by John L. Monk
No more accidental cuddling.
The thought came unbidden, as such thoughts do. I dismissed it as best I could—as married men do.
By the third day, the forest had fallen away, replaced by a wide plain blanketed in smooth snow. This sped up our pursuit because we could see the tracks from the air and no longer had to cast Seek.
Mid-afternoon came and the tracks abruptly ended.
“Where’d he go?” Rita said when we went down for a look.
Laughing, I said, “Pretty sure our friend’s a she. I mean, look at that.”
“What do you mean?” she said.
The tracks didn’t just stop. The person had lain on the ground and swished their arms and legs up and down.
“It’s a snow angel,” I said.
Rita frowned. “How’s that make him a woman?”
“Men don’t make snow angels,” I said. “Everyone knows that.”
“Everyone makes snow angels.”
“Nope. Men make snow tigers.”
Rita snorted. “Well, I say it’s a man. Everyone knows men do the stupidest things ever, and this person walked a hundred miles to make a snow angel for no good reason.”
I shook my head. “There’s something going on here. We just have to think.”
“I am thinking,” Rita said, then perked up. “Maybe there’s something buried!”
Not stopping to wait, Rita began digging through the foot-high snow.
“Nothing,” she said dejectedly. “Hey, cast Seek again!”
“But there’s no more tracks.”
“It isn’t a tracking spell. It’s a seeking spell. We’ve just been using it as a tracking spell. If you cast it now, it should still seek, tracks or no tracks.”
It made sense.
I held my hand over the half-destroyed snow angel and cast the spell. Nothing overt happened, but when I checked my map…
“Holy cow,” I said.
The scene jumped from Local to Ward, which encompassed all of Ward 2. Way up in the northeast corner was a flashing white blip in the unexplored grayness.
Whoever made this snow angel had teleported from here to there.
Chapter Seventeen
“Now what?” Rita said.
That was a good question. Now what was always a good question, which is why people loved asking it.
“It’s odd, sure. But what if this isn’t the clue?”
“I still feel confused on the whole clue thing,” she said. “A clue to a murder takes you one step closer to solving the murder. What’s our clue give us?”
“I could always murder you,” I said.
“We searched everywhere back there.”
“Back where?” I said.
“By the bridge. Jaddow said the clue was by the bridge.”
I nodded. “Cipher said so too. That’s where we found the tracks. Then we go on the longest hike ever. Cold and long.”
Rita grinned. “And hard.”
“Shut up,” I said. “Let’s see what Bernard says. That’s his job, right? After we check on Sammy, we’ll talk to him. He’ll know what to do.”
“So we’re going straight there?”
I thought about that. If this wasn’t the clue, backtracking made the most sense because we could search again at the bridge.
I gazed back across the plain until the tracks disappeared over a short rise. Then I looked at the snow angel: disturbing and weird, just like Cipher.
“It’s definitely the clue,” I said.
Our path to Heroes’ Reach was northeast. High-enough flying to evade any curious young dragons, though not low enough to avoid what our combat log would describe as cloud giants.
We’d seen their castles atop long patches of stratus clouds around a thousand feet up. Naturally, Rita flew higher for a closer look. The resultant volley of about twenty balls of lightning knocked her out of the sky and reduced her to a quarter of her health—this after first blowing away our Group Shield and the Mighty Shield I’d cast on her.
The giants followed us down, soaring through the air on mini storm clouds that crackled with energy. We hid in the forest below while they raged above us, smashing treetops left and right and blasting the area with lightning. No way could we have beaten them, and I didn’t need to discern one to realize that. This was the toughest thing Ward 2 had thrown at us since arriving, and I wondered how much harder it could get.
After that first onslaught, Rita fought the pain using her numbing abilities. Once again, she wept. Before her rapid rise in levels, she’d always endured her wounds stoically, never crying. Something had changed, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Why are you hurting so much more now?” I said after plying her heavily with whiskey.
Slurring her words only a little, she told me.
Managing pain was part of the challenge for monks, though one she hadn’t been aware of early on. They were supposed to fight the pain by using skills to nullify it. Tanking monks—those who faced off with monsters, absorbing most of the hits—skilled for pain early on. Thus, the hits they took barely fazed them.
The last time we’d traveled together, we were both sub-100. Back then, tanks and hitters—or “nukes,” as they were sometimes called—were effectively the same. After choosing the Curse of Power, she’d committed to the hitting variety of monk in order to kill more quickly.
Rita grunted in fresh pain as she shifted to get comfortable.
Foolishly, I asked her how much it hurt.
“Like someone shoving glass up my ass and twisting it,” she said.
What I wanted to ask was, Why didn’t you choose tank skills?
I suspected the answer. She’d wanted to kill Lord Beast and his allies quickly. Not slug it out over the ruins while they wore her down. Yet another sacrifice for me. For Melody.
Keeping my mouth shut, I refilled her whiskey and waited for her to heal. When she was ready, we took to the air again.
In order to go faster, I gave in and rode Rita piggyback through the air. My flying robes, she said, were too slow.
With more speed came more wind, and thus more cold. The closeness of our bodies kept us from freezing in the frigid air, if barely. To protect us further, I cast Ice Guard on both of us. This let her fly even faster.
Shortly after dusk, we reunited with Sammy at the Mediocre Marauder. He was standing near a watering trough that hadn’t been there my last time through, and I felt a surge of relief that Bernard had taken care of him.
Before going in, we lavished him with apples and pears in an attempt to allay our guilt for sending him off alone. He seemed to like it but wasn’t quite ready to forgive us until we subjected him to a long and vigorous scratching of ears, neck, and hindquarters. After that—and another round of apples and pears—he finally let us off the hook.
“Snow angels?” Bernard said.
Rita shook her head. “Singular, not multiple. He only made one.”
“He?” Bernard said, scratching his beard in thought. “Stranger still … Never heard of a man making snow angels before, but I suppose anything is possible.”
I suppressed a laugh.
“What we’re wondering,” I said, “is if you’ve ever heard of something like this—specifically, someone walking aimlessly into nowhere, lying down, and then just disappearing.”
At my phrasing, Bernard’s manner shifted. There was an adventurous twinkle in his eye.
“Could they not have flown off?” he said.
I shook my head. “If they could fly, they wouldn’t have walked through all that. There were monsters along the way. We avoided everything except the dragons.”
“And cloud giants,” Rita said.
Bernard gasped.
“That was later,” I said.
“If he didn’t fly,” Bernard said, “then yes, it makes sense that he teleported. Not on purpose, mind, because if he could teleport around, why not simply teleport from hill to hill? If you’ll allow that, then it stands to reason th
is teleportation was unintended. Were there any other tracks in the area?”
We shook our heads.
“Anything left behind?”
Again, nothing.
“So he didn’t die and resurrect somewhere. And you say there were monsters aplenty?” He waved us off, laughing. “Never mind, of course there were. But not in Heroes’ Reach! Sanctuary, my friends, sanctuary. I will consider these weighty matters tonight, and tomorrow deliver my learned opinion. For now, drinks are on the house—bread too—and a warm bed to soothe your aches and whatever else needs soothing, hmm?”
“Different rooms,” I said tightly.
Beside me, Rita nodded. “Yep.”
“Is that so?” Bernard said. His voice lowered. “Are you two fighting?”
“We’re not fighting,” I said.
A relieved smile spread across his bearded face. “Oh, I see. Snorer, is she? I snore myself, you know. Though I don’t often sleep…”
Chapter Eighteen
In the morning, Bernard plied us with eggs, bacon, and coffee. For Rita, he added a special tea made from root powders that he swore was effective against snoring.
“I don’t snore!” Rita shouted at him while I tried to keep from laughing.
“Of course you don’t,” he said, tossing me a broad wink. “Now, as to your problem from yesterday. I’ve given it much thought, and … well, you might not like it.”
“What is it?” I said.
“First, are you certain this person teleported to a place in the northeast?”
I nodded. “I am. It’s marked on my map.”
Bernard nodded. “The only teleporting going on there is to a place in the Angrimmar Mountains called the Hall of Heroes. Ever heard of it? No, of course you haven’t.” He paused before speaking again, and seemed almost sad when he did. “You heroes are a delicate sort. Some of you have been known to despair so deeply that you drop into an eternal sleep, never-ending. When that happens, the gods of Mythian reclaim you to the Hall of Heroes. There, your body lies protected by powerful magic until the end of days. I believe your snow angel—however outwardly happy she, or he (less likely), may seem—is one such hero.”
Rita said, “That’s … bizarre, even for Mythian. Why not do it in town where it’s warm?”
Bernard shrugged. “Unhappy people do lots of things nobody understands. It’s why no one can fix them.”
Something he’d said triggered a thought.
“Bernard,” I said, “would you say these depressed heroes are powerful? High level?”
“Frequently, yes. Some are among the most powerful in all of Mythian. They’ve lived too long, seen too much, and now all they want is rest. But we can’t have snoring heroes littering the streets, now can we? What a racket that would be.”
Smiling ear-to-ear, Bernard nudged Rita with a knowing elbow.
Rita issued a low, dangerous growl in response.
“Oh, goodness,” he said. “Customers! If you two will excuse me?”
Not waiting, Bernard hastened to the bar to greet a group of newly arrived players.
Rita was shaking her head.
“So what do you think?” I said.
“That he’s an ass.”
“I mean about the Hall of Heroes.”
“Depressing,” she said. “But this snow angel is feeling more and more like the clue.”
“I thought that was settled.”
“I know, but … I just hate how you have to run through all these hoops. And why the hell won’t Jaddow help us?” She pounded the table, bouncing the silverware around. “He could have killed those cloud giants with a twitch of his stupid nose. He could magic us to those mountains with a muscle spasm.”
I shrugged. “Debt repaid, right?”
“And now he’s done with us,” she said.
I raised my juice glass and said, “We’ll just have to get to the Hall of Heroes on our own, then. Cheers.”
After checking that Melody’s demon hadn’t been trigger yet—it hadn’t—Rita and I set out to stock enough provisions to last us thousands of miles.
The cost of the apartment in Heroes’ Landing, and the gems for my demons, had left me nearly broke until we’d killed the dragons. I donated that gold—a bit more than 15,000—to our collective adventuring fund.
Rita’s contribution dwarfed mine. She had lots of gold and wasn’t above sharing it. Particularly if it meant buying me an amazing new shield spell:
Spell name: Aspect of the Swami
Rank available: 170
Mana cost: Up to 20% maximum mana per absorb
Cooldown: None
Duration: Until canceled/death
Absorbs: *Damage per hit will not exceed 20% maximum health
Description:
As sorcerer shields go, this one’s so good, makes you wanna slap your brahma!
*A note about “Aspects”:
Aspects are highly specialized, self-only shields that absorb excess damage and drain mana by percentages. You’ll always take damage, but the damage will not exceed the posted rate. Aspects trigger after conventional shields, but before trigger heals.
If I understood correctly, I could survive as many as five asteroid hits and still live.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I said.
“What’s mine is yours,” she said with a smile. “You can thank me by keeping yourself alive. The guy said it’s the king of all sorcerer spells. Thank god it’s self-only. You need to worry about yourself, not me.”
The guy in question was a seller of odds and ends in the basement of a lucid-owned pastry shop. How Rita even found the place was a mystery.
“You gonna cast it or what?” she said.
Smiling sheepishly, I cast the spell and tried my best not to feel as if I were using her.
Though I felt the same, my ears picked up the faint sound of a snake charmer’s flute playing from somewhere. Seconds later, the music faded.
As amazing as the new spell was, Rita’s next purchase was grander still: an actual flying carpet. My robes, Rita said, were simply too slow, and she wasn’t about to carry me piggyback thousands of miles. For a whopping 150,000 gold, the carpet would fly us at thirty miles an hour in relative comfort.
“There’s some rules to her,” the lucid gnome trader told us. “First off, everyone on her has to be alive and awake, or she’ll drop like a stone.”
Rita nodded. “Game balance, makes perfect sense.” At my puzzled look, she added, “Poor man’s teleport. They don’t want people setting a heading, going to sleep for thirty hours, then waking up at the destination. In our case, it’s worse because we actually do get tired.”
“If I can continue?” the trader said. “As I was saying: she’ll hold any amount of weight. But she don’t take damage too good. Won’t stitch together again like most things magic. Don’t worry, though. If she’s cut bad and won’t fly, bring her here and I’ll fix her up—for a fee. Got it?”
I nodded. “How do we make it fly?”
“Tell her where to fly, of course.”
“Right,” I said, nodding absently. “So you’ll take care of Sammy?”
The trader laughed. “Sure I will. We got a big resort set up just for horses to lounge around in.”
“Really?”
“No,” he said. “I’ll sell him to the first person with 50 gold. Same as any other.”
I ground my teeth and fought my first ever urge to challenge someone to a duel. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and I finished the transaction quickly for both our sakes.
Sad as I was to see Sammy go, he’d feel cramped on the twenty-by-thirty foot carpet, and he’d probably spook if we tried to coax him.
“He’ll be fine,” Rita said after we finished pushing the rolled-up carpet into her bag.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
In addition to the shield spell and carpet, we purchased replacement gems for the ones I’d used since Heroes’ Landing. After that, large quantities of good
food—enough for the roughly twelve days travel time. Eight hours’ a day, we figured. If we couldn’t do it without one of us nodding off, we’d adjust.
After all the big purchases, healing potions and pain-resistance potions were outside our budget. We did buy a few gallons of calibrated whiskey, though.
The last thing we purchased was a new tent for Rita.
With a laugh, she said, “I can actually sleep in my jammies again. Yay.”
I smiled. “Yay for both of us. I’m sick of the snoring.”
Chapter Nineteen
The flying carpet had brass rungs along the edges to tie things to—including ourselves, if we so desired. Neither of us was afraid of falling off because we could always fly if needed, so we ended up roping our camp chairs to them. This way, they wouldn’t go tumbling off if it got windy, which it surely would.
We were standing in a field just outside the northeastern gate of the city. There was a little traffic overhead—heroes flying in and of the city—but not nearly as much as Heroes’ Landing, so we weren’t worried about running into anyone if we messed up.
Maybe it was the pending trip, or perhaps a degree of bubbliness from flying an actual magic carpet, but I was in a rare mood.
“Who’s gonna fly it?” Rita said.
“It’s a her,” I said. “Don’t you remember? Which means of the two of us, I’m better suited.”
“Yeah, how’s that?”
“I have a way with lady carpets, on account of my understated handsomeness.”
“What if she’s a lesbian magic carpet?” Rita said.
Pointing at her, I said, “OV! OV! Reported! Reported!”
Rita laughed.
Terms like lesbian and straight had been banished from the Official Vernacular as being too divisive. In Mythian, though, we could say what we wanted. Such distinctions mattered about as much here as in the real world, but it felt refreshing not to worry about fines or imprisonment for having a little fun.
