by Charles Dean
Maddock narrowed his eyes as he thought how to play this out. The White-Wing was as blind as he was in the fog. He was relying on the sound of Maddock walking to figure out where to attack from, just like Maddock was relying on the sounds of the trees to know when the attack was coming.
"Let's see how smart you are, eh?" he thought to himself. Maddock silently crouched back down and stuck the Knife blade down into the ground next to the tree. Raising himself back up, he took several small steps forward. On the fourth step, he heard the sound of the bark breaking loose as the White-Wing took to the air again. Maddock rushed forward, charging in the direction of the ocean, not caring how much noise he made.
"Thirteen . . . Fourteen . . ." Maddock mentally counted the steps as he ran. "Sixtee--" The birdman slammed into him from behind, throwing him to the ground again, and there was a flurry of wings as the White-Wing sought to take to the air once more.
You have taken 113 damage!
You have taken 113 damage!
Maddock didn't wait this time. He pushed himself back to his feet and turned around running in the direction he had just come from. He was hoping that his suspicion was correct. Since the White-Wing couldn't see what it was attacking until it was almost on him in its dive, he was going to be blind most of the way down.
"Eleven . . . Twelve . . . Thirteen . . ." Maddock threw himself feet first into a baseball style slide towards the tree he had stood crouched beside moments before. Above him, he felt a rush of wind as the White-Wing missed its dive. Maddock grabbed the handle of the Knife in his hand as he slid to it and firmly planted his feet into the ground, using his momentum to push him back onto his feet and carry him forward. Just a few feet ahead of him, he could make out the outline of the White-Wing as it tried to regain flight. The mist swirled around its wings.
"No so smart!" Maddock yelled. Lunging forward, he brought the Knife up and back down into the shoulder blade of the birdman, just at the base of its wing. The Crude Leather Armor it wore wasn't thick enough to stop the heavy blade from piercing through and into the muscle beneath. His momentum carried him forward onto the White-Wing's back, bearing it to the ground beneath him.
"Arrrrraaaaa!" the White-Wing cried out, furiously struggling to throw Maddock off.
"Nope." Maddock braced his legs firmly around the waist of his prey, who was pinned face down on the ground. He wrenched his Knife free from the avian's shoulder causing him to cry out again in pain. "I don't think so." He gripped the Knife in both hands and slammed it down into the other shoulder blade in the exact same spot, severing the muscle there.
"The Sun God will immolate you in his light for this, heathen! You cannot desecrate the flesh of the chosen and remain unpunished! We are the bearers of his righteous word and--"
"Shut up." Maddock drove his mailed fist into the back of the White-Wing's head slamming it face-first into the ground.
"Arrrgh! You will burn! On our wings, his glory will be carried! You will bur-- Arrrrrrrrraaaaaaahhh!" he cried out again.
Maddock gripped the avian's wings in both hands and rocked backwards, pulling hard. There was a snapping of bone as the wings broke and dislocated where the muscles had been severed. The White-Wing fell unconscious from the pain and remained silent.
"That's for making me wait," Maddock said as he stood up above the now prone form. "I hate waiting." Reaching down, he pulled his Knife free from where it was still lodged in the White-Wing's shoulder. He wiped it off on the bird's feathers, leaving them streaked with red and slipped his weapon back into his belt.
Maddock hoisted the limp form over his shoulders and began trudging back to camp under the weight. "Now for some answers."
Valerie:
Valerie felt awesome. She felt like a super secret agent. Like a sexy black widow with wings. The word bad ass was the only way she could think of describing what she was doing. In her mind, they weren’t three kids playing a videogame--they were three secret agents. She was the level-headed leader in her Leather Armor with her fancy Daggers sneaking around giving hand signals to her friends so as not to talk. Daniel wasn’t just the random guy that had been roped into the group. He was a smooth-talking operator who could get in and out of any situation with his quick wit and likable personality. And Mclean? Mclean was the warrior girl who would murder anyone if their trio was discovered. So Valerie didn’t feel silly at all as they crept through the sand towards the entrance to the Fire-Walkers’ lair. She felt cool.
They etched their way across the sand, making sure to be careful and use the terrain as a cloak to hide themselves as they approached the shadowed entrance in the sand. Whatever the Fire-Walkers were up to, they hadn’t been easy to find, and they probably wouldn’t take kindly to being infiltrated either. People generally didn’t like others spying on them if they went to this much trouble remaining secret. Being very close to the cap level of the area, Valerie was sure she could handle most of the competition if anything came up, but that didn’t mean she wanted to test her luck. It also didn’t mean she was sure that she’d find out what she needed if they just rampaged through a supposedly friendly town, no matter how sketchy and hidden it was.
“Are you seeing all of this? Look at that entrance. It’s better guarded than the president’s ride. How are we supposed to sneak past that?” Daniel whispered to Valerie, as if she was the idea girl at this point.
“We . . . we aren’t. There are too many Guards. Wait, do any of you guys have a box to hide under?” Mclean answered, causing Daniel to chuckle and almost get the group spotted.
“Well, there is always the other option,” Valerie thought. “We don’t have to sneak past them without getting spotted; we just have to make sure whoever spots us isn’t alive to sound the alarm.”
“Don’t let them ring the bell--as if we’re playing Assassin’s Creed, you mean?” Daniel asked, pulling out his Daggers.
“Yes, Like Assassin’s Creed. Except this time you can’t even let them shout. Let’s do this!” Valerie said, accidently saying it loud enough for the first Guard to hear.
Crap! I can’t let hi-- she started to think, but Mclean had already made it to him and cut both of the Guard’s throats before Valerie closed half the distance. That girl is insane.
“Maybe be a little less enthusiastic,” Mclean joked, cleaning off her blade.
“Hehe, okay, I’ll remember that,” Valerie said, feeling a bit embarrassed, but too excited about the whole mission to let it get to her.
Now that the two Guards standing watch over the glass hole in the floor that lead to the Fire-Walker establishment were dead, there really wasn’t a rush. Valerie tried to get her breathing as quiet as possible as she descended down the glass stairs.
“Umm, do we . . . do we have any way to see down here?” Daniel asked, making everyone painfully aware that the Fire-Walkers clearly hadn’t felt it necessary to add torches, given the built in ones they carried.
“Oh! I know!” Valerie beamed excitedly. She quickly pulled out a number of glowing rocks. “I got these at the market earlier, ‘Stones of the Sun God’ the guy who sold me called them. They aren’t bright enough to really make any noticeable change in light during the day, but I think right now they are perfect. Just enough light to let us see but not enough to call attention to us.”
“Wow, that’s pretty awesome!” Daniel said as he and Mclean grabbed two of the rocks. He then put two of them over his eyes and stuck out his arms like a zombie. “Aaagghhhh . . . brains!!”
“Don’t be silly, why would zombies have glowing eyes?” Mclean knocked him on the back causing both of the eyes to shoot out of his head and onto the floor.
“I don’t know. Movies always do weird things with lighting effects and zombies,” Daniel said, scooping down to pick up the rocks. “It’s not like zombies have any basis in science.”
“Maybe, but they’re still scary,” Mclean said.
Wait, Mclean is scared of something?
Daniel cut the conversation sho
rt by putting his finger over his mouth. Footsteps could be heard, and no one wanted to be spotted just yet. They had just gotten down the glass stairs, which opened up into a perpendicular fork in the road with the footsteps coming from the left path.
“Those bird-brained idiots will never know what hit them,” one of the voices said.
Could we really be so lucky as to get vital information this quick? Are we natural born spies?
“Yeah, they are out there tirelessly working at the harbor to expand our Empire. They have no idea what’ll be waiting for them when they get back,” another voice said.
“So glad I picked Fire-Walker. Can you imagine how awful it would be to be bound to that hunk of glass in the sky when it comes crashing down?”
“No idea. It serves them right though, arrogant little feather heads.”
Valerie had to stop herself from dashing out and punching the voice in the throat. It was getting closer every second, so the amount of time she’d have to eavesdrop was shrinking by the moment. Don’t do anything rash just yet guys, she thought, eyeing her two friends. If she wanted to jump out from behind the corner and stab them, Mclean definitely would.
“The worst part of it all? Most of them will die during the invasion, so they’ll have no way to stop us by the time they finally realize what’s happening.”
I know no one is supposed to be down here, but you are giving away way too much plot information haphazardly. You idiot, are you trying out for a role as the villain in a Bond movie?
“Hahahahaha, maybe I can strap a saddle to one of those feather-brained idiots an--” nothing but the sound of gurgling blood escaped his mouth as he tried to finish his sentence. He had gotten too close to the corner, and Daniel had rounded it and killed him, jamming a Dagger right through his throat. Mclean had followed and carved up the other one.
So much for hostages.
“What? Don’t hold me responsible: I’m just a feather-brained idiot,” Daniel said, kicking the dead Fire-Walker.
Valerie couldn’t blame him, but they were at a crossroads now. “Do we go back and report what we found, or do we clean up the mess?” she asked, voicing the question everyone was thinking about.
“The question is, how deep does this conspiracy go? It sounds like they’ve planned to attack the holy city while we lay siege to the White-Horns. If that’s the case, they’ll clean us up. Everyone over Level 10 will be participating in the siege. The city will be defenseless,” Daniel said.
“Yeah, and these guys clearly hate us. I didn’t know this game had racial slurs, but we’ve already heard at least two for our Race in less than five minutes,” Mclean added.
“Well, boss, what do you want to do? Turn this in or investigate further?”
“Aren’t you two worried about someone finding out we are investigating?” Valerie asked, looking at the two bodies. They had already racked up a body count of four, and it had only been five minutes. Someone was bound to discover them.
“Well, what’s the worst case scenario if we get caught?”
“They could hold us prisoner so we never talk?”
“Hmm. Then, in that case, we need a plan.”
“You mean a plan like Cyanide pills, like the spies in one of those old action movies?”
“Yeah. Look, I don’t think we have much to lose, but if we don’t do this right, then we may end up going to war and coming back to find we don’t have a home. I think it’s worth the risk. If we just go back and tell the authorities, they probably won’t do anything, or worse, they’ll cancel the war altogether, and we’ll be left with a week of hard work down the drain,” Valerie said, pretty sure of the decision she was ready to make.
“Yeah. I agree. If it comes down to investigating and taking a serious risk or not doing anything and running back to tattle, I say we investigate. I say we break this whole thing open, and if need be, kill them all.” Mclean brandished her Daggers.
“Well, who am I to argue with two ladies?” Daniel said, pulling out his Daggers too. “The real question is, do you want me in the front or back?”
Mclean laughed, but Valerie didn’t get it. She just pulled out her Daggers. They were on a top secret mission to save her new world from seedy, cave-dwelling Fire-Walkers. She didn’t just feel cool, she felt awesome.
Kass:
Kass shivered as she watched Darwin rip his ice-covered blade through three Frog-Deer in one precise lunging sweep she could barely follow. Sure, her spells were devastating and beautiful and might easily match Darwin’s fury, but the way he moved and the way his red eyes glowed made her uncomfortable every now and then. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was either, but something felt strange about Darwin when they weren’t talking. He would go from joking around about what to name a Bear to a completely different person the second the conversation ended, and she couldn’t figure it out exactly. What was she noticing? Did his back get bigger? Did his eyes get colder? What was it about him that changed?
She shook off the uneasy feeling, raised her Staff and cast another barrage of ice spells at the approaching Turtle-Wolves. It was becoming a game of hers to see if she could kill them before Darwin reached them. Sure, he was a one-person wrecking crew, but so was she! She hummed the song “Anything You Can Do” as her spells ripped through the approaching enemies like a hailstorm. She was so happy with the effects of it all that she often didn’t even bother checking the Damage numbers. It took away from her immersion into the game.
“Wow . . . ” she stopped as the trees gave way, and the dungeon entrance came into view. Whereas the entrance to the silver ore mine had been humble and meager, a mere hole with no real Guards, this was something different. It was a beautiful work of art. The surrounding area was rock, grass and trees, but the entrance was white marble. It was a pantheon design straight out of ancient greece, except instead of columns supporting the Grecian roof, there were white marble statues of men and women whose clothes had been painted red and white. Each one was wearing armor as one might have expected a roman soldier to wear, but carrying the roof instead of weapons. “It’s amazing . . .”
“Yeah, it really is,” Darwin said, walking up to one of the statues and touching it. “I don’t think in my entire life in the real world I ever saw anything this beautiful.”
“I don’t think I have either,” Kass said, walking towards the entrance when she saw one of Darwin’s hands slide over a statue’s boob. “Darwin! Stop it!”
“Oh, sorry, it just seemed so real.”
“So you are okay with grabbing boobs that don’t belong to you if they seem real?”
“I didn’t grab, I just was touching it to see how . . . I’m not going to win this conversation, am I?”
“No, you’re not. Just say you’re sorry and let’s move on,” Kass said, trying her best to sound serious and not laugh. Everyone had at one point touched a manikin in the past. I mean, the curiosity gets everyone, right? But that didn’t stop her from still wanting to facepalm when Darwin did it in front of her. Who does that where other people can see?
“Okay, fine. Sorry.”
“There you go. Now hands to your side. No more touching, and let’s go in the dungeon before you get tempted again.”
“Ha ha, fine. That said, I wonder how they pick the themes. Do you think someone designs all of this? I mean it’s kind of odd for there to be a Greek theme in the middle of a mountain area like this when all of the villages look like English thatch.”
“It depends. Dad says that the programmers mostly let the AI generate a lot of the dungeons. That way, more mobs and dungeons can be generated constantly. The programmers just generate item designs and building designs, and the AI will use a mixture of both those generated by the programmers and unique designs of its own to create a dungeon.”
Even as Kass spoke, she was still turning her head constantly. The entrance had just been the tip of the iceberg in terms of the architecture of the dungeon. The cave didn’t have the stone walls like the s
ilver ore mine had. Instead, for walls, it had strings of glow-in-the-dark plants climbing up the sides like Ivy, each string glowing one of the three primary colors, and the column statues continued to support the ceiling all the way through the hall. The statues were spaced out a good ten feet from each other and three feet from the walls, and the ceiling they held up was at least fifteen feet high.
“So, are any of the dungeons purely designed by the programmers?”
“Yeah, every dungeon before the AI was put in. The AI is actually kind of new. They started loading it in a month or so ago, but they didn’t finish fully integrating it into the system until around Christmas.”
Darwin stopped and looked at one of the statues. “Around Christmas, you say?”
“Yeah. Dad said they finished the installs Christmas night.”
“I see. So, your dad, he works at the company, does he?”
It was only then that Kass realized she had never told Darwin anything about her involvement with the game or her dad’s relationship with it. Her dad hadn’t told her not to mention it, but she had instinctively hid the information from everyone in the game and on the boards.
“Yeah, you could say that,” she answered, and then quickly changed the subject. “What about you? What do your parents do?”
“Oh, I guess I don’t know.”
Crap! I had to ask an orphan about his parents. What do . . . “Darwin! careful with that hand” The mood instantly changed from serious to light as Darwin’s hand came a little too close to a statue’s body parts again. It lightened up even more when Fuzzy Wuzzy, now over twice the size he was when they found him, imitated Darwin and touched the butt of one of the statues while growling. “Like father like son, I suppose.” She shook her head as Fuzzy Wuzzy looked over at Darwin with his paws still firmly on the statue’s behind, clearly very happy with himself.
