there was no telling what we would find there.

  “Can we use it together?” Fujiko asked.

  Rathborne nodded. “Take hold of each other.”

  He extended a hand to me, and like an old friend, I took it. His grip was firm, confident, comforting, like a soldier ready to head into battle. Altarus took his other hand, and Fujiko took his, forming a chain of adventurers ready to take a huge step into the unknown. I glanced at their faces, and shook the bell.

  An unseen hand tugged at my chest, pulling me through the void away from Ebonmire. My body followed slowly behind. It wasn’t the same sensation as respawning. It was faster, more violent, and the world collapsed around me into a tiny point, then burst and expanded, spun and twisted as I hurtled across towns, forests, bogs, mountains, hills and groves, lakes and rivers, hordes of monsters, snow and flame, rain and mist, shattered cities and barren wastelands. I could feel my comrades beside me, but my grip on Rathborne’s hand felt spectral, almost non-existent.

  We were hurtling across the entire world at what felt like light speed, and this time there wasn’t a lamppost on the other end—no light swelling to welcome us. Instead, there was fire. Ash and soot filled my lungs as the ground raced up to meet us. I saw crashing waves beyond the city of Quelan, which stood proud above the cliffs, owning them as though the rock was not a natural formation, but was in fact the foundation of the city, which had been there before it. Spires and stone roofs chattered by the edges of my vision as I hurtled toward the ground. I braced for impact, but instead, found myself standing easily on a stone bridge as the world came back into focus.

  “Jesus…” Fujiko said softly from beside me.

  Across the bridge, stood Quelan. City of Eternal Flame felt like a bit of a misnomer. City of Silver seemed more apt. The sun no longer shone in the sky. Instead, the moon gleamed through wave clouds like the way light flares in a camera lens. The light refracted from the roofs and strong stone pillars of dark rock that themselves seemed to radiate with a faint internal light.

  Where’s the flame? I thought.

  “I see no fire,” Altarus spoke, echoing my own thoughts.

  A soft flowing sound came from beneath us. I moved to the edge of the bridge and looked down, expecting a river or stream rolling lazily toward the city, but instead saw something I didn’t quite understand. It was like a slow-motion avalanche moving across the ground, rolling clusters of bubble-like froth, like clumps of whipped cream you could grab, flecked with soap shavings or white chocolate bark. The whole mess folded in on itself every few feet, rising and falling as it moved like a single organism inhaling and exhaling as it undulated toward an unknown destination, most likely the cliffs that spilled into the ocean.

  A suicidal snake, was all I could think as I stared at the hypnotic movement of the strange river. I’d seen something similar at the hydroelectric dam down the road from the Barracks. When the river was running, but not too hard, sick yellow foam would clump up in the corners by the rocks, or on the spires of stone that stuck out from the riverbed. No one I spoke with could give me an answer on what they actually were. Guesses ranged from pollution to natural water bubbles to someone up river dumping in buckets of soap. But my guess was that anything I saw here was much more sinister than any of those theories.

  “Now that is something you don’t see every day,” Altarus remarked as he rested his hands on the low wall of the bridge beside me.

  “Looks like a snake.”

  “Yeah, a really sick one,” Fujiko added as she joined us. “More like snow.”

  “Ash,” Rathborne interjected. “It is ash, piled high atop the water. That’s why it moves like that.”

  “Ash from the fires,” I mused. “Wherever those are.”

  I turned back to the city, trying to make sense of its layout. But unlike the Barracks, or the cities back in my world, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason in its construction, and it looked more like someone had created a bunch of buildings and spawned them randomly amongst each other with no regard for organization or order.

  “How are we supposed to find anything in that?” Fujiko asked, scoffing at the argent cityscape.

  “The Fortune Teller said the bowels of Quelan,” I replied. “I’m guessing that means underneath the city.”

  “I would agree.” Altarus nodded.

  “So, we just look for a staircase heading down labeled bowels?” Fujiko replied.

  “Listen, if you don’t want to be here, you’re free to head back to Ebonmire,” I snapped, keeping my eyes forward. This wasn’t the time for second guesses or defeatist remarks. If we were going to make it through this, I had to believe I could. Fujiko was silent for a moment, then replied.

  “I’m sorry, Rand.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I shook my head and started to make my way across the bridge when a terrible clap of thunder rang out from above, and like a bolt of lightning, a striped column appeared before us, projecting a beast down from the sky.

  Eight legs. A scaled body. A mouth that opened with a roar that shook the very stone beneath our feet. Some kind of reptile, armored with dark green scales, with tufts of ashen hair here and there as though the rest had been torn off by something. As it struck the bridge, its webbed feet slapped the stone like flesh being dropped onto a cutting board, and a great hail began to fall from above, pelting us with marbles of ice and snow. I stared at the creature as it opened its enormous mouth to reveal six rows of tangled teeth and a tongue that split and bloomed like a sick flower.

  Bridge Guardian—Level 36

  “Run!” Rathborne shouted, moving so fast he was a blur. In a single motion, he Shadowstepped toward the beast, drew his hidden blade from his ebony cane, and slashed the creature across its face with deadly precision. Green blood fountained, protesting its expulsion from the hole beneath an excised scale that landed at Rathborne’s boots.

  “To the city!” he roared, ducking beneath one of the beast’s claws. “Now!”

  “Come on!” I shouted, dashing forward as Rathborne and the Bridge Guardian engaged one another. The enormous reptile lashed out again and was greeted with Rathborne’s blade, which carved a substantial amount of the thing’s health away with a brutal slice. Hail pelted my face and eyes as I ran, my lower level companions hot on my heels.

  What are we doing here? I thought angrily as Rathborne fought my battle for me. The thing was twice my level. I had no chance. And neither did Fujiko or Altarus. Even in a three on one this thing would destroy us, and if he was simply the guardian to the city, how were we ever supposed to be expected to handle what lay within?

  Bits of hail moved beneath my feet, causing me to slip and tumble backwards. I skidded forward, my eyes landing on the super-reptile doing its best to eat Rathborne, who was dealing with it with relative ease. Its health was already approaching 25% or less as I scrambled to my feet and kept running.

  At least we’ll get a bit of experience when he kills it. My own thought angered me. That wasn’t any way to handle things—relying on someone bigger and stronger to carry you. I skidded to a halt and spun around to see the creature bellow a stream of frost at Rathborne, that would have no doubt frozen him in place if he wasn’t 14 levels higher than the thing. But the old Seeker was a flash of brilliance. His movements were nothing short of perfection.

  His blade lashed out like a
metallic tongue, snatching green blood from the beast as the hail pelted down around him. He moved like a younger man, aptly dodging every attack as though he was operating at another level. Up, down, across went his blade. He spun, using some ability that eluded me, then thrust forward and buried the sword up to its hilt, ripping away the last of the thing’s health. With a desperate sigh, all eight of its legs collapsed like wet clay, splaying the snarling beast out upon the bridge like a hog ready to be roasted over a fire pit. Quintessence swirled around us all, and I heard Altarus and Fujiko level up behind me.

  “Wow!” Fujiko shouted with glee, pumping a fist in the air. “The old man’s got some spunk!”

  Of course he does, I wanted to say as I walked over to an item, gleaming on the ground where the beast had fallen. I looked up at Rathborne, who simply nodded at me to take it. I reached down and heard something enter my inventory. I opened it and found two Mortal Slabs and something else I didn’t recognize—a potion shaped bottle of red, blood-like liquid that graded down to a thick purple at the bottom.

  Spiked Blood—An ancient concoction from the earliest Seekers, the recipe now lost among the Great Fire of the Third Age which consumed the Library of Hardaquin.

  Use to temporarily increase HP by 25%. Also increases damage taken by 20%

  “Anything good?” Altarus asked.

  “Two Mortal Slabs,” I replied. “And something called Spiked Blood.”

  “Two Mortal Slabs?” Fujiko gasped. “Holy crap! Hand ‘em over.”

  I opened my inventory to do just that, but Altarus raised a hand to stop me.

  “No.” He shook his head. “You use them.”

  “Say what?” Fujiko asked, aghast.

  “The experience those slabs would provide would not be enough to change our position. They would be wasted on us. Rand should use them.”

  Fujiko’s mouth hung open and her eyes shifted to me. She was XP hungry and I couldn’t blame her. She was a gamer stuck in a virtual world that wanted nothing more than to gobble her up and spit her out again, and she rightfully wanted any advantage she could gain to stop that from happening.

  But Altarus was right. They were both only level 11 and even with the large amount of experience provided from a slab, they’d still be one-shottable if Quelan was anything like the creature we’d just encountered. Slowly, Fujiko nodded.

  “You’re right,” she said with a heavy sigh. “God, I hate being such low level!”

  “Normally your level would be fine,” I told her. “But this is…not normal.”

  “No, no it is not,” Altarus agreed. “Use them, Rand. You’re the only one who can.”

  So I did. I clicked the double-stack of Mortal Slabs and heard the sound of a level up and saw that I was almost level 20. I was almost twice the level of my companions, and that angered me, but what really had my blood boiling was just how weak I felt.

  Level 19, I scowled. Still nothing compared to this place!

  I needed to be Rathborne’s equal, in level and skill, if I was going to do what needed to be done to save my friends and reach the monolith. As I pictured it in my mind, I felt something shift, and realized that whatever barrier of fatigue had been keeping me here, unable to log out, had fallen away, leaving the portal home clear for travel. But it was no longer the time. We were caught up in the middle of something now, and getting closer to the end. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did. The Fortune Teller’s face, her words like silk as they drifted across the chilled wind at the base of the mountain—it all moved me like a force behind my back, pushing me toward my unknown destiny. My friends were with me now, and Rathborne, and this was no time to be going home to momma. Quickly, I assigned my free Quintessence, putting 2 points into Vitality, 3 into Toughness and 1 into Strength.

  Rand—Level 19

  Vitality: 30 HP = 756

  Toughness: 28

  Strength: 33

  Skill: 5

  Viletaint: 22

  Intellect: 5

  I stood there a moment, staring at my skills like they were suddenly going to jump up another five points or something.

  Wishful thinking…

  I turned and glanced at the city, which stood like a terrifying fortress, its enormity somehow enhanced by the foe we’d just encountered. If it was a sample of what was to come, I honestly didn’t see how we were going to make it through Quelan and find the spider—whatever it was. I heard Fujiko’s voice somewhere, muffled and dull.

  “Rand?” Altarus asked, snapping me out of my introspective stupor.

  “Huh?”

  “I said,” Fujiko said loudly and intently. “Did it drop anything else?”

  “Sorry, no,” I replied. “No big hammers for you.”

  “Hey!” she laughed as we started across the bridge, but before I could take two steps, a pulsing sound rang out from the inner city, like a drop of water the size of a meteor breaking the surface of a lake that lay inside an enormous bronze housing.

  It rang out and a beacon of red and golden light burst into the sky as though signaling to some higher power. The bridge itself flared with light, shook, and I watched with terrified eyes as the blood and carved flesh of the fallen Bridge Guardian leapt up from the ground as though being summoned by some force in the sky. Strands of bone like countless white threads rose, twisted and solidified and wove themselves together to form the skeleton of the creature Rathborne had just cut down.

  “Uh, Rand?” Fujiko said slowly as the mass of blood red tissue and purple filaments of muscle and tendons caught and threaded, pulling the bones together in blinding speed as something even larger and more terrifying than the behemoth reptile that had blocked our path formed before us.

  “Rathborne!” I shouted as the thing sprouted scales and teeth and opened its mouth to bellow a horrible shock wave that swept across our party like the voice of an ancient God, bringing every one of us to our knees, freezing us in place with some kind of stun effect. I managed to bring my eyes to the beast as it aimed its fearsome jaws towards us.

  Resurrected Guardian—Level 50

  I couldn’t act. I couldn’t move. The stun effect ticked down in the corner of my vision, but it didn’t matter. This would all be over by the time it was gone. All I could do was watch as the thing’s terrible, hungry mouth closed around Rathborne, and with a spray of blood, plucked him from the bridge and swallowed him whole.

  No!

  I wanted to scream as the monster let out a triumphant, satisfied roar as it gulped down the body of the old Seeker, then slammed its massive feet down with such a mighty force that it shook the bridge, causing slabs of stone to crash down into the foaming avalanche of water and ash beneath us.

  “Rathborne!” I finally managed to cry out, but it was the last thing I was able to do before the bridge collapsed beneath me.

  53

  The White Snake and the Bridge Guardian

  “The river is gone. Nothing can be done for it now. But to Hell with it! I warned them! I warned them all! But did they listen to Old Bill? Of course not. Old Bill is senile! He’s just a worry wart, they said! Now look at the thing! It used to be beautiful, majestic and triumphant as it roared beneath us. Now it is nothing but a poison, a toxic vein infecting the rest of Quelan.”

  —from the writings of Old Bill, waste worker of Quelan

  I hit the “river” in a rain of stone and hail and was swallowed up by the foam of ash like I’d fallen into six feet of fresh snow. My breath sucked invasive sludge into my lungs and I felt myself vomit as I plunged into the water that moved beneath the pale, ashen snake, conveying it (and me) to an unknown destination.

  Desperation and a horrible cold invaded my bones, like a monster searching for any source of heat with which to warm itself. I wriggled and kicked, swimming for where I guessed the shore to be as my lungs screamed with agony. I tried not to think of the flecks of ash clogging up my throat and where they had come from. Burnt buildings? Scorched bodies?

  I swam and swam, ex
pecting my hands to touch something solid at any moment, but found nothing.

  Think your way home! I thought desperately as I was pulled downstream. They’ll never find you now!

  I felt the tugging sensation that had eluded me after my seizure.

  It’s working! I thought. Whatever fatigue or trauma my brain had experienced was gone and I was free to leave if I really wanted to. It felt wrong, but at the same time, what was I going to do now? Drown? Before I could make up my mind, though, something brushed my foot and took a bite out of my ankle, shaking me away from my thoughts.

  -125

  You are going to die, you stubborn idiot!

  I wanted to shout as the pain tore up my leg. Instead, I kicked harder, swam faster, put everything I had into each stroke. Finally, my fingers blunted a hard rock surface. I’d reached the shore. Ignoring the throbbing pain, I grasped for something, anything to latch onto as the unknown attacker behind me drove its teeth into my leg again.

  -129

  It wasn’t life threatening damage, but it would be if I didn’t get my ass out of the river—and quickly.

  My fingertips found something to grip, and I pulled with everything I had against the torrential snake intent on dragging me down river to my death, and hauled myself out of the water and onto slick, solid ground. I rolled onto my side, reflexively spitting the poisonous, disgusting sludge from my chest.

  “Rand!” Fujiko shouted. I heard a splash. My mouth was a clamp—a vice, closed against the vile, toxic suds that enveloped me. I scrambled forward, spilling rocks down the slope into the river, fighting forward until finally reaching fresh air. A high stone wall stood before me, too slick and smooth to climb. My lungs were still on fire.

  I tossed back a Soothing Syrup like an old drunk in withdrawal needing a shot of Jack. The sweet liquid eased the scorching sensation in my chest, but I was still revolted over the thought of what I’d just inhaled. I turned back toward the bridge, now crumbling into pieces, when a set of hands grasped my shoulders and lifted me into the air.