by Deck Davis
“’Scuse me, Mr. Courageous?” said Glora.
“I just think…maybe things aren’t working out our way. With the gut bunnies, and all. Seems like the odds are against us a little. We’ve come through okay so far, but none of us are even level five yet. Seems a little rash to risk everything.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Eddie had surprised me once again. This time, out of all of us, he was the voice of reason. You know what? He was right. This was too much to risk. I guessed that, sometimes, I was no different from everyone else. The promise of big rewards could make me lose my senses a little.
Looking at Eddie, I was sure he’d grown a little. That there was a look on his face I hadn’t seen before. Maybe his scare with the bunnies had knocked a little caution into him, which was exactly what I’d asked for. Now that he was showing his sensible side, I could hardly ignore him, could I?
“Let’s move on,” I said. “There’ll be other mega-mons. Let’s not get our asses kicked before the first wave. I get the sense that the gut bunnies shouldn’t have been there—that they were put there for us.”
“How?” asked Glora.
“Just something to do with me and Lucas. He’s watching us, you know. I’m sure of it. And he’s crooked enough to use his authority in the wrong way. Let’s move on.”
With that, I brought up my map. I stuck a purple pin in an area to the southeast of us, where the sand dunes gave way to the tundra via what looked to be a hill or cliff of some sort.
“Let’s get to higher ground before the wave hits, and then see what’s going on.”
We moved out. As it turned out, we moved straight into trouble.
Chapter Ten
102 Teams Remaining
It was an ambush by a team of four lying in wait for us, right in the southeast corner of the sand dune quadrant, and we walked right into it. After we left the pool of water in the sand dunes, the first wave was fast approaching. This fired a sense of urgency in me. I walked more quickly, knowing that the map would close near the purple pin I had set on the map, and we needed to get beyond it to be safe. As we got closer to my map pin, I saw that it wasn’t a hill that we were heading toward. Instead, it was giant cliff face made of yellow rock. It looked to be a quarry of some sort. The cliff itself was a hulking, fifty-foot-tall sheet of stone. All the way down from its summit was a train track that ran alongside the cliff and trailed into the distance, seeming to head north.
“Good for a quick getaway,” said Glora.
“Only one problem, darlin’. I don’t see a train,” said Rynk.
Some of the cliff bore curved craters from what seemed like controlled explosions. I guessed that the backstory of this part of the map, if you asked the designers, would be that the yellow stone was mined and then shipped north across the dunes via the tracks.
As much as a train ride would have been welcome to take the pressure off my feet, we’d be heading south soon. And there was the problem. The quarry cliff might have been imposing at fifty feet high, but it was its length that bothered me. The whole rock structure seemed to stretch for miles, way into the horizon to my east or west. We need to get past it to avoid the wave, yet we didn’t have enough time to go around it. The map designers must have put it here for precisely this reason—to make things worse for any fighters fleeing the wave and, thus, more exciting for the spectators.
Rynk stood by an abandoned quarry cart that was leaning against a steel drum. He kicked one of the wheels, but it was so rusted that it didn’t spin. A few yards north of me was a pile of giant steel pipes big enough for me to poke my head inside. Perhaps they would have been used to pump water from somewhere outside the dunes to the quarry when they were assembled. Now, the only thing they were good for was turning the breeze into a hollow, sinister sound when it blew through them, like the wailing of a metal ghost.
This was always the most disconcerting thing about VBRs for me. Forget the NPC monsters and players who wanted to kill me; it was the sense of abandonment on each map: the residential neighborhood with empty homes, industrial parks that were eerily silent, playgrounds where the swings and slides sat lonely. It made you feel alone.
“Only way to get over the cliff is on the winch system. See over there?” said Eddie. I followed his outstretched finger to see that, to the left of us, there was a winch-and-pulley system fasted against the cliff face. It looked to be a way to get up; there were four wooden pods that looked big enough to fit two people at a time. Two were on the left, two on the right. On each side, on the ground, was a big wooden cog, taller than a truck, with a crank handle.
“Here’s what we do,” I said. “One person turns the crank to move the pulley system, and two go in one pod on the left, one person in the other. That’s how we get to the top.”
“Which gives us a problem,” said Glora.
I nodded. “The person who stays on the ground and turns the crank while the others go up will be alone.”
Eddie put his hand horizontally across his forehead to block out the sun. When the sunlight hit his red hair, it produced an effect so bright that I thought there’d been an explosion. It was then that I noticed the freckles on his face; dozens of them dotted on his pale cheeks, highlighted by sunlight and making him look even younger than he was. Yet, there was a different expression on this face now. One that made him seem a little more mature.
“There’s gonna be another wheel at the top,” said Eddie. “Otherwise this’d be useful for people wanting to leave the quarry, but impossible for people wanting to come down into it. When we get up there, we can operate the crank and pull the ground-person to the summit.”
I folded my arms. “This gets my hackles up. It’s risky, but I want the higher ground. It’ll help us see where people are running when the wave hits. How long for that, by the way?”
“Just a little bit longer than it takes Eddie to say his own name,” said Rynk.
Glora glared at him. “Don’t be mean to Pupper.”
“Sorry, kid.”
“We’ve got four minutes until its surfin’ time,” said Eddie.
“Good. Eds, I’m appointing you our official wave timekeeper. Keep us up to date on it.”
Eddie gave me a nod. He tried to be cool about it, but I could tell from the way his lips curled at the corners that he was happy to get some responsibility. I hoped he’d repay me. I was sure I was seeing a change in him, and the best way to make change grow was to feed it. Giving him an important task would do just that.
“What now, boss?” asked Rynk, placing his customary sarcastic emphasis on ‘boss.’
This was time for another captain decision. I knew that the wave was closing in the middle. We’d be able to stick together as a team if we took the long way around and walked along the bottom of the quarry cliffs until they ended, giving way to the tundra or shadow quadrant. On the other hand, we weren’t exactly camouflaged, and the sheer yellow of the quarry would serve to highlight us. Anyone with a long-range spell skill or crossbow would be able to pick us off. Not only that, but the wave would hit long before we made it passed the cliffs.
“Looks like the only way is up,” I said. “I know there are two pods going either way, so we could send three to the top at once, but that’s dangerous. Two of us go up, two of us stay on the ground and turn the crank handle.”
“Got it,” said Eddie.
“Glora, can you place a few traps around near the crank?”
“Will do,” she said. “My Magic Traps is at level two, so I can set ice and fire. Whatever NPCs are in the sand dunes are likely to be fire-resistant and ice-weak, so I’ll set a few cold ones.”
I nodded, and then looked at Rynk. Something occurred to me. It was so obvious, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier.
“Maybe we’re going about this all wrong,” I said. “Rynk, you have the Wall Walk skill, right? You could climb to the top of the quarry and then use the pulley on top to winch the three of us up. You’d be safe on the high gro
und, while we’d be able to stick together down here.”
Rynk squinted at the quarry cliff. He chewed his lip, and then made a sighing noise like a car tire leaking air. “Can’t do it, partner,” he said, sounding like a car mechanic appraising a job. “Only got level one Wall Walk, which makes me slower, and I’ve got less mana than Merlin’s left testicle. I’d need more juice to get up there, probably.”
“Damn. The original plan it is, then. Glora, you lay traps near the crank. Then, you and Eddie can get to the top, while Rynk and I winch you up.”
She shook her head. “I need to be near my traps for them to stay active. If I go too far away they fade. It’ll get better the more I level it, but I’m only level two, so…”
“So, you and I will hoist the others up,” I said.
Rynk walked toward me and put his hand on my shoulder in a friendly way. “We need you up top, partner. You’re the captain. We need you up there surveying the scene, makin’ plans, and such. The gal and I will be okay down here.”
“Okay with you?” I asked Glora.
She shrugged. “I’m slowly building up my Rynk tolerance again. Reckon I can spend a few minutes alone with him.”
I clapped my hands together. I started to feel energized. “Okay then. We’ll get in a pod and you two winch us up. When we’re at the top, we’ll do the same for you. How long until the wave?”
“A minute until it starts,” said Eddie, “and then five minutes until it hits the cliffs.”
“Then let’s shake our asses,” said Rynk. Rynk went over to the pulley and started to turn the crank. The wooden gears groaned, and the ropes started moving. At first, the wooden pods started moving up toward the quarry face. Since we needed to get in one, he turned the handle the opposite direction, and the rope and gear system carried a wooden pod toward us. When it was on the ground, Eddie and I got in.
“Remember,” said Rynk, “Arms and legs inside the pod at all times. No standing or you will die. Eds, you have to be a certain height to go on this ride, but I’ll give you a pass just this once.”
“Ignore him, Pupper,” said Glora as she finished laying her ice traps and joined us at the pod.
It was only then, with the preparations done and nothing to do but get to the top of the cliff, that I looked at the wall of stone and truly appreciated how gigantic it was. I craned my neck to see to the top of it, and my stomach suddenly turned to water. It became all too apparent that I would imminently be going to the top of this thing, assisted by nothing but a wooden pod that looked like it was made two hundred years ago.
“Okay, cap’n?” asked Glora. She was looking at me strangely.
Was I going pale? Sweating? It wouldn’t look good for their captain to be scared of heights. ‘Come on,’ I told myself. ‘Reign it in. Own it. Just keep it together until you’re at the top.’
“Let’s get this over with,” I said, with much more confidence than I felt.
Seated in the pod, with Rynk slowly pulling us up while Glora kept guard, I couldn’t help feeling nervous. The pod resembled the seats in old-style rollercoasters, the ones you’d find in run-down seaside towns where the rides were hardly maintained and where it wasn’t so rare for people to get hurt on them. There were ropes fastened to either side of the pod, and these ropes fed up through a series of gears. When the crank handle was used on the ground or at the top of the quarry, the gears would turn. Depending on the direction the crank was being turned, the gears and ropes would either move the pods up or closer to the ground.
We started to ascend, foot by foot. It was when we were fifteen feet high that my vertigo started to creep in. With each foot, it crept in further until I could feel it liquify my stomach and send a sense of creeping dread in my chest. Suddenly, the pod felt all too rickety, like if I were to put my foot down too hard, I’d stamp a hole in the damn thing.
When we were twenty-feet high, I started to imagine that I could smell something burning, that the pulleys were rubbing on the ropes and fraying them.
I felt a hand on my back. Eddie was looking at me with more than a touch of concern. “Heights not your thing, huh?” he said, kindly.
I realized that I’d been gripping the edge of the pod so hard that my fingers were pure white. I let go. I put my hands on my lap and tried to be calm. The pod wobbled.
‘Deep breaths,’ I told myself. Nope. Not working. I gripped the pod again.
“It helps to talk. Takes your mind off it,” said Eddie. “I’m the same with boats. The sea terrifies the hell outta me, but we always used to go visit my aunt Sarah in the Falken Isles. And the only way there is by boat, so it was pretty hairy for me. I always imagined that we’d capsize and that the sharks would circle us…”
“Uh huh,” I said, surprised I was even able to get anything resembling human language from my lips.I knew it was stupid. Deep down, when I was in control of the rational part of my brain, I knew that heights weren’t inherently dangerous. It was only stupidity that made them dangerous. If you were on the roof of a really tall building and looking down, the view would make your stomach lurch, you were fine if you just stood there and held onto the rail. It was only if you did something ridiculous, like climb over the rail, that you were in trouble. Human stupidity was what made heights dangerous, not the fall itself. The problem was that feeding logic into a brain that was already in panic mode was like trying to douse a jungle fire with a water pistol.
Eddie rubbed my back. “Halfway there, buddy,” he said. “Halfway there. Nothing’s going wrong.”
He just had to say it. No sooner had the words ‘going wrong’ left his lips, had a ball of ice crashed into the side of our pod. It froze over the wood instantly, forming a clear, freezing new layer on top of it. This, added to our weight, made the ropes on either side sag a little.
“We’ve got gatecrashers in the party,” said Eddie.
Across from us, in the pods parallel to ours, were two other VBR fighters. Neither of them had chest armor on. Instead, where the armor would have been, they had elks painted onto their shirts.
Rindelfa – Team Elk
George Bose – Team Elk
Rindelfa, a pony-tailed woman who wore a long robe over her shirt, gathered an icy ball in her outstretched palms. Swirls of ice gathered, growing bigger and bigger until she held a ball the size of a football. Sparks of blue light seemed to seep off it. She was a mage, then—or a magic user, at least.
“Incoming!” I said.
As Rindelfa let loose with her ice ball, I ducked, dragging Eddie down with me. The pod was so small that it didn’t offer much protection. As the ice ball hit the wooden container, I felt a shock of cold pain across my shoulder blades.
15 HP lost!
[Ice elemental]
The cold crept along my shoulders and down my back, then quickly melted in the sand dune heat, becoming a trickle of ice water.
Below us, I heard Glora cry out. The ropes and gears stopped turning. The pod stopped. It tilted back and forth slightly. I felt like I was on a rollercoaster, right at the peak of the climb where evil ride operators would pause the rollercoaster for a second to let the fear of the drop hit you in full force. I peeked over the side of the pod to see Rynk and Glora had moved away from the crank handle now. Two other members of Team Elk were closing in on them. One, a short guy, held a giant net in his hand. It looked to be made of rope, except zaps of lightning-like energy crisscrossed it. The other, a hulking giant of a man with shining steel shoulder braces and gauntlets, held a spiked maze.
“They were waiting for us,” said Eddie.
“No way. How would they know we were coming?” As much as I denied it, deep down I knew it was true. Two members of team elk had been hiding in the pods opposite ours, while two had stayed on the ground, out of view. They must have been here before we had arrived. It didn’t make sense that they’d just be hiding without any reason; they must have known we were headed this way somehow.
Right now, though, explanations would hav
e to wait. Glora and Rynk were in trouble on the ground, but Eddie and I had it worse; Rindelfa and George, across from us, had long-range ice and crossbow attacks, respectively, whereas Eddie and I were melee fighters. They could hit us, while there was no way we could strike back.
We needed to act fast. And we needed every advantage we could grab.
“Eddie, use Assault Leader,” I said.
Eddie held out his palms. A red energy, almost like a mist, gathered above them. He let it grow, and then held his hands aloft and clapped them together. The mist dispersed. It spread out, coating me and Eddie at the same time. Then, parts of it drifted away from the pod and down toward Rynk and Glora.
- HP increased to 227 [Temp]
- Stamina increased to 200 [Temp]
- Mana increased to 301 [Temp]
-Buff: Projectile def +50 [Temp]
