by Eric Nylund
“Aye,” Elmac said. “It be like Morgana told me.”
“I briefed him on the limited starting options,” she added, her features pinching tight, “and how the Free Trial is a bloody grinder, and death is just as permanent in the Game as it is outside of it.”
I was glad Morgana had covered the basics, so I could move onto my next—just as important—point.
I glanced over at Oswald, who seemed to be busy trying to catch a fish with a tiny net—unsuccessfully I might add, as he flopped face first into the drink.
“Look,” I leaned closer and whispered to Elmac, “are you sure you want to do this? There’s no one I’d rather have in the Game and in my clan, but there’s a bunch of baggage that goes along with it: gods, politics, other players” —I smiled apologetically at Morgana— “who I can tell you from first-hand experience, aren’t as friendly as Miss Nox here.”
“Ms. Nox,” she corrected me.
“Sorry.”
Elmac set his pipe down. “Thanks for that, Hektor, but I think I know what I be doing. For a broken-down old soldier like me, this be a ray of light in a very dark world. To be getting to adventure again, and young…” His eyes brimmed with tears. He quickly wiped them away. “Lad, I can’t tell you what that be meaning to me.”
“Okay,” I said. “So… now?”
“No reason to be waiting,” Elmac told me. “You and Morgana have a bit ’o walk ahead. I’ll get my character made and breeze through the Free Trial in a few hours.” He said this like it was a foregone conclusion. “I’ll select High Hill as my starting area, leg it back to the Far Field gate, and catch up to you in a day or two.”
“The Free Trial may not be as easy as you think,” I said.
He patted my arm. “Don’t you be worrying ’bout that. I’ve got a plan.” He touched the side of his large nose. “Just be on the lookout for the most handsome devil you ever laid eyes on in two days. That’ll be me.”
I hoped he knew what he was doing.
I nodded. “Give me your full name to enter.”
“Right.” He stood, straightened, cleared his throat. “Elmac Hendrix Arguson. And a fine name it be.”
I typed it in and reached for the ADD MEMBER button.
“Oh, wait,” he said. “I’m a ruddy idiot. Shouldna smoked too much. I nearly forgot. I’ll be needing one small favor.”
“Sure, anything.”
Elmac shucked off his armor shirt and greaves—and by all the gods he was one hairy little cuss. He then dropped his battle axe, short swords, leather gladiator belt, even pulled off his boots. He then did the last thing I expected: He unlaced his magical prosthetic arm and it dropped to the ground with a whuump.
This left him standing only in tartan boxers.
“Oh, a few other things.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a large duffel. He gestured to the pile in front of him. “I’ll be needing you to put that in your inventory for safekeeping ’till I get back.”
I stared at the stuff. His armor, weapons—yeah that made sense. The equipment would give him a huge boost at first level.
But his prosthetic arm? What was he going to do? Hack his new one off? No. Obviously, it had to be worth a fortune so he was going to sell it.
I glanced in the duffle. There were a half dozen books in languages I didn’t recognize. A short staff. A bolt of silk. A few boxes (all locked). And a small buttpack containing a bunch of junk: thimbles, chicken feathers, seeds, dung balls.
What the heck?
“I think I have the carrying capacity,” I said, honestly too bewildered to ask why he wanted me to schlep it all around. “Or wait.” I hefted the duffle—which couldn’t be an ounce less than thirty pounds—and dropped it into the clan vault.
It vanished. The bag and all of its contents then reappeared in the inventory window with plenty of room left over, and best of all, no impact on my carry capacity.
“Yeah,” I told him, “this won’t be a problem.” I transferred the rest of his belongings.
This clan vault would come in handy. I could load it up with whatever gear we might need later and it wouldn’t slow me down.
Elmac dusted off his one hand and held it out toward Morgana.
She took it—and folded him into a hug, rocking him back and forth, squeezing, as if this might be a permanent goodbye.
“Be safe,” she whispered.
“Your concern be touching, a true treasure, lass, but don’t you be worrying ’bout me.” He stepped back from her and thumped his bare chest. “Tough as mithril.”
He held his hand out to me and we clasped forearms.
“You be my brother by bloodshed and battle, Hektor Saint-Savage. I shall not forget the grand favor you be doing me today.”
“Just come back in one piece, old dwarf. That’ll be enough.”
“Well then.” He sniffed. “Enough with the cheerful goodbyes. I be ready.”
I took a long look at him, then tapped the ADD MEMBER button.
Elmac took a step back, startled by what had to be his game interface appearing before him for the first time.
He squinted. “Ughhh, this license agreement. You should’ve told me. I might have hired a demonologist to summon me a lawyer.”
“Just scroll ahead and hit ACCEPT,” I told him. “It’s what we all do.”
Elmac nodded but nonetheless spent several minutes trying to read the EULA, moving his mouth to sound out the especially tangled gobblygook legalese, and then he finally gave up and tapped the air.
He vanished.
And that was the last we ever saw of Elmac Hendrix Arguson.
CHAPTER 20
Me, Morgana, and Oswald broke camp and marched in silence for a while.
As a gesture of—I don’t know, good faith, guilt?—I took Elmac’s half-emptied pack and let Oswald rest atop it.
He passed out, and for a tiny guy, his snores were impressive.
I think my magnanimous gesture had more to do with Elmac’s departure than anything else.
I was worried.
I bet Morgana was, too.
She and I had barely survived our Free Trial. It had been a serious skin-of-teeth scenario. Sure, Elmac knew the ins and outs of Thera, but he’d be by himself and no longer a grizzled fighting machine. And since the Free Trial had limited starting character options, he’d be in an unfamiliar human body. He wasn’t going to be happy about that.
“You okay?” I asked Morgana.
“Yeah,” she said and shrugged, indicating that she wasn’t.
The wind stilled; the grasses ceased their endless waving. Even the Far Fields seemed to be holding its collective breath waiting for Elmac to return. Or not.
“You know Elmac has a massive crush on you, right?”
Morgana halted. Stiffened. Exhaled. “I do,” she said more icily than I’d expected.
“I just don’t want his heart broken.”
She chuckled. “And what makes you think that’s going to happen?”
I turned to her, puzzled.
This is as good a time as any to admit that I’m not the multiverse’s greatest ladies’ man. I’ve had a few romances, brief encounters—Marines passing on the battlefield kind of thing, but all few and far between.
I wondered if there was a game skill that might help me out in that department?
I’d check later. I had to straighten this out first.
I could think of only two things Morgana might be driving at.
First, and I was 95% sure this had to be it, she probably thought Elmac’s interest was harmless and would eventually go away.
But she hadn’t seen him mooning over her like I had.
The other, remote possibility was that she was interested in him. But that was… It couldn’t be.
“Even if—” I started. “I mean when Elmac comes back, let’s say he has a new body. I guess that’d be… but there’s still a massive age difference, isn’t there? He’s what? A hundred and fifty? Two hundred?”
Morgana faced me, hands now on her hips, lips pursed, and a wow-you-really-need-to-shut-your-gob look on her face.
“You know,” I said and held up my hands, “I just overstepped, didn’t I? Let’s forget I said anything, okay?”
She sighed. “Oh Hektor, you are so young.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means there’s less difference between Elmac and I than you think.”
“Uh… what?”
My brain then finally caught up to my mouth.
I’d just assumed Morgana was young because her character looked barely legal to order a drink. She’d told me she’d been a high school teacher before the Game, so naturally, I pictured this perky, slightly nerdy, hot, twenty-something brunette.
But there was no reason to think any of that was true.
Her expression cooled from anger to something closer to pity as she stared me down. “Elmac and I have” —she paused in her whisper and closed her eyes— “have both buried people we love.”
I could tell saying this caused her great pain… pain I’d caused her to dredge up.
“I’m sorry, Morgana. I’m an idiot.”
She opened her eyes. “Yes, you bloody well are, Hektor. That’s part of your boyish charm. But you need to know this so we can understand each other. I survived eighty-nine years before I died in an ice crevice in London and got recruited by the Great Pooka. Eighty-nine years… No one should live so long to see the deaths of their four children.” She gazed far away, then came back. “My seven baby grandchildren too. Each of them took a little piece of me when they left.” Her eyes were unwavering and filled with sorrow the depths of which I could not imagine. “Those last decades were very long, very cold, very lonely years, mate.”
I had to look away.
We both stood silent for a moment.
She stepped closer, lifted my chin, and made me look at her. “Don’t worry about Elmac and me. We’re both well past our salad days, we are. Besides, I fancy the little badger.”
“Yeah…” I said so soft that I barely heard myself.
Morgana clapped me on the shoulder. “Come on then. Let’s get moving. Can’t chitchat all afternoon.”
And just like that, I knew she’d forgiven me for sticking both feet into my big mouth—which is one of the many reasons I admired her and counted myself lucky to have such a friend.
Now that I thought about it, it was a good thing I’d run into Morgana instead of anyone else in the Free Trial. I doubted another person would have given a guy allied with the evil Lords of the Abyss a chance. She certainly hadn’t made any assumptions about me.
And then this unlikely and very much unwanted thought struck: Had I misjudged my brother as well? I’d never gotten the full story of what had happened to him.
I opened my interface, tabbed to the Message Center, and scanned the messages he’d sent me: more queries about where I was—what I was doing—and to please, please write him back.
I couldn’t deal with this now. Unpacking more emotional baggage this afternoon was not on my schedule. Besides, the guy had tried to kill me. I didn’t need to make any assumptions about that.
I’d sleep on what to do about Bill.
For a day or two.
Maybe a week.
We kept trudging through the tall grass.
I was too much of a coward to try more small talk with Morgana, so instead, I poked through Elmac’s gear in the clan inventory.
The first and most obvious curiosity was his battle axe. I’d seen the massive weapon cleave hellfire demons, split shadow monsters, and sunder assassins in twain.
Its description popped:
Dadoldow Kar (“Dreadful Cleave” in ancient High Dwarven).
Double-Bladed Battle Axe (Two-Handed Axe Weapon Class)
(Tier-VII magical weapon, unique)
DESCRIPTION: Forged for the hero, Bajarne’spiter Jarlson, by an elemental spirit-god. It is cast as a single piece of foamed mithril-omnium alloy impregnated with mana-infused ovum philosophorum and the ground hearts of lightning elementals. This imparts the blade with a pearlescence and seemingly infinite depth.
SPECIAL ABILITIES: Enchanted to significantly increase attack and damage potentials. The weapon is magically conductive and upon command will either alight with flame or become electrically charged up to three minutes per day—or it can use both powers and be flaming and electrically charged for one minute per day. The wielder is granted limited immunity to fire- and electrical-based attacks. Once per day it may be thrown (without penalty) and will return to its master’s hand (range dependent upon wielder’s STRENGTH).
REQUIREMENTS: Keyed for dwarves only. Minimum 16 STRENGTH.
PRICE: Unlikely this one-of-a-kind weapon would ever be sold for mere coin, but if it was, expect the bidding to start at 500,000 golden quins.
No wonder Elmac wanted to keep this. A first-level warrior with this monster of a weapon would be the equivalent of… I wasn’t sure.
But wait. Could he even use it at first level? With a required minimum STRENGTH of 16, I didn’t see how. If he put all ten beginning stat points to STRENGTH, he’d still be shy six. If he assigned all his points from leveling to STRENGTH, that would take… I counted—two more points at second level, three more at third—he’d have to be fourth level.
And that’s if he put all his points into STRENGTH.
Sure, he’d have a hundred-seventy health, but no REFLEX, so a lousy defense, and a zero PERCEPTION, which wasn’t a good idea either.
Maybe his enchanted prosthetic metal arm boosted STRENGTH.
I focused on it.
ALERT!
You be a dwarf?
Do you be knowing the password glyph?
No? In that case, this item be enchanted to block skill-based, magical, divine, and psychic information-gathering techniques.
The window rudely snapped shut.
Hmm. Okay, my friend. Keep your secrets for now.
One more thing, though. Even if the arm had a STRENGTH enchantment… well, it was made for a person missing an arm. Was Elmac planning to amputate the arm of his new character? That seemed a tad extreme, even for him.
Or it could be like I’d thought earlier. He was simply going to sell or trade this all for gear he could use. That had to be it.
What else was here to rummage through?
Ah. I’d almost forgotten: the note I’d lifted off that assassin leader; the one partially decrypted from Sabbah, the secret language of the Silent Syndicate. Elmac had figured out three names on their hit list:
Padre John Adam-Smith
Dame Rose Beckonsail
Niblen Chatters
For the next two hours, I tried to puzzle out the code using the notes he’d printed in the margins. Cryptography had never been my thing, though, so no dice.
I considered waking Oswald to see if the self-proclaimed fey riddle master might be able to untangle it… but this idea fell into the category of “not smart.” Maybe as a last resort, I’d trust him with state secrets.
Perhaps there was a non-combat skill I might buy?
Or better yet, this was the perfect time to test Azramath’s Headband of Grim and Fateful Insights. It had the power to see “the absolute truth.” That had to include decoding stuff like this.
But there was that warning: “Seeing the absolute truth may cause the wearer to go blind, be driven insane, fall into a suicidal depression, or experience other deleterious effects.”
If I looked only at the parchment, though, then that ought to limit those side effects. I mean, what could be so dangerous about a piece of paper?
So I held the note, locked my gaze onto it, and willed the headband’s inner eye to open.
Every symbol snapped into sharp focus—no, “focus” wasn’t even close. I could see the individual fibers of the vellum. It had been made from the skin of an unborn female calf. Her mother had been called Betsy Blue, and the farmer had slaughtered them both on the Day of Gratitude,
in the month of Harvestfest, in the year of the Silver Gryphon. It had been an unseasonably warm morning, specifically 72°F. The farmer didn’t want to do this, but he needed the money to pay off a loan to cover his gambling debts. Dice. A game called “smackers.” His wife didn’t know and—
Whoa. Stop. Way too much information.
The data stream flooding my mind, however, didn’t slow; in fact, it accelerated.
The ink was ferrous sulfate and oak gall dissolved in vinegar with three drops of gum arabic and one-half drop of magnus impermate to stabilize the mix. The note was penned by the blind master assassin, Gashton Grex, using the Wretched Hand calligraphy style, and he had intended it for first lieutenant Yamina Sussara, aka the Serene Knife, aka The Whispering Blade, aka The Shadow Lotus, aka The Bearer of the Final Kiss…
Gods, stop!
I was drowning in information.
I forced my mind to pull away, tried to close my eyes (but even that didn’t help), and was about to rip the headband from my head… when the rush of data eased a notch.
As it did, the symbols rearranged into simple Tradespeak.
Yamina,
As prescribed by shadow and blade, herein are thine orders, not to be circumvented by blood nor bane nor broken heart: terminate these unfortunate walking dead with extreme prejudice. With regards to the last six, use Summa protocols, and even then additional precautions may be warranted.
Good hunting.
Then came the list of names, now also in clear Tradespeak. Many were unknown to me, but one, smack in the middle of the pack, I did know: Duke Reginald Opinicus.
I was no expert in the politics of Theran royalty, but it was a safe bet that whoever would, or could, order a hit on the ruler of High Hill and the Duchy of Sendon had serious political cover. Otherwise, the rest of the royals would do everything in their power to make a very public, very messy example of them for any others considering such an ill-advised action.
