Letting him fall into a pit just to learn what Viper could do was a terrible idea. I regretted it right away. Being cold toward players struck me as an odd desire because these were living, breathing humans who would suffer to some extent. Squisks irritated me though, and he’d died quickly enough that it was no worse than punching a person in the face. NPCs passing would have been worse. I would certainly have abused [Blink] and [Morrigu’s Gift] to make a bridge and leap to their rescue.
The more my journey went on, the less I enjoyed dealing with real people. At least the machine had never lied to me. Except about that fireball thing with [Detached Vitreous] ages ago. Dusk, Hal Pal, Jeeves, the Voices, all those in [Haven Valley], they were more real to me than my customers were.
Down Viper slid. His body stuck out a hand and limply hung from the edge of his former frozen prison. Below was the pit of endless depth. His fingers locked in a death grip on the edge, despite a slippery looking surface. The player’s body curved toward one side, like a bow being bent backward.
Dusk chirped at me a few times. I sighed, then tried to reach across the short distance. Viper’s autopilot was in effect at this point, which meant we had freed a mindless puppet. Still, the empty shell of a person grabbed my hand and nearly crunched my wrist with an unexpected level of strength. I grunted and lifted him over. Excessive amounts of [Brawn] made it easy enough to hoist up another player.
“We’re team members right now, remember? Killing me loses points,” I told the machine version of Viper while trying to stay steady. There were at least two places to [Blink] to, but this close and my [Reaction] might not be enough.
The other Traveler’s eyes stared blankly in my direction, then shifted. Narrow slits implied vacant offense at the ball of fire in my left hand. His autopilot looked crude, or being frozen had left it mentally absent. Was it a snake [Blessing] result?
“I don’t trusst you,” it said with remarkable clarity.
I had to check twice that this was an autopilot, but it clearly was. If my autopilot could hand out quests, I guessed Viper’s could have trust issues. Autopilots were rarely used in dungeons so most of their personalities never came up.
Dusk chirped in confusion. Viper backed up slowly and reached for a wall. His lowered shoulders and hips reminded me of an animal being cornered. I stepped back and left the exit open. From there, Viper’s character slid toward the door. My eyes followed the man in his free gear provided by the king as he reached the doorway.
The faded coloring of his autopilot returned to a normal tone. Viper’s character straightened up, turned around slowly, and looked at me. I blinked a few times and squinted. The autopilot symbol had vanished. Maybe he had been doing other things in his ARC while waiting to be killed or freed?
“Hermess. You’re alive,” Viper said.
“Welcome back. Do you want to go kill the boss or be a popsicle again?” I asked bluntly.
My excitement at running through the dungeon with Dusk left me eager to move onward. Maybe it was my [Red Imp] days coming back, but impatience with other players hit me frequently. That was the advantage of being Hermes—I could always keep traveling and moving to new places.
Being in the [Abyss of Light] or [Black Hole of Zombies] or [Mad Scientist’s Lab] was starting to grate on me. Xin was out there. Would she get stats super-fast? Had the Voices given her a starting path? Maybe all her time in space flight training would add up to something cool? She could end up all Amazonian like Shazam had, only much shorter.
I sighed and waited for Viper to answer.
The man shook a little and moved slowly. “Okay. I have to catch a plane in a few hourss, sso if you think we can get to the bossss? Thosse pointss would be usseful.”
Groans issued from somewhere down the hallway. The seal barking noises echoed and made it impossible to tell for sure. Dusk hissed with his wings pressed together. I turned and held up my ball of flame. No enemies peeked through yet, but small creatures skittered around.
“Voices above!” I shouted, feeling stupid for freeing him. “Viper, do you still have the loot?”
“Of coursse.”
“Dammit, they’ll be here soon then.” I wished the [Red Imp]’s ability to curse a stream of incomprehensible insanity had stayed with me. My own cuss word vocabulary was fairly limited. “Are you going to drop it all or fight?”
“No. We need pointss. We need them to get free,” the other man insisted.
Ideas flashed through my head. My original vague plan of sneaking down to the boss room was now out the window. Whatever we did, it would require going full tilt. Spiders, legless zombies, full body ones with distortedly large limbs. Fuzzball creatures. Liquid light.
“No, it’s fine. We can make this work.” I had a gut feeling about this dungeon. Those barrels of starlight were all over the place the farther down we went. It couldn’t be a coincidence. We needed those, and the danger they presented somehow. “Dusk! We’ll need to run straight to the boss. Viper, if you want to help, follow him. Go!”
I tried to ping the area again with my [Sight of Mercari] ability. Big O was up above some ways. Android Seven was gone? His dot didn’t show up. My head hurt.
“Viper, Dusk, once we get into the boss room, don’t stop. I’m sure you’ll be kiting a mess of these monsters,” I yelled as they ran toward the exit.
Dusk paused mid-jump then chirped at me while a question mark floated above his head.
“Of course I’m going to do something stupid.”
My words confused Dusk. Maybe the medium-sized pet didn’t expect such a sudden shift. I’d had days to think about it though, so it didn’t feel like a sudden plan to me. Plus I had no reckless drive to survive as an old man, kill a jerk teenager, or rush to Earth.
I could play the game to play the game. That meant it was hugely relaxing, even if this place was intended to be a creepy-looking prison camp. Maybe I was the weird one for adapting to such a weird place. The disturbed air these dripping walls cast felt almost normal after being here so long.
I was ready this time. My health was full. I had no negative status effects. [Power Armor] could easily help me last while being surrounded. Three game days of sneaking around, learning to use the boots, and getting the layout down had helped. It was time to see who would get more attention: Viper and his pile of loot, or me after dipping myself into the starstuff.
I threw the ball of fire toward the doorway. Small spiders and undead [Coo-Coo Rills] squealed from burn damage. Excessive [Brawn] let me easily lift a nearby barrel. The edges creaked and strained under the weight. I tipped it over myself and bathed in the liquid. Tingles invaded every ounce of my skin. My vision blurred as my eyes crossed from a rush of dizziness. One hand came up to forestall questions as I tried not to lose consciousness.
Viper’s nearly glowing eyes looked at me for a moment, then he shrugged. More loud barking came down the halls and made his head whip around.
“Enemiess. Those monsterss we can’t kill. They’re close,” he said.
“I can kill them, I think.” This was untested. They would be enraged, but maybe distracted. “Hopefully they’ll chase you while I do damage.”
Four distinct barks could be heard now. Our enemies were closer, drawing in from all over. I felt assured that this reckless idea was part of the solution. This dungeon gave us two things. One was a way to lure tons of the monsters. The other was a lure and a way to hurt them. I suspected both would be needed because of my many travels all around [Arcadia]. That, and the Voices had given me a note saying, “Reach for the stars.”
Brief annoyance raced through me. There had been other letters, but most were illegible. I guessed they had sat in the tube for too long and been deleted due to irrelevance. Part of me felt worried about the Jester and his sketchy companion. Both of them were on edge over the expected death of someone. It wasn’t Xin, was it? None of those notes had been from her, but maybe she was busy running around [Arcadia] somewhere.
A clos
er set of enemy barks startled me out of the recollection. Dusk had already leapt down the hallway. Viper outright hissed but chased the small bounding creature. I stopped to cough up another ball of fire since the first one had been used to murder spiders. [Morrigu’s Gift] and [Morrigu’s Echo] sat hooked into loops on the starlight-drenched toga. I was thankful that Viper hadn’t asked about the apparel change.
My hand held the orb of flame at chest level as we ran. It was warm but managed not to light my [Gait of Bowman] modified toga on fire. These lower floors kept getting darker. Less light dripped down the walls. Three days of roaming had really helped get me back in tune with the Continue Online character. Being used to Hermes the [Mechanoid] had thrown me off.
“There’ss too many!” Viper hissed ahead. “Thiss plan is recklessss!”
Dusk squawked and belted out a flame. Smaller creatures were burnt. Six of the fast-moving [Heavenly Body Clone]s were illuminated but unfazed. They chased Viper as he ran. Apparently they had a preference for the dead multitudes housed in Viper’s player stash rather than my humble [Dipped in Starlight] status. How many corpses had he picked up? There had to be at least ten, but probably more.
How many did we need? We might find out in the boss room, or we might find ourselves walking into a dead end with dozens of these creatures cornering us.
[Blink] caught me up with one of the monsters. I risked using [Morrigu’s Gift] as a dagger and plunged it into the exposed spine of a [Heavenly Body Clone]. It fell forward and clawed the air while its legs stiffened. I had no time to finish it off, and my single ball of fire was too clunky to wield along with a weapon. Two-handed combat was hard enough to do as a layman.
“More of thesse thingss!” Viper hissed.
Dusk was rapidly dodging through ginormous legs and around grasping hands, but his new size seemed to be throwing him off. He missed more corners than normal. His health lost a few small slivers as we tore through the hallways. More monsters piled up behind us. They could have been drawn to any one of us.
“Are you ssure?” Viper yelled in front of me.
“Worst case, we die!” I happily shouted. For once, I was able to play the game as a game, not as some man running to deliver letters.
“We can’t lose pointss! If I losse too many pointss I’ll kill you!”
“Dusk?” I ignored Viper’s threats. “Are we on course?”
The [Messenger’s Pet] managed to ripple with a shrug and nod while we ran. Either that, or Dusk was jumping over a bunch of legless creatures. I kept running after them, trusting the game and my stats to keep my feet moving in the right direction. [Awareness Heightening] hadn’t kicked into effect, and for that I was glad. The boss fight would probably hurt my mind enough once we got there. Temporarily kicking up the compression rate from four times reality’s speed to eight hurt when I was [Blink]ing everywhere.
“I don’t know if I can keep up thiss pace!” Viper sounded winded already.
He was just running down the hallway. Of the two of us, I should be suffering more. Maybe part of me enjoyed it. This virtual reality often seemed to be the only place that felt real. Everything else was almost an intangible dream.
“No choice! You wanted the loot.”
Even now, running for his life, the man didn’t drop any items. He could have easily shed an untold amount of dead bodies. Honestly, I was surprised he could still run with all that weight, and he outdid my [Dipped in Starlight] effect.
Holding this fireball was like trying to balance a bowl in my hands while running. It threatened to slip with each corner. [Morrigu’s Gift] caught a few monsters, and some grasped at my skin with their beady hands. I stumbled and shook my foot loose.
“Keep going, we’ve got to be close!” I yelled.
We had to be. Dusk’s chirps of excitement were nearly lost under the barking noises these monsters made. At least two dozen were trailing behind us. A few were moving slowly or outright missing a limb from my interference. All were intent upon getting to Viper and his extensive stash of goods.
Our passageway widened. The echoes of noise, our feet stomping, the monsters shuffling, and spiders squealing a pleasing death cry grew more intense. Dusk looked around at the walls as we ran. I too glanced as we kept going. I saw what looked to be deep grooves dug out of the stone, all of which grew in size and frequency as we traveled.
“This lookss dangerouss.” Viper slowed down a bit.
The monsters chasing him appeared hesitant to come into this passageway. Their jerking pauses indicated uncertainty. A few would catch up from farther away and bump the crowd forward.
Our corridor went on for another fifty feet before the cavern grew huge. The ceiling way up above and far out of reach. I briefly missed the wings of my [Red Imp], but not the stubbly legs. Both of my thighs ached from sprinting twice through this dungeon. My cheeks ached from a smile despite the situation.
I relished this. This was what William Carver had lived for. This type of reckless disregard for self in favor of a rush of combat was infectious. If I saw Voices based on what was in my head, then perhaps I had desired this kind of event all along. Why else would I see Leeroy? That probably meant my longing for Xin might be why Selena had showed up, or that because I’d seen a certain red-skinned temptress, part of me wasn’t a [Prude] at all.
We continued across the room, and the floor narrowed to a single causeway. There was a giant pit on either side, but our platform was solid. A few single bits of starlight hung on the ceiling. They looked like stalactites that had formed and been completely frozen.
“There’s nothing here,” Viper said.
The bridge ended against another wall. Small alcoves had been dug into the wall as if someone had been trying to find treasure.
My back tingled, and it wasn’t from being [Dipped in Starlight]. Dusk looked around, his eyes wide and his ears perked forward. Something was rumbling the dirt and reminded me of my first few days as Hermes. Viper was the last person who noticed.
“Careful!” I shouted mere seconds before a giant hand slammed over the walkway’s edge.
The memory of [Barricobbler] tossing SheHulk—Elane—into the distance flashed through my mind. Being tossed here would put me face to face with a wall.
The creature lifted itself over the pit’s ledge. Dusk and Viper hissed in unison. This was not a baby-faced giant, but it certainly was huge. Each hand was larger than I was. Bone shone through on one hand. Muscles wiggled around distorted gaps. Its body was almost proportionally correct for its limbs. This thing looked like a fully functioning version of the first giant monster I had found.
It came up barking with deep angry noises. Its broken-looking fist swung for a few [Heavenly Body Clone]s trying to creep across the walkway after our party. Its hand picked up two of the creatures in one swing and promptly brought them up to its face.
I swiveled my head around rapidly and felt the world slow down. My heartbeat thudded loudly twice as I tried to understand the mechanics being presented. “Dusk! Watch for little creatures!”
I settled on killing spiders and those undead [Coo-Coo Rill]s first. They were down in this dungeon for a reason. Dusk expanded his wings and leapt off into the abyss on the opposite side of our new enemy. The giant lifted itself over the edge of the walkway, not content to hang there. It moved faster than [Barricobbler] by a wide margin. What Rank was this boss at? Twenty? Twenty-five maybe?
It ate another straggling [Heavenly Body Clone] and light flooded through the giant. Bones and skin flushed with pure whiteness like the barrels had. My feet shuffled slightly to the side, trying to get myself ready for the next stage.
“Viper, it’ll come after you soon!” I shouted.
“No sshit, Ssherlock.”
“Keep digging, Watson,” I muttered while using [Identification]. The results nearly made me laugh. Clearly the Voices thought my idle commentary was funny.
Boss Encountered!
Name: Charge
Race: [Decaying
Heavenly Body]
Rank: Yes, he is
Details: Charge was not always a monster.
He is not Watson but does like digging.
He remembers digging a hole through the world for treasure.
He hates other people because they’re not Charge.
He likes squishing those not in Charge.
He is hungrier than a school full of teenage boys.
He will eat you.
But Charge was not always a monster.
His legs straddled the walkway as if it were a bicycle. [Charge], the giant creature who was a few ranks above the [Heavenly Body Clone]s, bashed one of the far walls. Loud noise drowned out barking echoes from lesser enemies. A mass of them had piled up in the doorway. Some in the back pushed those in front like lemmings over a cliff.
Charge turned and looked at me. I stared back and readied [Morrigu’s Gift] in the two-handed form. The second blade stayed hooked in my belt, ready to be pulled out and used.
The throng at the doorway tried to grasp at the bigger one, attempting to tear out chunks for their own hunger. These zombie creatures didn’t discriminate. [Charge] blinked and backed up.
“Disssgussting,” Viper said with his nose wiggling.
Dusk was hard at work setting smaller creatures alight. There was one thing that might make this insanely dark scene feel better. I gripped the blade in one hand and tried to figure out what to do with my ball of fire. I took too long. [Charge] slowly turned around with half a [Heavenly Body Clone] in its mouth.
“Leeeeroy!” I shouted while charging toward the monster’s back.
One giant arm hung onto the walkway as an anchor. Small bits of rock shook from above, but nothing major came down. My legs bunched at the last second as I leapt toward the giant’s back. [Charge] reacted instantly and twisted around. His free arm batted into my side, deflecting me toward a mass of [Heavenly Body Clone]s.
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