by Dante Doom
The high-ranking Noble was going to be a hard target to fight. She was loaded to the brim with powerful weapons and tough armors. They didn’t have a chance of attacking Elanor out in the open, she knew. Instead, they would have to figure out some time when she was weak and helpless, maybe during the middle of the fight.
Savannah had tried to talk tactics with Timon before they’d rejoined the group, but he hadn’t had much to offer. The whole affair seemed rather sour to him, but he’d seemed to hold his tongue. Savanah had to admit that she felt bad seeing him so sullen. Even as they walked back to the group, he looked rather disappointed.
Savannah wasn’t sure how she felt about Leopold’s offer. On one hand, she desperately wanted to be a Noble, but at the same time, she wasn’t sure if she could trust the King. What would Hem do, she wondered. Thoughts of her father brought her back to reality. She wasn’t just here to improve her rank, she remembered, but to find Hem. Still, other than a manual search, what could she do? Perhaps if she were to earn the King’s favor by killing Elanor, he would be willing to help her look. This would kill two birds with one stone.
She looked up to see that the group had gone silent. No one said anything; they just looked at her expectantly. Elanor’s arms were crossed and she seemed curious about what they had been talking about in secret. Yet, she said nothing.
“So what’s got everyone down?” Fingers asked. “Why is everyone so quiet?”
“I’m trying to figure out where to go next,” Savannah replied.
“I thought we were hoofing it to Fieros,” Fingers said. “To get to the Med Center and whatnot.”
“Yeah, we were,” Savannah absentmindedly replied. Maybe they would encounter something deadly enough to kill Elanor in the crossfire. If not, she’d have to make up some excuse to continue following the woman.
“Well,” Elanor said, “we’re wasting time out here. Let’s get moving.”
“Wait a minute,” Savannah said as she raised a hand. “Where’s Ten-Thirty?” In all of the commotion, she had lost track of the Machina, which was nowhere to be found.
“The Machina?” Elanor asked as she glanced around, as well. “I thought it was with you.”
“Maybe it got tired of standing around and not getting into fights,” Fingers said. “Come on, let’s go. The robot will find us eventually.”
Savannah looked to the ground for any clues, but the ever-shifting Dream Lands terrain meant there would be no footprints. The Machina would be a useful ally when fighting against Elanor, though, and she was reluctant to leave it behind.
“Why don’t you guys go ahead and I’ll catch up with you once I find Ten-Thirty?” Savannah asked.
“Are you sure you want to be alone out here in the Dream Lands?” Timon asked. “It’s really dangerous. What if you get attacked by one of your fears?”
Savannah leaned in close and whispered. “I won’t go far, but I’d rather have Ten with us. Go with Elanor and keep an eye on her. I’ll be fine—go.”
Timon frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but instead he merely shrugged. “Very well, if you think that’s best.”
“Come on!” Fingers said as he pointed to the southwest. “Elanor says the portal should be over there. Let’s go!”
“Meet us at the Fieros Med Center,” Elanor said. “We’ll wait for you.”
Savannah nodded as her team departed, leaving her alone. It was nice having a moment to herself. The constant jabbering of Fingers had been welcome at first, but after a while, he’d started to grate on her. Between Timon’s constant questions and Fingers’ attempts to impress Elanor, she hadn’t had any peace and quiet for a long time.
She walked through the shimmering expanse of the Dream Lands, heading around the side of the lighthouse with her firearm in hand. She knew the drill fairly well. When going solo, a player needed to keep moving. Aggro usually had a specific range and would rapidly drop off if a Viral wasn’t attacked.
“Where could Ten-Thirty have gone to?” she asked herself as she surveyed the area. She glanced around the lighthouse, looking for some kind of clue, but found nothing. “Maybe if I get higher,” she told herself. She entered the lighthouse and made her way up the stairwell, leading her to the widow’s walk. She walked up to the guard railing and looked out.
The landscape was bleak and dark, with everything cast in distortion. But as her eyes scanned across the land, she noticed that there was a shadowy figure moving in the distance. Savannah pulled out one of the useless guns in her inventory. It was nicknamed the Fleabiter because of how poor the DPS was, however, it was the only gun she had with a scope, so it would be handy for scouting.
She lifted the scope up to her eye and looked at the figure in the distance. Sure enough, standing atop a shimmering hill was Ten-Thirty. The Machina was staring up at the sky, unmoving. What was wrong with it? Savannah wondered. What was it looking at? With a shrug, Savannah put her gun away and climbed down from the widow’s walk. Hopefully, the Machina would still follow Savannah around. Having a robot ally with a Rail Gun would be very useful, especially when it came to fighting against Elanor.
“Hey!” Savannah called as she made her way toward the Machina. The android didn’t change the focus of its gaze. It merely stared up at the sky.
“What are you looking at?” Savannah asked as she passed through the barrier of light projected outward by the lighthouse behind her. The shadows began to creep and shift around her, sending shivers down her spine. The sky itself was black, but not like the nighttime. It was a dark, shimmering void, without a single star.
“This unit… had a thought,” Ten-Thirty said quietly. It didn’t change its focus from looking upwards. “Units do not think. So why did this unit have a thought?”
“You’re talking about yourself?” Savannah asked. “Thoughts are pretty normal.”
“They are?” Ten-Thirty asked as it looked down at Savannah. While its face was that of a human woman, it bore no particular expression.
“Yeah, sure,” Savannah said with a shrug. “Look, we gotta get going. The gang is heading to Fieros next and we’ve got a lot of stuff to do.”
“All of you humans saw things that this unit could not,” Ten-Thirty said. “Why?”
“Look, I don’t know, I’m not a mechanic or an engineer,” Savannah said. “Probably because we’re humans and our subconscious is tied to the game. You’re a machine, so it’s not like you can dream or anything.” She paused for a moment as a bit of curiosity overtook her. “What was your thought, Ten-Thirty?”
“It was a single word. It was the word, I,” Ten-Thirty replied. “This unit thought of itself in terms of I.”
“I’m not following,” Savannah said. “You mean you thought about yourself?”
“This unit has never done such a thing,” Ten-Thirty answered. “There would be no point to it.”
Savannah’s mind darted back to Kireen’s words. The little yellow Aspect had mentioned something being “right” with Ten-Thirty. Perhaps this was evidence of it.
“Why did you leave the group?” Savannah asked.
“Because this unit… because I wondered if… I could,” the android spoke out slowly, as if it was unsure of its answer. “Yes. I wanted to know if I could ignore orders.”
“Oh,” Savannah said. This was clearly above her paygrade, but it sounded like the Machina was in the process of discovering self-awareness. Unless this was some kind of weird quest put in by the original Grind developers.
“I like saying I,” Ten-Thirty said. It tilted its head at Savannah. “Where are we going now?”
“That way,” Savannah said as she turned to point out the direction of the Fieros portal. As she turned back to Ten-Thirty, though, she noticed that there was another nightmare cloud moving towards her. This one was a little different from the rest, however. It wasn’t a grey cloud, but rather a silvery shadow with a bubble around it. Images were playing within the bubble.
“The hell is that?” Sava
nnah asked as she pulled out her shotgun. There were no words to label the cloud. It drifted over her head and she glanced up to see more images playing out as if the bubble was some kind of a movie. Images of her father, Hem, flashed before her.
Hem, dressed in green and orange battle gear, was chained to two humanoid machines. Pipes jutted out of the backs of these machines and steam sprayed outward as they dragged Hem forward. Her father didn’t seem to be in agony, but she could see that he was agitated. He carried a Laser Sword in his hand and appeared to be fighting something off-screen.
“What is going on?” Savannah asked as she watched in confusion. The silver cloud shifted a little more, until Savannah could see only Kireen’s face on the screen.
“Many things are happening here,” Kireen whispered. “And many of them are bad. For greed, fiends, and lies have twisted this beautiful place. The thing you call the Grind has become a poison.”
“What are you talking about?” Savannah asked. “Where’s my father?”
“Find the man who wants a shield, for he will be the one to take you to Hem,” Kireen whispered. “Be warned, for the dark truths your father speaks will be unpleasant to hear.”
“What kind of weird game are you playing?” Savannah demanded. “You appear randomly, stir up trouble, and now all of a sudden you’re being serious?”
The cloud did nothing except melt away.
“What the hell?” Savannah shouted at no one in particular. Her heart was in her throat as she thought about the strange image of her father, chained up to those machines. What was going on?
“You seem upset,” Ten-Thirty said. “Why?”
“Didn’t you see any of that?” Savannah asked.
“Negative,” Ten-Thirty replied. “All I saw was you shouting at the air.”
“My dad’s in trouble,” Savannah whispered. “And I need to find him. Can you locate another player?”
“I’m afraid that is impossible,” Ten-Thirty replied. “You will need to find him in the game.”
Savannah frowned. “All right, fine, but please keep this information a secret. I don’t want the others to know about my dad.”
“Why?”
“Because they might not want to help him.”
“I do not understand,” Ten-Thirty said. “Shouldn’t your companions be happy to help someone in need?”
“People are selfish like that,” Savannah replied. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually.”
“What do you mean?” Ten-Thirty asked.
“It’s simple,” Savannah said. “You’re becoming self-aware, right? So eventually, you’re going to figure out what you want, and decide that what you want is more important than what other people want. It’s called selfishness. Everyone’s like that.”
“Are you like that?” Ten-Thirty asked.
Savannah shrugged. “I guess. I’m not much different from other people.”
Ten-Thirty shrugged back at her, imitating her gesture. “Duly noted.”
“Come on, let’s get to Fieros,” Savannah mumbled. “We’ll figure out some way to find my dad from there.”
Timon slid to a halt, desperately trying to avoid the lava in front of him. “It’s everywhere!” he cried out as another rush of lava came sliding down the side of the volcano. Fieros was burning hot, and sweat was pouring into his eyes. Sweeping his arm across his forehead for the third time, he narrowly sidestepped the molten lava threatening to burn a hole in his boots.
“Aiiirgghhhh!” screamed a Phoenix Viral as it swooped down to rake its claws across Timon’s face. Timon tried to dodge out of the way, but he was too slow. The razor sharp talons slashed across him and 50 damage hovered above him, dropping his armor down to 350 points.
“Shoot it!” Timon yelled to Elanor, who was busy inspecting the rest of the area.
“You’re fine,” she mumbled as she knelt down to examine the ground. “It’s a Green Viral—they’re easy to kill.”
Timon ducked, barely avoiding the large bird’s talons again. He fumbled with his inventory for a moment before pulling out an Energy Shotgun. He raised it high and waited for the bird to swing by again.
“Any sign of Fingers?” Timon asked as he put his finger on the trigger, waiting for the bird to do another strafing run. The bright red and yellow Viral was flying high in the sky now, circling around them. The word Charging suddenly hovered above its head. Timon briefly considered pulling out his Sniper Rifle, but knew that it had too slow of a fire rate to deal enough damage to the bird to be really useful.
“Not yet,” Elanor replied. “He should have been back by now, though. We should go find him.”
“Hah!” Timon shouted as the Phoenix Viral darted towards him, its entire body on fire. He fired two shots from his shotgun, dealing 25 damage with each hit as he rolled out of the way of the attack. The volcano to his right began to burble again and the warning Eruption 15s hovered above it.
“Greeeaaahhhh!” the Viral screeched as it spun around and readied itself for another charge attack against Timon. He glanced at the stats of his gun to find out what the secondary attack would be.
Energy Shotgun
Primary Mode: Energy Burst
Damage: 25
Fire Rate: 1s
Range: 50 feet
Secondary Mode: Rapid Burst
Damage: 10
Fire Rate: .01s
Range: 10 feet
Special: Rapid Burst overheats the weapon after 5 seconds of sustained fire and requires a cooldown of 30 seconds.
The Rapid Burst option seemed powerful up close. It would be enough to kill that Viral a few times over, he hoped. As the Phoenix rushed towards him, he slid the button on the side of his gun, activating the Rapid Burst Mode. His gun began to hum and the energy hue around the barrel changed from green to red. There was a hissing sound then as several barrels popped out of the sides of the gun, creating a large hand cannon.
More lava erupted from the volcano, but fortunately, the burning liquid was pouring down on the side opposite of where Timon was standing. The magma would deal 100 points of damage per second, meaning that anyone who fell in would die within a matter of seconds. Lava was not something to be trifled with.
Timon waited until the Viral got close and then unloaded as fast as he could. He pulled the gun’s trigger down and felt a rapid series of kicks from the weapon as it began to shoot out bursts of red energy in a tightly wound pattern. He had to hold onto the weapon with all of his strength, for fear of it falling out of his hands. The red bursts nailed the Viral in the body as it rushed him. 10 damage notices hovered above its head in an endless trail as every shot crashed into the creature. Timon tried to control his bursts to make the weapon last longer, but by the time he had reached nearly 300 points of damage to the Viral, his gun was burning red and smoke was pouring from the barrel. The word Cooldown hovered above it in another moment.
The Phoenix’s health had dropped down to 200 points from his assault, but the health was slowly creeping its way back up now that he’d stopped firing.
“Can I please get some help here?” Timon asked as he switched back to his Sniper Rifle. The Phoenix was high in the air now and he took a few shots at it, missing with each blast.
“Yes, sorry, I was a bit distracted,” Elanor replied as she looked up at the bird. “You’ve got to disable its regeneration before you kill it, or else it will just come back to life.”
“And how do I do that?” Timon asked.
“Freeze weapons normally work,” Elanor said. “Ice elemental energy or a Cryo-grenade.”
Timon looked at his inventory, which was woefully small, and shook his head. “I don’t have any of that.”
“Well, that means we’ll be fighting it twice, and it is far stronger the second time,” Elanor replied as she pulled out a Rocket Launcher from her inventory. “Get ready! It’s going to be a real bastard!” She aimed her weapon and fired. A large, blue streak of energy soared through the air and crashed into
the head of the Phoenix. 350 damage hovered above the Phoenix.
“Araaaigh!” the Phoenix Viral cried out as it burst into flames for a brief moment, before turning into ashes. The ashes immediately began to swirl together into a vortex in mid-air, though, spinning rapidly. The ashes ignited then, and another Phoenix Viral emerged from the flames. This one was far bigger than the previous one; it was nearly thirty feet long and had a wingspan of almost one hundred feet. Above its head hovered the purple words, Phoenix Viral.
“It’s purple? That’s way stronger than a green!” Timon groaned. “I hope Fingers gets here soon.”
“We’ll be fine,” Elanor said. “I’ve handled things like this before.”
The Phoenix began to flap its wings rapidly, creating a spiraling vortex of flames. The whirlwind moved straight towards Timon and Elanor.
“Don’t get hit by that thing,” Elanor shouted as she ran opposite of the whirlwind. “It’ll pull you into the center and cook you alive!”
“Can we shoot it?” Timon asked as he fired off a shot at the whirlwind. The blue streak of energy hit the side of the flame tornado, but merely bounced off.
“No, ignore it and go after the boss,” Elanor replied as she raised her Rocket Launcher high and fired it at the Phoenix. This time, her launcher fired out six small rockets that followed the Phoenix as it flew in circles above them. The rockets struck the creature in turn, hitting it for 150 damage total and reducing its health to 1,850 points.
“Copy that!” Timon said, running from the tornado as it got closer to him. Flames were bursting forth from the whirlwind and Timon was scrambling to avoid the heat now. And at the same time that the tornado was barreling down on him, the volcano began to erupt again, sending more magma sliding down in his general path.
“Man, we can’t seem to catch a break here!” Timon shouted as he leapt onto a boulder to avoid the lava running underfoot. Elanor had also climbed atop a nearby red stone.
