by J. R. Ford
“When did you get takeout, Pav?”
“Must’ve been when I got smashed into the dinner table.”
“Guys,” Heather asked, her confidence gone. “What do we do now?”
Scraping sounds from below pricked up goosebumps along my neck. I clambered up through the second trapdoor and peeked over the parapet. Mountains rose in the distant north, past the sea of grass. They might’ve seemed majestic, if I were in a better mood.
The drop was thirty feet. The circuitry on the outside walls glowed.
“What did that potion do?” I asked Heather, who was helping Ana up.
Heather shrugged as she shut the trapdoor. “I saw a blue bar pop up, 100 over 0. The button had some circuitry running from it, and when I pressed it, it absorbed the mana. The potion tasted horrible, though, too sour. My tongue is numb.”
“But now the walls are lit up,” I said. They came over, Ana hobbling, just in time to see a swarm of fermids emerging from the holes in the hill. I watched in horrid fascination as the first of them made it to the base of the fortress wall and began climbing. The scraping of claws against stone made my hair stand on end. Then it stepped across one of the glowing circuits and convulsed. It fell back, smoking like the ones electrocuted by Ana’s blade. No pop. Guess the electricity short-circuited whatever mechanism commanded them to explode on death.
We slumped in relief. “What do we do?” Heather repeated. “Those things will make it up here sooner or later.”
I had no answers. We had supplies to camp up here, but we didn’t know how long the defense system would stay active, or if the fermids would figure out the ladder. Ana’s Lightning Blade was still down there, embedded in a carcass. I saw little use of an Amulet of Reverse Transformation. That didn’t stop Ana from pressing it onto various surfaces: her chest, her burnt arm, my shoulder, the trapdoor, the parapet.
Heather perused the letters with the intensity of a scholar out of options. I leaned past her shoulder to read the second letter. The script was different from the first, rough, hurried.
I read aloud. “‘Ho, lads. How fares the war? I can only hope you have found a Nullifier, but, even if you have, by the time you read this I will have confronted my brother. I have failed to slay the Mollusking, but I have reached Tyrant’s Vale and will ascend to Vedanth Durg this evening. I have no doubt that I can convince him to come undo this curse he has afflicted. Please keep Geeta’s avatar safe. Sincerely, Pradeep Lokesh, Lord of Riyaasat.’”
It was hard to hypothesize on such little information, but I could try. Vedanth had put some sort of curse on Geeta, and to reverse it, she needed both that amulet and a Nullifier. Whatever that was. Pradeep had set out to wrangle the warlock from his castle and bring him here to cure her in person. I assumed the curse kept Geeta from traveling herself. But what happened next? There was no legendary loot in this fortress — did Pradeep die in his brother’s castle? Had he convinced Vedanth to come cure Geeta and logged out somewhere else? Alas, none of this speculation helped with the problem beyond the walls.
“Nothing useful,” Heather murmured, coming to the same conclusion as I had. I hung my head in defeat. No options left.
The trapdoor banged.
7
I threw myself upon the trapdoor, and the next impact rattled my bones. Ana fell atop me with a thump. Not how I wanted this to happen.
Another knock from our unwelcome visitors drove the air from my lungs. I gasped like a fish out of water and squirmed out from under Ana. I started to say something, but a bump clacked my teeth shut painfully.
Ana grabbed my shoulders and guided me back. I shuffled to avoid falling. “What?”
“I’m just moving so you’re downwind of me. That vinegar smells worse than those ants.”
I cast my mind back to the fight earlier and hooked an idea. Once I’d taken my vinegar bath, the fermid about to eat me had lost interest. Then, as I’d tried to get between it and Heather, it had rushed right past me. Was it possible that they hated the smell of vinegar as much as Ana?
“I think I have an idea, but you won’t like it, Ana.”
Her face stiffened with resolve. “Say it.”
“We cover ourselves in vinegar.”
She barked a laugh. “I thought you were going to use me as bait or something. Cover myself in vinegar, I can do!”
“Never,” I said, aghast. “You really think I’d suggest that?”
“Ants on Earth use pheromones to communicate,” Heather said. “Maybe the scent of vinegar interferes with them.”
“Yes.” That made much more sense than what I’d thought. “After I got splashed, those things lost interest.”
“That was at the same time as I drank the potion,” Heather said. “Maybe that drew aggro.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Suddenly my plan seemed a lot more likely to get me eaten.
Ana said, “Where will we get any? All we have has soaked into your clothes and hair.”
I gulped. “I can go get some. They probably won’t attack me. If we open the trapdoor for just long enough for me to get past, I can grab some more vinegar and the sword.”
“You sure about this?” Heather asked.
Of course not. “Of course. You two will have the hard part. Some might make it up when we open the trapdoor.”
Ana nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”
If it had been Heather’s potion drawing aggro, instead of my vinegar dropping it, I was about to be torn apart. But we had no other options. I had to try, and even if I died painfully, at least I’d die trying. I took a deep breath and nodded.
We got off the trapdoor, and Ana readied her sword. Heather twisted the latch and swung it open. Ana immediately stabbed a fermid in the eye. It dropped through the lower trapdoor, its compatriots rushing into the gap.
Into the maw of the monster. I squeezed past before they could clog the entrance and swung into the dim crawlspace. The trapdoor slammed shut. The dead fermid below popped, acid hissing.
The others ignored me. I sighed in relief. So far, so good — as long as the vinegar scent didn’t wear off. I shimmied to the edge of the lower trapdoor, trying to be quiet, just in case.
The room swarmed with fermids, looking down on an anthill through a microscope. But they wouldn’t eat me, they didn’t like vinegar. And besides, none of this was real anyway. Plus, I’d watched enough movies to pretend that if I pulled off such a heroic, selfless feat, Ana would fall for me.
My family would be proud.
The human is a belligerent entity. No matter how my brain might rationalize, all I could think about was the pain of being torn limb from limb by the beasts below. But if I did nothing, we would all die sooner or later. It wasn’t like I could go back up.
I cursed my body, both for the crippling fear and for the hormones that had convinced me to come along on this horrible quest in the first place. But once that trapdoor had shut, my fate had been sealed. There was no direction now except down, down, down.
I planned my route, squinting through the writhing mass. I could see no intact bottles near the table, but perhaps in the kitchen alcove beside the fireplace? The sword lay where Ana had left it, smashed into a dead fermid. The churning bodies shone ochre and blue in the lights of the lantern and chandelier. The effect nearly mesmerized me.
The lower trapdoor was wide enough that I could lower myself without even touching any of the fermids crowding the ladder. One final pause. I wasn’t that heavy, but I wasn’t that strong either. I couldn’t hang forever. I let go.
I smashed into an abdomen feet first and sprawled. I got up before I could be skewered, ignoring the throb of my legs and ribs. Fermids bustled past me. Pedestrians in a busy city, I pretended.
I waded over to the sword first, taking care to avoid pools of acid that had eaten into floorboards. The circuitry along the blade’s length was dim. One foot steadied me against the corpse, and the sword emerged easily.
The vinegar next. The monsters avoided t
he table, but the bottles had been shattered. In the alcove, they swarmed the floor, but didn’t climb on the counters and cabinets. I resisted being pushed over in the press and reached up. Rations, cutlery, crockery, spices…no extra vinegar, of any kind.
There was no way Ana or Heather were getting out of here.
The door loomed. I could just walk out. They would die, certainly, but I’d survive to play another day. It’s not real, anyway. They wouldn’t really die.
The last time I’d played the hero, it had nearly cost me my life. The odds this time were even slimmer. My gorge roiled at thoughts of being devoured. It would be stupid to die with them.
I checked my viewers: 10, all with front row seats to watch the “hero” abandon his friends. My family, at least, wouldn’t be expecting different. It truly seemed the only direction to go was down, down, down.
I descended the stairs, struggling to breathe through the stench of the fermids. My imaginary television screened my friends’ deaths. The trapdoor would likely be the first to go. Would they leap from the walls? Or fight tooth and nail until at last the fermids had found their meal?
Ana would fight. She wouldn’t give up on her friend until the dreadful end. I envisioned her powerful strikes, her roar turning to a scream as her doom descended. Aside from the pain and horror, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go. She could be proud.
I’d reached the threshold without realizing it. The hill was swarmed. The sun blazed outside, the bright doorway my path to survival.
But survival had another cost. Ana and Heather would see me leave. My stomach churned with the betrayal, enough to make me look back at the stairs. Any one of those fermids could tear me open until I drowned in my own blood.
My breath wouldn’t come. I uncorked my canteen, but it was empty.
Ana’s imaginary roar rang from my speakers. No one would ever accuse her of cowardice. She’d die free from shame, a hero immortalized.
I returned and smashed the lantern into the bed. The straw mattress caught immediately, and once the flame had taken, I collapsed the bookshelf on top of it. Smoke began to flood the room. Embers gnawed at the tapestry. Fermids scrambled into a frenzy, and many fled. I held my ground against the tide, bracing myself against a wall, knowing that if I was knocked over their sharp claws would trample me into mincemeat.
The flames danced, gleeful in their freedom. The inferno consumed all.
As smoke rose, the fermids crowding the ladder descended and began to panic with the rest. I tucked the Lightning Blade into my belt and pushed for the now-clear ladder. I powered through, holding my breath and squinting against the oppressive smoke.
I knocked against the upper door, and a moment later, it swung up. I poked my head over the side and coughed out a lungful of smoke. “Change of plans,” I gasped. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”
They followed me down the ladder without a word. The smoke and the heat had driven most of the fermids away, and some lay with legs clutched in rigor mortis. A few notifications popped up, each reading: “Kill a fermid: +10.” Most of the few left seemed confused. Only a couple bothered snapping at us.
Meanwhile, the blaze grew. The timber of the floor and ceiling smoldered, and fire had swept all along the tapestry, blinding hot. We ducked our heads and ran through, feeling our exposed skin dry and crisp. I felt like I was drowning in the thick smoke.
Between us and the stairs, a river of fire roared, flames dancing four feet tall. The arson was starting to seem like a bad idea. Damned by my own hand.
“Jump!” Ana said, and cleared it. I followed her, shielding my face. The flames felt like a cauterizing iron, but I landed on the other side still alive.
Heather cried out — she’d fallen, thankfully on this side of the fire. When Ana and I hoisted her up, I noticed where charred and acid-eaten planks had snapped beneath her landing. She regained her feet without sign of injury.
I also saw that she had only one boot on. She must’ve lent the other to Ana, so running on her injured foot wouldn’t be so painful.
We pressed through to the stairs, where a lucid fermid blocked our descent. It snapped forward, and I lunged in with the Lightning Blade. The runes flashed blue, and the sword vibrated my hand numb. I released it, shaking my hand, blinking away spots. By the time Heather and I had squeezed past the jittering corpse, the convulsions had stopped, and Ana retrieved her blade before leaping clear of the carcass.
Only a hallway and reception between us and freedom, but an army of fermids crowded our path. The cacophony of claws on stone rang in my ears. Few had noticed us in their panic. I led the way, wading through, trying to clear a path for Ana and Heather. They hurried in my wake, through the foyer and out into daylight.
No time for relief. The fermids that had so patiently waited for the wall defenses to fail seized their opportunity. We sprinted down, trying to steer clear of the monsters whose attic we’d torched. The hill whipped me faster, each stride longer than the last, pushing me to my limit. My breath was gone. Just as my vision began to fade, the ground wasn’t where I thought it was, and I tumbled head over heels down the remaining slope. Spinning grasses rose to envelop me.
I lay still for a second, aching and throbbing and still in one piece somehow. My lungs heaved and heaved, coughing until I thought I would vomit my organs out.
“Get up!” Ana yelled. “They’re still after us!”
I groaned, but the thought of being eaten got me up. My vision swam and darkened as I stumbled after them.
Heather was slowing. Her dress had gone dark with blood over where the fermid had gashed her yesterday. We made it to the wide stream and sloshed across, water splashing into my boots. I longed to collapse in its coolness, to submit and allow it to soothe charred skin, even if it would be my grave. Heather did as well, more than I did, apparently. She lowered herself gently, not even making a splash as she dunked herself. Bubbles tickled her ears.
“Up,” Ana said, though even she seemed unconvinced. I looked back. A horde ten strong pursued us down the hill.
I gasped through a singed throat, “There’s no way we can defeat them all, and no way we can outrun them. Not in the state we’re in.” My vision fixed on the onrushing fermids. Guess this ended in death after all. I straightened my back, then doubled over as another coughing fit overtook me.
“We’re pretty sorry, aren’t we?” Heather said. I’d thought her head was underwater, but when I looked, she lay on her back, her head propped up with her elbows. Her blackened dress clung to her, and she’d lost her cap, revealing matted hair. “Is this it?”
“This isn’t the end,” Ana insisted.
“I can’t go on,” Heather said, before bursting out coughing herself. “I can’t. And this is all my fault. If I hadn’t been so weak…”
“Shut up,” Ana said, but Heather refused.
“Leave me here. Maybe you can get away. Please…don’t let me be the cause of you dying too.” The stream had washed some of the soot from her face. She glistened. Ana took her under the armpits and dragged her onto dry land.
I nodded, drew my rapier, and muted a television blasting my death rattle. But I’d come too close to lose them now. “You take her. I’ll hold them off.” The stream flowed over my boots.
Ana was puffing. “Shut up! We’re still alive. Get back here.”
“Run! This is no time to argue!” I’d known they were dead five minutes earlier, but coming so close, only for them to die from Ana’s stubbornness, was a twist of the knife. Why didn’t she just run?
“Then do what I say, you vinegar-soaked idiot. Get back here.”
I did. How could I have forgotten about the vinegar? Idiot! The fermids would just ignore me.
Ana stood straight on the stream bank, staring down the mob. They gobbled up the distance between us in no time. Sixty legs splashed in the river.
At least I’d tried. I might be an idiot, but I could still go down free from shame, fighting by her side.
I screame
d a shrill war cry. Ana swung her sword at nothing. Then it hit the stream bed, the circuitry flared, and the fermids were dead. Ripples generated from their shivering corpses lapped at Ana’s toes.
“Quest complete,” she said.
8
We set up camp about a mile down the road. Not even Ana wanted to continue, given her injuries. I set up the tent while she removed Heather’s boot from her injured foot.
“Not too bad,” she said, massaging the skin. “As long as they’re not venomous.”
I imagined the pain of fire ant bites on that scale.
“I don’t think they would be,” Heather said. “With strength like that, they don’t need venom to kill.” She helped Ana apply a bandage. Our first aid supplies were turning out to be worth their weight in gold.
“Who says these things are natural, though?” Ana asked.
My ribs ached every time I bent down to drive a stake into the earth. My hands shook. After building the frame and laying out the tarp, I lay down, too tired to even worry about more fermids. Either Ana would kill them, or we’d all die. Nothing I could do about it.
Heather peeked over at me. “Here, let me help.” She knelt and began suspending the main canvas. “Are you all right?”
If she could do it, I could. I struggled into a sitting position and tightened the guylines. “I should be asking you,” gesturing at her bloody dress.
She nodded. “It hurts, but I’ll be fine.”
“Same, probably,” I said with a smile.
We finished the tent, and Ana came over. “Out,” she told me. “Have to change Heather’s dressing.”
I dutifully gazed down the road, trying to rein in a hyperactive imagination. Staring at the smoking fortress gave me the heebie-jeebies, so I opened the UI. The fingers on my right hand still jittered, making navigation shaky, but I made it to the leaderboard and pressed two fingers to select. Sickeningly, Edwin Casper was still in first with 263 points. But I smiled seeing right below him, Anastacia Rubio with 257. I wondered if she would drop 100 points if she gave away the Lightning Blade.
