“One more step and we will attack. You do not belong here.” His voice is deep and throaty.
“That’s too bad,” says Grayson. He powers up his gauntlet and launches himself at the leader. His fist connects with the creature’s midsection, sending it flying through the air. When it hits the ground, its HP bar is at zero.
“Holy—”
Before I can finish my expletive, dozens of darts come flying from behind the boulders. Several more bullywugs have joined the fight, using blowguns to shoot darts from far away.
“Don’t let them hit you. The darts are poisoned,” says Grayson. He’s in the midst of the fray, sending punch after powerful punch to any frogman unlucky enough to be within his reach. His fists move with speed and precision. And most of all, power.
I dodge the first volley of darts and move in closer. A bullywug croaks at me loudly and raises his spear to strike. Before the attack reaches me, I use Lunging Strike and stun him. Two hits later, he is dead.
A dart catches me in the arm and my vision goes red around the edges. Specks of green also dot my vision, letting me know I’ve been poisoned. I toss the dart to the ground and search for my attacker. The offending bullywag doesn’t wait. He jumps at me, spear pointing down and aiming for my throat. I parry the blow and the frogman falls to the ground. My health continues to drop from the poisoned dart as he rises to his feet. He reaches into his pouch and pulls out another dart and shoots it. Not again. I spin my spear in my hands as fast as I can, like a windmill, and it catches the dart mid-flight, sending it rocketing into the ocean. He jumps at me and this time, I spear him right in the belly.
Grayson is surrounded on all sides. The bullywugs are vicious, but lack the attack of a well-trained unit. They attack at random, with no thought to taking Grayson off-guard. He parries each strike with his gauntlets, using them both as weapon and shield.
I cast Haunted Earth and roots rip through the sand, catching three bullywugs in their tangle. Next, I cast Resilience on Grayson and he attacks them in a flurry. I move up behind the others, killing them from behind.
The bodies of over a dozen frogmen lay on the sand.
“Wow. How’d you learn to fight like that?” I ask as we loot the bodies.
Item: Poisoned Dart. This dart is coated with a poison that drains 2% life per second for five seconds. Stacks up to three times.
“I think you know the answer.” He picks up some gold coins and places them in his pouch.
My suspicions were right then. Grayson did find a Developer’s Chest a long time ago.
“What next?”
He leads me between the boulders to a pool of water. The pool is clear and still, unlike the waves that crash on both sides of us. He pulls a green weed from his pocket and hands it to me.
“Eat this.”
Substance: Magical Seaweed. Allows user to breathe underwater for 30 minutes.
Grayson and I both eat our seaweed. He dives into the pool and moments later, I join him. Merlin perches on the boulders, awaiting our return.
I hold my breath at first, afraid of drowning. When I can no longer hold my breath, my instincts give in and I take a mouthful of water into my lungs. I expect my haptic suit to clench around my chest and my vision to go red, but instead, my body calms. I rub my fingers across my skin and notice I have gills. I can also see clearly in the water with no blur.
It’s amazing! Grayson swims ahead of me into the depths of the ocean and I receive a notification.
Grayson has invited you to a private chat. Do you accept? Y/N?
I focus on yes and I can hear Grayson’s breathing in my ear.
“This is crazy,” I say.
“It’s a good time. Just be prepared for what comes next.”
“What is it?”
“An aboleth.”
I don’t know what an aboleth is, but the name itself sounds sinister. I don’t have to wait long to find out.
Aboleth. Level 35. Powerful tentacles and psionic attacks make this monster hard to handle. The aboleth has sent many men to an early grave.
A giant, tentacled monster waits for us. The monster has three large, glowing orange eyes. Its mouth is round, with a circle of sharp teeth. It’s part fish, but the tentacles that hang by its side are strong and dangerous.
“Be careful,” Grayson warns me. “It will try to get in your mind.”
Right as he says the words, I feel an intense pressure in my head. I don’t know if it is the haptic suit simulating or if the aboleth is actually finding its way into my head.
Grayson screams. “Get out!” His voice is full of rage and sadness.
In front of me, Grayson grabs at his head. He’s curled up, unable to move. Whatever the aboleth is doing to him has him paralyzed. I need to stop it.
I switch to Grappler and fire a few beams at the creature. The rays cut through the water and hit the aboleth with small explosions. This is enough to distract it from Grayson. He uncurls and moves in quick, landing a hard, glowing fist into the monster’s side. Its health drops by a chunk before it lets out a sonic scream that travels through the water and smashes into Grayson, slashing his health in half. It then smacks him in the side with a tentacle, dropping his health to twenty-five percent. Grayson goes limp in the water and drifts slowly to the bottom.
The creature turns its glowing eyes on me. I feel pressure building inside my head and then everything goes white.
Suddenly, I’m running through the grass. A big, black dog trots beside me. He licks at my hand. A man picks me up, hugs me, and then tosses me high into the air. I laugh, unable to control myself, and fall back into his arms.
“Again, Daddy. Again,” I tell him.
He grabs me by the arms and spins me in a circle, my feet never touching the ground. His smile is warm and welcoming. His eyes are dark and powerful.
“I love you, Esil,” he says.
We walk through the grass together. A woman stands on a porch. Flowers surround her. She hands the man I called daddy a glass of ice water and then bends down, kissing me on the head.
My vision goes white again and we’re in a car, floating above the highway. The sky is blue like in Pangea. Hundreds of cars zoom around us. The man and woman hold hands across from me.
“I can’t wait for you to see our new building, honey,” he says to the woman. “It’s state of the art. We’re taking this company to the next level. Our family will be set for life.”
The car swerves hard and we float off our designated route. It loses power and falls out of the sky. The woman screams. She’s not wearing her seatbelt. Neither is the man. He tries to hold her. The car hits an embankment and I start crying. The car rolls several times, the man and woman smashing hard against the tempered glass. Blood stains the windows and seats. I keep crying.
When the car comes to a stop, they aren’t moving.
“Snap out of it!” someone says.
“Dammit, Esil. Snap out of it.” It’s Grayson. He’s screaming at me. He’s also punching the aboleth and dodging the swing of its tentacles. He has a tenth of his HP, but he’s not giving up. I can’t shake the vision I just had. It felt so real. Was it? My entire life, as far back as I can remember, I’ve felt alone. In that vision, dream, whatever it was, I felt loved. Like I belonged.
I switch to my spear and move in close, casting Resilience on Grayson and watching his fists move in a flurry. The water glows and then begins to boil around his gauntlets with each punch he lands. I stab at the aboleth, drawing black blood that stains the water. I stab it in the eyes. All three of them. It hits me in the side with a tentacle and it feels like my ribs break. My visions goes a dark red. I can’t breathe for a moment, but I keep stabbing. Soon, everything is black.
Chapter Nineteen
The water clears and the aboleth lies lifeless on the seafloor. The vision, or dream, or whatever it was I just saw still echoes in my mind. The man. The woman. The crash. All of the blood.
A ding brings me back to reality and a
silver nineteen flashes across my vision.
Grayson stands over the aboleth, looking down at its body.
“You did good, kid.” His voice sounds strained in my ear. The last of the aboleth’s black blood dissipates into the water.
“When that thing…when it got in your head, what did you see?” Grayson’s posture is emblazoned in my mind. His huddled body bent over. His hands clutching at his head. The desperate plea for the aboleth to release his mind.
“My past.”
“Was it real?” It felt more realistic than any dream I’ve ever had. There were feelings of…of what? Love?
“All too real,” he grumbles. Does that mean that what I saw was real? Was that my family? Is that how I came to be at the orphanage?
“How does it know?”
“I don’t know.” He turns away from me. “Give me a moment to gather myself. Go ahead and loot the body.”
I want to protest. I want answers, but Grayson was gracious enough to bring me here and he’s been through a lot. I’ll save my questions for later.
We loot the body and Grayson insists I take everything.
Currency: 12 gold
Item: Forgotten Chainmail. +12 armor. The relics of a ship lost at sea.
The chainmail shimmers, changing from dull green to dark blue, depending on the angle. The armor bonus is great.
Item: Staff of the Water Ancients. +20% magic damage on elemental attacks.
The beautiful blue staff has a large pearl attached at the end. It will make Haunted Earth hit a lot harder.
Substance x2: Blood of the Aboleth. Taking this substance blocks psionic attacks for 120 seconds.
This would have been incredibly useful just now. I add all the items to my inventory, excited to test them out later.
Off to the side, buried in the sand, the gold rim of a chest peeks into the water.
“That’s the real prize,” says Grayson. A little bit of life has returned to his voice. “Go on, open it.”
I pull the chest from the sand.
Congratulations! You have found a buried treasure. Would you like to open it? Y/N
It’s not a Developer’s Chest, but I bet there is still something good inside. Why else have an aboleth guarding it? I focus on yes and the chest pops open. A bright light flashes and a scroll floats above me in the water.
Item: Spellbook. Requirements: Level 20. Activate? Y/N
I’m still one level away, but the aboleth gave enough xp that I’m already a third of the way to level twenty. If I grind a little more, I should be able to open it today.
“Do you know what it is?” I ask.
“No, but it’s a new spell. I hope it can help you on your journey.”
“I still need another level to open it. Thanks for all your help, Grayson.”
He gives me a nod and then motions for us to surface. I want to ask him more about the aboleth. How many times has he tried to fight it? What is it he saw? How is it able to get inside our minds like that? But Grayson has put up a wall again. Whatever he saw has brought a darkness back to him.
Back on the beach, Merlin flies to my shoulder and pecks at my ear.
“I know you have things to do, but there is one more thing I want to show you, if you have time.”
We walk in silence along the dirt road. Occasionally, groups of bullywugs poke out from behind boulders or trees, but we don’t engage them. The scenery as we walk is absolutely beautiful. Blue skies abound for miles and miles. Dolphins jump through the water. The bright yellow sun bathes everything in light. With my enhanced hearing, I can hear the caw of seagulls far out in the ocean and the crash of waves down on the beach. A battle rages deep in the jungle to my left and I hear the last cry of a monster before it is defeated. Closer, though, is the huff of Grayson’s breath as we walk along.
Eventually, the pristine beaches turn into a rocky coastline. The sands disappear and are replaced by sharp, jagged rocks that engage in constant battle with the crashing waves. Several rocks jut high into the air, earthen towers that cast shadows across the land from the setting sun. It’s a place of beauty and pain. Fitting that this is where Grayson stops walking.
He leads me from the road towards the coastline. I didn’t notice before, but our elevation has changed. The rocky coastline is high above the sea. It’s a deadly drop to the raging waters below.
The wind picks up the closer we walk to the edge. My tunic ripples across my body like the flaps of a sail.
“Down here.” Grayson points to a set of stairs carved into the rock. They lead down to the water.
I follow him and the wind continues to pummel me. The spray of saltwater coats my body until I am soaked once again. Merlin offers me an agitated hoot and tucks his head in his wings.
Midway down the cliff, the steps lead into a tunnel. A torch burns on the wall. Grayson lifts it and marches into the darkness. Is this another quest? A dungeon?
I hear a humming noise as we walk along, coming from the end of the tunnel. When he finally stops walking, we’re in a cavern deep underground. There’s a bubbling pool in the center. It must connect to the ocean through an underground tunnel. Several mermaids sit along its edge, singing softly in a language I can’t understand. It’s beautiful though, the way their voices dance and echo along the cave walls.
Grayson takes a seat along the edge, opposite of the mermaids, and dips his feet in the water. I take off my boots and sit beside him. The warm water bubbles around my feet.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“I found out about it long ago. I think you’re smart enough to know I found a Developer’s Chest similar to yours once upon a time. It wasn’t quite as nice as the one you found, but it was good. I had a great time those first few months. I wanted to be a great warrior in those days, so I traveled far and wide looking for monsters to fight. One day, I came upon this place. I told my wife about it and brought her here. She loved it. We would sit for hours listening to the songs of the mermaids. There aren’t many monsters this far up, so no one journeys here often. It was our little secret.”
“What happened to her?”
Grayson stares into the bubbling depths of the water.
“She died. Same thing as Buzz’s mom. When she got sick, I wanted to get her treatment, but we didn’t have the money. I started questing harder than ever before. Every minute I wasn’t in the mines, I was out in some world fighting monsters and clearing dungeons for gold. I spent more time leveling up than I did with my dying wife. She died one day while I was out on a quest, completely alone. I spent so much time trying to save her that I missed out on her life.” Grayson kicks his feet in the water, making small splashes. His eyes are misty as he stares out at nothing. “Now I come here and sit by myself for hours and sometimes, I can hear my wife’s voice bouncing off the walls when the mermaids sing.”
I reach out and grab Grayson on the top of his hand and squeeze. Just like everyone else in the mines, he has lost so much.
“I’m sorry. Is that what you saw at the aboleth?”
“Yes. Every time, I see her happy face turn to death before my eyes and know that I’m the cause. The sad thing is that I’ve kept going back all these years because at least for a few moments, I’m able to see her face more clearly than in my own memories.”
I don’t know the right words to say, but I speak from the heart.
“You can’t keep holding on to that guilt. You did what you thought was best at the time and you can’t change that. I’m sure your wife wouldn’t blame you for what happened. We got a shitty lot in life. But you know what? At least you still have those memories of you two together in this cave. You will always have those.”
I don’t know what it’s like to lose the one you love. It must be hard, especially to miss out on their final days while trying to save them. Grayson is a good man with good intentions. He deserves better than to wallow in his own self-pity.
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask. As beautiful and serene as thi
s place is, there has to be more to it.
“I guess I just wanted to tell someone about Laura. And also to see where your head is at. Do you have a goal in life that is bigger than this contest? When it’s all said and done, do you know what you want to do after it’s over?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. All I know right now is that Buzz’s mom’s life depends on how well I do in this tournament. I’ll figure out the rest when the time comes.”
We spend the next hour or so beating down bullywugs and other local monsters. Once I hit level twenty, I immediately open my new spellbook.
Congratulations! You have learned the ability Waterfall. Cost: 200 mana. After a 2 second wait, water pours down from the sky, dealing immense damage to a singular location. Cooldown: 20 seconds.
Hell yeah! Finally, a pure damage-based ability. It’ll take a little bit of strategy and guesswork for it to land, but when it does, the damage will be great. The bonus twenty percent damage from Staff of the Water Ancients will give it a heck of a punch. I put the two stat points I have from leveling up into Dexterity. The quicker I can cast my abilities, the better.
Grayson gives me a hug before leaving. It’s late and he has work tomorrow. For me, though, this tournament is my life right now. I can still go for a few more hours before I need to rest. I go to my messages and reach out to the princess.
Chapter Twenty
Water pours down from the sky, drenching the hill giant in the powerful stream of the waterfall. Its HP drains to zero and the giant collapses to the ground.
“Nice job, Esil,” Aleesia congratulates me. My newest ability, Waterfall, does a boatload of damage. It’s the only purely offensive magical ability I have right now and I can’t wait for more.
The princess, along with Glordin, Ordin, Klink, and Tinker, have spent the last few hours grinding levels across the hills to the south of the Mortican Mountains. They all love this world just as much as I do, so we spend most of our time here while we wait for the next tournament clue.
Pangea Online: The Complete Trilogy Page 14
