Rohan's Calling Online

by A. J. Chaudhury

  “So that’s it,” Bhusan said, “the end of the third round. The fighters will be allowed to rest for a few minutes and then we will proceed to the fourth round. After that will be the fight with Kumbhakarna which is the main highlight of our weekly tournament. So far, nobody has had the guts or skills to defeat the mighty Kumbhakarna. Let’s see if the winner of the fourth round will do any good. Now, we shall begin preparations to awaken Kumbhakarna as the two fighters rest.”

  At least twenty men with trumpets formed a circle around the sleeping Kumbhakarna. The blare of the twenty trumpets was a large sound, even though I was a good distance away. But Kumbhakarna didn’t even flinch. The trumpets blared for a minute or two. Finally one of the men shook a hand at the organisers, signalling that Kumbhakarna couldn’t be awoken.

  Bhusan stood up with a laugh.

  “It seems mighty Kumbhakarna is in a sleep too deep today,” he said, “we’ll require to send someone to his ear with a trumpet and awaken him. Any volunteers from the crowd? You will be paid 500 gold.”

  “I will do it,” a man raised his hand. To my surprise I saw that it was none other than Babaguy, who had earlier disappeared into the crowd. Everyone watched as Babaguy walked to the sleeping Kumbhakarna. Babaguy took a trumpet from one of the men already present there and then he began his climb of the mighty Kumbhakarna. Everyone waited in bathed breath as Babaguy climbed higher and higher. It was no different from climbing a small hill, perhaps even harder. Once Babaguy nearly lost his footing and fell. But he was able to grab Kumbhakarna’s naval just in time, and he continued his climb. When Babaguy finally reached Kumbhakarna’s ears, the crowd present clapped.

  Babaguy put the trumpet to his lips and it blared in Kumbhakarna’s ears.

  The eyes of the giant Rak snapped open. He immediately slapped his ear, so that it was only by extreme luck that Babaguy was able to jump to the giant Rak’s shoulder and escape being swatted to death.

  “Who has dared to awaken me from my sleep?” Kumbhakarna roared, his voice like thunder. He stood to his feet. Many of the people let out cries and screams of panic.

  “It is us, o mighty one!” Bhusan said. “Your friends with whom you made a deal.”

  “What deal?” Kumbhakarna demanded. “I cannot remember any deal.”

  “Please stress your memory, o mighty one. You agreed to fight the winner of the fight-as-you-wish tournament every week at this time.”

  Kumbhakarna scratched his chin and yawned.

  “Yes, yes. I remember that,” he said. “So who is the fighter that dares to face me?”

  “Please allow us a few minutes, o mighty one,” Bhusan said, “you told us in the beginning that you would like to watch the fight between the fighters of the fourth round. The fourth round takes place in a few moments, so we have awoken you beforehand.”

  “Yes, yes, I remember saying that as well,” Kumbhakarna said, scratching his bare and hairy chest. “Now carry on with the fight.”

  “The fighters, please come to the ring,” Bhusan called.

  I was about to go, when Mastermind grabbed my arm.

  “Win this one,” he said, and he was dead serious, “this round will decided whether we can defeat Death13 or not.”

  I nodded.

  “I will win,” I said.

  I went to the ring. The Rak, who went by the name of Mahasura1 snapped his jaws at the air in a display of threat.

  The bell rang, and the fight began.

  I let myself loose on the Rak immediately. He had a sword too, but it was little match against mine. I hit his sword so hard with mine that it shattered into two.

  Mahasura1 let out a growl, looking at me in fury.

  “It will cost you,” he said.

  I raised my sword to hit him and finish him off. It was over confidence on my part for I should have backed away. Mahasura1 immediately fell on his knees instead. He grabbed my foot and turned it such that I fell down.

  The next moment, Mahasura1 had stabbed my chest a dozen times with his broken sword. My health fell by three hundred just like that. I tried to hit him with my sword. Too bad, in trying to do so, I moved my knuckles in a bad way such that my hold on the sword was weak. Mahasura1 hit my hand, and my sword fell sideways. As I tried to pick it up, Mahasura1 grabbed my arms, not letting me move, totally pinning me to the ground. I tried to kick him away but my kicks barely had any effect on him. He was a Rak and was of a higher level. He was much stronger than me.

  And then things only got worse as Mahasura1 bit me on the neck. My neck in utter agony, I watched as my health dropped steeply. But I was not prepared to give up at any cost. I kept struggling. Beyond the ring, I could see the faces of Lovebird, Grimguy and Mastermind. All them had extreme emotions on their faces. Lovebird had her mouth cover in horror.

  The referee began to count.

  “One, two, three…”

  I didn’t know whether my health would deplete first or the referee would count to ten. I gave a final effort, trying to push Mahasura1 away. A tear rolled down my temples as I failed.

  “… and TEN!” the referee cried.

  With a sickening laugh, Mahasura1 finally let go of my neck. My health was down to 3. I had never felt worse in my life as I stood up with much effort.

  “And Mahasura1 shall fight Kumbhakarna the mighty!” Bhusan said out loud.

  With my shoulders hunched, I made my way out of the ring towards my friends. I couldn’t meet their eyes at all. I felt terrible.

  Grimguy placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “You tried,” he said to console me.

  “But trying was not enough,” Mastermind said so that I only felt worse. I distanced myself from Lovebird. I had just ruined her only chance of ever returning to her family.

  “This sucks,” I said in a low voice.

  “Okay, come and fight me,” Kumbhakarna said to Mahasura1. “Here I wait for you.”

  With his chest puffed up, Mahasura1 approached the place where Kumbhakarna was.

  “I request the viewers present to move away from Kumbhakarna,” Bhusan said, “there have been instances before where non-fighters were accidentally trampled by him. If such a thing happens to you, you are solely responsible, not us or Kumbhakarna.”

  “Yes, get out of the way,” Kumbhakarna yelled at the people.

  I watched as Mahasura1 stood in front of Kumbhakarna. How would the fight turn out? Yes, Mahasura1 looked super confident, but he didn’t have any chance against the mountain that Kumbhakarna was. This was like a fight between an elephant and a rat. Yes, a rat could scurry around fast. But one stamp from the elephant, and the rat would be flattened with all its guts and brains out.

  A bell rang.

  The crowd waited in bathed breath.

  Kumbhakarna threw a lazy fist at Mahasura1, meaning to trample him. It was by sheer luck and extreme effort that Mahasura1 was able to leap out of the way.

  Kumbhakarna let out a roar like the eruption of a volcano.

  “You actually survived that, eh?” he said.

  And the next moment he had picked up Mahasura1, and was hanging him upside down by his leg. I pitied Mahasura1. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that I had lost the first round.

  Mahasura1 tried to grab Kumbhakarna’s finger, even as the latter watched in amusement. Mahasura1 actually succeeded. He bit Kumbhakarna’s finger. The latter suddenly flinched, not having expected that. He dropped Mahasura1. Mahasura1 cried out as he fell. He had certainly not thought about that. His health went zero the moment he struck the ground.

  And that was the end of Mahasura1.

  He would probably respawn somewhere, cursing himself why he had bitten Kumbhakarna. He might have actually survived a bit longer if he hadn’t.

  “So that’s it,” Bhusan said in a sorry voice. “Kumbhakarna the mighty remains undefeated and remains to sleep another week. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming. Let’s meet another day.”

  As I watched Kumbhakarna sitting down cosily, preparing to go t
o sleep, my legs suddenly began to take me towards him.

  “Wait!” I cried, in the loudest voice possible. Kumbhakarna actually heard it, for the crowd was relatively quiet at that point. “I want to fight you.”

  “I only consider the winners of the fight-as-you-wish tournament fit enough to fight me,” Kumbhakarna told me in a sleepy way. How could he feel sleepy so fast? He had only just woken up.

  A laughter caught hold of my throat. I hadn’t expected that at all.

  “Because they always lose?”

  “What do you mean?” Kumbhakarna said, his eyes suddenly bulging, his drowsiness gone. He seemed to be trying to understand if I was trying to insult him.

  “You fight the winners of the wrestling match because they always lose,” I said, “You have never tried to fight the losers of the fight-as-you-wish tournament, because you cannot fight them. You are afraid of them.”

  Kumbhakarna laughed.

  “Are you serious? Me? Afraid of losers?”

  “Yes you are,” I barked at him. “You are too afraid a loser would kill you. And then you would be remembered as the guy who was killed by a loser.”

  “Look, if somebody is not worthy of fighting me, I do not waste my time on them,” Kumbhakarna said. The first lines of anger were now appearing on his face.

  “Let the mighty Kumbhakarna sleep,” Bhusan said in his magically loud voice, “you lost, so you are not worthy to fight him.”

  “I challenge you,” I said to Kumbhakarna, ignoring Bhusan, “fight me. Defeat me if you have the guts. Try fighting a loser just once.”

  And then, exceeding my expectations, many people in the crowd present began to shout at Kumbhakarna to fight me.

  “Fight him!” they shouted, “Prove that you can fight both winners and losers!”

  Kumbhakarna looked conflicted, as the crowds requested him more and more to fight me. Kumbhakarna looked from Bhusan to me to the crowds. Then the frown on his forehead suddenly disappeared. He raised a hand. The crowd became quiet instantly.

  “The mighty Kumbhakarna will never refuse a challenge,” he said to me, “I shall fight you today. And for the attitude that you have shown, I will make sure to give you as painful a death as possible.”

  “Now that’s something!” I said, feeling a rush of adrenaline.

  “O might Kumbhakarna, are you sure of this?” Bhusan asked.

  “Yes, I am,” he said, “let the bastard try out his luck, before I tear his limbs and put him into my mouth.”

  “Okay then,” Bhusan said in a confused voice, “ladies and gentlemen, please make your distance from the mighty Kumbhakarna.”

  I watched as the crowds moved away from me. Some of them wished me luck, while some others called me an idiot and laughed.

  The bell rang.

  I inhaled.

  “So go on,” Kumbhakarna said. “Do whatever you want to do. You are free.”

  “Use it only when he attacks you,” Babaguy’s voice spoke in my mind. “Use it only for defence.”

  “Why?” I said to Kumbhakarna, “You don’t have the guts to attack me first?”

  Kumbhakarna seemed to have a sudden fit of anger.

  “You speak too much!” he yelled. And with great force he brought down his mighty fist down towards me, his fist being easily the size of a small elephant.

  “We1ap2on3,” I said thrice in swift succession, as I leapt away just in time to avoid the great fist of the giant. The pace where the fist hit a crater was formed and there was dust everywhere, the ground rumbling and shaking.

  A spear appeared in my hand out of thin air. Diamonds studded its shaft, while the spearhead was made of gold. This was the Brahmastra without a doubt. How just the muttering of the special word three times had brought it to me, I had no idea. But I had to use it, and I would.

  Before Kumbhakarna could throw another fist at me, exasperated as he already was at having missed me the first time, I hurled the spear with all might towards his head. He tried to block it, but the spear was too fast. It went and struck him in the forehead, right between the eyebrows.

  Where the spear hit, a great explosion occurred. I closed my eyes, the explosion was so bright it was blinding.

  When the light from the explosion was gone, I dared to open my eyes again.

  Where Kumbhakarna had previously been there was a great crater. There was no sign of the giant Rak. A lot of dust was suspended in the air. In the middle of the crater, I could see a little glowing object.

  I ran down to it.

  The glowing object was a breastplate of the kind worn by warriors. It was made of gold and was studded with gems. I picked it up. It was heavy. A pop up appeared in my vision, a fuzzy feeling taking hold of me:

  Quest Two completed!

  You have killed Kumbhakarna 2.0!

  You receive the breastplate of Ravana!

  You receive 20,000 gold each!

  You have levelled up!

  Immediately another message appeared.

  You have unlocked a new spell!

  Just say “Bad Dreams” to turn the dream of a sleeping person into a nightmare

  And yet another…

  You can now access the map!

  Rohan.

  Class: Multi-tasker

  Race: Human

  Sex: Male

  Level: 18

  Strength:850

  Health: 696/700

  Mana: 351

  Intelligence: 210

  Karma: 0

  Chapter 20

  “I don’t understand one thing,” I said, “how did Babaguy come to know that saying that word would bring me the Brahmastra?”

  “Well, he did tell us to trust him,” Mastermind said with a smile.

  The crowd was dispersing now. Tents were being removed, but there were many people who were still talking about how I had defeated Kumbhakarna. It had nearly been two hours. I even heard a few speculate that I had cheated. But the giant Rak was dead and gone. No respawning for a unique NPC like him. I had singlehandedly ended the long running Tournament of Death. No more would players wrestle every week in the tournament in hopes of getting a chance to beat Kumbhakarna.

  I had wanted to go in search of the next artefact right away, but Lovebird had told us to take rest at least for a few hours. Even though it meant that she would have to stay in the game world for longer.

  “But where did Babaguy go though?” Grimguy said. “He should have at least come to us after you defeated the giant.”

  “I have a feeling that we will meet him again,” I said. “At some point.”

  “So where is the next artefact located?” Grimguy said. Mastermind took out the book and flipped through the pages. He smiled at us.

  “Dinoland.”

  Part 3

  Chapter 21

  The volcano was erupting. Rocks and stones of fire were shot out from the bowels of Prithvi and went up to the sky. I was grateful that we were flying at a considerable distance from the volcano.

  “Welcome to Dinoland,” Mastermind said. His gaze, fixed at the demonic mountain, was quite serious. To the north, I could see more volcanoes. Thankfully they weren’t erupting.

  “This is Pero’s land, isn’t it?” Lovebird said, “He probably feels at home here.”

  “Do you, Pero?” Mastermind asked the great reptile on which we were flying. Pero led out a cry in response.

  “He says he does,” Mastermind said, “but he also says that he likes it with me.”

  Grimguy raised a brow.

  “You can actually talk to him?”

  Mastermind let out a laugh.

  “Not really,” he said, “but yes, in a way I can talk to him. It’s not different from talking to dogs in the real world. You cannot talk to them, yet you do talk to them.”

  “Where are the dinosaurs, though?” I found myself asking. Pero and the other pterodactyls that I had seen in Rak villages were the only dinosaurs that I had seen so far. I felt a kind of disappointment at not seeing any
dinosaurs running about in the forest below. The forest was quite thick though, and we could only see the tops of trees from high above. But at least we should have seen some of the larger dinosaurs like the T. Rex, or a diplodocus.

  Mastermind turned at me with a playful frown.

  “Believe me, you don’t want to see dinosaurs,” he said. “Only one player has ever been able to return from this place without having to die and respawn. This place is dangerous. I wonder if we’ll be able to get out of this place alive.”

  Barely had he spoken that the echo of a great cry reached my ears. It had come from a great distance away and had disturbed some birds which were flying to the air from their resting places in the trees. The cry had been a prehistoric one. It made the hair on my hands and legs stand up.

  Mastermind let out a sombre laugh.

  “See? I guess you do not want to see dinosaurs anymore, do you?”

  After a while night fell. Mastermind had kept checking the book for any new hints regarding the location of the next artefact we needed to find. But the pages of the book remained blank beyond the particular page that said that we must go to Dinoland to unlock the next quest. Didn’t the book realise we were already in Dinoland?

  My butt was beginning to ache, sitting on Pero’s back for way too long. My stomach groaned.

  “I guess it’s time to land,” Mastermind said. “I had hoped we would be ale to get to the next phase of the quest without landing, but I guess that is not possible.”

  Mastermind then commanded his pet to go down. In a few minutes we were jumping down from Pero’s back onto solid ground.

  “Okay Pero,” Mastermind said to his pet, “I guess now you can—”

  Suddenly Pero’s eyes went wide in fear. The next moment a great shape appeared in the scene from behind the trees. It was a T. Rex. I had only registered the great beast, no clue as to how it had managed to stay so quiet until then, that the monster closed its jaws on Pero’s head.

  The sound of Pero’s skull being crushed was loud and made my heart skip a beat.