Forever Fantasy Online

by Rachel Aaron

  “Me knew me smelled a traitor!” the giant gnoll roared, towering over Thunder Paw as he raised his iron-encased foot. “Everyone know what traitors get!”

  “No!” James cried, fighting against the hand that held him, but it was no use. The stone fist had him from neck to knees. Worse, his hands were still tied behind his back, leaving him no way to cast, no way to do anything as the thousand-pound undead warrior brought his giant foot down on Thunder Paw’s broken body.

  The horrible crunching noise that followed was a sound James knew he’d remember for the rest of his life. With a gleeful cackle, Gore Maul twisted his boot, grinding Thunder Paw’s body into the rocky dirt, and the stone hand holding James crumbled to sand.

  If the spikes below had still been intact, James would have fallen to his death then. As it was, he dropped harmlessly into the pile of splinters the stone hand had created when it burst through. Dropped and stayed, because his brain was too shocked to function. When he’d made his promise to help, he’d had no idea that Thunder Paw was willing to die to ensure James could finish the mission. It was too much. James wasn’t worthy of such sacrifice, but then, Thunder Paw hadn’t done it for him. He’d done it for his grandson, the pup in the water, slowly being burned to death by ghostfire. He’d sacrificed his life to give his family a chance. Now it was up to James to make sure the old gnoll hadn’t died in vain.

  Up on the edge of the pit, Gore Maul finished crushing what was left of Thunder Paw and turned around, sniffing loudly through the gaps in his metal helmet. When he saw James, his ghostfire eyes flash brightly with glee.

  “It lives!” he cried, reaching back to pull two massive, wickedly curved axes off his back. “Yes, Master! We will kill it!” With an excited howl, the monster jumped eight feet down to land on the muddy floor of the pit, shattering the smaller spikes at the edge into kindling.

  Swearing loudly, James began wiggling his body frantically between the bloody spikes, eyes searching for something—anything—he could use to defend himself. There was a low-level jubatus Berserker impaled just a few feet away. His ax was broken in half, but at least James could use the shattered edge to finally cut the rope binding his hands. That was a good start, but it was nowhere near enough. Gore Maul was now smashing his way toward him, swinging his ax like a machete as he cut his way through the forest of stakes.

  James whirled around and ran as fast as he could in the other direction, his bare feet squelching in the disgusting mud. Choking on the smell, James looked around frantically, but it was so dark down in the spikes that even his cat eyes were having trouble. He knew if he kept going, he’d eventually reach the edge of the drained lake, but James wasn’t looking for an escape. He was still searching for what he’d come down here to get in the first place. He was pretty sure he remembered where it was, too, so even though he could hear Gore Maul crashing toward him like an avalanche, James turned around and headed back toward the middle of the spike pit, straining his eyes as hard as he could until, at last, he spotted something gleaming blackly in the dark.

  James’s heart skipped. Directly in front of him, dangling from the gray hand of a long-dead human Cleric, was the Eclipsed Steel Staff. The Dead Mountain raid weapon lay halfway between him and Gore Maul. To reach it, he’d have to charge the rampaging gnoll boss, which was suicide, especially since he wouldn’t actually be able to use it yet. As powerful as the staff was, he’d need to bind it to himself before he could use its stats. Until then, the top-level weapon was just a beautifully wrought, remarkably hard metal stick.

  A stick wouldn’t do much good against a monster like Gore Maul. He’d do much better to double back and find something that would actually be useful as a weapon, like a sword or a pike. But as James started to turn, he remembered Arbati accusing him of just playing a hero. Of making idle promises and never following through.

  Given what had just happened to Thunder Paw, the memory stung even deeper than usual. Worse, it called up another. One he tried never to think about but would never go away.

  “You asshole!” Tina cried, punching him in the chest with her tiny fist. “You said you’d be good if you got more money! Just two more years, you said!”

  “I’m sorry,” James pleaded. “I tried, but I couldn’t get my grades up in time. It was drop out or flunk.”

  “At least flunking would have been something!” Tina spat, her brown eyes so resentful they stung. “You said the loans would be no problem because the job you’d get when you graduated would let you help pay for me! Now my college fund is spent, too, while you have no degree and no job!”

  “I can still get a job. I can—”

  Tina put her hand in his face. “Save it. You promise and you promise, but you never keep a damn one, because the moment things get difficult, you quit. You run away because you’re a coward who’s never given a shit about the people who count on you!”

  James stumbled back. There was no way she could have known how much those particular words would hurt him. But Tina had always had an instinct for weakness, and she homed in on his now.

  “You don’t care about anyone but yourself,” she growled. “But I don’t need you anymore. I’ll find a way to pay for college on my own.”

  “You don’t have to do it alone,” he said, desperate to fix what he had broken. “I’ll help you however I—”

  “You want to help?” she said coldly. “Stay out of my way.”

  Then she slammed the door in his face.

  As it closed, James felt other things closing as well—their childhood, their closeness, their team against the world. Everything he thought of as home vanished with his sister behind the scuffed wooden door of her childhood bedroom. And it was all his fault.

  A roar kicked him out of the sudden memory. Gore Maul was less than twenty feet away, sending spikes and bodies flying as he smashed his way to James. On the rim above them, squeals filled the air as gnolls stopped work and ran over to watch the show. In another few moments, the crowd would surround the pit on all sides, which meant this was James’s last chance to run. If he didn’t make it to the edge before the gnolls cut him off, the crowd would just throw him back to Gore Maul. But though his heart was pounding so hard it was making his vision jump, James’s feet stayed put.

  Staying meant death. He couldn’t beat Gore Maul, not as he was now, but fleeing would spell doom for Lilac and for Thunder Paw’s son. It would be a rank betrayal of the old Naturalist who’d just died to save him, but the truth of what kept him rooted was far more selfish. James couldn’t run, because if he did, he’d be everything Arbati and Tina had accused him of being. He’d be a coward, a screwup, a liar, someone who couldn’t be trusted. In one move, he’d prove all of his greatest fears about himself true, and that scared him more than Gore Maul ever could.

  The moment he realized that, James stopped shaking. He turned to face the monster cutting its way toward him then charged toward the Eclipsed Steel Staff between them. He picked up speed with every step, using his claws to dig into the wooden spikes as he hurled himself between them. Ahead of him, Gore Maul laughed and started smashing faster, sending shards of wood flying at James like spears. One almost went through James’s head before he ducked, his arm flying out to grab the staff at last.

  The moment he touched the black etched metal, magic hummed up his arm. He’d never felt anything like it, but as powerful as the staff clearly was, something was wrong. The magic had an incomplete feel to it, like he was grabbing an empty bottle. The binding, he realized. The staff wasn’t bound to him.

  Tightening his fist around the metal, James probed the weapon with his magic, desperately searching for the trick, the hook, whatever it took to connect. He was still trying when the towering shadow of Gore Maul fell over him, and James knew he was out of time.

  The giant gnoll roared, spraying foul-smelling spittle everywhere as he swung for James’s head. Stuck right in front of him, James had no choice but to use his new staff. Incomplete or not, the Eclipsed Ste
el Staff was still a max-level weapon made from very magical materials. He was reasonably sure it wouldn’t break. Whether he could hold on to it, though, was another matter entirely.

  But the ax was already flying at his face, so James planted his feet and put his staff in its way. The moment the weapons clashed, he tilted his hands to slide the force of the ax down the staff’s body and into the ground. Sparks flew as metal scraped on metal, but it worked. With the angle changed, all the power of Gore Maul’s blow went into the mud rather than into James. There was no time to feel smug, though. James barely managed to yank the staff back and brace it over his head before Gore Maul’s second ax landed in his shoulder.

  Again, sparks flew, and again, James tilted his staff, sliding the blow safely away from himself. But even with most of it deflected, the force of the blow was still enough to sink him into the mud to his ankles. He yanked his feet out as fast as he could, swinging his staff around to catch the next strike before it lopped off his arm.

  The attacks were relentless. Gore Maul swung back and forth with alternating strikes from his twin axes. The only reason James was able to keep his footing, his weapon, and his head was years of practice and the fact that the Eclipsed Steel Staff really did seem to be as unbreakable as he’d hoped. But while his weapon was solid, defending still took every scrap of his attention. Thanks to Gore Maul’s strength, any hard parry would immediately crush his arms, so James focused on redirecting the oncoming attacks instead, sliding the axes off over and over into the mud.

  No defense could last forever, though. After a dozen successful parries, the mud at James’s feet was a minefield of holes and pits. One wrong step was all it took to send him staggering left when he should have leaned right, ruining his tilt and forcing him to catch Gore Maul’s next blow head on before it cut his torso in half.

  With nothing to deflect it, Gore Maul’s attack struck the staff like a bus. James braced, waiting for the pain of his arms being crushed, but it didn’t come. Instead, the staff rang like a bell, sucking the blow’s power into the shadows that fluttered inside the eclipsed steel. For a moment, a deep, grave-like silence fell over the pit, then Gore Maul swung again, smashing James’s staff out of his hands and sending him flying into the air.

  Tumbling uncontrollably, James barely managed to flip over in time to grab a spike before he was impaled on it. His staff landed in the mud below, and James lunged for it, diving for the ground seconds before Gore Maul’s ax splintered the wood he’d been clinging to. Weapon back in hand, James staggered to his feet and whirled to face his enemy again, but while he was impressed with his recovery, the hit hadn’t been without consequence. His whole body was pulsing in pain, and his right arm hurt so badly, he could barely hold his staff up.

  Dread began to curl in James’s stomach. He couldn’t keep this up. If he was going to have a chance of surviving, he needed to hit back, not just defend. But where? Gore Maul was two tons of muscle wrapped in armor as thick as a car door. What could anyone do against that?

  He was still scrambling for an answer when Gore Maul finished hacking down the last few spikes between them. The giant hyena-man snickered behind his helmet at the naked fear on James’s face. On the rim of the pit, hundreds of gnolls were now watching the fight—or more accurately, the execution—but there was something odd about the crowd. No one jeered or cheered for Gore Maul. They weren’t even throwing things. They all just stood there with their ears down and their tails quivering, watching in fear as the Chief of Chiefs closed the final distance to James.

  Sweating through his filthy fur, James tucked the now-useless staff under his injured arm and started casting Chain Lightning. He wasn’t sure if Gore Maul would even feel it, but with his arm down, he couldn’t pull the misdirection trick anymore. But while he was no good at hitting, he was still a level-eighty Naturalist, and he still had some mana left. Praying it was enough, James pulled on the magic inside him, grabbing the glowing white threads from the air to form the lightning strike with his good hand.

  When the magic was brimming in his fingers, James let loose, and the dark night flashed with a deafening boom. The thunder-crack was so loud he felt it in his chest, but not half as hard as Gore Maul did. The moment the flash went off, mud, iron, and a good bit of rotten gnoll flesh exploded. James had to duck to avoid being impaled by the flying shards of bloody metal, but a grin spread over his face when he heard Gore Maul roar in pain.

  The spell had blown a smoldering crater the size of a cannon ball in the monster’s chest. James could actually see exposed ribs sticking out through the wound. He was looking to see if that was enough when the dizziness hit.

  As the thrill of the spell faded, the loss of the mana he’d spent to cast opened a yawning emptiness inside him. Weak and shaking, he plunged his staff into the mud, leaning on it as he fought to keep from passing out. He was focusing on his breathing when Gore Maul straightened back up.

  With a sickening crunch of bone and metal, the giant gnoll pushed himself up out of the mud where the spell had blasted him back. He rolled his massive shoulders then reached down with one giant paw and casually folded the blasted metal of his chest plate back into place. When the wound in his chest was more or less covered, he picked up his dropped axes and turned back to James, the white ghostfire in his empty eyes sparking with glee.

  There was no thinking about it this time. After that one look, James broke and ran. Really ran. The low-mana weakness vanished beneath a wave of adrenalin as he booked it to the opposite edge of the pit, once the deepest part of the drained lake and now the tallest side. Fear was his only thought as he hurtled between spikes and past dead players, brain scrambling to find some scenario in which he wasn’t screwed.

  He had, at most, one more lightning spell in him. Casting it would leave him completely dry, though, and even if he did, it wouldn’t be enough. Without proper stat-boosting caster gear, he just didn’t have the power to down a monster like Gore Maul. If this had been the game, he would have just died and come back with a better plan. But while respawning was clearly out, dirty tricks were still in, and as he spotted the wooden boards that marked the far edge of the spike pit, James had an idea.

  When this had been a lake, the shores on this side had been steeply sloped. The gnolls must have dug things out when they’d made it into a murder pit, though, because the dirt shore was now held back by a wooden retaining wall. A rickety, hastily constructed wooden retaining wall.

  Back when this had been a game and all the environments were static, the terrifyingly hasty construction would have just been color, but it was finally starting to hit James that everything here was real now, which meant everything was on the table. There was no more invisible rule set forcing him to fight monsters in a particular way. It was just him and physics, so as Gore Maul bulldozed his way through the last remaining spikes toward him, James turned around to pull the oldest trick in the book.

  Brandishing his staff, he put his back to the wall and waited, holding his ground as the charging, truck-sized monster got closer and closer. Finally, right when the snickering Gore Maul was picking up speed to trample him under his boots, James dove low and to the left, protecting his injured arm with his good one as he flung himself gracelessly into the mud.

  Gore Maul’s ax sliced inches over his head as the freight train of undeath rampaged past at top speed. But when Gore Maul tried to turn to go after him, his feet lost traction on the slippery mud, sending him sliding face-first straight into the wall.

  The whole pit shook. Gore Maul had hit the wall like a speeding cement truck, but though the wooden boards cracked and flew apart, the dirt behind them didn’t collapse and bury him.

  Something better happened.

  Wiping mud out of his eyes, James sat up in amazement as the gigantic Gore Maul pushed himself off the broken wall. The impact had flattened him cartoonishly, crushing his muzzle into his face. James didn’t understand how that was possible until he saw the stones poking out of the mud
behind the broken wood.

  That was why the wall hadn’t collapsed, he realized. There was an old fieldstone drainage tunnel buried behind the wood. It looked normal enough, but the crushed-faced Gore Maul was staring at the unearthed stones like they held the secrets of the universe, and suddenly, James knew why.

  This was the deepest part of the former lake, which meant that was the drainage tunnel from the locket quest. Gore Maul’s locket quest, the one that had been put in to weaken him so normal players would have a chance. Now that he knew what he was looking at, James could actually see the metal grate the locket was caught in. All he had to do was grab it, and the quest would be complete.

  Launching off the ground, James threw himself between the still-stunned boss and the wall he was staring at. The sudden movement broke the spell, and Gore Maul roared in fury. Ignoring him, James dropped to his knees and shoved his good arm deep inside the metal grate, grasping with his fingers for what had to be there.

  He was still digging when a giant paw seized his leg with bone-crushing force. As it pulled him back, James felt his claws snag something metallic. He managed to take the thing with him as Gore Maul hauled him into the air, dangling him upside down in front of his hideously smashed face. He was about to shove James’s entire body into what was left of his broken mouth when James flung out his filthy hand.

  “Hunter of the Endless Grass!” he cried. “Remember who you are! Do not let undeath steal your honor!”

  Gore Maul stopped, and James looked frantically at his outstretched hand. His fingers were so dirty, he had no idea if he was holding the locket or just some old gnoll trash. Either way, though, it was working, so he pressed on, reciting the words from the old quest as best he could remember.

  “You were loved once. A leader who protected his tribe at all costs. Don’t let them take that from you!”