Shadow Gambit

by Drake, Adam

  Still, maybe it wasn't so bad. I'd still have significant lead time to finish the Quest before anyone else got a chance. And the moment I officially activated the scroll everyone's gossip feeds will spill the news that a new Legendary Quest was available.

  In essence, I had only one chance to complete it because soon there would be legions of players descending on it.

  Phlixx tapped the hilt of my sheathed sword. “We are arriving at the place.” I had Phlixx tuned into the drop-off point so I wouldn't miss it. Letting your mind wander while floating for hours on a sky-barge was a gamer's hazard.

  I stood and peered down. The sky-barge was approaching a range of high hills. They would shorten the distance I would have to fall.

  “Going to have to put you away for a bit, little buddy,” I said to Phlixx.

  The ferret looked aghast. “But why! I don't want to leave you now, oh, dearest one! It would break my heart.”

  “Yeah, but a fall like this will kill you, and your death respawn time is too long. Unsummoning you drops that to a fraction of the time.” I offered my little companion a reassuring smile, but it didn't work.

  Phlixx started crying, sitting on the railing and wailing into the wind. “No! Please! Don't do this!”

  The hills were now passing by. I didn't have time for this. “I'll see you soon, I promise.”

  Before he could respond I selected my companion icon and Phlixx blinked out of existence. I'd bring him back once I made to the Quest zone.

  Gripping the side rigging, I scampered down a rope. Trees swept by underneath at an alarming speed.

  No point delaying this. It's now or never, I thought, and released the rope. At the same time I activated my free-fall ability which would slow my drop speed. It wouldn't do much but I had to try to use it.

  As I fell the wind whipped at my face and clothes. The ground raced up to meet me.

  Whether good luck, or grave misfortune, I hit a tree and snapped branches as I dropped through the foliage. It may have slowed me a little, but it did damage, too.

  The moment before impact I selected a health booster icon on my view screen. A message 'Health Increased 400%' appeared before me. Then I hit the ground, hard.

  For a few disoriented moments I lay on my back and tried to get my bearings. High above, through the tree canopy, I saw the sky-barge pass from view.

  Wow, that's really high up, I thought. The drop had been greater than I anticipated.

  I sat up to find myself in a shallow crater that my fall had made. Branches and leaves from above cascaded down around me.

  My health indicator now said, 'Health at 3%'.

  Sheesh, that was bad. Without the booster I would have been re-rolling my character right now, cursing up a storm. All my gear, including the Quest scroll would have been left here at my point of death for anyone to come along and take.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. I stood and checked myself over, not that I expected anything to be really broken.

  Although my health was low, I couldn't use another booster, or even one of the salves in my inventory, for a few more hours. I'd needed some genuine healing magic to fix me up.

  I looked about. Trees and greenery everywhere. Pulling up my map I checked the location of the Quest zone, then I set off in that direction. It was still a fair distance away, so I set my avatar to auto-walk and pulled up a game news-feed to pass the time.

  Nothing interesting. Just more of the same. Rumors of hacks and cheats. Interviews with high-level players talking about their adventures. Along the bottom was an auction house ticker which displayed the latest high value items and their most current (insane) bids.

  One headline did catch my interest. A group of lore-hounds, players who studied and cataloged the games vast and detailed history, stated that some game characters were now discussing the possibility of the Demon King's return to the known realm. This was a trope played out for years. The ultimate goal of the Demon King, like all big bad guys, was to destroy the world and enslave the survivors. Thousands of years ago his minions had spread evil across the land, but only the mighty efforts of a few stalwart heroes drove him back to the Demon Void.

  Typical stuff. But now, it seemed the game had decided to reintroduce this big bad guy, instead of keeping him relegated to the history books.

  I shrugged and checked my map. The Quest location was close, so I closed down my news-feed and resumed control of my avatar.

  A majestic view of a mountain range presented itself as the forest thinned out. The terrain became more rocky and my walk turned into a climb. My eyes kept darting to my low health bar, but there was little I could do about it now. As long as a bear or wandering monster didn't surprise me I would be okay.

  Soon I reached what looked to be the place where the red 'X' on the map was. A flat rock wall against a large rocky outcropping appeared to be the most likely spot. I peered about but saw nothing else remarkable about the area.

  From behind me I heard a noise. I whirled around sword in my hands ready for an ambush. No one was there. But the noise continued from nearby. I realized the echoing effect off the rocks confused my senses.

  Then a man emerged from around a boulder. He appeared to be floating above the ground but in actuality he stood on a small platform. No, not a platform. A sheet of ice. As he propelled toward me, the ice forming a trail in the air behind him that melted away to water which rained on the ground and vanished.

  The man on his moving ice sheet got closer, stopped, and raised a hand. “Greetings!” He said. The ice sheet lowered and touched down. It melted away in a few moments leaving the man standing solidly on the rocky ground.

  I knew who this was. “Feign?” I said and cautiously sheathed my sword. This guy knew how to make an entrance.

  The man bowed. “The one and only. You are Vivian Valesh?”

  Nodding, I got a better look at this new arrival. He was of average build, a little taller than me, and wore a sky-blue robe. He had a beard, sort of. It was a tight cluster of icicles that splayed out from his chin and glinted with the sunlight. His hair was snow - real snow, and shaped in a curl similar to what a snow drift would look like after a strong wind. When he spoke cold clouds of air plumed from his mouth. He looked to be in a perpetual deep freeze.

  “You're an ice mage,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “Very astute observation,” Feign said with a wink. “My favorite class to play. I've been leveling this avatar for years and can't get enough of the things he can do.”

  I offered a smile. He seemed friendly enough. But I still had to be on my guard. He was Ogden Trite's man and needed to be dealt with caution. “You'll have a chance to use those abilities soon enough. I fully expect this Quest to be a tough one. You up for it?”

  Feign chuckled, and little snow flakes shook from his body. “A Legendary Quest would be nothing but tough. I look forward to the challenge.” He looked around. “The others haven't arrived yet?”

  “Not yet, but I'll check on them now.” I sent Mudhoof a chat request and it was immediately answered.

  “Vee!” Said Mudhoof. “Are you there yet?”

  “Yeah, I'm here. How far out are you now? What's your ETA?”

  Mudhoof laughed. “My ETA is about three seconds.”

  I peered at the screen in confusion. He didn't look to be moving at all. In fact he was sitting in what appeared to be a pub. He even drank from a tankard of ale.

  “What the heck, Muddie? You aren't even en route.” Anger flared in my chest. If he was holed up in a bar, it could be hours before he arrived.

  “Now, Vee. When have I ever let you down?” Said the minotaur and closed our chat window.

  I blinked in surprise and was about to issue a volley of curse words when the air to my right shimmered and glowed.

  Then, the air returned to normal, and standing before me was Mudhoof, and a knight clad in shiny silver armor.

  “Here we are!” Mudhoof declared with a grin. “Three seconds. Not bad, huh?” He s
till held the tankard of ale and took a swig from it.

  I was incredulous. “You used a Teleport Token? Those are some the most expensive things in the game!” Even my newly acquired deposit money would take a hefty dent just to buy one Teleport Token.

  “Actually, we used two,” said the tall knight.

  I gave Thorm, a Holy Knight, a scowl. “You could have just taken gates and sky-barges like some of us lowly players do.” I made a show of rubbing my back. “It nearly killed me, too.”

  Thorm stepped forward, looking concerned. “Yeah, you look like you're almost done in. Let me cast a healing spell on you.” He waved his hands which were gloved in armor. His entire body was encased in heavy silver armor, just like the knights of the round table might have worn. The helmet he wore was peaked with a topknot of red manticore hair. Sheathed at his belt was a great broadsword. His long blonde mustache wiggled frantically as he uttered the arcane words of the spell.

  A swirling cloud of bright little stars fell over my body. My health indicator shot up to 100%.

  “Thank you, sir knight,” I said with a bow.

  “Anytime, m'lady,” Thorm returned the bow.

  “If you two are done flirting, can we get the show on the road?” Mudhoof said. He stood taller than Thorm and wore a simple gold breastplate, and a gold chainmail skirt that went to his knees. Across his back was his uber ax. His long bull horns were capped with wicked spikes of steel.

  “Oh, and this is Feign,” I said indicating the ice mage. “He'll be our magical backup.”

  Mudhoof and Thorm gave the ice mage a once over, but politely greeted him. They were thinking the same as me. Who was this guy, and more importantly, what could he do?

  “Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Feign said with a smile. If the two high-level fighters made him nervous, he didn't show it.

  “Okay, let's do this,” I said and pulled the Quest scroll from my inventory. The others stared at it in wonder. But before I opened I said, “Remember, the second this is opened the quest marker will appear on the world map for all the other players to see. So, even though we get first run at it, we will be on a time limit.”

  “It will take a while for other groups to get organized and get out here,” Thorm said.

  “Not if they use Teleport Tokens,” Mudhoof said with a wry smile.

  “True,” I said, “But I figure we will only have one shot at this, so let's make it count. Get in, follow the quest and get the Legendary Item.”

  “And don't die,” Thorm said.

  I didn't have a retort for that as it may be the likely outcome.

  I opened the scroll and touched the red 'X'.

  In the rock face before us, a circular gate appeared. The runes around its edges glowed a bright purple. Through the gate could be seen a staging platform surrounded by darkness.

  “This is very exciting,” said Feign. “But I vote for a bathroom break before we continue. It might be a while before we get a chance.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Mudhoof said, “You guys are wimps. I keep a bucket near me. Saves time.” He grinned.

  “Too much information, Muddie,” I said.

  We took turns watching the other's idle avatars while each player stepped out of their simulation-suits to do their business. No one wanted to log off; would be too much of a hassle.

  Once that was all taken care of I said, “Okay, let's get that Legendary.” But before any of us moved we were interrupted.

  From behind us someone screamed, “Don't go through that gate!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  We turned to see who yelled.

  From the far tree line a centaur broke through and charged at us. His human torso was clad in the armored outfit of a samurai, and in his hands was a samurai sword. A stylized helmet of Japanese design hid his face except for his eyes.

  “Don't go through, you FILTERED idiots!” The centaur-samurai screamed.

  “Well, glad to see my language filter is working fine,” I said. All curse words spoken or typed in game were masked with the word FILTERED.

  “What's this guy's deal?” Mudhoof said as he unhooked his huge ax from his back and hefted it, ready for a fight.

  “Don't!” I said to him and pointed at the gate. “Get inside. He's just trying to delay us and make us miss the quest.” Quest gates had a time limit which varied from quest to quest. I didn't know the limit on a Legendary Quest, so we had to hurry.

  Thorm and Feign stepped through the gate and onto the staging platform. But Mudhoof was fixing for a tussle with the centaur-samurai.

  “Let him come,” Mudhoof said, getting riled up. “I'll cut his horse bits off and feed them to his human half.”

  I grabbed the minotaur by a huge arm which and futilely tugged at it. “Come on! The gate may close at any moment. We've got to move. Forget that idiot.”

  The centaur-samurai was closing in fast, screaming filtered obscenities all the while. It just made Mudhoof more angry but eventually he seemed to come to his senses.

  “Okay,” Mudhoof said. “I'm going.”

  I let Mudhoof enter through the gate first just to be sure, then stepped through myself.

  We all looked out at the screaming, charging centaur, his eyes wild. Then, a second before he would have reached us, the gate closed. Blissful silence followed.

  After a moment Thorm and I burst into laughter. Mudhoof still fumed and Feign looked concerned.

  “What was that all about?” Thorm said once he settled down.

  “I dunno, but that guy was begging for a re-roll,” Mudhoof said. “Why suicide into us? He must have known we could have taken him out.”

  “Delaying tactic,” said Feign. “Miss Valesh was correct. He wanted to stop us, or at the very least, slow us.”

  “Yeah, but to what end?” I said, but suspected the truth. Had the red ninja's friends finally found me? And how?

  Before anyone could suggest an answer, the black void which surrounded the staging platform flickered, then slowly brightened to reveal a new setting.

  We stood at the top end of a valley, looking down. Beautiful forest stretched out in all directions. Closest to us was a small lake with a series of waterfalls. Near the middle of the valley was a large town with many multi-storied buildings. But at the far end was something strange.

  All eyes were drawn to it.

  “What is that?” Thorm said.

  The object resembled a tower, but it wasn't. Craggy, black and huge, it was like an evil finger pointing accusingly at the blue sky above.

  “Demon Spine,” said Feign. He looked more concerned now than when the centaur was attacking.

  “That's ancient lore, right? Like, even before the great cleansing,” I said. Yes, I paid attention to my quest lore through the years. Most of the time it actually paid off.

  “Even older than that,” Feign said. “This was used by the vast demon horde to pierce the veil between their void realm and our own. And from what I understand there is only one being powerful enough to create them.”

  “The Demon King,” said Mudhoof. He shrugged at our surprised reactions. “What? I just looked it up on a wiki. It's all there.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So, this can't be good for us, right? Demon magic is the most powerful in existence.” I looked at Feign. “Even more than ice or fire or stone.”

  Feign nodded. He did not look happy at all. “If we are facing demon magic, even of a lesser order, this quest will be quite difficult.”

  A loud silky voice interrupted us, emanating from every direction. “Is your player group ready for this quest zone?” It was the game checking to see if it could start.

  “I don't think we'll ever be ready for this,” Thorm said, shaking his head. “Not sure even with all our gear this can be done now.” He shrugged. “But what the heck. At least we got to be first on a Legendary Quest. We'll get top billing on all the message boards and news-feeds.”

  “Well, we're here and we're doing this, one wa
y or another,” I said, knowing full well I'd still get to keep my deposit money. Although I hadn't mentioned it to the others yet, I'd surprise them by splitting it with them if we got wiped out.

  I looked up at the sky and said, “We're ready!”

  The silky voice responded. “Prepare to start quest zone.”