by A. J. Markam
“Get Stig a bottle, too,” I ordered Meera. “In fact, get several. I can always use a couple of spares.”
She looked furious, but she paid for three more.
Stig looked nervous as I held one out towards him.
“…n-no…” he muttered, though he eyed the bottle thirstily.
“I’ll save it for you for later,” I said, and slipped the three unopened bottles into my bag. “Let’s go.”
I drank on the way, taking a long swig every so often. As the rum kicked in I started to get some relief from the hangover. My headache disappeared and was replaced by a nice, mellow buzz.
Having to suffer Meera’s disapproving looks was annoying, but I didn’t feel like commanding her to smile the entire time. Even though it was kind of fun ordering her not to talk, enslaving her had been bad enough; I didn’t want to micromanage her facial expressions, too. That would have been another whole level of creepy. Stepford Wives kind of creepy.
Five minutes later we reached the outskirts of Exardus and passed through the southern gates.
It was a different world outside the city walls. Orange-tinted sand dunes stretched off into the distance as far as the eye could see, with not a speck of plant life anywhere. At least the temperature was moderate – no Saharan sun beating down on us here.
We followed a stone path half-covered with sand. Twenty minutes later we reached the crest of a giant dune and found ourselves gazing down at the Tomb of Tharos.
Unlike most other dungeons, this one was open-air and aboveground – a gigantic labyrinth of sandstone walls. I couldn’t see any details like creatures or bosses from this distance, but I stared at the structure and tried to imprint the general layout on my memory. Why? Because the first time you entered a dungeon, the game would only provide you a blank map. You had to explore for the map to gradually fill in.
The dungeon seemed to have one entrance, a pair of giant wooden doors. That was where all the players were congregating. Besides the 50-person long line, a couple hundred more were milling around outside the walls.
Past the wooden doors was a maze of sandstone walls. Beyond that were a series of large courtyards and a pyramid, then finally a colossal ziggurat at the other side of the compound. I would have bet anything that’s where we would find the final boss.
Stig started down the side of the dune towards the dungeon.
“Hold up,” I told him. “I need to check something out first.”
I pulled up my Character window and looked at my stats – something I hadn’t done since I’d killed Saykir in the Northern Wastes.
Level 14
Health 540
Mana 1490
Intellect 108
Stamina 88
Armor 43
Armor – Cloth
Necklace: Sign of Bartok +3 Intelligence
Shoulders: +3
Cloak of the Northern Wastes: +6 Armor, +10 Intelligence, +15 Stamina
Shirt: +3
Vest: +5
Bracers: +3
Pants: +5
Belt: +4, +3 Intelligence
Boots of the Yeti: +10 Armor, +12 Intelligence, +20 Stamina
Gloves: +4
Rings: +4 Intelligence, +6 Critical Strike
Trinkets: +7 Critical Strike, +5 Haste
Scepter of the Servant:
+40 Intelligence
+20 Stamina
+10 Critical Strike
Critical Strike: 7.5%
Haste: 2%
Not a whole lot had changed. I had cashed in and received two quest items from the fishing village in the Northern Wastes before we set sail (thank you Wolfgang I’mma Do ‘Is Mo’s Art), but that was it. I’d received nothing from the frost elves except lots of sex, although obviously I would take threesomes and orgies any day over a fuckin’ cloak.
I hadn’t gotten any other artifacts or armor since our arrival in Exardus, although hopefully that would change today.
The one big thing that had happened when I reached Level 14, though, was that I’d gained Invisibility. From my little skirmish with the three demons who’d attacked Meera, I knew it wasn’t all that – although it could get me out of a potentially bad bind if I got swarmed by monsters in the dungeon.
I would also be able to summon another demon when I got to Level 15, so that was something to look forward to. Maybe this time I’d get one that didn’t sound like Eeyore had huffed a can of helium.
I involuntarily looked down at the action bar and saw Dorp – and Alaria right next to him.
Damn it.
I moved their icons to the pirate demon submenu so I wouldn’t have to see them staring at me all the time during battle. Because there were about to be a lot of battles coming up.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said, and we started down the dunes towards the dungeon.
As we got closer, the throngs of players outside the gates became visible in greater detail. There was every single race in all of OtherWorld, and every single fighting class.
Warriors in plate armor. Druids, the hippies of the game with mystical Nature powers. Paladins, the holy knights of religious orders. Shamans, the poor man’s wizards who communed with spirits. Monks, who were more like Shaolin kung fu fighters than Friar Tuck (or Tony Shalhoub). Undead Rogues, elf Hunters, gnome Mages, dwarf Paladins, orcish Barbarians, goblin Warriors, troll Priests, and every permutation you could possibly think of.
And more were arriving every minute. Some on foot like me, Meera, and Stig, but most came riding in on mounts. Horses, camels, tigers, panthers, giant lizards, elephants, wooly mammoths, rhinos, unicorns, rams, bears, wolves, ostriches, giant scorpions and spiders – you name it, there was probably one out there.
The baddest-ass of all were the flying mounts. Gryphons, manticores, wyverns, oversized eagles, flaming phoenixes, giant bats, flying serpents, pegasuses, aerial manta rays, flying carpets – they came in almost as much variety as their land-based cousins.
I was itching to get my own. It would make travel a hell of a lot faster, that was for sure. I wouldn’t be able to get a flying mount until Level 40, but I wasn’t that far away from a regular land mount.
Level 20, here I come.
The cool thing about mounts was that you could make them vanish when you were finished riding, then magically summon them again as soon as you needed them. Otherwise the crowd outside the dungeon would have been double the size if all the mounts had to hang out with the players who owned them.
That was the other thing – all the humanoids outside the dungeon were human players in the real world. No NPCs, unless they were like Meera and Stig and were bound to Warlocks.
The vast majority of players had their ID tags visible. ID tags were floating words above your head that told the rest of the world your name, your Level, and whether you were a tank, a healer, a DD (damage dealer), or were versatile and could do two of the three. I could only deal damage, so DD was my designation.
Normally the game automatically kept your ID tag off while you were questing because it interfered with the illusion of reality. After all, nobody in the real world went around with a glowing neon sign hovering over their heads. But in cases like this where you needed to be able to see people’s Levels in order to form a team, the game displayed them for all to see.
While I was looking around for others who were close to my Level, someone tapped my shoulder. When I turned around, Meera gestured angrily at her mouth.
“Oh yeah… okay, you can talk now,” I said.
She immediately started blathering away. “We didn’t get this so that you could make me be quiet, we got it so that we could use it in the dungeon – and at night. So I really don’t appreciate – ”
“You know what? Shut up again.” I did jazz fingers in front of her face just for the hell of it. “The power of the collar compels you.”
Her mouth immediately snapped shut. I could see from her eyes that she was furious.
Ha haaaa – too bad, Chatty Kathy.
I was loving this.
She put her hands on her hips and glared at me.
I grinned. “Alright, you can talk again, but don’t be a bitch,” I warned.
When she started talking again, she was 100% nicer. She wasn’t exactly pleased with her situation, but she said everything in a softer tone and way more deferentially.
I wish I’d had been able to do that to some of my previous girlfriends.
Maybe it would’ve worked on Alaria, too, so she couldn’t break up with me.
My eyes moved to the action bar where her icon had been. Of course I had moved it, so she wasn’t there. I fought a powerful urge to check the submenu just so I could see her face.
Fuck her. Forget her. Moving on.
I took another swig of my rum and headed for the nearest dune. “Come on, let’s go sit down.”
“Don’t you want to find a group of likeminded adventurers?” Meera asked, confused.
“We’ll let them come to us.”
Mostly I just wanted to rest and have a drink in peace, but it turned out that my strategy worked. When we sat down on the base of the dune, we were isolated from everyone else – so we stood out. Instead of being one of hundreds of players milling around looking needy, I was the guy over by himself looking cool, calm, and mysterious. Who’s that guy over there? What’s his story? We got more than a few curious stares.
Although if I’m going to be totally honest, it was probably the ultra-hot chick I was with. She was the best bait ever.
I got lucky right away when a group of four came walking over. The guys in the group were all trying to look at Meera without being obvious about it, though they were failing pathetically.
The group all fell within ten levels of me, which was good.
The members were…
A male dwarf Paladin, Level 21. He would be the tank. He had a massive war hammer strapped to his back that looked like a bigger version of Thor’s Mjolnir from the Marvel movies.
A male Druid Ursan – basically a race of bear-like creatures that walked on two feet. Level 20 healer.
A female elf Mage in flowing orange and red robes – so probably a Fire Mage. Level 20.
And a Level 20 male gnome Rogue, who looked absolutely ridiculous. When was the last time you saw a two-foot-tall guy walking around in leather armor and a black bandana covering the lower half of his face, trying to be a badass midget?
Excuse me – ‘little person.’
The dwarf Paladin spoke first. He looked above my head and smirked. “Nice name.”
I frowned. Huh?
Then I glanced at their ID tags – Hodin, Jaxos, Therasia, Brak – and remembered that I was just plain ‘Ian.’
I was forced to use my own name for my job, but I didn’t feel like relaying that information. If I told them I worked in QC for Westek, there would be no end to the questions. What’s in the next update? Do you know any secret dungeons? Can you get me the secret artifact of Blah Blah Blah?
So instead I said, “Well, we can’t all have cool names, Hodini.”
I said it like a Jawa in Star Wars says “Utinni!” (Sounds like Oooh TEEN eee.)
It’s something the little robed creatures bust out every once in a while, like a battle cry or something.
Yes, I know that’s super nerdy, but among a certain class of player (read: Star Wars geeks), they’d recognize it for what it was. And if they didn’t, fuck ‘em.
Apparently these were my people, because they all broke into grins – even the dwarf I’d just insulted.
“Nice,” he said. “I’m going to be tanking, and we’ve already got a healer and two double D’s.”
“Funny, she’s got two double D’s, too,” I said, gesturing at Meera.
All the guys in the group laughed.
The female Fire Elf didn’t. She just gave me the stink-eye, and then cast some side-eye at my angel.
“What are double dees?” Meera asked, puzzled.
The guys laughed again.
“I’ll tell you later,” I said.
“Do I have double dees?” Stig asked.
This time the guys laughed uproariously. Even the elf cracked a smile.
“No, you most definitely do not,” I told the imp.
“You’re alright,” Hodin the dwarf said to me as he chuckled.
The elf Fire Mage apparently wasn’t 100% on board, because she looked at the bottle in my hand. “A little early, isn’t it?”
I shrugged. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
“Chill, bitch!” Stig snapped, then turned to Hodin. “Tell that bitch to chill!”
All the guys howled with laughter. The female elf fumed.
“Be nice, Stig,” I said.
No need to piss off a Fire Mage six Levels higher than you. Not unnecessarily, anyways.
“You’re a Warlock, aren’t you?” Jaxos the Druid Ursan asked. It was a little disconcerting hearing him speak – sort of like a CGI version of Smokey the Bear, but dressed up in funky leather armor with feathers and crystals hanging off it.
“Yup.”
“What are you doing hanging out with an angel?”
“The double D’s.”
All the guys laughed again.
“Alright – you want in?” Hodin asked.
“You guys are all Level 20 or 21. Don’t you want a Level 29 player instead?”
If they had one overpowered member of the group, the monsters would be slightly harder to kill, but they would get the equivalent of a Babe Ruth in their lineup – a real homerun hitter.
“We already asked a couple of people in the upper 20’s, but they were all stuck-up assholes who wanted to go in with 35’s,” the Druid said.
“So now we’re scrapin’ the bottom of the barrel,” the gnome joked. At least I think he was joking.
“Well, good to know I was the first pick of the bad choices,” I said sardonically.
“You want in or not?” Hodin asked.
“Sure, as long as we all agree on one thing. I’m strictly in this for the money, so I’m looting every damn thing we come across. I don’t want anybody bitching at me when I take my time searching every single corpse.”
The dwarf looked at the others, and the guys all nodded. The female elf just shrugged noncommittally.
“Okay – we’re only in it for the XP and treasure,” Hodin said. “We’re not going to go chasing every little copper, but we can wait for you. Have you done the Tomb of Tharos before?”
“No. Have you?”
“Nope.”
New players go into a dungeon blind, with a map that’s completely greyed out and that only fills in as they explore. Players who have already completed a dungeon have an accurate map, and they know what dangers lurk around the next corner. So if you’re looking to get through a dungeon fast, players who have done it before are prized as guides.
The female elf muttered disapprovingly. “Maybe we should get somebody a little more experienced.”
She was getting on my goddamn nerves.
“Live a little and take a fuckin’ chance,” I said sarcastically. “Besides, I can heal myself.”
I looked over at the Druid, who was the healer of the group.
“I can pull life force from my enemies, so you can concentrate on healing the tank.” Then I addressed the group as a whole. “Plus you’re basically getting me, the imp, and the angel as a package deal.”
“Plus the double dees,” Stig added, and all the guys burst out laughing again.
Hodin glanced over at the elf. “Well?”
She shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
“Alright, you’re in,” Hodin said cheerfully. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” I said as I corked my bottle of rum and put it in my bag. “Let’s do this.”
We walked over and joined the line leading to the wooden doors. Every three minutes or so the gates would creak open, a new group would enter, and the doors would BOOM! shut behind them.
Then th
e screaming would start.
The sound was purely to add to the atmosphere (and screw with our heads). In reality what happened was, once a group entered, they were inside their own ‘instance’ of the dungeon –a separate digital copy of it on a different server from everybody else. That way you didn’t run into 20 other groups trying to raid the dungeon at the same time. Also, you only had wait a couple of minutes for the doors to open instead of standing around for an hour while the other group finished.
The line moved quickly, and finally we got up to the doors. There was a spectral, translucent skeleton in robes on top of the wall who pointed down at us.
“Welcome to the Tomb of Tharos,” it croaked. “To enter this domain of death, you must be numbered five. Have you five members in your group?”
“Yes,” Hodin said.
“Then good luck. You will need it, mortals,” the skeleton said, and the wooden doors creaked open.
We walked through. Once we were on the other side, the doors slammed shut behind us.
I immediately glanced around. There was a small graveyard off to our left, just like in every dungeon. Headstones jutted up from the sandy floor, about twenty graves in all. If a player was killed, he resurrected here and had to run back through the maze to join his fellow group members.
All around us were sandstone walls adorned with Egyptian-inspired Hieroglyphics. There was no ceiling, only bright blue sky.
The corridor we were in stretched 200 feet both to the left and the right, all the way to the corners of the labyrinth. The only gap in the 400-foot wall was right in front of us, though there was another wall of hieroglyphics just beyond it that obscured our vision.
I pulled up my map window just in case the game had decided to be nice.
Nope, it was completely greyed out except for the tiny little segment of the labyrinth where we now stood.
“What do you think?” Hodin the dwarf asked. “Left, right, or center?”
Whether it was alcohol-fueled bravado or the fact that I’d played as a Level 87 Hunter before I took my job at Westek, I was a lot more assertive than normal. “Hold on, let me try something first. Meera, fly up there and see what you can see.”
“Good idea,” the Druid said approvingly.
