by John L. Monk
With Group Shield back in place and a new level under me, we set off to rinse and repeat the previous two encounters.
Before leaving, I put 5 stat points into vitality—because I needed to survive my wounds long enough for Frank to heal me. With my new base vitality of 10, my +5 vitality boots, and my +100 health ring, I now had 250 health.
We found more goblins and wiped them out quick, taking me to level 11. With it came a crusher of a spell called Invisible Fist. For 75 mana, it hit for a flat 120 points of damage.
As before, the huts we passed were all empty. For lack of a better direction, we continued in a straight line and soon arrived at a wattle-and-daub wall with a massive structure beyond it like something out of ancient Mesopotamia. We climbed a nearby hut and saw the upper part of a ziggurat with a shining-white building on top. No guards patrolled either the wall or what we could see of the ziggurat.
“Look at that thing, will you?” Frank said in admiration.
“Yeah,” I said.
We climbed down and approached the wall.
Staring up at the primitive battlements, Rita said, “Wonder what it’s like down here after a full repop.”
“Probably a blood bath,” Frank said. “Way more nukes than healers in Mythian.”
“Nukes?” I said.
“Hitters,” he said. “Deeps, killers. Like you and Rita. Short-sighted thinking. Healers are the low bar of fun, baby. Can’t go anywhere without us.”
Rita laughed. “And without tanks and nukes, you’d be a sitting duck in that pretty dress.”
“Vestments!” Frank said mock-angrily.
While they traded jokes, I alternated between trying to see the top of the wall and staring along the side. It wasn’t straight like something modern, but curved and lumpy. I wondered if it kept going in a circle or meandered and stopped somewhere.
“Guys—hey,” I said. “Let’s see how far it goes. Maybe work our way to that ziggurat.”
“Looked like a pyramid,” Rita said.
“That’s because you went to a government school,” I said, earning me a sock in the arm.
The farther we went, the more the wall seemed like the Great Wall of China, varying in height and at times zigzagging.
We glimpsed the top when it absorbed a rocky projection poorly shaped into a low battlement. The battlement was protected by concentric rings of sharpened sticks poking from the rocks. Anyone trying to climb up would do so under a barrage of spears, boulders, and possibly arrows, depending on how advanced the goblins were. At the moment, with no one to defend the death zone, those spikes looked like convenient handholds.
“Just think,” Rita said, gazing upward. “In a few weeks, this place will stink with death. I talked to some folks who tagged along last time. They either didn’t get many kills, or if they did, the bigger noobs killed them afterward and stole their stuff.”
“Not very fun,” Frank said.
“So we make our own fun,” I said. “Come on.”
I reached for my first spike and started to climb. About halfway up, I noticed the pointy tips were covered in an ominous translucent goo.
Frank called up, “Don’t worry about the poison—got a spell for it.”
I did worry about the poison, and my fears were justified when, not two minutes into the climb, I nicked myself in the leg while reaching for a handhold. Almost immediately, the strength in my arms and legs drained out of me. Then my hand slipped. Then the rest of me slipped.
Rita was stronger than I was, but she wasn’t superhuman. She caught me by my robes and shouted “Frank!” while trying to flop me over a lower spike. To no avail. She lost her grip and I kept falling.
Judging by her bloody arm, she’d gotten jabbed too. But Group Shield hadn’t stopped it because we’d done it to ourselves by pressing.
Unlike me, Rita resisted effects of the poison and held on—whereas I tumbled bang-bang-stab before landing in a heap at the bottom. Thank goodness I’d put those points in vitality, because that little disaster killed our group shield and dropped me to 25 health points.
“Sorry I didn’t catch it in time,” Frank said after bringing me back to full.
Rita said, “Why don’t you two guard each other while I scout up top?”
Without waiting for a response, she started climbing.
This was the first time I’d seen anything like impatience from her. I didn’t call her back, but I did think it was dangerous going off alone like that.
While she picked her way to the top, I took the opportunity to learn a little about my new friend, Frank.
“So what’s your deal?” I said.
Frank looked at me like I’d caught him stealing.
“Hmm?”
Chapter Forty-Two
“You act afraid half the time,” I said, “and the other half, you’re jumping into huts full of vicious goblins. What’d you do in the real world? Security? Not that I’m prying.”
“You’re totally prying,” Frank said with a smile, “but that’s all right. I was an engineer—electrical, then later robotics. One of the reasons I chose this world, actually. If you make it out, you get a self-healing, ambient-powered skin frame. That’s what I’m going for.”
I couldn’t believe it—I’d finally found someone who didn’t want to spend forever fighting goblins and looking really, really attractive.
“What do you mean self-healing?” I said.
“Dynok Systems invented an accretion process to grow back missing parts. Feed in raw materials through a belly flap and the nannies take care of the rest. The whole world could die, but you’ll live forever.”
As horrible as that sounded, the concept intrigued me. “But what if the little flap broke? Or the nanobots? What if they got infected? I heard they go off on their own sometimes and destroy their hosts.”
Frank laughed. “Man, you’re living in the stone age. First off, every important part is replicated. You get two FAB units, not one, and each has about a zillion different parity tests to make sure it hasn’t gone bad. If it does, the nannies fix it. They’re dormant until signaled with a pre-coded checksum—which, by the way, is replicated and parity protected. Once activated, nannies are short-lived and can’t survive high temperatures. The system flushes through a set of reverse osmosis filtration units … and I lost you.” Frank smiled sheepishly. “Robots. Sort of my thing. When I’m not gaming.”
I tried to remember what he’d last said. Something about parity. “No, it’s really interesting. Just a lot to take in.”
“So what’s your deal?” Frank said. “What’s a guy like you doing in a whacked-out place like this?”
“I love it here. It’s great.”
Frank snorted. “You tolerate it. I can tell sometimes, the way you talk about stuff. Did you know what you were getting into? Were you even a gamer?”
I shook my head. “No, I never got into games. But I did some research before coming. It seemed challenging, so I signed up.”
To change the subject, I materialized an apple and tossed it to him. He missed the catch and had to pick it off the ground.
“My Agility’s still a one,” he said. He polished it and took a bite. “This is good! Better than real because it’s based on our ideal image of food. I love how we get hungry as soon as we start eating. And we can eat all day without visiting the little noobs’ room. Or getting fat, or feeling sick if we eat too much.”
I made another apple and joined him.
Frank seemed okay, and I hated lying to him, but the fewer people who knew about my wife, Cipher, and Jaddow, the better. Bad enough Rita knew as much as she did.
While we waited for her, Frank shared some of his insta-hooch. Like the apples, it was also very good, and pretty soon we were both drunk. Then Frank cured us both of our “poison” and we were sober again, and could thus get drunk again. Then he ran out of zeal and we got drunker and drunker.
“Ethhad?” he slurred later.
My alcohol tolerance hadn�
�t carried over during the transference, and I slurred back, “Yesh, Vrank?”
“Do you nodish anyving?”
I thought about that—then my eyes widened in shocked sobriety. “Where’s Rita?”
She should have been back a long time ago.
When my shields came off cooldown, I reapplied them. Then we started climbing.
The wall was wider at the top than I’d imagined. About twenty feet. Flagstones had been sunk into the fire-hardened mud, creating surprisingly decorative paving. There were no goblin guards that we could see.
“Jeez,” Frank said, gazing beyond the wall. “Would you look at that?”
“I am.”
And I was.
On the other side, the mists disappeared completely, revealing the massive ziggurat in all its ten-tiered splendor. Painted like an enormous red and white wedding cake, it had openings in the middle of each layer through which we spied the occasional goblin coming or going.
Between the ziggurat and the wall spread a mud-brick city. The buildings were different sizes and shapes, and mostly one level. Here and there were towers constructed of huge logs. Each was draped in a patchwork of animal hides marked with savage-looking goblin symbols. Like the walls, they lacked any guards.
“Any sign of Rita?” I said.
“Not that I can tell,” Frank said worriedly. “I’m thinking she would have kept going that way.”
He nodded in the direction we’d been heading below.
We set out cautiously and picked up speed when we encountered no opposition. The uneven wall meandered in a squiggly circle around the city. Every hundred feet or so we encountered a big cauldron filled with oil. Next to each were giant runes carved into the fire-hardened mud. When we got close, they started glowing and turned red hot. It didn’t take a genius to tell they were for boiling the oil.
Ten minutes later, we found our first dead goblins. Six of them, with their heads crunched-in the way Rita had demonstrated several times already.
“Looks like she won,” I said.
“So where is she?”
“Not sure. She should have run back. Unless something stopped her.”
As I said this, we both looked behind us and found a line of goblins blocking our way. They’d crept up silently from who knew where and stood glaring at us and … wait, no, not glaring. They were smiling.
Eight of them, and one was a shaman.
Chapter Forty-Three
Surprisingly, I wasn’t too worried. With only Frank to split the damage with, my shield would hold long enough to kill half of them quickly and hopefully scare off the rest.
Uh-huh. So why are they smiling?
“Should we fight?” Frank whispered.
“Something’s off,” I said. “They don’t seem scared, even after what we did to their friends.”
“Maybe they haven’t heard yet?”
“Or maybe they know something we don’t. Let’s try to leave. See what happens.”
As we backed away, one of the goblins—a female—lifted a little stick to her mouth. She blew on it and a wadded ball of something wet and sticky struck my face like a spitball. My shields didn’t stop it because it caused no damage, but the narcotic in it dropped me quickly to my knees. Frank didn’t have a chance to cure the poison because the other goblins were firing little goopy balls at him, too.
Time suddenly froze. As in literally froze, because the world completely stopped moving. Then came a game notification:
YOU ARE ABOUT TO FALL UNCONSCIOUS FOR A PERIOD OF THIRTY MINUTES. DURING THIS TIME, YOU WILL BE COMPLETELY POWERLESS. DO YOU WISH TO GIVE UP, LOSE ALL PROGRESS, AND RETURN TO LEVEL 1? OR WAIT?
1) GIVE UP
2) WAIT (DEFAULT)
I stared at the words and noticed a timer counting down from sixty. Clearly this was a safety mechanism to keep players from being abused while unconscious. Which was chilling. Had Rita been captured by the goblins? If so, which choice had she made?
I considered my options, and after a moment’s hesitation, picked one.
Then I blacked out.
I awoke lying in a few inches of cold water at the bottom of a pit. Overhead, a lattice of sticks and brambles let in enough light to see the damp rocky walls.
“He’s awake,” Rita said from somewhere behind me.
“Rita?” I said, twisting around to see her. “Are you … uh … okay?”
Rita snorted. “Never fear, oh Typical Guy. My virtue is intact. Frank’s, though…”
“Very funny,” Frank said. “Man, Ethan. They sure were afraid of you. You got hit with way more of those poison things. I would’ve cured you when I woke up, but I can’t cast anything.”
Rita said, “And I can’t break us out. My Strength’s been penalized to one, and all my abilities are inaccessible.”
I checked my spell list. Sure enough, everything was grayed out.
“Check your active effects,” Rita said. “Anti-magic’s pretty typical in other games, and they have it here too. Which means we’re at their mercy.”
I checked under Active Effects, previously empty, and there it was: ANTI-MAGIC POISON (2 HRS), LIQUID WIMP (2 HRS).
“They shot us with anti-magic?” I said. “And Liquid Wimp?”
Rita nodded. “They keep coming by to jeer at us, too. See? They’re back.”
I looked up and saw little humanoid figures crowding the trapdoor, staring down at us with wide toothy grins. They seemed almost childlike in their hateful glee.
“Probably gonna torture us,” Frank said. “If that happens, I’m giving up, no question. Only level eight. I can make it up in no time. Maybe try warrior next.”
“I’m not quitting,” I said and blinked when I realized it was true. I couldn’t quit. Not with Melody out there waiting for me.
Rita’s voice turned soft. “I know why you’re so driven. But getting flayed alive isn’t gonna get you any closer to … uh … you know.”
“I don’t know,” Frank said in a decidedly left-out tone. “What’s with him, anyway? It’s just a game. He knows that, right?”
“He certainly does,” I said. “And no, it isn’t just a game. Not for me. I’m meeting someone in Ward 2. My wife, if you must know.”
Frank whistled. “You’re saying you got a frickin’ high-level wife out there? And you’re scraping along with frickin’ goblins down here? What did you do to piss her off?”
“Frank…,” Rita said.
“You should drop it,” I told him.
“I’m just saying if I had a wife with super powers somewhere that could help me, I’d totally share that with my friends.”
“Great,” Rita said, “you got him talking like Lord Snoot now.”
Ignoring them, I approached one of the walls for a closer look. Bumpy, with pits and ridges as if worked with pick-axes. Experimentally, I reached up to a particularly deep notch in the stone and put my weight on it. My finger slipped, and I lost a bit of fingernail in the process. Not enough to hurt my health pool, but it stung.
“Already tried that,” Rita said. “We’re totally stuck.”
“But why are we stuck?” I said, gazing up at the lunatic goblins.
“Because they’re goblins,” she said.
“Why don’t they just kill us?”
A little stone hit me on the head, dropped from above.
“Ouch!” I yelled and clamped a hand over my bleeding lump. I’d taken 5 points of damage. “Now they’re throwing stuff!”
We waited for the next attack, but instead of rocks, something fell through the grate and landed in the water.
“What is it?” Frank said, not going for it.
Even Rita held back.
“Fine,” I said and picked it up. On closer inspection, it was a rolled-up piece of leather. “Something’s in it.”
“Unwrap it,” Frank said.
“Be careful,” Rita said.
I unrolled it and found a message scrawled in black ink:
You have been granted
an audience with Lord Usurper, the Goblin Chief! You shall not meet his gaze! You shall stay on your knees while in his calamitous presence! You shall speak only when asked a direct question! Any funny business or attempts to harm the chief or his retainers and you shall be destroyed utterly! Try to escape and you shall be eaten alive!
“Eaten?” Rita said, wrinkling her nose. “Who’d wanna eat Frank?”
I smiled. Frank didn’t.
“What do you think?” I said.
Rita shielded her eyes against the sunlight streaming through the grate. “I think they’re opening up.”
Chapter Forty-Four
After hauling us out, the goblins re-dosed us with Anti-Magic and Liquid Wimp, resetting the timers. They then tied our hands and led us in the direction of the ziggurat. Along the way, they swatted us, whacked us, and tripped us up, which was about as annoying as it sounds. Each time, they laughed wickedly and mocked us in their twittering goblin language.
Hoping to humanize our plight, I tried talking to them, but the goblins didn’t seem to understand. This begged the question: who’d penned that summons?
The structures we passed revealed themselves as more utilitarian than domestic. Smithies and tanneries, and places for rendering animals, though there were no animals. One thing I noticed were children. Goblin children. They hid behind buildings, peeked over walls, and occasionally darted across our path squealing in fear and excitement like any human child might.
Rita glanced at me, and her expression said everything: she was appalled.
In the real world, it was illegal to design lucid children, and for very good reasons. I wondered what a horde of players would do when they came here. Kill them? Let them go? Other stuff? If lucids were sentient and aware, then they were worthy of humane treatment. The idea that something childlike—even a goblin—could be hurt or abused filled me with disgust.
“Why are there children here?” she said.
Behind her, a goblin warrior growled something and kicked her hard in the back, knocking her down. I tried to defend her but got tripped and beaten for my efforts.
