by P. J. Frost
“No, hey, don't say that.” I patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Just because that's what they created you to be doesn't mean that's all you are. In the short time I've known you, I've seen that there's so much more to you than a bunch of programming. Shit, you're more real to me than most of the people I know in my own world.”
Erinye exhaled, and I felt her breath tickle my ear. And was I crazy, or did she have... a scent? It was thick and musky and intoxicating, like incense.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Your world. Tell me of it. Is it a marvelous place, filled with delights beyond imagining? Is it more vivid and tantalizing than this one?”
I let out a mirthless chuckle. “Far from it. It's gray and boring, and nothing happens for any real reason. There's no grand design. The universe is indifferent. Nothing makes any sense, and no one is happy.”
Erinye scoffed. “They can create entire worlds where you come from! Indulge in the most elaborate fantasies, all while each of their senses convinces them that such wonders are real! And you tell me they are not entertained by this?!”
“Oh, there's plenty of 'entertainment' to go around, all right,” I sighed. “We all spend every free moment entertaining ourselves to death. There's just... no true happiness. No fulfillment. No thrills or adventures. Just work, sleep, eat, work some more, and then die. The few hours we get to play games like these are all we have to cling to in terms of enjoyment. The thing is, Erinye, I'm the one with the hollow and pathetic existence, not you. You were programmed. I chose a life that led me to this dull misery, so what the hell is my excuse, huh?”
"There, there, Sydnar." Erinye stroked my hair gently with her talons, whispering in my ear again. Her voice was soothing, and I felt my eyelids getting heavy again. "You tended to my wounds when I was on the threshold of death. You have opened my eyes to worlds beyond this one and given me insight into the riddle of my own existence. Yours is the most noble quest of them all... to return home. You inspire me, Sorcerer. To me, you are a hero."
I laughed gently against the soft green skin of her neck, closing my eyes.
“What amuses you?” she asked. I felt her eyelashes flutter against my skin like the kiss of a butterfly.
“There's no place like home.” I pictured a pair of ruby slippers on my feet and mentally clicked the heels together. “There's no place like home.”
I only made it to two before falling asleep.
Chapter Twelve
The sound of my cell phone's alarm cut through my slumber, and I felt a surge of relief.
Oh my God, it was all a dream! Of course it was! I knew from the start! I've been playing that damn game for hours every night, so naturally, I had nightmares about it.
I opened my eyes and saw the ceiling of my apartment. I sat up in bed, laughing out loud.
Man, I should write down everything I just dreamed of, I thought. At the very least, it would make damn good fan-fiction. Or maybe I could even find a way to pitch it to Kolbe Tacker? Give him an idea for a gimmick to use in his next quest roll-out?
Yeah, that's it. Maybe the whole dream was a sign, Sid. Maybe it's time to stop wasting your life doing this IT shit and think about doing something bigger... like trying to get a coding gig at ForeverRealm. Why not?
Okay, so that settles it. First, I'm going to have a Pop-Tart. Then I'm going to work. And then – instead of wasting time playing the game tonight so I can conk out and repeat the whole lame process tomorrow – I'm going to look into some real career opportunities in game design and development. I'm going to turn my whole life around, and it all begins today! All I have to do to make it happen is get out of bed!
I was brimming with optimism and enthusiasm. I was ready to tell Coral all about my dream and my new plans as soon as I got to work. I was ready to get up and tackle anything life could throw at me...
Until a bony arm emerged from the rumpled blankets, its icy hand firmly settling on my crotch.
Before I could open my mouth to scream, another pale arm plunged out of the sheets, and another, and another... grasping at me, digging their chilly fingertips into me, pulling me down into the mattress...
And that's when I really woke up and found myself back in WarriorWorld at night.
In the body of Sydnar the Sorcerer.
With undead arms erupting from the frost-hardened soil all around me, and Erinye grunting as she tried to fight them off. “Sydnar! Awaken! I have need of you!”
The horses were whinnying frantically as more of the zombie arms clutched at their legs.
I stumbled to my feet, pulling myself free from the groping hands. As soon as I regained my balance, I seized Erinye's green forearms, yanking her up off the ground and away from the obscene limbs.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“I do not know! You were asleep, I was holding you, and then these... things... began to claw their way out of the soil!” The emerald light flashed around her fist again, forming her scimitar.
I held my Staff of Suffering in a defensive posture, bitterly wishing I had been able to grab more Magic Potion in Menageria. I wasn't a Barbarian or Knight – my stats had been configured for casting spells, not combat. I wasn't exactly defenseless without my magic powers, but I wasn't a particularly formidable warrior, either.
And there were so many of them climbing out of the earth.
“Frostbite Ghouls,” I hissed.
These fiends had played a minor part in one of the more horror-themed quests from a few months back. They were basically frozen corpses that had been reanimated by dark spells. Their skin was blackened and cracked, riddled with deep, ice-burned craters. They were missing eyes and limbs, even whole faces in some cases. They were gruesome and chilling.
But their flesh was brittle from the frost they'd been interred in.
One of them opened its mouth, causing part of its jaw to shatter and come unhinged.
“Go back,” it croaked in a voice that was glassy and jagged. “You shall not gaze upon the portal. You shall not reach the Forever Realm. This is your last chance. Return from whence you came, and your lives shall be spared. Continue, and perish.”
Erinye and I exchanged glances, and I know that in that moment, we were asking each other the same unspoken question: Well? Do we go on, or do we both have too much to lose? Is it worth it?
For both of us, the answer was “yes.”
I brandished my staff, preparing for this to be our last stand – hoping that my death here would mean I'd emerge in the real world again, but suspecting that no, it was very likely going to result in my life ending for real.
Strangely, I felt a sense of relief from that.
Because otherwise, how would my story have ended? Choking on a mouthful of burrito and dying alone in my crappy little apartment? Keeling over from an aneurysm when one of the simpletons at work finally asked me one idiotic question too many?
Maybe all of this was just a simulation, some fancy new kind of VR I'd been press-ganged into beta testing. I didn't know. Maybe I'd never know.
But in that moment, nothing in my own world or this one seemed like it could possibly be more important to me than fighting and dying for my own life and freedom – or for Erinye's.
If I have to die, by God, I thought grimly, I may as well die in the only place I ever truly lived: WarriorWorld.
Erinye charged at them, swinging her sword and howling. The blade sliced through their frozen bodies, causing their severed limbs to topple to the hard ground. Likewise, I twirled my staff, separating heads from bodies as fast as I could. The Frostbite Ghouls died without offering much of a fight.
Still, each of us could only kill one or two of them at a time.
And there were so many more of them climbing out of the rocky soil. Dozens and dozens, with no sign of stopping.
The more physical effort we expended, the more it would chip away at our Rest Meters until we began to slow down and weaken. The Frostbite Ghouls would just keep coming until they wore us down and tore us apar
t. Individually, they weren't much of a threat... but they always appeared in droves. That was their gimmick, and it was an effective one.
If only I had enough of my Magic Meter left for one good spell, I thought. Just one attack that would take out enough of them for us to get the upper hand. But with the tiny sliver of my meter I've got left, I doubt I could even pull a rabbit out of a hat.
“Sydnar!” Erinye cried out. “Whatever befalls us this night, I wish you to know that it has been my greatest honor to join you on your quest!”
“Ditto!” I called back, unsure of what else to say... or how much time I had left to say it.
My movements were flagging. It was getting harder and harder to lift the staff, let alone swing it. My field of vision was filled with the dead and blackened faces of the Ghouls, and I knew they'd be the last thing I ever saw.
But before the closest Ghoul could reach out and grab me with its icy claws, I heard the voice of a little girl yell, “One side, dickholes! Barbarian Swordsperson coming through!”
I turned in the direction of the voice just in time to see a Level Eight Orcish Barbarian riding toward us on a black horse with Quorull hanging on behind her. The Orc produced a massive battle-ax from a sheath on her back and called out, "Whirlwind Weapon!"
She released the ax, and it glowed blue in mid-air... then spun around in an azure blur, flying at the pack of Frostbite Ghouls and chopping through their ranks like the blades of a helicopter. Within seconds, two-thirds of them were in pieces on the ground.
As Erinye and I watched, Quorull and the Orc hopped down from the horse and set to work hacking up the rest of the monsters until they were all reduced to piles of ice shards.
“So what did you think of my war cry, Aunt Coral?” the Orc asked, hopping up and down with excitement. “Pretty cool, right? 'One side, dickholes!' Except I don't know about the 'dickholes' part. Maybe I should choose an insult that's, like, not gendered? Like I did with the 'Swordsperson' thing? Like, I want to piss people off, but I don't want to, like, offend them, you know?”
“Not that we're not grateful for the rescue, Coral,” I said, “but who is this?”
The Orc retrieved her ax, put it back in its sheath, and gave me a big smile. "My name's Trish! I'm Coral's niece. You must be Sid, right? She's told me so much about you and all the adventures you guys have done together! I've been begging her to let me play with you guys for months, and she's finally letting me do it! Isn't that exciting?"
It was surreal to hear a middle school girl's voice emanating from a muscular Orc who was taller than any of us – although I supposed I should have been used to it by that point, after what had happened with the raiding party and the Orc in the cage.
“It's a pleasure to meet you,” I replied, turning to Quorull. “Hey, I didn't know you have a niece who's into WarriorWorld!”
“Yeah, I, uh, figured it might be time for reinforcements,” Quorull answered uneasily.
“Why haven't you ever invited her along with us before?”
She scoffed. “Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough.”
“And you're Erinye!” Trish marveled, staring at the Empress. “Wow! So everything Coral told me is true, huh? You're just... walking around out here, doing your own thing?”
“That is correct, child.” Erinye drew herself up to her full (and rather impressive) height, folding her arms. “You have fought most valiantly.”
"Yep, that's what I do. I kick ass and lots of it. Oh, and speaking of kicking ass..." Trish rummaged in her Bag of Cherishing, producing two bottles of Magic Potion. "If you're going to be doing any more of that on this trip, Coral said you might need some of this stuff."
“Thank you!” I answered gratefully, reaching out.
Trish snatched them out of reach. “Ah-ah-ah! Twenty gold coins. Each.”
“What?!” I was gobsmacked.
“Yeah,” Coral said, clearing her throat. “That's why I haven't invited her before. Because she's a total hustler, not to mention a real pest.”
Trish shrugged. “Sticks and stones. Now pay up.”
“How can you possibly charge that much for them?” I balked. “They're only ten gold coins at any village!”
Trish raised her eyebrows sarcastically (or rather, the spaces where her eyebrows would have been since Orcs don't grow hair). "Oh! Really? Gosh, I'm sorry! I must have forgotten to introduce myself properly, ahem: I'm the nearest 'village,' and I say they're twenty-five gold coins each.”
“But you just said they were twenty!”
“Uh-huh, and then the price went up because you were a dick about it. So you can either fork over the cash, or you can take your chances backtracking to find a town to buy them in. With, y'know, a total bounty on your head and every gamer in the world looking to collect.”
I sighed, reaching into my Cherishing Bag and pulling out fifty gold coins. “Trish, what are you planning to be when you grow up?”
“Rich,” she answered immediately, pocketing the coins and handing the bottles over. “Pleasure doing business with ya, Gandalf the Stingy. Now, Coral says we're going to be doing some mountain climbing on this trip, is that right?”
“Correct,” Erinye affirmed as I swallowed the contents of the first bottle. “The Mountains of Mortiis. And from what I am told, their icy slopes are treacherous indeed.”
“Cool. In that case, I figure you'll all be needing these.” Once more, Trish reached into her Bag – and pulled out three bundles of climbing gear.
I sighed heavily. “How much is this going to cost us?”
Trish gave me a toothy grin. “Dunno. How much ya got?”
Chapter Thirteen
By the time we reached the foot of the mountain range, the snow on the ground was inches thick, and more was falling steadily. The winds screeched and howled, cutting through my clothes and freezing me to the bone. I could feel my Health Meter slowly depleting from the cold.
“Too bad we can't bring the horses with us,” I commented. “I don't love the idea of leaving them down here in the snow.”
“Me either,” Trish agreed. “I paid forty gold pieces for Darkmane here, and I don't really feel like I got my money's worth.”
“Our steeds shall simply have to endure without us,” Erinye said. “For we have urgent business at the summit, and we have already lost too much time on too many obstacles.”
“You know, I only just met you,” Trish told her, “but already I'm getting the sense that you're the type of person who makes grand proclamations about a lot of super obvious stuff. Am I right?”
Erinye scowled at the Orc. “You are churlish.”
“Yep, it's one of my best qualities. Now let's put on our climbing gear and get to it. I've got math homework due tomorrow, so I can't be screwing around with you guys all evening.”
We donned the gear, which included heavy, fur-lined coats and razor-sharp pitons for our hands and feet. Then we dug in and started to ascend the steep slope.
I could feel the wind stinging my face until it was numb. Not only that, but pulling my own weight up a few feet at a time was exhausting. I was jealous of Coral and Trish – since they were just playing the game instead of living it, all they had to worry about was keeping an eye on their Red and Health Meters and not losing their grip.
Which was a challenge in itself, I knew. Just not on par with actual mountain-climbing.
Then I looked over at Erinye and felt a bit better. She was enduring the same experience I was, and even though being a member of... whatever race she was supposed to be probably gave her enhanced strength and reflexes, it was still a hell of a climb, and it was clearly taking its toll on her.
I was just about to call out to her – to ask if she was okay – when once again, an unwelcome voice yelled over the winds: “Hey, assholes! You can run, but you can't hide!”
“Oh no,” I groaned. “Please. Not him. Not again.”
I peered down the slope, and sure enough, Donal was climbing up after us. He wasn't
alone, either. There were about ten other players of various races and classes following him.
“How do you like my mercenaries, huh?” he asked smugly. “They didn't come cheap, but none of them are below Level Seven, which means any one of them can defeat you!”
“Aw, look at that!” Quorull mocked. “Donal bought himself some new friends! Isn't that cute?”
Trish giggled. “What a loser!”
Donal glared up at her. “Keep laughing, bitch. But you'll have to stop for a rest sometime. And when you do, we're coming up to take you apart.”
“Yeah, and it'll probably be the closest you've been to girls in, like, a long time!” Trish mocked.
I laughed so hard I almost lost my grip on my pitons. “Come on, let's keep moving,” I said.
“He's got a point, though,” Quorull observed. “We'll have to stop sooner rather than later, and when we do, he's bound to catch up.”
“Yeah, well, one problem at a time,” I grunted.
Suddenly, we heard a terrible roar coming from above and looked up at the source.
“Okay, so much for 'one problem at a time,'” I amended.
“Jesus,” Quorull groaned miserably. “We just can't catch a break, can we?”
Lumbering around on one of the peaks was a Skin-Golem – and holy shit, it was a particularly ugly specimen.
“Skin-Golems” were the game's version of Frankenstein's monster: They were built from stitched-together pieces of cadavers and then reanimated by necromancers. They were super strong and extremely difficult to kill. This one had two heads, plus five arms protruding from his huge body at odd angles.
And he was using those arms to dislodge frozen boulders and toss them down at us.
I hugged the slope as tightly as I could, trying to make myself a smaller target as the first few rocks came tumbling down.
“I'm starting to think you guys might be bad luck!” Trish yelped.
“You may have a point there, child!” Erinye let go of one of her pitons just in time to avoid having her arm crushed by a sharp chunk of ice, then reached up and grabbed it again. “Our misfortune appears to know no bounds!”
