by Jakob Tanner
“Wanna get a drink?” I asked.
“You go on ahead,” said Shade, rubbing his hands together. “I’m going to jump in on a game.”
There was no stopping the gambling addict, so I let him run off. I didn’t know where to begin with the current aspect of our quest. The prompt hadn’t specified who at the Grand Casino Palace had disappeared or who had reported the missing case. I would have to ask around.
A tall Lirana woman was serving at the bar. She poured and mixed cocktails while she polished glasses with a rag over top her tail. Behind the bar was a large fish tank. Crabs crawled along the bottom while rainbow carp and goldfish shimmered through the billowing seaweed. Most intriguing was the turquoise body of a mermaid. She had white silver hair and blue eyes without pupils. She swam back and forth along the rails of the bar. It was a very small prison for such a beautiful creature. It must be a boring and lonely life in there.
“First time at the Grand Casino Palace?” asked the Lirana bartender.
“How can you tell?”
“No one who comes here regularly bats an eyelid at the Dolpheeni behind me,” she said. “She’s part of the furniture. Same as me.” She put a shot glass in front of my stool and filled it with a fizzy yellow liquid. “Have a lucky shot, first timer.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
I picked up the shot and slugged the drink back. I was expecting a kickback or bite like tequila or vodka but the drink was warm and smooth. It had a deliciously sour flavor. I wanted to ask for another; better not though. I didn’t want to turn into Shade, drinking on the job. A message appeared on my HUD.
Lucky (Buff): Feeling lucky, punk? You must be. +5 luck (Duration: 5 minutes)
“Oh wow, I'm sure you must sell loads of this.”
The Lirana bartender grinned. “You bet. But here’s a secret these idiots in here drunkenly miss every single time. The lucky buff—it doesn’t stack.”
I grinned. The house always wins.
“So—” I didn’t know how to segue into asking her about the disappearances. How coy did I have to be here? I decided I would be up front. “Do you know anything about people disappearing here at the palace? There was a report filed days ago.”
The bartender’s shoulders straightened. “I don't know what you’re talking about. Sorry.”
“But—”
“Honestly kid, even if I did know something, talking about business matters in here only ever gets people in trouble.”
She turned to serve two drunk Muumuu men in suits who wanted more lucky shots. I better speak to someone else then. But who? Across the bar, the Dolpheeni waved at me and pointed towards my chest.
Me? I gestured with my own hands.
She shook her head and waved her hands to suggest behind me. I turned to the side and she pointed straight ahead again.
Across the hall of roulette and card tables was a gold statue of an angel. Standing around the statue was a group of men and women—though mostly women. The men wore tailored tuxedoes and the women dressed in low-cut and revealing cocktail dresses. The Aeri and Lirana women waved at me. One of the Rorn dudes shot a wink my way. So this was more than a casino .
I imagined virtual escorts would’ve been a major selling factor had A.K.O. been released simply as a game rather than as a place of refuge from a zombie invasion. It would’ve been the selling factor for a certain segment of non-gamer and businessperson. The ads appeared in my imagination: experience the immersive fantasy.
I kept my eyes on the floor, not wanting to attract anymore unwanted attention as I approached the group of hostesses. By the time I glanced in front of me, I was heading straight into the bosom of a bulky Rorn woman.
“Hello hon,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“Um—”
“There’s no reason to be shy. Shall we go up to one of the parlor rooms upstairs?”
I shook my head. “No, um. I’m not interested in that. I actually came here to ask some questions. Do you know anything about someone disappearing here—”
The woman took a step back. “Sorry, darling, I don’t know what you’re—”
A Lirana woman with bright yellow eyes butted into our conversation, saying, “Have you heard from Layla?”
“Hush child,” said the Rorn woman. “Don’t get involved with this man.”
The Lirana woman ignored her and grabbed my wrist. She dragged me to the side. “Have you heard from Layla?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I haven’t heard from her. But I’m looking into recent disappearances. What can you tell me about her?”
“Layla—she was another one of the girls like me,” she said, wiping her eye. “Like them. She had it both good and bad here. Lots of attention from high-class clients. That’s always the way with the Aeri women who work the parlors. Days ago she disappeared. We sleep in the same room, you see? So when I went to bed she was sleeping nearby. When I woke up in the morning she was gone. I never heard her leave. No clothes were packed. Gone. I asked around. No one has seen her since.”
Quest Update:
You’ve discovered details behind the disappearance at the Grand Casino Palace. Good job. Check in with the Haeren Church of the Nine’s Orphanage to gather more evidence and figure out if there’s a pattern behind the disappearances.
I grabbed the woman’s hand on my arm and gently removed it. “I’m looking into it. I’ll let you know if I find her.”
I turned around and went to grab Shade to let him know it was time to go. He would be sad to cut his card playing short but I’m sure he’d understand. He had his moments of reasonable clarity.
Or so I thought.
“Clay!” yelled Shade from across the hall with both his daggers drawn. Two Rorn security guards came after him with large wooden clubs. “They want to kill me!”
I drew my staff and conjured a fireball as quickly as possible and threw it towards the ensuing battle. My fireball made it halfway across the casino floor before it puttered out. Suffocated by magical air. It was those barrier wards.
I ran towards Shade, passing players ducking underneath card tables and behind slot machines. “What the hell did you do man?”
“I was playing a friendly game of cards!”
“He’s a cheater,” yelled the two security guards, jumping through the air to tackle Shade.
“I can’t help it I was cheating better than the dealer,” said Shade, sliding out of the way of the incoming brawlers.
We needed to get out of here quick. I cast shocking speed on myself, letting the lightning propel my legs forward faster than ever. I then attempted something new. My fingers did an arcane dance, unleashing a bright sparkle of electricity. The lightning slammed into Shade’s boots and made his whole lower body glow.
“Thanks for the buff Clay,” said Shade, “Time to bounce—”
My whole body froze. Shade was frozen mid-step in front of me as well. My HUD notified me of my current condition.
Paralyzed (debuff): You’re temporarily unable to move. I’d say run away, but well, you know (duration: 30 seconds).
The guards walked over, patting the dirt off their trousers.
“Damn, defensive wards took their time again,” said one of the guards. “I’m telling you this so-called magic security system wants to see us get hurt.”
The other guard grabbed me and held my wrists behind my back. He whispered in my ear. “The wards going to free you from paralysis any second now but don’t try to run. I’ll break your arms and spine, you hear.”
I nodded my head, relieved my body was functioning again.
“Now step forward and do as I say.”
The two body guards led Shade and me towards the back of the building.
“Aren’t you going to throw us out?”
The guard chuckled to himself as he stopped us in front of a garbage vent.
“We abide by our own laws here,” said the guard. “And in here cheaters go straight to the pit.”
Th
e guard opened the vent and tossed me inside the chute. I tumbled down and fell through the dark sliding passageway until I thumped onto a patch of sand. My HP slid down by 10% from the fall. Ouch.
Shade shot out the vent towards me. I rolled away.
“That’s what I get for playing with amateurs,” groaned Shade.
“They’re a goddamn casino! They’re the most professional you can get!”
Shade got up and tossed my comment to the side. “Shows what you know about cards, my friend.”
A thunderous roar echoed around us, obliterating any desire to keep bickering with Shade. Where the hell were we? We were surrounded by ascending stalls of seats. There were members of all the major starting races plus the lesser unplayable ones too: Skren, Goblins, Orcs, and Gnomes. They yelled and chanted tossing their hands in the air.
Across the sandpit was a muscular Rorn warrior. He wore a bronze helmet and shoulder pads. His abs glistened above his billowy red breeches. He held a long trident in his hand. The three-pronged spear dripped with blood. He walked towards us.
Now I understood why the crowd was cheering.
They were cheering for our deaths.
19
As the gladiator came towards us, a message appeared in my HUD.
New Quest Alert: The Cheater’s Pit
You have been branded a cheater at the Grand Casino Palace. You must fight three battles in the pit to be allowed to leave.
Quest Type: Uncommon
Quest Difficulty: Medium
Reward: Freedom + Bonus 1000 EXP if you win your battles!
Accept: N/A (this quest is mandatory)
A mandatory quest!? So we were unable to leave until after we battled three times. In which case we’d have to win three battles as Shade didn't have the luxury of respawning his way through them.
“Shade—what are we gonna do?”
The thief pulled out his two daggers and went into a fighting stance. “We’ll give the spectators what they want. Blood.”
The gladiator was in the center of the pit. He threw his arms into the air and worked the crowd. A thunderous roar filled the arena. The warrior pounded his chest. It wasn’t a mere scare tactic, it was an ability. Red flames silhouetted him.
I locked onto his nameplate and took in his stats.
Pit Gladiator
Level 10
HP: 360
MP: 11
I sighed in relief. At least we weren’t fighting a monster three times our level. I bet most players who ended up in here were very low level. Players who weren’t questing but rather living it up in Land’s Shield, enjoying the luxuries it offered. This arena would be their rude awakening to Illyria’s dark side. Too bad for this pit gladiator we were already well acquainted with it.
Shade dashed ahead with his daggers drawn. I cast shocking speed—a ripple of thunder shooting out of my hands and jaggedly zooming across the arena towards Shade’s boots. The buff landed and Shade sprinted even faster.
The gladiator readied his trident. The warrior had a slight advantage due to the range of his weapon; it would keep Shade at bay. But the thief didn’t slow down and charged the warrior straight on. The gladiator stretched his arms out, lunging the trident spear right at my furry friend’s heart. But the swiftness of the lunge was no match for Shade’s own speed: the thief quickly slid beneath the arc of the trident like he was playing a game of deadly limbo. Shade slithered between the gladiator’s bulky legs, taking swipes at his kneecaps. He bounced back to his feet with a twirling uppercut jab with both of his blades.
The crowd had been cheering up until Shade had dodged the attack. Now the stalls were silent, enraptured in the fight.
“Are you going to help?” yelled Shade, jumping back as the gladiator spun around and launched his spear at him again.
Right.
I pulled my staff from my back and let a ball of flame ignite in my hand. Time to debuff this creep. I ran towards the battle. Shade kept the gladiator preoccupied, sliding and dodging around him. The Lirana’s fighting style was all about quick feints, bluffs, double bluffs, and dodges. Shade fought in the same way he lived every other aspect of his existence: gambling on the knife-edge of life or death.
I whipped my fireball across the arena. The ball of flame zoomed through the air and crashed into the gladiator’s back. I waited for the burn debuff to flash under his caption but it didn’t land. I shot my arm out again, lightning rippling out my hand, heading straight to the gladiator. The warrior slashed the lightning with his trident, nullifying the attack.
Damn. This guy was only level 10 but he had clearly survived in this arena long enough to stop any serious bullshit coming his way.
Shade’s daggers glowed green with the tips of poison. He threw a barrage of jabs into the gladiator’s ribcage, poisoning the sucker’s lungs.
The gladiator’s HP was falling below 50% now. His whole body mass grew and his veins throbbed with a shining red aura. Oh man. The gladiator was entering an enraged mode. He lunged his spear with one hand. Shade dodged it, jumping to the side. The gladiator saw through this move. With his new extended reach, he yanked Shade by the shirt collar and threw him to the ground. Next the gladiator stabbed his trident downward. Shade rolled out of the way, barely missing a straight on collision between pointed steel and his face. The gladiator lifted his foot and flicked his boot, unsheathing a sharp steel blade at the edge of his toe. Shade crawled away. The gladiator grabbed hold of his trident’s staff, still wedged in the ground, and swung from it, hooking Shade’s shirt with his boot’s blade, swinging him round, and launching him towards a pillar of rocks at the side of the arena.
A large oomph! echoed through the chamber. I turned to the rock pillar. A cloud of sand smoke swirled around the area. The swirling mist of dirt fell to the floor, revealing Shade on the ground injured, hovering at 30% HP. Blood fell from his nose and lips. He tasted it with his tongue.
“C’mon Clay,” he said. “We got this.”
I cast shocking speed, circling the gladiator. He may have been acting tough but he was at the disadvantage. Down to 38% HP, he was poisoned and losing health every second. I ran around the gladiator, keeping my distance, conjuring fireballs and volleying them in his direction. He chased after me, the spikes of his trident thirsty for my blood. He swiped through a fire blast, nullifying the attack. I conjured another and whipped it at him. The ball of flame rushed towards him. He swiped his trident. Too slow. The flames rippled across his hand, sizzling the hair on his arm. He was now losing health from both poison and burn debuffs.
Shocking speed flickered from my status bar. The gladiator was catching up. He ran, leaping in the air. He pummeled downwards, trident pointed ready to strike. I dropped my staff, summoning all the heat and rage inside my body, igniting two massive fireballs in both my hands. I fired one, which the warrior nullified with a swipe of his trident. But I quickly came at him with the other, the blast knocking him in the chest, cancelling his leap attack and sending him to the floor. His red bar collapsed to nothing.
+175 EXP!
The packed arena screamed and cheered. Fists were raised in the air. They wanted the next fight. Would the underdogs defeat whoever they brought out next?
A group of Rorn guards stepped into the arena. The pit’s referees. Two of them went and grabbed the dead gladiator’s body, dragging his bloody corpse across the arena floor. Another guard grabbed my arm and lifted it up, the crowd cheering yet again.
The congratulatory tone quickly ended; the guard yanked my arm and pushed me towards a caged stand filled with other prisoners. Other cheaters.
As the guard pushed me across the arena, an older Aeri man stuck out from the stands. He sat alone in a special VIP box. He had black hair slicked back, faint violet eyes, and a goatee surrounding his stoic mouth. He stared down at me. A familiar goblin soldier came up to him and whispered in his ear. Next the soldier pointed right at Shade and me.
I had a very uneasy feeling.
&nb
sp; I asked the guard, “Who’s that up there?”
The guard tensed his hands on my wrist and looked over his shoulder. “That’s Drakus.”
Drakus. The very crime lord whose goblin gang we had slain.
Give me a fucking break.
The guard pushed me forward. “I’ll tell you one thing: you don’t want to get on his bad side.”
Great advice.
Too bad we already had.
20
The guard tossed me inside the caged cell. Shade was thrown in right after me. I pushed him off of me. “Dude—what the fuck?”
Shade fluttered his eyes in offence. “Clay, lower your voice. This isn’t just our prison cell.”
He gestured towards a group of Haeren warriors at the back and a Rorn brawler sitting calmly on a bench.
I was so frustrated with Shade right now I wanted to punch him. Shade didn’t have the luxury of dying his way through this mandatory quest like I did. We were so screwed. Since Drakus knew who we were, he was definitely going to make us fight some deadly creature.
“We had a simple mission,” I said. “Go into the casino, ask questions, and leave. Now we’re in a freaking gladiatorial pit because of your self-destructive nonsense.”
Shade scratched the back of his head, awkwardly. “Relax Clay. We’ll get through it. I promise. We always—”
The thief’s words were interrupted by a ferocious echoing roar. Beyond the bars of our caged area out in the arena came—not one, but two—bloodthirsty tigers. They looked the same as ordinary tigers but three times the size. They also had thick black horns jutting out along their spine. Across the arena was a group of five terrified level 1 noobs. Only two of them had weapons equipped. They must’ve entered the game and spent all their time at the casino and this was their first interaction with A.K.O.’s violent side. So this was their introduction to it then. This wasn’t a fair fight. This was slaughter for entertainment.
