by Jake Bible
If I was going to retrieve the Dark Blade, then I had better do it fast. I sprinted over to the scrub brush and chopped off half the branches before I found it. Sheathing the long sword of Breaking, I picked the Dark Blade back up and turned to face the fight.
Coz was spinning and tumbling, going from ground to feet to ground to feet as he stabbed everything he could get close to. He didn’t always hit his mark, but he was so agile that none of the undead could get a hand on him.
Sandra was doing basically the same thing except with more flying kicks and every attack of her dagger did find its mark, putting an undead human or goblin to rest. She struck with elbows and knees then stabbed. Jumped up and gave a roundhouse kick to a rather large undead gentleman and took his head off right there. Impressive. She sure as shit wasn’t just about the healing arts. Sandra knew how to fight.
Trish was whirling her staff again and again, sending lightning bolts into the undead horde, cooking as many as she could before retreating to catch her breath. It took a lot of energy to wield that kind of battle magic, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d deplete her Health and collapse. But, then again, it was Trish, so I knew she had to have some backup plan to cover that very contingency.
That left Ming.
I killed two undead women and cut a goblin down the middle before I could look over my shoulder back at him. He was still standing where he’d been before, his lips moving and the tip of his staff firmly planted on the ground. Whatever he was working on, it was big. I hoped he knew what he was doing because big magic shit didn’t always play nice. It played fair which meant more often than not, allies caught some collateral damage.
“You good, Ming?” I called. He nodded, but didn’t stop muttering his spell. “Okay, man.”
I ran forward and took out five undead men before a sixth was able to get in at me and grab me about the waist. I stumbled back and avoided a full-on tackle by letting the heels of my boots slip on the loose dirt. We skated our way back a few yards before I was able to bring the pommel of the Dark Blade down on the base of the guy’s skull, snapping his neck.
One problem with that move was that his entire body went slack while he still had me about the waist. Dead weight pulled at me as his still-moving mouth clamped onto my belt. I fell to my knees and shifted just in time to give the thing another mouthful of leather instead of a mouthful of my belly. Once on my knees, my center of gravity shifted and I stabilized. The pommel found its mark, and the thing’s skull split open all over me.
I was coated in undead brains and blood from midsection down.
That’s when Ming let loose.
There was a tingling at the back of my neck, and I shoved the undead corpse away from me so I could look back and see what the hell he was doing.
Emanating from his staff was what I could only describe as a wave. It looked like energy and water at the same time and was building and building until it towered over Ming by a good six or seven feet. Then, in one motion, it came rushing down the canyon, right for me, the others, and the remaining undead. Which was a lot. The horde had not been a small one. We’d only seen the first couple rows coming from around the bend.
The energy wave washed over me, and I felt the air sucked from my lungs like when you open a really hot oven and make the mistake of breathing at the same time. Except the energy wave wasn’t hot. It was cool. It felt like that first autumn breeze of the season right before the cold rains came. Refreshing yet with a knowing that things were about to change for a while.
I watched the wave hit the others then engulf the undead. My friends stumbled a bit, but it didn’t seem to hurt them anymore than it had me, which was to say not at all. The undead on the other hand did not fare so well.
There was a reason the energy wave reminded me of autumn. The undead stopped where they were, some in mid-attack, and fell to the ground. Their bodies shook for a second, but then went still. At least until the bodies started to rot and decay like a time-lapse nature film.
In a matter of a minute, the entire horde was shriveled up and turning to dust.
“Damn, Ming, way to go,” I said as I got up and turned around to give him a thumbs up.
Ming was on his knees, gasping for breath.
“Sandra!” I cried and ran to Ming.
“I am fine, Steve,” Ming said, trying to wave me off between gasps.
“What did you do, man?” I asked. “You didn’t need to kill yourself to help us.”
“No,” gasp, “not like,” gasp, “that at,” gasp, “all,” Ming said
“Excuse me, Steve,” Sandra said as she pushed past me and handed Ming a wet rag.
Ming put the rag over his mouth and nose and tried to breathe as deep as he could. He only managed short breaths at first then his struggle eased and he was slowly breathing normally once again.
“Asthma,” he said after a minute of breathing through the rag. He held it out to Sandra. “Thank you, my dear.”
“You should keep this in a pouch and on you at all times,” Sandra said. “We knew this was possible.”
“I will lose the pouch, you know that,” Ming said with a pained chuckle. “Just like I always would lose my inhaler around my estate. It was why I kept a dozen backups stashed here and there.”
“You have asthma, dude?” Coz asked as he came up to us. “I didn’t know that.”
“No reason you should,” Ming said. “We have never met in person, so it was never an issue to discuss. Same as your hemorrhoids.”
“Dude, I told you that in confidence,” Coz said, turning and snapping at Kip who had joined us. “Not cool.”
Kip shrugged.
“Did you fucking feel it too?” Trish asked, not seeming to care in the least that Ming was down on the ground. “Did you?”
“I did,” Ming said. “We have a lot to discuss.”
“Not here, though,” Trish said. “We need to get up out of this canyon and make camp somewhere secure.”
“Jesus, is there anywhere secure in EverRealm anymore?” Coz asked.
“We shall find out,” Ming said. “Let us hurry so that we may get a good night’s rest. We will talk in the morning about what is happening.”
Good idea. I brought up my stats.
Character class: Ranger
Character alignment: Chaotic Good
Character level: 12
Health: 34%
Strength: 65%
Agility: 73%
Magic: 15%
Armor: leather, no bonus
Coin: 200 gold pieces, 155 silver pieces, 0 copper pieces
Inventory: Long bow with 14 regular arrows, 4 magical. 1 long sword of Breaking (Level 16). The Dark Blade, inactive (level unknown). 2 tunics. 1 pair of breeches. 1 hooded cloak. 1 satchel with 1 wine skin, empty.
My Health worried me. But there was something else. The Dark Blade was still inactive. It was one hell of a sword, but I’d yet to figure out how to activate its fiery abilities.
Maybe someone would clue me in on how to do that when they clued me in on why they thought I was screwed.
First, we walked.
I went to Preferences and nuked the Notifications command. No more stats or damage interruptions for me, thank you very much.
Twenty-One
We walked a long time before we found a way up and out of the canyon. Then we walked some more before we found a small knoll that had a thicket of oaks on top that we could easily defend. 360-degree views meant nothing was sneaking up on us. Except maybe from above, but Trish covered that possibility by covering us with an energy mesh that would drop anything that decided to drop onto us.
Magic sure had its place. I was kind of wishing that Technopolis had some equivalent, but it was all cyber, all the time. Thinking about my Domain made me think about Holo, and I sighed as I plopped down on the ground to rest my back against the trunk of one of the oaks.
“Eat some of these,” Sandra said.
“How bad is it going to taste?” I asked.
>
“They’re crackers,” Sandra said. “Like Wheat Thins. I was able to get the kitchen at Castle Lormillion to duplicate them.”
“Any cheese to go with them?” I asked. “Specifically, cheese that comes from a can?”
“No, Steve, I do not have cheese in a can,” Sandra said. “This is EverRealm, not a 7-11.”
“You should get the kitchen to work on spray cheese next,” I said and took a couple of the offered crackers. They tasted pretty damn good. I actually liked them better than Wheat Thins.
“I don’t think so,” Sandra said, munching on a cracker, too.
We shared what she had in her hand in silence. Well, except for the crunching and chewing. When the crackers were gone, Sandra yawned and pointed to a spot between two trees that looked flat and was covered in some sweet, soft looking moss.
“Want to share?” she asked. “It has room for both of us.”
It may have been night, but the Galac moons obviously lit my face up enough for her to see the surprise on it.
“I meant to sleep,” she said quietly and got up.
I watched her walk over to the moss and lie down. She rolled onto her side with her back to me and all I could do was stare.
“Smooth,” Coz said as he sat down next to me. “So smooth, dude.”
“I wasn’t expecting…”
I let the statement fade away because I didn’t have a clue as to what I was expecting. Not at all. Sandra had been so mousy in the Center. She’d barely opened up to anyone, let alone me. I mean, I always thought maybe we had a connection because of the looks she’d shoot me now and again, but I didn’t think she’d want us to cuddle up in the middle of a thicket of oaks while on a quest in EverRealm. That just kind of blew my mind.
“Everything has changed, dude,” Coz said as if he could read my thoughts. “This isn’t the real world. Who we were back home can fall away and we get to become what we’ve always wanted to become.”
“You’re still you, I’m still me,” I said.
“No, dude, I’m not still me,” Coz said. “If you’d ever met me in real life, and I mean real real life, not the Center, then you’d know that. Just like I’m sure you were different where you lived, up in that high-rise with all your bots.”
“Not really,” I said. I thought for a second and shook my head. “No, I’m still me.”
“Huh, okay, maybe so,” Coz said. “Maybe that’s why you don’t dig EverRealm like the rest of us. This was kind of the first place I figured out I could be someone other than myself. Where I had power and status that wasn’t reliant on who I was at home. In a way, this is where I came alive, not back in the old world. And especially not back before the undead showed up.”
“That’s cool,” I said. “I get that. I was different before the undead, but after that, I sort of found who I was. I’m just not any different here than I am back in the real world. Not anymore.”
He nodded like he understood, but didn’t reply. I turned my head to look up at the couple of stars I could see through the branches of the oak.
“You going to tell me why the Dark Blade is more a curse than a gift?” I asked after a while.
“I’d rather not,” Coz said. “Maybe tomorrow?”
“I think Ming has the bad news slot in our schedule already booked tomorrow,” I said. “Tell me my shit now so I can get some sleep.”
“Yeah…not sure how much sleep you’ll get,” Coz said. “It’s not good, dude.”
“I’ve guessed that part, man,” I said. “So just tell me already.”
My voice rose and I heard Kip grunt in disapproval and was shushed by Trish. Ming and Sandra were asleep, or pretending to be.
“Sorry,” I said. “I know you didn’t want to be the guy to tell me.”
“No, I really didn’t,” Coz said. “But tough shit, right?”
He took a couple of deep breaths.
“First, let me say that this isn’t definite,” Coz said. “EverRealm is a weird place and there is always a solution, practical or magical, that can get any player out of the bind they find themselves in. I mean, if there wasn’t a way to do that, then no one would play after the first few hours. I can’t remember how many times I thought I was dead for good when I was at your level.”
“Gee, Coz, thanks,” I said.
“Oh, shut the hell up,” Coz said. “You know what I mean.”
I nodded and he continued.
“The thing is, that in order for us Othersiders to be assimilated into the quantum matrix of the Domains, Ming had to do some changing to the code of all the platforms the games are built on,” Coz said. “There had to be certain anchors that were constant, immutable, unable to be changed or reprogrammed no matter who tampered with the back end. Otherwise, if there was a glitch, we’d be wiped out with everything else. We’d be no better than NPCs.”
“Let me guess, the Dark Blade is one of those anchors?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Coz said.
“Maybe?”
“Maybe. It’s tricky. It may be the Dark Blade or it may be the Dark Enforcer. Either way, you are connected to both of them when you took possession of the Dark Blade.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“You’re gonna make this hard on me, aren’t you?”
“Not trying to, man, but the exposition is getting boring.”
“Boring? Oh, shit, Steve, I’m so sorry that my explaining to you how your fate is now tied to EverRealm forever is boring you.”
I gulped. He winced.
“Sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t how I wanted to say that.”
“Am I an anchor now?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“How do we find out for sure?” I asked. “Can I give the Dark Blade back to the Dark Enforcer and call it good?”
“That is highly possible,” Coz said. “I don’t know.”
“Would Ming know?” I asked.
“Probably not,” Coz said. “No one knew that the Dark Blade, or Dark Enforcer, even was one of the anchors. Not until you tried to give the Dark Blade away. Then it behaved exactly how an anchor would behave and returned to you. I mean, come on, dude, do you think I would have wanted to steal the Dark Blade and save with it if I knew it was an anchor and I’d never be able to leave EverRealm and go to my Domain?”
“Never leave EverRealm,” I said slowly. “This sucks.”
“Hey, dude, maybe it won’t be like that,” he said. “Maybe you have to perform some side quest that no one knows about and you’ll be free of the Dark Blade. Maybe we’re all wrong and the Dark Blade only acts like an anchor, but really isn’t. There’re all kinds of maybes that could turn out in your favor, Steve.”
“There’re all kinds that could turn out against me,” I said.
“Yeah, but that’s life, dude,” he replied. “That’s always how things were, are, and will be no matter if we’re in the real world, the Center, or one of the Domains. We live the infinite.”
“Live the infinite?” I laughed. “That’s pretty Zen of you there.”
“I have my moments,” Coz said and shrugged. He patted me on the shoulder. “Good talk. Get some sleep.” He paused. “Can you?”
“Maybe,” I said with a smirk.
“Asshole,” he replied and walked off to where he’d set out his bedroll.
“Are you girls done gabbing yet?” Trish grumbled. “Or will it be a fucking sing-along and hair braiding time next?”
“Already done, Mom,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
“What a great idea,” she said.
It only took her a few minutes before her breathing evened out and I knew she was asleep. So was everyone else. I tried to get more comfortable and closed my eyes, but sleep was not coming.
An anchor? Stuck in EverRealm forever? Jesus Christ, what a nightmare.
I was going to have to make a decision and soon. If there was a side quest I needed to tackle tha
t would rid me of the Dark Blade and it being an anchor, then I needed to find that side quest. I had a sinking feeling it meant I needed to find the Dark Enforcer and that guy was a jerk. I could go the rest of my life without ever seeing him again.
Abandoning the tree, I moved to a thick bed of leaves, took out my cloak from my satchel, made an attempt at a bed, and settled in. Sleep didn’t come right away, but eventually, it did come, and I slowly drifted into an uneasy, dream-filled slumber that did very little for my exhausted body.
Twenty-Two
The next morning was quiet and uncomfortable. Sandra was wary of me and I was wary of her being wary which meant we kept circling each other while the others got ready to move out.
Kip had magicked up some delicious eggs and hash browns. However, being magic, they only restored some of our Health. One real egg would have boosted the percentage almost as much as that full meal had. But, our bellies were full, at least, and we were ready to get to work.
We stood as a group on the edge of the thicket of trees and stared out at the landscape before us. It was nothing but rolling hills to the horizon where a massive range of mountains stood, as if they signaled the edge of the world. Which they just might have. It was EverRealm.
In the middle of the range was a mass of black clouds swirling constantly. Bubby had said the Creator had hidden Jackal Mountain from view. He did kind of a crappy job, in my opinion. It’s not like people didn’t know there was something nasty behind those clouds. I mean, it couldn’t have looked more evil if someone had drawn an arrow in the sky pointing to it with a sign that said, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” Or maybe even, “Y’all gonna die!”
“Anyone have a good transporting spell they want to use?” Coz asked. “This would be a great time to whip that puppy out.”
“No one’s whipping any puppies out, Coz,” Trish said. “Transporting spells are highly unstable even under the best of circumstances. Otherwise, every noob in this damn game would be popping around EverRealm and acting like idiots while messing up quests for real players like us. Anyway, you think I want to try one while I’m still tired as fuck and need a real meal?”
