We split up the potions, of which I took two, and headed east to the desert. Binari’s hands were on my waist as we muddled through the interwoven twists and turns of Cul’Maryn. It was another hour or two before we finally reached the eastern edge of the city wall, which stood just as unassuming as its southern counterpart. A handful of city guards—or rangers or whatever they were supposed to be—waved goodbye as we strode past. They were still wearing the armor that the others had magically changed into the prior day. I thought to ask Horan if he’d noticed the sudden change before but decided against it, assuming it would just be a repeat of the telephone book encounter with the young druid.
There was not much conversation among us as we made our way through the forest of Tir’Nadrun, but I began to think of questions soon after we came into the Evermeadows.
“So, we’re going to a desert?”
“That is correct,” Binari said.
“Is that in another Zone, then? This is the Zone of Leaves, right?”
“Yes, this is the Zone of Leaves, but no, the desert is still within this Zone’s borders. It is a transitional strip between Tel’Maryn and the Zone of Sand. As far as we know, the Gray Favor has no presence in any Zones but Tel’Maryn.”
“Ah, I see.”
“This desert is nothing compared to the terrain of the Zone of Sand,” she added, still sensing my confusion. “Perhaps one day you will see what I mean. It is easy to succumb to the elements there. Here, not so much.”
As midday approached, the hills of the Evermeadows slowly began to level out. The blue flowers lessened in their numbers, and the grass grew sparser, replaced with barren, cracking dirt and eventually sand. As the meadows faded into the distance, rolling dunes of sand appeared in place of the green hills we left behind. The air was dry, as were my lips. Horan handed me a bottle of water, and I sipped from it conservatively. I had not thought to bring water along and wanted to smack myself for the oversight. Most games did not require players to prepare for such minute things as thirst and hunger, and sometimes I forgot that this was no ordinary game, even as I strode atop a solid mount wading through the game’s very real desert sands, feeling the undeniable warm breeze brush against my face. It was in that moment that I wondered again where—if—the game drew a line to prevent too much pain and suffering. Dying of thirst or heat stroke would be a horrible way to go, even in this virtual environment.
After a time, the length of which I had no idea, we spotted a long line of dunes on the horizon.
“I think that’s it,” Binari cautioned. “On the other side of those hills—I think the river is over there. If we’re lucky, the slavers haven’t moved on yet.”
“If we’re luckier, there won’t be like forty of them on the other side waiting to ram spears up out asses.”
Horan laughed. “You have colorful imagination, boy. Now, let us see what fate has in store.” He kicked his steed into action and bolted for the high sands.
Binari huffed and hugged me firmer as I ordered Sleeper to keep pace with the older man.
“We should not be charging in blindly like this,” Binari complained.
“Eh, too late now. We can’t just let him go in alone.”
When we reached the base of the hills, Horan skidded to a halt. He tilted his head to get a better view of the top, squinting in the sun. All seemed quiet and as it should be. There was nothing I could hear or see that would have led me to believe a small army was on the other side of those dunes.
Horan dismounted and looked to us long enough to give a reassuring smile before ascending the slope. Again, Binari and I hurried after him, this time using our own legs.
About halfway up, I could hear several voices. Seconds later, four or five heads were peering down at us, their shadows stretching past us almost all the way to our horses. Theirs were not friendly faces, and I understood with a new appreciation what Elder Frey and the others must have seen when they looked at me for the first time.
Each of these scarred and sunbaked men were watching us with violent intent, all of them wearing clothing that was practically identical to mine. Some stood with bows slung around their backs, while the others were in the process of unsheathing daggers and swords, ready to make short work of us unsuspecting travelers. Horan’s blade was already out, and I took that as my queue to do the same. One might say that this was about to be . . . an uphill battle.
Binari clenched her staff in both fists. Like the bows of our enemies, it too had been slung over her back until then, fastened securely with a leather strap as she rode and climbed. She was glaring at the men.
More had come to join them in the passing seconds. There were ten now, outnumbering us more than three-to-one. Four stood with their bows out, prepared to end us before we even had a chance.
“Come down and fight us like men, you cowards!” Horan challenged them. “I could take all of you down here, just give me the chance, damn it!”
“You really think so?” one of the rogues said then laughed. “I’d like to see that!”
“Then come and see, friend!” the Master of Mounts spat. His knuckles were white as they gripped the handle of his sword.
The man who had answered the call looked left and right to his brothers with the bows. He himself was dual-wielding swords—one was a plain, short, and hardly worth mentioning, but the other was longer and looked to be made of—or at least coated in—silver, and decorated in relief with a scene of animals or monsters battling one another. From where I stood, it was difficult to make out any of its fine details, but I knew one thing right away: I wanted it.
“What do you say, boys?” he asked the archers with a mischievous grin. “Shall we fight this old bastard ‘like men?’”
Everyone laughed, and each man who had not already pulled an arrow from his quiver did so then.
“That’s what I was thinking,” the foreman said.
He raised his arm and the others drew their bows back. With nothing left to do, I charged up the hill toward them, knowing I would not make it in time. Horan let out a deafening battle cry and followed my lead. In the next breath, the arrows flew loose, two darting for each of us. I was sure my journey was already done, but then—out of nowhere—there came a brilliant streak of light, and the arrows sailed full-speed into an invisible wall halfway to their destination.
In my surprise, I looked back to Binari. She was positioned in a battle stance, her ancient staff held aloft.
“Hurry!” she commanded. “I can’t keep doing that! Go, go!”
With renewed vigor, Horan and I sprinted up the hill. As we closed in, the archers tossed their bows to the sand and pulled out their knives, thinking those would be more helpful in close-range combat.
I jammed my own knife into the belly of the first asshole I came within reach of. He grunted and fell to his knees as one of his brothers ran over and tried to bring his short sword down on me from overhead. With my left hand still gripping the dagger firmly stuck in the first guy’s stomach, I lifted my scimitar to intercept the blow as it came dropping down like a guillotine.
There was a loud clang as our metal met, but I did not take time to enjoy the sound. With the first guy’s weight still on my arm, I took an awkward half-step forward and launched my foot into my new aggressor. He stumbled back, and I ripped my little blade from its vacation home and sent it shopping for his heart. One—two—three times I stabbed his chest. Every time I pulled the knife back, blood spurted out to greet me in an over-the-top, gritty, action-movie fashion. The guy clutched his chest and fell flat.
I turned to see that the first rogue was not done yet. He was fumbling to his feet, trying to fight both the pain and the sand giving way beneath his footfalls. I leapt back to him and nudged him in the butt with my heel. He tumbled down the dune, landing several yards up from Binari, who rushed in to stab him with her own knife.
When I whipped back around, two more were already closing in on me. One was the man with the decorated sword.
&
nbsp; “Nice blade,” I said.
“Thanks,” he replied with a wink.
The moment he finished the gesture, I swiped my edge across the fingers holding the prized possession. He yelped and dropped it, along with two freshly severed appendages. His buddy took that as his opportunity to move in, so he lunged forward and cut a deep wound into the outer side of my right arm.
“Fuck!” I wailed.
I was suddenly experiencing the worst pain I had ever felt. If the game drew a line on pain somewhere, that line was too far back for my comfort. My knee-jerk instinct was to turn and haul ass so I could get somewhere safe to deal with the wound, but I held my composure and resolved to stick it through to the end.
“You fucking asshole!” I shouted as I pierced my foe’s chest with my scimitar.
Despite losing two fingers, the foreman was howling with laughter. I turned to him in time to see his other sword cutting toward me. I ducked, feeling the air in its wake ruffling the hairs of my head.
The other guy crumpled over as I withdrew my blade from him with a sickening squelch and cut upward into his leader. The eight-fingered man now stood with a deep gash trailing from his waist to his neck. He paused, stunned for a moment, before joining his ally in the sand. I brought the tip of my scimitar down into both of their backs for good measure and hurried to deal with those that remained.
Horan already had a small pile of bodies lying around him, and two others were coming to challenge him as I drew near. I reached out and firmly grasped the closest one to me on the shoulder, pulling him to ground. He yelled, flailing as he fell back. His knife made a minor cut in my wrist, but it was nothing compared to the injury I had already sustained. This wound only served to fuel my determination to end them all.
In his new compromised position, he jabbed for my shin, but I was able to lift my leg in time and bring it down to crush his forearm. Still gripping his weapon, his hand sank into the dune under my coercion.
“Any last words?” I barked at him.
He grunted as my scimitar dropped down, severing his head from the rest of his body. His ugly mug rolled down the dune, coming to a rest at its base. When I turned my attention back to Horan, he had already finished off the other guy, and that turned out to be the last of them. Binari hastened up the hill to join us.
Pop!
Exp: 225
Kill: 4 Gray Favor Henchmen
Partial Kill: Gray Favor Henchman
Search?
“Yes, search.”
Looting . . .
20sv coins. 1 Ornamental Sword. 1 Plain Leather Gloves.
As I read this, I saw the decorated sword shimmer and disappear from where it lay in the sand, and then a sudden weight was added to my rucksack.
“Hell yeah!”
LEVEL UP!
“Hell yeah!”
You’ve reached level 2!
STR +1, END +1, AGI +2, INT +1, WIS +0, CHA +0
I felt a sudden rush. As an RPG gamer, leveling up and getting new loot were the things I lived for. I took off my sack and began rifling through it. The new items glowed as I laid my eyes on them, and their stats appeared as I touched them, just as they had in the tanner’s store.
Plain Leather Gloves
Durability: 100%
Physical Defense: +1 (+1)
I put those bad boys on.
Ornamental Sword
Durability: 100%
Acc/Dmg: AGI/STR
Dmg: +2
I swapped that out for my dagger.
Binari strode past us in the time it took me to get everything in order. She was silent, looking down on the other side of the dunes. I went to her and saw the river, where she had suspected it was. The only problem was that there was no one else around. Not a ship or even a dock. Nothing except for a few random smatterings of desert flowers hugging the edge of the stream.
“Well, that’s unexpected,” I said.
She nodded and held her staff out. I had not noticed before that there were little glass orbs dotting its top, like purple and green marbles enveloped in a hardened resin. She moved it in a figure-eight pattern and muttered something—probably an incantation—under her breath.
The wind rushed in and swirled around her, her golden hair and robe tossing about at its mercy. Sand swept in and danced before her. She leaned to peer into it, squinting as if she were trying to decipher something on an ancient fuzzy television set. Binari was clearly seeing something that I could not.
“There were others here this morning, it seems,” she began. “A man by the name of Dukayne, traveling with an older woman. Something seems . . . off about her.”
“Dukayne.” I heard Horan spit and looked to him to elaborate. He was shaking his head. “He’s just a worm. He used to be someone, but . . . well . . . the will to power warps many men. He will not be the last.”
“It seems they seek the Temple Hearth.”
“Well, that’s nothing new,” Horan commented.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s where the druids meet,” Horan said.
“That was the room we met in with Elder Frey,” Binari explained without looking away from the swirling television static of sand. “It is considered the center of the Temple. Every temple has one. It is customary that the presiding rulers of the Temple conduct law from there. Whoever claims the Hearth claims the entire Temple.”
She was silent for a time, continuing to piece together what the sand was telling her.
“There is another man,” she said. “He goes by the name of Conn Felvid.”
My ears perked up at the mention of the man my current quest was centered around.
“He is mounted on . . . a desert pony—riding out of the desert but a fair distance away from where we came in. There are two others with him—two well-armored men. They appear to be of higher rank than those we just faced.”
She went quiet again, and the wind faded, the sand falling back to the ground in its absence.
“Well?” Horan asked.
“That was all I could see. We should return to the Temple and see what the Presence can make of this information.”
“Agreed,” the Master of Mounts said. He stretched his arms and added, “It might be nice to stop for some food and perhaps a bath on the way back.”
“A bath?” I asked, confused at where we would find such a thing out in the middle of nowhere but also suddenly realizing how greasy I felt. I had not taken an actual bath the entire time I had been in Circuit World.
“I know a spot just a few hours from here near the edge of the meadows,” he assured me. “Come on, I’ll show you. The three of us deserve it after what we’ve just been through.”
We followed his lead and came to a small patch of trees sitting alone in the middle of the fields. It looked like it would have been more at home in the desert we had just left, as an oasis, complete with a shimmering cool pool shaded by the trees.
Binari said nothing as we approached the water, but quietly looked from me to it and back again with a glint of mischief flashing in her eyes. Horan dismounted and led his horse over to drink, taking Sleeper with him as well. Binari and I stood at the edge of the water watching them in silence.
“This pool is sacred to our gods,” Horan said. “It is said that all who come here are healed of whatever ails them.
That would have been nice to know a couple hours ago, I thought. If I’d known that, I would have been able to save the healing potion, but I couldn’t deny that that little bottle of viscous liquid did the trick. I slathered it on my cuts before we set out, and it healed them up as we rode from the desert. Within an hour, the deep gash in my arm had sewed itself shut, leaving nothing behind but a small scar which itself was already beginning to fade.
Horan smirked at us as the horses took their last few laps of water and said, “Well, I’m going to stretch my legs among the trees for a bit—maybe even take a short nap. Let me know when you two are ready to head back.”
“All right,” I said. “Happy napping.”
When he had walked out of sight, I turned to see Binari’s plush body standing before me. Her breasts welled out wider than her robe led me to believe, and her hips told the same story, the dimples in them taunting me. She was blushing and her chest was flushed, but her confident tone did not betray any nervousness or embarrassment.
“We might as well bathe,” she said, reaching forward to unfasten the ties on my mail.
We were in the water in the next minute, her standing right up against me. I could feel her long deep breaths against the curly hairs of my chest as she looked up expectantly, waiting for me to do what I pleased with her.
I leaned forward and planted a gentle kiss on her full lips. She closed her eyes, blushing more, and held the back of my neck with one of her hands while using the other one to stroke my member. I moved my head down and smelled her sweet scent as I licked her neck; the skin rich with hints of who she was and where she’d been. She giggled, feeling ticklish, and I placed a firm hand on her breast, while reaching my other arm around her back to pull her close.
Her chest pressed against mine, and I felt her grip harden around me as her stroking grew more insistent, but still oddly delicate. I looked up for a moment to take in the sheer ecstasy I was feeling and noticed movement in the branches sheltering us.
At first, I thought there was an animal running across them, but they appeared to be bending of their own accord. Binari noticed my moment of distraction and looked to see what had taken my focus away from her.
“The land must approve of our union.” She giggled, doubling the force of her grip to reel me back in. “We mustn’t disappoint it.”
She held the back of my neck and pulled herself up on me, using her stroking hand to guide me into her deepest secret.
And oh what a secret she held.
I moaned as I found my way inside along the slick, heated path, and she began to bounce up and down, generating vicious ripples in the water.
Circuit World Page 11
