Circuit World

by Daniel Pierce

  “Ungh!” he yelped. “Sto—sto!” He was gagging on his own tongue and attempting to claw into my arm, his nails useless against leather padding.

  “Let him go, fucker!” another shouted.

  I stooped down and scrounged up a rock that was about half the size of the fist he used to grip it.

  “Step away from the horse and get out of here,” I said. “I’ll let him go if you do that for me.”

  “Fuck you!” the second guy yelled and chucked the stone my way.

  I pulled his buddy over, and the rock thumped against the man’s chest, drawing out a pained groan from my victim. Two others closed in on my right, and I decided it was time to quit stalling and get this over with.

  I pushed my guy into another standing off to my left and laid into the two approaching me. One made to cut up and punch my stomach, but I arched my back away from his fist and caught his wrist with both hands. All of his weight was on one leg as he lurched forward to attempt the attack. I used this to my advantage by stepping back while still maintaining my grip on him and yanking him forward and to the ground.

  His friend tried to attack me then, but he only ended up stumbling against his mate in his hurry to close the distance between us. I leaned in and jabbed my closed fist into his gut just as his partner had tried to do to me, and he doubled over, groaning and clenching at his waist.

  I whipped around to scope out the rest of the situation. The guy I had almost choked out was mumbling and stirring a little on the ground, clearly not preparing to jump back up and get into the action. I supposed I’d bruised his ego enough already. The guy he had been thrown into was a different matter. He strode forward with vicious intent and swung at me from the side. His arms were like a bear’s, but an opponent’s raw strength was only of secondary concern to a rogue like me.

  I ducked, and his ham hand sailed past, the breeze that stirred in his wake rustling my hair. When the gust had passed by, I took that as my queue to assert myself, so I sprung back up and slammed my knuckles into his right rib, which his attack had left exposed. He shouted, and I laid into him a second time with my other fist. By then he was bent forward with a hand on his knee and the other clutching at his injured side. I was bouncing around on the balls of my feet, ready for him to test me again, but he held a hand up and waved me away, mumbling something like his friend who was still on the ground.

  There was only one man left, and I was curios to see if he even had the nerve now. This fighting was amazing. Somehow, my reflexes just knew what to do. My “formal” training had never amounted to much. My karate class was more of a daycare than anything, and I never got to test my skills in the real world. I knew that this virtual reality still didn’t technically count as the real world, but it was the realest fight I had ever been involved with up to that day.

  The fifth guy, a lanky redhead who was probably close to my age, was watching me from the other side of Sleeper. He seemed intent to stay put, so I didn’t go after him. He was being a good boy.

  Faun and Horan had also managed to dispatch their aggressors. The man called Amren lay in the dirt, blood trailing from his nose. It seemed like Horan had held back less than I did. Amren looked no less angry, but it was doubtful he would try anything stupid and risk having his ass handed to him a second time. He looked up defiantly at the Tel’Maryn Master of Mounts standing over him.

  “Now get the hell out of here,” Horan barked, pointing to the left. “And this better be the last I hear of this nonsense.”

  Amren took more time than necessary to get to his feet, but he eventually was up and slinking away, stopping once to glare back at us from over his shoulder. His cronies followed suit, and they had all cleared out in a matter of minutes.

  Several people had stopped to watch us from higher up. If I was giving them cause to stare before, their reasons had multiplied now. I jumped, hearing that startling metallic pop at my right.

  Exp: 40

  Defeated: 2 Human Townsmen, 2 Elf Townsmen

  Cannot search because there are no bodies present to loot.

  It was clear that the rewards for not outright killing my enemies did not pay off too well as far as experience and looting were concerned. I hoped that bloodless victories would at least help me in my diplomatic pursuits throughout the rest of the game. Otherwise, I had another issue to include on my beta testing report.

  Before the window had disappeared, another sudden movement caught my eye. There was a woman standing not too far away from me on ground level. I barely noticed her in my periphery, and likely would not have if she had remained still until after we had left. She was short, with dark hair and fair skin, and she was wearing an emerald green cloak. That was all I noticed because as soon as I saw her, she was hurrying away. It kind of sketched me out, but I didn’t think it was worth pursuing her. Maybe she was not used to violence and everything that had just happened made her uncomfortable. Maybe my glancing at her was too much for her to handle so she got nervous and ran. Whatever drove her actions, it was such a minor detail in this living, breathing game world, but those little details added up to make this an unbelievable experience. I was thankful for everything the game had thrown my way so far—except for my apparent inability to call up the UI on command.

  “Well, I think I need a drink,” Horan announced, looking from Faun to me.

  “Make that two,” I said, laughing.

  We followed him through more twists and turns, this time leading our horses by the reins. After a while, we found ourselves in a clearing lined by trees that were thicker than the others I had seen so far. There were signs here over the entrances written in plain English, telling me that we had come into the commercial section of Cul’Maryn.

  Horan showed us to a stable where we tied the horses off. It rested to the side of another inhabited trunk and was constructed of a band of smaller trees whose branches were interwoven and fastened with vines. The leaves of these trees were each wider than my hand and glossy on their skyward-facing sides. They seemed sturdy, and I was sure that they had no trouble directing water away from the creatures taking shelter beneath them.

  Each horse wandered over to a wooden trough and either began lapping up water or munching on oats. Most of the bins appeared to have recently been filled, but I could see no stable hand standing watch.

  “What if they come back?” I asked. “Do you feel safe leaving the horses here unsupervised?”

  Horan shook his head. “I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble from that lout—at least not any time soon. But if his ugly mug does try something here, I know where he lives, and there are eyes and ears all over the place that would fill me in on the finer details before he even got to where he was going with the horse.”

  “Fair enough. What was that all about anyway?”

  “He’s just an ass that thinks he has a special claim to a fine steed. I bought Sleeper off of him over a year ago, and now that I’ve got him all trained up, Amren thinks he can take him back. He thought he was pulling one over on me, you see. Sleeper here was sold to me at a discount because he was temperamental. But Amren just doesn’t know how to handle horses that need a bit more care. He got angry seeing when I turned his old horse’s behavior around.” He reached over and scratched Sleeper on the chin like a doting person might do to their dog. “Isn’t that right, Sleeper? You just needed a little love and affection, didn’t you, boy?”

  Sleeper neighed through a mouthful of oats, his tail swishing from side to side. Horan walked to the stable entrance and gestured for Faun and I to come closer.

  “See there, Si1ence?” he asked, pointing in the direction that I had come to associate with north. I could not see too much aside from the usual jumble of inhabited trees. “Beyond the line there.” Behind the jumble stood a massive shadow, which towered at half the height of the surrounding trees but was magnitudes thicker. I could not make out much of it from where I stood, but it seemed to more closely resemble a building than any of the trees we had p
assed so far. “That’s the Temple. Faun can take you the rest of the way there.” He pointed over his shoulder to the tree that the stable sprouted from. “And this is one of our many fine taverns, my friend. Here, you can find the best brew and bedding around—all in one place! It’s called Edmund’s, after its founder. His great-grandson, Elias, runs it now with his wife Sheria. They’re a fine couple, those two.”

  “Thanks for leading the way, Horan. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.” I took his arm in mine. “I’m sure we’ll stop back by here afterward.”

  “Do,” the big man said. “This is not the last we’ve seen of each other, my friend. I am honored to have met you and am interested to see where you will go. Faun is under the impression that you could help us fight off this menace that torments us. From what I have seen of your fighting abilities, I am inclined to believe her. So, I will be here for a while. I am often here. Perhaps we could share drinks tonight.”

  “I would like that. I look forward to seeing what the evening holds.”

  Faun led me further down the district, pointing out several structures as we went. “That is Nora’s—she’s the best tailor in the city. The clothes I am wearing now were actually stitched together by her. I had them blessed by one of the druids at the temple, and they have held together for the past four or five years. You might do well to purchase some better clothing from her in the near future.”

  I looked to where she pointed. There was a sign anchored with vines above the threshold that read: “Nora’s Needle.” Clever, I thought. Alliterative.

  “And over there is Wimble, the shoemaker. I have not worn his shoes since childhood, but Madame Gomira who runs the orphanage would swear by him. Ah—here is the bathing pool!”

  She led me by the hand to a wide and shallow fountain-thing. I say “fountain-thing” because that is the best way to describe it, but it was not exactly a fountain. Nothing in this place ever seemed to be exactly what it resembled in the real world.

  The bathing pool was encircled by a ring of stones that sat no higher than my foot. Dirt and moss were caked onto these rocks, filling in the gaps between each adjacent pair and decorating their exposed surfaces in a pleasing mixture of lush green and nutrient-rich brown. The ground inside the circle was laid with smoother stones, packed tightly together and flattened so that they could be walked on with ease. These, too, were coated in an alluring layer of green. Water bubbled up from several holes dotting the interior of the ring, and I could tell by the rising steam that it was nice and warm.

  Some twenty-something people were going about their business washing all parts of their bodies in the inviting pool. It could easily fit three times as many of them. I blushed at the sight of all their exposed nethers but dismissed any initial discomfort I felt. This was clearly their way, and if they didn’t feel awkward, there was no reason for me to.

  Bordering the outer edge of the enclosure were random smatterings of stumps, all trimmed to knee-level or lower. People used these as seats to sit on and dry off or to place their clothes on while they cleaned themselves. At some of these stood young elves offering fresh towels in exchange for a few pieces of copper.

  “I want to take a quick wash here—only my face, arms, and legs—and then I will take care of a few other things before we go to the Temple. Does this sit well with you, Si1ence?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll probably wash my face off, too.”

  I stooped over the edge of the pool and tried to get a glimpse of my face in the rippling water. My avatar resembled the actual Rixon Caldwell far more than I expected, and there wasn’t even an ugly face tattoo. I was more muscular for sure, but I already knew that. My jaw was a little more jarhead-shaped than it actually was, but that might have been due to my pudginess in real life altering how I would have looked had I been thinner. It was a little unnerving that someone—probably a whole team of people—had paid so much attention to me without my knowledge. They must have stared at pictures of me for hours to get the level of detail I was seeing there in the pool. The parting of my bangs, the thin scar running through my left eyebrow I had received at the end of a locker in the sixth grade, the way the hair around my lip reaches over and down the side of my mouth but doesn’t quite connect to the hair growing on my chin—it was all there, masterfully crafted to look like a bigger, buffer me.

  I scooped up two handfuls of water and splashed my face, running my wet fingers through my brown wavy hair. I thought of the trout and how I’d like to go back and try some more of them someday soon and hoping to find a formidable meal at the tavern.

  “Towel, sir?”

  I almost jumped at the appearance of a little elf standing inches from my elbow. I might have almost knocked him on the head by accident as I was rubbing my face.

  “Oh, uh, sure,” I said, taking the clean linen offered to me.

  The little guy held out his hand.

  “How much?”

  “One coin, sir.”

  I handed the lad a single bronze coin, hoping there was not some other currency he was referring to, like a silver coin. Though, if it took a silver coin to rent a towel, I thought, bronze coins must be worthless. He took it with a grin and trotted off with the dirtied rag once I had finished using it. Faun met me shortly after, and we continued on our way.

  “I want to sharpen my dagger,” she said. “The blacksmith is over this way, and he is one of the few in Tel’Maryn that does not charge to use his grinding wheel. And perhaps we can find a snack somewhere. My stomach is getting impatient, and I would not like to wait for dinner.”

  “Sure, sure,” I said, nodding.

  She took me over to another massive-trunked tree. Its curtain was a deep red, thick, and tattered; it looked like it would be more at home on a stage but instead was here, pulled back with a vine almost as thick as my arm, revealing the blacksmith’s daily routine. I could see that there had been a sign hanging over the entryway some time ago, but it had long since warped and withered away, leaving nothing legible behind.

  The smithy hammered away with his back to us as we approached. He was either working on a long-handled mace or war hammer. It seemed a little early in the process, so it was hard for me to tell what the thing was exactly.

  Faun strode forward and set to work at the grinding wheel. The brawny man glanced in our direction but did not focus on us long enough for me to return his look with a wave. Faun politely smiled, and I almost said hello but he seemed busy, and I thought it might be best to leave him to his task.

  She worked the wheel confidently, as if she had done it a hundred times before. I had never handled a grinding wheel in real life and wondered if I would innately know how to do it here just like how I summoned my fighting powers from thin air when I needed them. I decided to check back later, not wanting to delay our trip to the Temple any more than we already were.

  When she seemed satisfied, she stood, sheathed her blade, and half-waved at the blacksmith out of courtesy, knowing that he could not see the gesture anyway.

  “He’s a nice man,” she whispered as we were leaving his earshot. “He is simply dedicated to his work and is always busy during the daylight hours. Perhaps we will see him at the tavern this evening.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said with a smile. “So, where to next?”

  Faun stopped for a moment and looked from the distant shadow that was the Temple of Leaves to a stall that was setup not so many yards from the bathing pool. This stall was nothing more than two waist-high stumps bridged by a thick log that had been planed and smoothed down on one side. Spread across this makeshift table were what seemed to be a diverse array of colorful pastries. I was suddenly aware of how hungry I had gotten. It had been hours since I’d eaten, and we had already been winding through the city for what seemed like miles on top of miles, and that was without taking into consideration all the time it took us to reach the city after our morning meal, which was hardly more than a snack itself.

  “How about we do go get
some food?” I suggested.

  She grinned. Apparently, I had made up her mind for her. “Yes, let’s do that.” She took me by the hand and led me over to the stall and its assortment of goodies.

  My eyes landed on a fat bun covered in strawberry slices and what looked to be a honey glaze—either honey or sap. The thing itself seemed to glow, and I gladly exchanged a few bronze pieces to unite the beautiful morsel with my belly.

  It offered no resistance as my teeth sank into its fluffy hide and tore it in half with a single bite. Chewing it was not unlike eating a donut, but it tasted better than any donut I’d ever had. The glaze was not honey, but something a little less sweet and a little more sparkly in flavor. I laughed thinking of how to describe it, but that was the best I could come up with: sparkly. I had never tasted anything quite like it before. It was as if the sticky coating was kissing my tongue, making love to it. That little treat didn’t just provide a taste, no. Eating it was an experience all on its own. I took my time chewing, trying to make the euphoria last as long as possible, and was sad to see it finally go. I was definitely planning to stop back by that stall in the near future.

  Drunk off the flavor, I looked to my companion and simply asked, “Temple?” Glaze and crumbs were crusting the corners of my mouth.

  “Temple,” she said, flashing her pearly whites.

  6

  The Temple had a clearing all to itself. It was shadier there, with vines growing in massive unkempt clusters all along the trees. Many of the trees there had thicker, jagged leaves than the ones I had seen in the forest so far. Their trunks were dark and splitting with many deep cracks, like the dry, weathered faces of old men. I ran my hand along one as we passed.