Expedition- Summerlands

by Nathaniel Webb

  Karakatsa was much smaller, but lean and tough-looking, with about zero body fat. His entire torso was covered in tattoos. There were a few bigger pieces depicting chains, swords, and dragon’s heads, but most of the ink seemed to be words and numbers. I suddenly noticed Cass was half-naked, so I hurried to untie my paper gown as Blomhaugen talked.

  “You have paid for the privilege of entering the Summerlands,” the CEO said. “How you use that privilege is your decision. Expedition Games does not interfere in the game. Do not expect us to save you if you get in over your heads.”

  I tugged on tight-fitting leather breeches that covered me from ankles to belly button. The shirt was a lighter material and slipped on easily over my head. I tied it closed over my chest and sat to pull on a pair of soft leather boots.

  “Still, we do have one request of you,” Blomhaugen went on. “Give us good streams. What that means is up to you, but if you give us good television, you will be well taken care of. Now then.” She stopped in front of Cass, who was fully dressed and looked born to wear the faux-medieval garb she’d been given. “Miss Keats, I am afraid you must relinquish your brother’s sweater.”

  I stood up as Cass stared at the CEO with tears in her eyes.

  “Entering the Summerlands, you are born again. You are given a new life. You must let go of all artifacts of the world you are leaving behind.” Blomhaugen’s voice was soft, almost a whisper. She spoke to Cass alone. “Now is not the time to fear change.”

  Cass handed Blomhaugen the sweatshirt, which the CEO passed to an aide behind her. Immediately, Noah and I wrapped Cass up in a bear hug that only broke up when Blomhaugen said, “Ready.”

  Cass took my right hand and Noah my left as we walked to the well. Their hands were slick with sweat, and I’m sure mine were, too. Soon we stood peering over the lip of the well. A few yards down, a ring of moss glowed among the muck.

  “We’ll never forget him,” I whispered to Cass. “No matter what happens.”

  She nodded and bit her lip. Her eyes were locked on the glowing portal, as though if she just stared hard enough she could see into the Summerlands on the other side.

  “I’ll go first if you want,” said Noah. His voice was steady, but his hand was shaking in mine.

  “No, I’ll go,” said Cass. “If that’s all right. I’m party leader, after all.” I let go of her hand and watched her climb onto the rim of the well.

  “Wait,” I said. Cass looked over her shoulder at me, and Noah turned as well. “I just… promise me that you’ll watch my back.”

  “And you’ll watch mine, right?” said Cass.

  “Of course,” I said. “Of course I will. Just promise me, okay?”

  “I promise,” Cass said.

  “Jump,” said Blomhaugen behind us. Cass turned back to the well, gave us one last glance over her shoulder, closed her eyes, and jumped. The moment her head cleared the stone lip I leaned forward to watch, but she was already gone.

  Noah squeezed my hand, then clambered up onto the well. He gave me a smile, turned, and leapt down after Cass.

  I looked at Karakatsa, who had come up next to me to watch the others go through. He gestured politely towards the well, but I shook my head. He nodded and climbed up. Still facing me, he crossed his arms over his chest and hopped backwards into the darkness.

  I was alone. I looked at Blomhaugen for encouragement, but she had her back to me, conferring with her aides. After a moment she looked up as though she could feel me staring, and our eyes locked, but she returned to her huddle without acknowledging the moment.

  “Goodbye,” I said, looking up at the sky. A few orange clouds twined through the dismal gray pall. It was ugly, but it was the only sky I’d ever known. I took a shaking step up onto the well, and then another. The moss ring glowed beneath my feet. It looked tiny from up here. The well seemed to go down for miles and miles into the earth. It hadn’t seemed so far when I was standing on solid ground.

  “For Jason,” I said. “For Keats.”

  I stepped off into open air.

  Portal Square

  I fell through stars and woke with the sun in my eyes. Somebody was screaming. Everybody was screaming. The sun was dazzling white in a sharp blue sky and I blinked away tears.

  A shadow fell over me and I felt hot breath on my face. It smelled horrible, like a sewage leak. I tried to roll away from the smell, but I couldn’t move. I opened my eyes to see a long green tongue rasping over white needle teeth, shedding little sparks. The fangs gleamed along their razor edges.

  “Linnaea, move!” A compact black shape tumbled over me, taking the green tongue and glinting teeth with it. I lurched to my feet. It felt like I’d just spent an hour tumbling around in a clothes dryer, but I was able to keep my legs under me as I tried to get my bearings.

  I stood beneath an arched stone gazebo on a colorful bed of flowers. My feet were in the exact center of a greenish ring of moss. All around me, people were shouting, fighting, and running across the cobblestone plaza that surrounded the flowerbed. In among them were maybe a dozen creatures about the size of boars, with flat faces, spiny backs, and green tongues lolling around gleaming rows of fangs. Most of the boar-things were chasing fleeing people, but a few faced off against adventurers who held swords and spears in their hands.

  I was in Portal Square, the heart of Wellpoint. I was in the Summerlands. I was also in a whole lot of danger.

  To my left, Karakatsa was struggling with a boar. It was up on two legs with its front hooves on his shoulders. It snapped at his throat as he tried to shove it off. He must have been the one who’d gotten the thing off me: I hadn’t recognized his voice because he’d been speaking English. Spinning around, I discovered that Cass and Noah were nowhere in sight.

  Images of the fight in the Keatses’ apartment flashed through my mind, holding me frozen in the moss ring as I watched them play out again. Jason kicking in the locked window. Porter with his Armalite in one hand and Cass’s twisted wrist in the other. Jason’s body lying motionless on the floor, his blood creeping toward me as I stood as helpless as I was now…

  I was supposed to be past this!

  “Linnaea!” Karakatsa shouted as he fell under the weight of the boar. He put up his arms to cover his throat and face and the boar-thing roared in anticipation of a bloody meal.

  A massive, armor-clad form strode past me, a bloody sword in his hand. He was dressed like a medieval crusader, in battered plate armor and a white tabard bearing a huge red cross, and spattered all over with green gunk.

  Without thinking, I grabbed his free arm.

  “Hey, you have to help me!” I shouted over the noise of the fight. He turned his helmeted head slowly, then flipped up his visor to peer down at me. His face was deeply lined and weatherworn, with a gray mustache, and I recognized it immediately: St George, legendary monster-slayer and notorious religious wackjob.

  “My friend needs help!” I yelled, pointing to where Karakatsa was barely keeping the boar-thing away from his throat.

  Without a word, St George slammed his visor shut, strode over to the struggle, and drove his sword through the back of the boar’s head. The gory tip erupted from its mouth, spraying blood over Karakatsa’s face.

  “With the holy cross I slay thee, demon!” roared St George. “In Christ’s name I consign thee back to Hell!” He tore his sword out, sending brains and blood flying in a wet arc, then stalked off.

  “Thanks,” said Karakatsa heavily. I ran to him and helped him up. He stood wiping blood from his eyes for a moment, then looked me up and down and flashed the wide grin I’d already gotten so familiar with. “And thank you, too.”

  “You’re welcome, Karakatsa,” I said. I watched St George wade back into the fray, his sword swinging, shouting in what sounded like Latin. “It’s nice to be able to talk to you.”

  “Kara—” He looked confused for a moment, then barked out a laugh. “Magpie! It’s Magpie.”

  “Emma!”

&nbs
p; I whirled to see Noah waving frantically from behind a wide column of the gazebo that surrounded the flowerbed. I grabbed Karakatsa’s—Magpie’s—hand and dragged him towards the scanty cover.

  We found Noah and Cass with their backs pressed to the stone pillar, making themselves as small as possible. Noah looked relieved to see me, but Cass’s eyes were wide and white. Her throat fluttered as she panted with short, shallow breaths.

  “Is she okay?” I asked Noah.

  “I think she’s having a panic attack,” he said.

  “I don’t blame her,” I said. I took a deep breath to make sure I didn’t do the same. “What the hell is happening?”

  “It started right as we got here,” Noah said. “There was a grating in the ground—I think for sewer access—and it blew open and those things came out. I asked Jessamine what to do and she started breathing like that so I pulled her over here. Was that St George?”

  “What?” I said. “Oh, yeah. He saved us. This is Magpie, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Noah, and stuck out his hand. Magpie shook it vigorously as Noah went on, “Is Karakatsa Greek for Magpie?”

  “Yeah,” said Magpie.

  “I’m Sepharad,” Noah said. He pointed to me, then to Cass. “This is Linnaea. She’s Jessamine. Do you think—”

  “Later,” I said, putting a hand on Noah’s arm. “How do we survive this?”

  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” said Magpie. He was peering around the shelter of the column. “Those guys are cleaning up.”

  “Who?” asked Noah. We poked our heads out to see that the vibe in the square had changed considerably. Where there had been chaos and panic, a group of four adventurers had taken charge. A musclebound, dark-skinned man was crushing boars with a maul nearly as big as Magpie. A slender, pale woman with raven hair stalked behind him, slitting the throats of any monster that so much as twitched. A small man perched on an overturned cart, apparently talking to himself. In the middle of the fray, shouting orders and pointing with a bell in his hand, was a tall man with a salt-and-pepper beard and red robes. Around them, four camera drones swirled and dove like warrior angels as they hurried to keep their owners in frame.

  “Golden Apple,” I whispered.

  “Wolfheart looks older in person,” said Noah.

  ***

  Golden Apple blew in like a whirlwind and disappeared as quickly. In the space of moments they took command of the battle in the square. Rad and Valkyrie killed off the boar monsters while Dr Agony directed the panicked mob to safety. As far as I could tell, neither he nor Wolfheart had cast a spell.

  With the last of the boars slain, Golden Apple was gone again, leaving a bloody, stinking mess behind. No one seemed to have been seriously hurt, but the gore was unbelievable. The dead monsters lay with their skulls shattered, limbs broken, and guts spilling out. Insects descended in buzzing mobs on the remains. I thought they were flies until I realized they were flashing faintly red, their glow washed out by the bright sun.

  I stood in shock for a while, wondering if Portal Square would ever be clean again, until I noticed people creeping back into the plaza. They came out of hiding from behind the doors of shops and around alley corners. Most were dressed in bland, fantasy-medieval clothing, but some wore brighter colors and carried weapons.

  Slowly, Portal Square came back to life. A group of workers in simple clothes began hauling the boar corpses to one side of the square and heaving them into something resembling a pile. Two young men, holding hands and laughing, strolled through the carnage to a shop across from me. A hushed argument broke out amongst a group of mussed, bloodied adventurers, apparently over who had killed a particular monster.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go help.”

  Soon Cass and I were lifting a dead boar by its legs. Its mouth fell open and its long green tongue lolled out. We hauled it to the growing corpse pile as it leaked sludgy brown blood on the cobblestones. The panic had left Cass’s face and she was moving normally, but she hadn’t spoken.

  “It’s okay,” I said. She looked up at me with burning eyes.

  “I choked,” she said. Her voice cracked with bitterness.

  Before I could respond, a chipper voice broke our reverie. “Hey there! Haven’t seen you two around town. New NPCs?”

  I turned to see a heavyset woman about Keats’s age watching us haul the boar corpse. She wore a clean leather apron over a loose blouse and a kilt in a red, green, and black pattern.

  “Adventurers,” said Cass without looking up. “Not that you’d know it.”

  “Ah,” said the woman, “apologies. It’s just that adventurers don’t usually help with the cleanup.”

  Cass and I shared a look as we swung the corpse onto the stack of its comrades.

  “Who are you?” asked Cass.

  “Oh!” The kilted woman perked up visibly. “You could call me the welcoming committee. Donna Markan, Expedition Games. I expect you’ve met my brother Neal. I run the Expedition Hall here. If you’re all done hauling meat, why don’t you come back with me?”

  “Noah!” Cass yelled. Noah looked up from where he and Magpie were scrubbing blood off the cobblestones. Cass waved him over and Magpie followed. “Apparently we don’t have to clean up. Come on, we’re going to the Expedition Hall.”

  As we crossed the cobbles, I tried to take a moment to properly appreciate the scene around me. I’d seen it in streams a thousand times, but actually being in Wellpoint was another thing entirely. The buildings looked bigger, the colors brighter. Picking my way around the impromptu cleanup crews, I realized I was also seeing the social strata of the Summerlands for the first time. There were adventurers present, paying gamers, with weapons and armor and camera drones humming around them. Their clothes were nicer, their hair neater, their skin cleaner. They showed no interest in helping with the aftermath of the fight in the square. For the most part they seemed not even to notice the people Donna had jokingly referred to as “NPCs.”

  The term, a holdover from tabletop and video games, was short for “non-player characters”, any character in a game not controlled by a real person. These NPCs were as real as me, though; they’d earned the nickname by filling all the support roles that were needed to keep us paying adventurers happy and fed. These were the people who had signed over their lives to Expedition Games for the chance to serve in the Summerlands. They cooked, cleaned, cut hair, made shoes, sewed shirts. Everything except adventuring: they weren’t allowed to fight unless in danger and under no circumstances could they learn magic. Any gold they found out in the wilds would be immediately confiscated.

  I blinked away a few tears. My eyes had adjusted, but I was still astonished at how bright the sun was. It wasn’t too hot, though, much milder than our long summers in the HECZ. In fact the air was so clean that it felt cold in my throat as I took glorious deep breaths. Was this how our ancestors had lived, before gray and orange clouds choked the sky nearly every day of the year?

  Portal Square was surrounded on all sides by buildings. They were the first built by Expedition Games, back when they were setting up the town, and had always been the most desirable real estate in Wellpoint. They were designed in an Elizabethan style, but under the clear sun I could see rich reds and purples in the beams of local wood, and even subtle tints of blue and yellow pastel in the plaster walls. Those colors had never shown in the feeds.

  Expedition Hall was plain in comparison, built of rough-hewn timbers and slapdash plaster, but as I passed through the heavy wooden door that Donna held open for us, I had to admit that it had a certain frontier charm. It was dim and low inside, like a tavern from the dark ages, and my eyes appreciated the break from the Summerlands’ sun. A group of adventurers, a man and four women with weapons draped over battered white leather, clustered around what looked like a TV off to one side, but I didn’t get a good look before Donna’s chipper voice turned my head.

  “Now then,” she said with a clap of her hands t
hat reminded me sharply of her brother, “let’s get you set up! Wait right here, please.” She ducked through a doorway and returned a moment later with four camera drones. “I’ll just get these keyed in to your signals.”

  As Donna worked, I peered over the shoulders of the adventurers across the room. They were indeed watching a flatscreen that showed a long, scrolling list of names and numbers. I focused in on their murmured conversation and picked up bits and pieces as they argued in hushed tones. The TV showed feed rankings: viewing numbers for each individual adventurer’s stream. From their dusty clothes and weaponry, I guessed that this bunch had just come back from a sortie into the wild. If their muted attitude was anything to go by, their feed numbers weren’t what they were hoping for.

  I was lucky. I didn’t care about ratings.

  Donna seemed to be having some issues getting Cass’s drone to sync with her RFID implant, so as we waited, I moved over next to Magpie.

  “Hey,” I said quietly, “I just wanted to thank you for getting that thing off me. I was really disoriented, and… yeah.”

  “No problem,” he said, waving his hand as if brushing away my gratitude. His eyes lit up as he went on. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it? The sun is so bright. Did you notice how the air feels in your nose? So clean! It’s a wonderland.”

  “It’s pretty incredible,” I agreed.

  “Are you in a hurry to go out adventuring? I’m not. I’d rather see how long these fifty coppers can last me.”

  I shook my head. “You’d be out on the street in a week!”

  He shrugged. “Eh, there’s worse streets to be out on, wouldn’t you say?”

  Something in his tone caught my attention. “Where are you from, anyway?” I asked.

  “Hell,” he said with a laugh. “Also known as the Hellenic Austerity Zone. And here we are in heaven. Might as well enjoy it, no?”

  I thought of Keats, sitting in pain in his wheelchair back in the real world. In the chaos of our arrival and the wonder that followed it, I’d forgotten all about him. A pang of guilt stabbed my heart.