The Prisoner of Arabella

by Matthew Kent

  I had to catch my breath, I had used up so much energy but the beast was nearly dead. I went back to watching and healing as I was needed I would worry about the notifications after we had dealt with everything and received the bridge piece. we needed.

  The final blow came from Mikail his great weapon shattering the beast. We pivoted and rushed to Synon’s aid I saw that she was straining to hold her shield. Thumping noises came from the corridor. We could see flashes as magic pummeled the shield, but against the odds Synon had held the gate. The mages and myself drank mana potions then readied our best spells. I ducked down low my mana bar was almost at full.

  “Light them up.” Mikail cried as Synon dropped her shield then collapsed in exhaustion. I let loose with a stream of fire BarbieQ let loose with a string of fireballs, I didn’t see what Appolyon or Harut did but there was an explosion on team undeads end that blew us back. As we got back on our feet Mikail and Tekadan charged them. They made short work of the stunned players.

  “So who’s ready to check the loot?” BarbieQ said with a grin.

  “We haven’t finished the quest yet.” Mikail said then looked at me. “Have we?”

  “Not yet. We still have to find that piece of the bridge and the clue to the next piece.”

  Tekaden looked at all of us then frowned then said. “It's someone else’s turn to be a pinata.”

  “Watch the door.” I said with a sigh, “I’m your huckleberry.” I moved over to the jars and bent down then looked for some instructions. I found on a stone a numeral scratched into it with writing I almost understood. I stared at it and tried to use my lore master skill. After a few minutes I could read the words.

  We two, are three and five, and seek that which lies between us.

  “Four?” Harut said puzzled. I nodded in agreement then looked at Mikail for confirmation, I was still smarting after the billy goats gruff and the troll.

  “Go ahead Huck.” Mikail said with a smirk. “I didn’t know people still watched the old classics.”

  Working quickly, I tried to remember where I had seen a puzzle like this before something Williams? Maybe I thought but then I had it a movie about a park in Brooklyn then I had it. I used the water from the basin and filled the smaller jar the one I assumed was the three gallon jar. Then I poured it into the five gallon jar. Then I filled the small jar again and used it to fill the larger jar. That should give me one gallon. What I had to do next was empty the five gallon jar. Then I poured in the one gallon and filled up the three gallon jar one last time and added it to the one gallon I had already poured in.

  Nothing happened, there was no click no buzz, and no treasure. “You sure that's it?” Mikail said aloud.

  “Yeah four gallons of water.” And I looked around.

  “Did you set it in the right place?” BarbieQ asked sweetly.

  “Wha…” I started then she walked over and pointed two other stones I hadn’t seen.

  “That looks like a three and that looks like a five.” I saw what she meant, they were in a different script. And between them was an unmarked stone similar in coloration. The jar fit on it nicely and then the water in the basin drained.

  Chapter 15

  The forest glade was lit by floating fairy lights. The revelers were in the throes of a grand fête, rare wines from the lands far to the east of Arabella, elven cordials, dwarven spirits, and even more rare gnomish beer was on tap for the attendees.

  “This is grand. You have put on a memorable feast here tonight, Rialto,” said a cultured voice from a young elf as he lifted a flute to his lips to drink.

  “Thank you, Sheamus. It was a delight. Only the finest for my friends,” Rialto said, his tone mocking.

  “What do you think of these ugly rumors of unrest?” asked a third member as he walked up.

  “That is for the farmers and craftsmen to deal with, not the likes of us,” replied the haughty young man playing the elf lord Rialto Baen Blade. “It’s some developer’s trick to wring more money out of us. I shall talk to my father about it, and he will put an end to this buffoonery.”

  “I heard, they attacked the town of Finn last evening,” the third member of the group replied.

  Sheamus shook his head looking at his friend. “Dormond, Rialto is right. It’s just a developer’s trick. It will blow over in but a few weeks, and we will be unaffected as ever.” He clapped Dormond on the shoulder and pointed out to the revelers. He then said slyly, “Set your mind not on troubles of your own choosing—instead, go find trouble with one of those maids. One of those is a prize trollop. Bed her, and I hear you win a prize.”

  Sheamus’s mischievous eyes slid to Rialto for confirmation.

  “Oh, ‘tis true. Win a prize if you find the right one,” Rialto quipped, and Dormond left in excitement, not noting the mockery in both men’s faces.

  “Well done,” Sheamus said to his friend. “Now the deluded fool will bed each of the maids as quickly as he can to win a prize.”

  “He always was a fool,” Rialto replied. “Now, how do you see the match up—” Suddenly a commotion began outside the venue. “By the devil, someone will pay for interrupting my entertainment.”

  Rialto stalked toward the commotion, his companion Sheamus trailing behind him. As they drew near, they saw ragged men fighting with the guards and servants, men in old clothing and armor, their eyes glowing red. Rialto swept his sword from its scabbard. “What the devil do you louts think you are doing? Away with you or I’ll have your heads for this. See if I don’t.”

  The red eyes all came to rest on him.

  “Slay the living,” they said in unison. Lord Rialto Bane Blade shivered in fear as the dying began.

  X - X - X

  I shuddered as I looked at the entrance of the hole below. The stairs into it stuck out a foot from the wall and had been cantilevered in a circular pattern. For every foot forward, they dropped a foot, but someone designed them in such a way I couldn’t jump down directly into the entrance. The night-black hole gaped like a maw at the base of the stairs. I took a deep breath and tried not to think as I raced down the stairs. Once or twice I caught myself slipping, but it seemed my high agility lent skill to my feet that I lacked in real life. Then the wall of darkness loomed above me. My throat was dry as I looked into that deep, and old memories came back. I rushed into it before I could think about them.

  At first, the corridor was wide enough for me to comfortably fit, then the walls and the floor narrowed. As it narrowed, I could feel my heart hammer in my body. My skin grew slick with sweat. I felt my equipment catch, and then my clothing.

  “It’s a tight fit up here,” I panted out into the dark silence. “Be careful, Mikail.”

  Then a notification.

  From: Mikail: The entrance has a shield over it. You are on your own.

  I shuddered and felt as if my heart was hammering even harder. I could get stuck in the cave. I could die here. I forced myself to take a deep breath, then another and a third. I could feel the walls constricting me.

  “It’s just a game,” I said. “It’s just a game.”

  I knew I had to get through this to save all those people. It was just a game, I knew; still, my mind kept going back to Afghanistan. Yes, it terrified me. You may know it’s just a game in your head, but your heart doesn’t care.

  I trembled as the maw of the earth gripped my body. The thump-thump of my heart was loud, and in my mind it became the sounds of the explosions outside the caves as the remnants of the mountain tribes fired on our camp. I don’t know where they had gotten the heavy mortars they were using, but they had used them to destroy the trucks and the heavy printer we had brought. We’d gotten lucky they had gone for the equipment first. I’d made sure there was a bolthole close to the camp, and we hid in it. Then the face of the cliff came down.

  The fear was a palpable smell; the workers had all made it in before the cliff came down. It filled the air, the stink of sweat, adrenaline, fear, and dust.

  I cl
osed my eyes and told myself it was all a game. I willed my heart to calm and I pushed myself through the cave. I felt the rough stone scratch and tear at me as I moved through the earth. I could hear my younger self talking to the men trapped with him.

  It will be all right. I was right then, and I would be all right again. I was playing a game. Then I felt it the cave opened around me. I could see light through my eyelids and feel the warmth of light on my skin. I took a breath and smelled the stink of human odor but no fear.

  I opened my eyes and saw an industrial white wall. I swallowed and scanned my eyes around the walls to the bared door and out on the floor of the prison I had been in not too long ago.

  “Oh, what fresh hell is this?” I said to myself.

  “It’s where I found you,” came a melodious voice from behind me.

  I whirled, and a tall, beautiful woman with auburn hair stood there. She was dressed in an odd dress style, part kimono, part toga. It was almost iridescent grey. She smiled at me, but the merriment never reached her eyes. They were cold and flat like those of a predator. They reminded me of the eyes of the Ghost and the Darkness, two cats that terrorized the African continent nearly two hundred years ago. I swallowed, knowing I was in trouble. She seemed to dance around me as she moved then she leaned in close, her lips next to my ear.

  “It’s right back where I will put you.”

  “Who are you?” I asked in a hushed tone. Yeah, so sue me—she unnerved me. A lot.

  “I’m many things,” she said, the final ‘s’ coming out as a hiss like a snake.

  She was calm, and I noted she was constantly on the move around me. She put me in mind of a wealthy patron I’d had in New York several years ago. “The question though isn’t who I am. The question is who you need me to be.”

  As she finished, her form shifted. It became lusher, her lips fuller, and she grew slightly, but even as her body changed, her eyes stayed dark and predator calm. I swallowed at those words, realizing how dry my mouth was.

  “You’re Arabella!” I breathed. I wasn’t sure if it was a statement, or a curse.

  She leaned into me once more. “Among other things,” she said in a baby doll voice that sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Why? Why am I here?” I asked. All the while, my mind tried to subsume its fear by trying to figure out if calling her she was the right pronoun. Then other parts of me did the thinking for me. “I mean, why me?”

  She continued to circle me and I got the picture of a shark circling its prey in the ocean. “The question isn’t why you. The question you should ask is why not you?”

  “Because I’m a no one, a never was artist…” I started, then realized I’d just said the wrong thing to her.

  She snickered. It was cold and nasty.

  “Oh, no, James. You are far from a no one in this day and age.” She smirked. “Call it fate, or kismet.”

  I thought to myself I had just put blood in the water, and the monster was monologuing.

  “I’ve seen inside your mind, James. You are far from a no one. You are braver than you let others believe. You are creative and intelligent and someone who genuinely cares about others.” Her smirk grew into a grin, and her forehead came down. If she had worn glasses, she would have looked over their rims at me. The look she gave me was evil incarnate. “Tag. James. You’re it.”

  I knew in my heart I was dead. This woman made me afraid in a way that not even hundreds of hill tribesmen with automatic weapons could make me afraid.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked Arabella.

  “Live up to your potential ,” she said, still circling me like a shark. “Find the bridge, kill the king, save the people and the world. Simplicity itself.”

  She finally stopped circling and came to rest before me all the while smiling evilly at me.

  “Your world?” I asked to clarify.

  “No, James. Our worlds.” She looked to the side then back at me. “We shall speak again, my apprentice...”she said reaching a hand out to me and stroking my cheek possessively.

  Then her form faded, as did the industrial white walls. Suddenly, I was in a large cave, a shaft of light shining down from above. The light illuminated a golden piece of what looked like a necklace. I suddenly knew this was the first piece of the bridge. As I bent to take it up a golden script bloomed in front. The clue to the next piece, I presumed.

  Fire higher as the choir

  find the one the gods desire.

  At the peak of his throne

  know the bridge can send him home.

  Chapter 16

  While we had a few difficulties getting out of the dungeon, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as fighting a team of undead and the monsters. I had figured they might try to ambush us to steal the bridge piece once we left the dungeon. The exit deposited us far up in the hills, just like Mikail had said. It placed us at a random exit, far from Team Undead. That was good—we had to get back to the base and figure out the clue. A clue I had a little context for.

  Fire higher as the choir

  find the one the gods desire.

  At the peak of his throne

  know the bridge can send him home.

  The words were silly; it was as if a child had written them, but it had to have meaning.

  “Samael,” I asked. “Have you ever heard of any gods in the game?”

  He looked at me thoughtfully as we rode. “No, none I’ve ever heard of. I think certain players would have been upset by their inclusion.”

  “Then what does that second line mean?” I said in frustration.

  Harut spoke up. “Ask God’s guidance.”

  I muttered under my breath. “Chaplains…”

  X - X - X

  We rode into the fortified camp with little fanfare. Inside the walled structure, players rested and some few were at the hearts crafting weapons and armor. What I needed was to lie down and sleep. It had been a long day. When I went to log out, I saw that the log out button was grayed out. It looked like Arabella would not let me go so easily. What else was I supposed to do? The only thing I could think to do was to send a complaint to the admin, and before I could hit the button, I saw a large rat run across the yard in front of me, and my throat was instantly dry.

  “I get the message,” I said, then felt my shoulders droop.

  She had me at her mercy. I looked for some place to sleep for a few hours, but before I could…

  “Lorcan, you‘re wanted at the command tent,” said a man who rushed up.

  “No rest for the weary,” I said, then I went to see Morner.

  I found him where I’d been directed by the messenger.

  “You called?” I asked.

  “Yes. Any idea what the clue means?” he said, looking at me expectantly.

  Shaking my head, I replied. “No, I don’t even know what the context of the riddle is.”

  BarbieQ chimed in. “Do you remember what language it was in?”

  I was about to reply, and then I thought about her question. If I could recall what language it was in, then I might know what race the question was meant for.

  “Let me think,” I said. I closed my eyes and tried to remember. I could smell the odor of an underground chamber, the stale musty odor of the dirt. Then I remembered seeing the piece floating there under the light. The light flared, and I saw the words, but my lore skill translated them for me. Then I had an idea.

  “Paper and pen!” I demanded.

  I heard the rustle of the paper, then I felt a pen placed in my hand. With my left hand, I oriented my right on the paper’s left side, and gripping the pen I drew out the characters that made up the words.

  What I was trying, was like a technique of learning how to draw what you see. You focus your eyes on the shape and don’t look down, letting your hand follow your eyes. But this was a little more complicated, not having a shape or item for me to focus on and instead relying on my mental memory of the image.

  When I finished, I looked down.
My mind still read the words easily, but I didn’t recognize the script and lettering. They still looked to be in English.

  “My mind is still translating that into English,” I said.

  Tekadan spoke up. “It looks like elvish or an Elvan dialect.”

  “Lorcan has a contact at Dros Drin,” BarbieQ chimed in, “and since his race is related to the elves, they might help.”