Shadow Gambit

by Drake, Adam

  Soon we reached a fork in the trail. A crooked sign pointing north said, 'Old Mine', while another said 'Ashbrook', pointing west.

  “Should we take a vote?” I asked the group. It was common etiquette to ask for other members opinions when faced with a decision to make.

  Mudhoof shrugged. “It's your show, Vee. I'll follow you whichever direction you take us.”

  “Yes, I believe you are our de facto leader,” Feign said with a smile. “It is your quest after all.”

  “Lead the way, m'lady,” said Thorm.

  Phlixx crossed his arms and sneered at the men. “That's right. You know who the boss is here.”

  I laughed. “Okay, fine. Be that way,” I said and looked at the signs. “The mayor screamed about Ashbrook so we'll check that out first. But I think we'll find ourselves in the Old Mine soon enough.”

  We headed west.

  The trail became a simple cobblestone road, but we didn't see any other travelers along the way. Mudhoof took this to be a bad sign stating the game was bottling up everything in one place. I begrudged him the point.

  The strange black tower became more clear as we got closer yet just as confusing to look at. Was it an actual tower with beings inside or was something more sinister at work? Feign thought we'd probably end up there if we survived the journey.

  The road turned out of the forest and we emerged right on the edge of Ashbrook. It looked like every typical medieval fantasy community the game likes to create. Stone-brick buildings wedged up against each other and crowding over a narrow road.

  We paused, taking in the new environment.

  “No one is around to welcome us,” Mudhoof said. “There's always a greeter of some type or other. If not to give you a quest then to annoy you with a history of the place.”

  It was also silent. No crowd noises or wagons rolling over stone or hawkers trying to sell their wares. Nothing.

  On a hunch I checked my quest tracker which logged our progress.

  'After your encounter with the mayor you decide to investigate Ashbrook and what befell its inhabitants.'

  I read this to the others.

  “Simple enough,” said Thorm. “But I'm not taking any chances. Keep your eyes peeled.” He insisted on leading the way.

  As we entered the town-proper the shadows of the buildings fell over us and I felt a chill. Normally, I welcomed the presence of shadows, but this was off. Something was very wrong.

  Each building we passed appeared empty, even the shops.

  “Maybe we should break in to some of these places and loot them,” suggested Mudhoof.

  “And how would that be helping the residents of the town?” I countered.

  Mudhoof shrugged. “I should have rolled a thief. They get all the fun.”

  The further along the street we went the colder it got. Again, I resorted to adjusting my simulation suit's temperature controls.

  Mudhoof shivered. “I'm freezing off my bull-bits. Someone turn up the heat.”

  I said to Feign, “You must be enjoying this.”

  The ice mage shrugged. “Now you know what it's like to be me all the time. Still, this drop in temperature is an indication of bad magic. Demon magic, possibly.”

  This made us even more wary.

  We passed by side streets and when I looked down them it was more of the same. Nothing. No people, no activity.

  “I think we're coming up on the town square,” Thorm said.

  Suddenly, above us someone hissed. “What are you doing? Don't go there!”

  Everyone whirled around, ready for an attack.

  A man peeked out from a second-story window. He wore a deep blue robe and was as bald as an egg. A bright white crystal hung from a necklace around his neck. Sweat glistened against his pink skin. “You don't want to go to the square. It's too dangerous.”

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I'm Perrin, the town scribe,” the bald man said. His eyes darted about nervously. “But that doesn't matter. You need to get off the street. Now!”

  I glanced at the others.

  Thorm shrugged. “He might have information we can use. Let's pay him a visit.”

  To Perrin I said, “We're coming in to talk. Don't worry we're friendly.”

  “Friendly right up until he mutates into an acid spewing monster,” Mudhoof said as we filed through the building's only door.

  The inside was as quaint as the exterior. Simple furniture and knickknacks. Everything had the look of being hand crafted.

  A stairwell led up and Perrin appeared at the top. He regarded us with obvious nervousness.

  “What business do you have being here?” He asked, giving Mudhoof furtive glances. Probably had never seen a minotaur before.

  “We're, uh, adventurers looking to help out,” I said. That was true enough. I could have told him we were human players logged into a game where he wasn't even real. But where was the fun in that?

  Perrin mulled this over. “Well, if you think you can help, it would be most welcome, but I don't know what good it would do.”

  “What happened here?” Thorm asked.

  “It all started with when that black tower appeared. It grew right out of the ground at the end of the valley. Then people started acting strangely. Getting angry. Fighting. But it got worse. Much worse. Everyone began to develop black veins in their skin.”

  “Everyone?” I asked and shot Mudhoof a meaningful glance. The minotaur frowned with concern.

  “Yes. Everyone except me. I don't know why. So I hid in the cellar here for several days, thinking it would all clear up on its own.” He chuckled nervously. “Foolish, I know, but where else was I to go? I only emerged this morning to see what had happened. Empty streets. No people. Then a few hours ago I heard the most horrid screams and shouts coming from the town square.”

  “What happened there?”

  “I don't know. I'm too craven to go look myself, but the screams stopped a short while ago. Terrifying.”

  “Let's go check out the square,” Mudhoof said. “Beats hiding in here.”

  Perrin's eyes went wide. “No! The noises alone were terrible. It sounded as if people were being eaten alive!”

  Mudhoof laughed. “Now this I got to see for myself.”

  Before I could suggest a more cautious approach, Mudhoof went back out into the street. Thorm shrugged and followed. Feign looked to me.

  “Not the wisest approach,” the ice mage said. “But we best go after them. Safety in numbers.”

  As Feign and I left the building I said to Perrin, “Stay put and don't go near the windows. We'll set things right soon enough.” The game usually gave extra experience points if you treated the non-player characters like real people.

  “You poor fools,” Perrin said, shaking his head sadly. “You're going to your doom!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Once back in the empty street we all filed in behind Mudhoof who made his way toward the center of town.

  “I hate skulking around,” he said by way of explaining himself.

  “Then you'd make a lousy thief,” Thorm said with a smile.

  “True enough,” Mudhoof said. “But I can't stand waiting for things to happen. Got to forge ahead. We still have that other group out here somewhere and I don't think they'd be spending their time stuck in a building talking to an egg-head.”

  Before anyone say anything else, Mudhoof held up his hand. “We're here,” he said.

  We entered the town square. It was large and tiered down by several levels like a stadium. On the lowest level, at its center, sat a well. A strange set up by any medieval town's standards.

  But that wasn't the strangest part of all.

  There were people here. Hundreds of them. They looked to be townsfolk and all of them stood bunched together in a big crowd. But no one moved. Still as statues. And each were facing in one direction – toward the center, at the well.

  “What the heck?” Muttered Thorm while he adjusted the grip on h
is great broadsword.

  Not one person gave us so much as a glance. It was as if we didn't exist. Their entire focus was the well.

  I looked at the people closest. They were dirty and their clothes disheveled as if they'd been fighting. But there was one detail that caused even greater concern other than their strange behavior.

  They all had black veins marbled in their flesh.

  “Oh, dear,” said Feign.

  “Told ya,” Mudhoof said to me.

  “What?” I asked, nervously surveying the huge rabble.

  “All bottled up,” Mudhoof said. His confidence faltered a little at the sight of so many potential mutants. Each one could become as crazed and powerful as the mayor who nearly wiped us out all on his own.

  I looked over the crowd, trying to guess their number. The game picked up on this and gave it to me: 1,006.

  “Maybe we should just turn around and...” I said before the ground beneath our feet shook. The vibration was so hard the masonry of the nearby buildings cracked and windows shattered.

  Our group fought to keep their balance. I used my sure-footed ability which locked my feet to the ground. The others didn't have it so easy.

  Oblivious to the earthquake, the huge crowd of townspeople did not react at all, nor did any of them fall over. They continued staring at the well.

  “What is going on?” Thorm asked.

  As if in answer to his question, the well at the center of the square cracked violently. It rented apart and the ground beneath it heaved.

  “Something is making an entrance,” said Feign, he held a cluster of snowballs in the crook of one arm, and one in his hand at the ready.

  “Not good, my sweet!” Phlixx said, as he perched on my shoulder, little crossbow with a flaming bolt pointed toward the crowd.

  The gap of the broken well widened with the force of something underneath pushing upwards. Then a humanoid figure emerged out from the large hole, cobblestone and earth crumbling around it.

  It was clad in black armor. Fiery yellow eyes smoldered from within its helmet and it held a massive wooden staff in one hand. The being now stood towering above us in the center of the square. Everyone looked up at it; so tall that its head was higher than the buildings.

  We stood frozen in shock. This guy was big. Really big.

  “I think we should be leaving now,” said Feign as he hefted a snowball.

  Before I could say anything, the being spoke.

  “My children,” it said. Its voice was deep and resonant. “The time has come for a new beginning.”

  I recognized that voice. It was the same which the mutant-mayor had used.

  The being continued. “For thousands of years I have waited. Waited for the opportunity to return to this realm and cleans it of the vermin which has overrun it.”

  The townsfolk stared up at the being with obvious reverence. Their black-veined affliction making mindless worshipers of this being. They hung on its every word.

  A name appeared above the head of the being. 'Demon King' and then in brackets beside it 'GOD'.

  “FILTERED!” said Mudhoof.

  I couldn't agree more.

  “I am the one true overlord of all. To show your supplication to me you must cleanse the world in my name,” the Demon King said. He turned his huge head and leveled our group with a hot yellow glare. He pointed at us. “Starting with them!”

  Every individual town person immediately whipped their heads around to lock onto us. The sight of a thousand angry stares unnerved me.

  Then I said the only logical thing that came to mind at that very moment.

  “Run!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  No one reacted the instant I yelled. Instead, everyone looked to each other to see who would run first.

  “Let's go guys, no heroics now,” I said. That seemed to get them walking backwards, weapons at the ready.

  The horde of town folk continued to glare at us, but unmoving. The Demon King still pointed at us, his yellow eyes smoldering fiercely.

  Then, with some unspoken command, the people suddenly shrieked and screamed at us. Eyes wild, hands now clawed at the air but they didn't move.

  “Come on, go!” Mudhoof shouted. He was trying to be the last to leave.

  As we all began to head back to the main street, the Demon King shouted, “Die!”

  Like a pent up wave of energy the town folk surged forward.

  “Go! Go! Go!” I yelled.

  Thorm was to my left and Feign was in front of me. Mudhoof was only a few steps behind, huge ax at the ready. His hooves clomped on the cobblestone as he ran to pick up the pace.

  We'd barely made it a few buildings down from the square entrance when the crowd of people crashed into the street like a human wave. Frantic, angry and insane with whatever evil infected them, they scrambled over each other to get to us.

  Feign lobbed rapid fire snowballs at them. The ones which struck the ground instantly created a large patch of ice on the cobblestone. People tumbled and fell onto the ice patch, but the ones behind simply clamored over their fallen comrades like they didn't exist. When Feign hit a person, they became an icy statue which the others surged around.

  I called up a full quiver of arrows, choosing simple ones which I could fire en masse. Running backwards, and shooting a bow wasn't easy, but the thick cluster of people ensured I always hit someone. When they fell, they simply vanished under the ceaseless wave of feet.

  “Where do we go?” Mudhoof called to me as if I had any idea. At that moment a crazed black-veined woman got within reach of him. He swung his ax, and the woman screamed and collapsed. There was very little blood because I had my blood-and-gore setting turned down to the minimum available.

  “Back to the lake?” Thorm shouted over the screams. When someone got too close to him, he opted to pulse his protective shield which acted like an invisible wall for them to bounce off of.

  “The old mine!” I said. “There is nowhere else I can think of. We don't know of anywhere else!”

  We continued to backpedal, barely keeping the pursuing crowd at bay. For a moment, something caught my eye, and I looked up. Perrin was looking down from a window in horror. Then he backed away out of sight.

  There was nothing I could do for him, even if I was supposed to help him at all. Right now we were in pure survival mode.

  “I hate getting zerged!” Mudhoof said, swinging his ax back and forth. Cleaved halves of crazy town folk tumbled away in his wake.

  We reached the edge of the town at the point we first entered. A cheerful little bridge arched over a river here.

  “Get to the other side, quick!” Thorm said.

  Not needing encouragement we stopped attacking, turned and ran across the bridge.

  As we got to the other side Feign said, “I'm going to try something.” The mage stopped and turned back to face the horde of people racing toward the bridge.

  Our group stopped, tense and breathing heavily. “Why are we stopping, my love?” Phlixx said as he clutched at my shoulder. He looked more nervous than I was.

  Feign raised his arms and called out a spell. Suddenly, a dark cloud formed above the bridge. “Stand back,” Feign warned.

  As the first of the rabid people crossed the bridge, the dark cloud erupted with hail. But it did not produce ordinary hail stones. These were huge, the size of basket balls.

  Gigantic hail stones bombarded the bridge and crushed everyone underneath it. But despite the obvious damage it did, the people still ran frantically into the storm and were crushed.

  “It will only last a few moments!” Feign called out over the horrific noise the hail made.

  Down the trail we fled, and into the forest.

  CHAPTER TEN

  As we ran, the noise behind us subsided.

  “So, the mine? That's where we're going?” Thorm said.

  Muttering with frustration I called up my quest log while maintaining my run.

  'You must escape to the Old Mine
or perish.'

  I barked a laugh and closed the screen. “Well, that's helpful,” I said.

  “This is crazy!” Mudhoof said. “Since when did quests go all nuts like this? Where's a princess to save? A dragon to slay?”