by Jake Bible
“Because they’re brainless trolls?” I replied.
“Hey…” some troll said from a few huts over. “Mean.”
Sandra jammed a finger under my nose. “Do not reply.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I lied.
“Steve, you don’t understand the way EverRealm works,” Sandra said. “You don’t like this Domain so you’ve never taken the time to study its mechanics.” She spread her arms wide. “Everything is connected. Everything. To ask Tug and his clan to burn down that forest is like me asking you to chop off your arm right here and now.”
“Which arm?” I replied, smiling. She didn’t smile back. “Sorry.”
“I think it’s the best idea we have, but it isn’t happening, so let it go,” Sandra said. “Let it go.”
“Let it go?” I snorted. “Sandra, I’m stuck in EverRealm because of the damn Dark Blade. I can’t let anything go because this stupid Domain won’t let me go!”
She was about to argue with me then stopped. It hit me at the same time and we looked down at my belt where only my long sword of Breaking hung. I’d really lost the Dark Blade in the river.
I’d lost the Dark Blade in the river and neither of us had realized that it hadn’t come back to me yet.
“Uh,” was all I could say.
“Did it let you go?” Sandra asked. “Are you free of it being an anchor?”
“Oh, please, please, please, let that be true,” I said. “That means I can leave this goddamn Domain as soon as we survive this idiotic quest and stop Jeremy from becoming the Lich King.”
Sandra frowned.
“Huh,” I said. “Having the Dark Blade would kind of be helpful for all of that.”
“Yeah,” Sandra said, doing her best Kip.
Which made me think of the others and where the hell they could be.
Tug came out of the hut about that time and crossed his massive arms over his massive chest then tapped his massive foot impatiently.
“You done be Ranger pussy?” he asked me. “Or you need more time think of burn forest?” He shook his massive head. “What Ranger want burn forest? You idiot.”
“That has been pointed out to me a few times,” I said, giving Sandra a smile. “Okay, we don’t burn down the forest. But that means we need to get down in that valley now and stop the undead army before they get to the foothills and up here to the village.”
“We do that,” Tug said. “Leave at dawn.”
“No,” I said. “And this isn’t negotiable. If we aren’t going to do the strategic thing, then we need to do the surprising thing. We leave now and strike in the dark. They will be expecting us at dawn. That’s when all the huge battles start. Always at dawn. We get down there now and we kick their assess before dawn.”
Tug studied me, his foot still tapping, then finally nodded.
“Leave now. Fight now,” Tug said. He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Leave now! Fight now!”
The huts emptied of their occupants. Males, females, children, the whole village of river trolls came out to hear Tug.
“Night fight,” Tug said and pumped a fist into the air.
“NIGHT FIGHT!” the village roared.
“I think they like the idea,” I said to Sandra.
“Not sure I do,” Sandra said. “The undead can see in the dark.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Well, so can trolls.”
“Let’s hope so,” Sandra said.
“You guys can see in the dark, right?” I asked.
They laughed. That didn’t answer my question at all.
Thirty-Two
The river trolls had no problem navigating the treacherous trail that led out of their village and down to the valley floor. Their feet were huge, and they could grip onto the constantly slipping and sliding dirt and shale the trail was comprised of.
I, however, fell on my ass more than a few times as I stumbled my way in the dark. The trolls thought it was hilarious that a Ranger pussy was constantly falling and tripping. I was the river troll clan’s endless source of amusement. I may have found my calling in EverRealm.
When we reached the valley floor and stood in the deep, dark shadows of the forest’s tall trees, I checked my stats.
Character class: Ranger
Character alignment: Chaotic Good
Character level: 25
Health: 100%
Strength: 100%
Agility: 100%
Magic: 34%
Armor: leather, no bonus
Coin: 0 gold pieces, 0 silver pieces, 0 copper pieces
Inventory: 1 long sword of Breaking (Level 16). 1 tunic. 1 pair of breeches. 1 hooded cloak.
“My Magic went up again,” I whispered to Sandra. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said and shrugged. “Maybe Heg’s medicine did that.”
“Doesn’t sound right,” I said and shrugged too. “But what the fuck do I know.”
That made me miss Trish. It hadn’t hit me yet that Trish was dead and I’d never see her again. Unless Ming turned her into an NPC, but that seemed a little perverted. Not sexy perverted, but a perversion of her memory.
“You okay?” Sandra asked, looking at me. We’d each eaten a few berries Heg had given her that helped us see better in the dark, so I could just make out the expression on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m good,” I said. “When we’re all done with this crap, we can talk.”
The clan of river trolls halted as we reached a large clearing in the forest. It wasn’t a meadow or anything, and we were still standing under the shadows of towering trees like the giant redwoods of California, but we had enough room to group together instead of walking two by two along the forest trail.
Tug knelt and grabbed up a handful of the soft, almost pitch black, forest soil. He shoved the handful in his mouth and chewed for several minutes then spat it back out. As he stood, the rest of the clan did the same thing until all eyes were on us.
“You want us to eat dirt?” I asked.
“Just do it,” Sandra said.
We knelt and scooped up some soil then each shoved it into our mouths.
Images, sounds, smells, all kinds of shit exploded inside my head. I could see the undead army marching towards us, their axes felling everything in their way. Halfway back, in the middle of the very big, very scary undead forces, walked Jeremy, his eyes glowing red, his mouth set in a sneer.
I gasped and he turned to stare right at me. The sneer widened and he held up a finger. The entire army stopped in their tracks.
“Oh, shit,” I said as my new vision collapsed and I was back in the forest clearing. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Sandra was gripping my upper arm so hard it hurt like hell, but I didn’t really care. We looked at each other and she nodded, telling me she’d seen the same thing.
“That was a mistake,” I said to Tug. “We shouldn’t have done that.”
He was honestly puzzled.
“We join with forest,” Tug said. “Forest tell us secrets. Show us way to defeat army.”
“It did?” I asked, a little less panicked at that thought. “What did it say?”
He held a battle axe that was almost as big as me. He raised it in the air and shouted, “We fight!”
“Goddammit,” I muttered.
“Tug, please listen,” Sandra said. “When we ate the soil, it showed us the undead army.”
“Yes. Soil do that,” Tug said and nodded.
“But it also allowed Jeremy to see us,” Sandra continued. “The undead army knows we’re in the forest and coming for them.”
“That no good,” Tug said. “Surprise gone.”
“Surprise gone,” I said. I glanced back the way we’d come. “How soon will the other troll clans arrive?”
“They arrive soon,” Tug said.
“Yes, but how soon?” I asked.
“No know,” Tug said. “Not magic man. Just Tug. They arrive soon.”
“Let’s hope soon is li
ke within the hour,” I said.
“What’s the new plan?” Sandra asked.
“New plan?” Tug replied, confused. “No new plan. We here. We now. We have axes. Have clubs. Have spears. Trolls fight now.”
“Would this be a bad time to revisit the setting fire to the forest idea?” I asked. The look on Tug’s face said it would be a very bad idea. “Never mind. I have sword.”
I pulled the long sword of Breaking out of its sheath and held it up.
“No time like the present to go to war with an undead army that knows we’re coming, am I right?”
The river trolls liked that and held up their weapons, cheering madly just before breaking into a run and heading through the forest towards Jeremy and his waiting undead forces.
“Shit,” I said as Sandra and I were quickly left behind.
“There was nothing we could do,” Sandra said. “I don’t like to classify the races of EverRealm, but trolls aren’t the brightest.”
“No shit,” I said. I sighed and pointed my sword at the backs of the few trolls we could still see. “Time to get our war on.”
“Hold up,” Sandra said and grabbed me in an embrace. She kissed me hard and we stayed that way longer than we should have before she let me go. “Just in case.”
“Oh, Jesus, don’t say that,” I replied. “We’re gonna have plenty more kisses, and other stuff, wink wink, when we win this shit.”
“I know,” she said.
It wasn’t a very convincing answer.
“Time to get our war on,” she said and started jogging after the trolls.
I was right behind her and we jogged for a good fifteen minutes (yay for full Health!) until we started to hear the distinct sounds of trolls getting ready to go to battle. It sounded a lot like the locker room in Friday Night Lights minus the eyes and hearts and minds full and open speech. So it was mostly loud grunting in a weird, tribal sort of chant.
Then shit got very real as the trolls raced and roared into war.
Thirty-Three
Being in the back of the attack was not exactly great for my confidence. By the time the fighting reached us, I’d already heard the collective groan of the undead rise into a fever pitch, which I had no idea could happen, and the trolls’ war cries start to lessen and become more concentrated shouts and yells of pure violence.
It was sort of how I imagined a viking battle would sound. All bluster and cheering then nothing but shouts, screams, and weapons on weapons.
Don’t know if that was how the vikings did it, but it was how the trolls and the undead did it when they clashed and collided into bloody anarchy.
Sandra had her dagger out, which was really the only weapon she liked to use, and sprinted to the right flank of the troll clan. I followed and we tried to skirt the battle, hoping to come around the side so we could catch a glimpse of Jeremy. As much as we wanted to help the trolls fight the undead, Jeremy was really our target. If we could take him out now, then we’d save a lot of headaches later.
Not that we expected to take him out considering his whole special undead resurrection shtick he had going here in EverRealm. But maybe, massive maybe, we could contain or capture him. The biggest maybe would be to sever his control over the undead army.
Yes, I know, we were reaching, but reaching was about all we had at the moment.
Shapes came out of the dark at us and Sandra spun to meet them, her dagger slicing and slashing before she’d even finished turning.
I swiped with my sword, more out of surprise than out of aggression, and lopped off the right arm of whatever was coming for me.
Son of a bitch. It was an orc.
Orcs in EverRealm were not the orcs of Tolkien. That would be a blatant copyright violation and fantasy games over the years had figured out how to get around that. No, the orcs of EverRealm were tall, scraggly looking things that would have given any dentist the fits with one look at the snaggled mess of teeth and fangs protruding from their lips. Yes, I said from their lips. Those teeth just poked right through flesh and the orcs didn’t seem to give a shit. I think they liked the constant taste of blood whenever they talked (grunted?) or ate.
So, orcs were bad enough. Undead orcs? Forget about it.
The rest of the orc came at me fast. It slashed down at my head with one of the curved swords that race used, nearly taking half my face off. I managed to side step the attack and thrust with my sword, stabbing the orc through the ribs. The thing screeched and screamed at me, but my sword kept it far enough away that I could keep dodging its continued attacks.
There was one problem. My blade was wedged between the damn thing’s ribs and wouldn’t come loose.
So we did this violent dance where I yanked, the orc swiped with its sword, I dodged and yanked again, both of us screaming and yelling and shouting at each other until our throats were raw.
Good thing Sandra appeared. She did this flying spin thing, decapitating the orc at the same time as she kicked a different orc in the face, sending that one flying back against a tree.
I fell on my ass as the headless orc connected to my sword hit the ground. Sandra stabbed the orc she’d kicked against the tree in the head and it dropped fast then she spun and threw her dagger into the eye socket of an orc that was standing behind me, its sword raised and ready to chop me in half. That orc fell over my back and I stood up, flipping it over my shoulder while also managing to wrench my blade free of the headless orc’s rib cage.
Sandra pulled something from her pouch and threw it against one of the shorter trees as four more undead orcs came for us. The tree came to life and branches wrapped the four undead orcs up then began to squeeze and squeeze until they were pulped right there, undead guts and congealed blood splattering the other trees and coating the forest floor.
I got to my feet and shoved Sandra out of the way as a curved sword slashed through the air right where she’d been standing. I lopped the owner of that sword’s head right off and kicked the body away from us as five more undead orcs appeared out of the gloom and came for us.
“There are too many!” I shouted, parrying a swipe from one of the orcs while I jumped out of the way of another. “We have to regroup!”
“That would be great!” Sandra yelled as she stabbed an orc through the eye, used the body as a shield to fend off the attack from another, pulled out her dagger, and stabbed the new attacker through its eye, then pushed both bodies to the ground and spun to face me. “Regroup where?”
That was a good question. One I didn’t have an answer for.
Although, in the back of my mind, I sort of did.
“We leave,” I said as we both dispatched the last orcs then turned to face a new wave coming for us. “We let this battle distract Jeremy and we hike our asses to Jackal Mountain like we are supposed to be doing anyway.”
The disappointment in Sandra’s face was heartbreaking.
“They aren’t real,” I said, finally expressing what I really felt inside. “None of this shit is real! But, you are! I am! The others are! We need to finish our quest so we can get out of this Domain!”
“They’re real,” Sandra said, hurt by my words.
We didn’t have time to get into a huge argument, and I could see it was going to be huge, because the undead orcs reached us and it was back to fighting.
I shattered an orc’s sword as I hit it with mine and remembered that my blade was a long sword of Breaking (Level 16), so maybe using that to my advantage was a good idea. I went about aiming for orc swords first then lopping off heads, or limbs if the heads weren’t naturally presenting themselves for the lopping, and worked my way through as many undead orcs as I could.
It felt like we’d been fighting for hours before the attack slacked off. With my back against a tree, because that was the only way I was going to remain standing, I checked my stats as Sandra began putting together herbs, combining them with the forest soil, to make a healing paste.
Character class: Ranger
Character alignment: Chaotic Good
Character level: 25
Health: 73%
Strength: 81%
Agility: 82%
Magic: 34%
Armor: leather, no bonus
Coin: 0 gold pieces, 0 silver pieces, 0 copper pieces
Inventory: 1 long sword of Breaking (Level 16). 1 tunic. 1 pair of breeches. 1 hooded cloak.
Not bad. I’d taken a few hits, and had the gashes and cuts to prove it, but none of the undead orcs had managed to get in a lethal blow. Sandra looked in even better shape as she handed me a ball of gunk. I didn’t even ask or complain, simply popped it into my mouth, chewed and swallowed.
“That was topical,” she said.
“Shit,” I replied. Then I shrugged as my belly felt warm and nice and I watched an ugly cut across my forearm heal up right before my eyes. “Does the trick, though.”
Sandra looked surprised, glanced at her own ball of gunk, then shrugged and ate it. She grimaced at the taste then smiled and I knew she was feeling that warm belly too.
“I’ll work on the flavor,” she said as she gathered up some soil and stuffed it into an empty pouch.
One more quick check:
Character class: Ranger
Character alignment: Chaotic Good
Character level: 25
Health: 89%
Strength: 92%
Agility: 92%
Magic: 34%
Armor: leather, no bonus
Coin: 0 gold pieces, 0 silver pieces, 0 copper pieces
Inventory: 1 long sword of Breaking (Level 16). 1 tunic. 1 pair of breeches. 1 hooded cloak.
Nice. Good gunk.
The battle was still raging around us, but we seemed to be in a hidden section of the forest. The trees were smaller, and stood thicker around us, so I pulled Sandra deeper into the shadows. Shadows that were lengthening as the suns began to rise over the valley.
“I don’t want to fight you, but you need to think about what I said,” I said to her, holding up a finger before she could argue. “Listen. I’m hearing more undead groans than troll roars. If the other clans don’t get here soon, then we’re screwed. We have a quest to complete.”
