by Charles Dean
“Don’t be silly. They would never do that,” Sampson assured Reginald. “Whenever Tubal goes about scratching his chin, as if he could ever actually grow facial hair, it means that they are in on something. Stupid sibling habits. But, come on, Reginald, you have no faith. Do you really think that Sparky would ever let someone get hurt?”
“Of course not. We wouldn’t ever do that. It just always makes us feel that much better to do the right thing when we know that we actually had a choice in the matter,” Tubal said reassuringly. “If you give to charity because you have to, it just doesn’t give you the same warm and tingly feeling that you get from doing it because you want to.”
Sparky nodded and then started walking again. “If you want someone to axe you, look to Samson. I carry a shield, Shy.”
“You don’t have to worry about me either,” Sampson said. “If anyone gets the axe, it’ll be that annoying guy in accounting who hasn’t figured out what deodorant is.”
“Right, so don’t bring it up again. No one’s getting rid of you, little guy.” Reginald, who was directly behind Locke as they made their way down the one-person-wide corridor, reached up and gave Locke a comforting pat on the back.
“Ah.” Locke didn’t know what else to say. They had made it clear, almost to a point of bragging, that they liked working with the Holy Alliance when he had first met them. They were proud of the fact that they had been contracted by the alliance on several different occasions, and yet they had probably just given up any future hopes of that up for him. He wasn’t certain that the door was completely closed, but given how bigoted the Holy Alliance seemed to behave, even other members aside from just Anthony, there was a really good chance that the Blue Phoenix Brigade would never work for them again. Tossing away that type of relationship for someone who had just hired them to get a quick power level . . . It didn’t make sense.
Why would they give up that much for me? He almost wished they hadn’t. As he thought about it, he remembered all the internal griping and complaining he had done every time one of the bumbling situations they had gotten him in, like with Piranha Priests, required him to lose one of his precious money-making potions. Sure, it was effectively tossing thirty-plus pieces of gold into the water each he used a potion to help them, but they had probably lost a lot of money by sticking up for him as well. So why did he complain when they clearly didn’t care?
“Thanks.” After a few minutes of feeling bad about his avaricious nature making him hesitate to save them in the past, Locke let his reply be that simple, softly-spoken word.
“Don’t mention it, Shy,” Tubal said. “Like I said before, or at least I think I’ve told you already even though you might not have really heard it: You’re one of us now. Clearly, you’re a part of the Blue Phoenix Brigade. What type of guild leader would I be if I sold you down the river the first chance I got?”
“Heh.” Locke didn’t bother refuting them. The way that things were going so far, he really did want to join them. The only thing that was holding him back from immediately jumping for joy like he had just made the varsity football team in a late 1990’s movie was the truth. It was the fact that, to some degree, he still hadn’t been fully honest with the group and divulged his connection to Eliza or the fact he wasn’t just forced to help her. He wanted to work with her. Heck, at this point, he was really caught between signing up with the Demon Host, whom he had never really met except through one bloodthirsty killer, or the Blue Phoenix Brigade, who had been there for him when it counted. The driving factor behind the choice was who would get him closer to exacting revenge.
But, even with the loss of his account and the destruction of his easy-money-money machine, he was starting to wonder if obtaining his revenge was really the most important thing. Yeah, I was betrayed. Yeah, he was a jerk, but . . . Locke felt himself waver. Do I really want to spend every day obsessing over something like that when this group right here is willing to put up with me? Relaxing and having a beer with them . . . Isn’t that a better way to live? He sighed.
“You really have to stop doing that,” Bianca, who was directly in front of him, said when she heard the sigh. “Sighing will make people think you’re sad, and that will ruin the perfectly good, sappy mood that was established as our hero learned a valuable lesson about being part of a team and playing games when he should be doing his homework.”
“I don’t have any homework. I’ve graduated.” Locke wondered where Bianca’s comment came from.
“See that, Reginald? I told you he was older than you,” Katherine taunted the goat.
“How do you know for sure? He could just be kidding around with you,” Reginald retorted.
“Reginald, did you just make a pun? You know we’ll have to take pun-itive action for that.” Bianca gave a ‘tut tut’ and shook her head.
“It’s hard to tell. He may have just let one slip. He may have been getting your goat, darling,” Katherine added, practically cackling as Reginald groaned.
Locke caught himself paying even closer attention to the language they were using than what they were actually saying. Wait, if Katherine is calling Bianca ‘darling,’ then does that make her the girl? That is something girls say to their boyfriends, right? I thought it was the other way around earlier? He was still perplexed and somehow even more curious now about which gender they were in real life. It shouldn’t matter--he knew that--since it wasn’t likely that he’d see either of them outside the game, but it still dug a little bit at him. The mystery left him feeling like a detective as he broke down clues from everything they said.
“You know, we’re pretty brave walking behind Sampson right now,” Bianca said, changing the subjected. “I mean, after that fart earlier, are you sure it’s safe back here?”
“That . . . That didn’t happen!” Sampson quickly objected.
“Are you sure? The town guard and your master both seemed to say it did,” Katherine said, verbally prodding Sampson some more.
“He is not! I was just helping him out!” Sampson tried to defend herself with an obvious explanation.
“Really don’t know how farting was helping anyone out,” Bianca said. She and Katherine both laughed simultaneously as everyone suddenly came to a stop.
“What’s up?” Tubal asked.
“There are enemies dead ahead,” Sparky clarified.
“Those aren’t enemies! They’re dolphins! Adorable dolphins! They can’t be our enemies!” Sampson immediately and vehemently disagreed.
“You know dolphins. They do bad things to people and each other often, right?” Katherine told Sampson.
“What sort of bad things?” Sampson asked.
“Things I can’t tell you because Reginald is too young to hear,” Katherine said, snickering.
“I am not too young.” Reginald’s objection was slightly whiney, but he didn’t seem to have any heart in this argument. Locke was left with the impression that it was one that they had gone over many times before--and probably one that Reginald never won.
“Let’s act while these children bicker, Tubal,” Sparky said, cutting off the others. Locke felt like the comment was even aimed a little bit at him since he was having just as much fun watching the back and forth as they were giving it.
“I got your back,” Tubal said, pulling out his bow.
As soon as the bow was drawn, Sparky charged. Locke was still unable to make out what they were fighting, only having heard it was dolphins, but he quickly tried to get to the side of the corridor so that he could see what was happening.
When he did, he was greeted with the sight of a pod of dolphins, each wearing a towel around its waist, standing upright on their tails. They were busy trying to pelt and beat Sparky and Sampson, the two who had managed to engage before Locke could even get into the opening, with incredibly large rainbow trout they somehow grasped in their longer-than-usual flippers.
What in the world? Locke couldn’t stop himself from laughing at the sight of a fully-armored knight
and a Minotaur being brazenly assaulted with rainbow trout by towel-wearing dolphins.
While the dolphins tried to bludgeon Sampson, Sparky went about defending her as usual. The way the Black-Wing used her sword always made him think that she’d be better off with two shields. Even as she pivoted back and forth, practically circling around Sampson as she moved, it was never to attack but always to stop one of the trout from slapping the Minotaur.
“Something is really fishy about this,” Tubal said as he loosed an arrow into one of the dolphins, knocking it back into the moss-covered wall behind him. “They’re too easy to kill, like these fish have never been to school.”
The room they were in was rather spacious, and the number of dolphins wasn’t something to laugh at. Even with how easy killing them seemed to be, the simple fact of the matter was that there was a veritable horde of the eight-and-a-half-foot-tall monsters. Locke watched the battle, trying to think of a way he could help, but by the time Katherine, Bianca and Reginald entered the fray, it was clear that he wasn’t needed.
Reginald cast his shield on Bianca, as it was clear just from looking at them that Sampson and Sparky weren’t going to need any help at all tanking. While Bianca pushed forward, pulling out her daggers and making fresh sushi of the first dolphin in sight, Katherine stayed back and used her whip to snap at anything that tried to squeeze through or around the line.
Seeing that he was once again unneeded, Locke sighed and went back to work on his potions. Even if he hadn’t spotted any vegetation he could rip up to make new ones inside the cave, he had gathered enough flowers on the way here to last a few hours. He was tempted to go straight to work on making more of the deadly poisons that would boost their overall effectiveness, but he decided to split his time between the damaging-dealing ones and the health potions. The health-restoring vials had proven to be useful, and with how close he had come to death, it only made sense to increase their effectiveness. You never know when a Fire-Walker you’re sent to meet is going to try to burn you alive or a giant root is going to sprout out of the ground and try to kill you. He shook his head in dismay at how ridiculously one-sided those encounters had been.
What I need is . . . What I need is a way to help out so that, if things go wrong, I’m not just left to dodge and pray that I don’t take a beating. He mulled over the different ways he could do that while his hands automatically went to work. They didn’t need any help from his brain to complete their task, and his eyes stayed focused on the battle. It was amazing to watch Sampson and Sparky dance around in the middle of an onslaught of potentially painful attacks. Did the game make them that strong, or were they good at fighting on their own? He remembered hearing somewhere that natural abilities often shone through in this world.
Even with all the noise from the fight, he thought he heard something behind him: a splash and footsteps. He was going to turn around and see what it was when a very familiar text bubble popped up right in front of him:
Hey, Shy! This is your friendly, neighborhood Ash again! I’m just leaving a note to let you know: You’re boring. Like, duller than a pair of preschool safety-scissors. Which is amazing. Do you know how hard it is to be bored while watching a strong, handsome, muscular guy with broad shoulders all day? I mean, you haven’t done anything interesting in what feels hours. That fun-time playhouse under the city with burnt-britches boy was kinda entertaining. That guy’s athlete’s foot had clearly gotten out of control. Who knew that could even happen? But right after that, you went back to the blah blah blah no-action Locke from before. You’re like the stay-at-home dad of the group, sitting there toiling away in your alchemic kitchen while they go out and bring home the bacon. Wait, no, I really shouldn’t compare you to people like that. It’s actually kinda offensive to stay-at-home dads and mothers everywhere. They get to have fun, start a life, play video games on occasion . . . Oh yeah, raise kids, too. I’ve heard that's important to some people, but whatever. They have T.V. to do that, right? You . . . You’re just being dull. I’ve said that a few times, right?
I was going to just put up with it for a while, but then I remembered that you’re my minion, and you have to do what I tell you. So, I want you to get up, take off your shirt, do a dance for momma, and then start tossing those poisons around on some fire. Let me see some boom-booms! Pretend like it’s the fifth of November, and you don’t feel like trusting Guy Fawkes to do his job. Light this whole place up! How’s that sound, minion? Great! Get to it!
P.S. You don’t have to take off your shirt and do a dance. I’m not ‘legally’ allowed to make you do that. H.R. has made it very clear that my previous attempts to make men dance topless were not appreciated by management. But you better spice things up for me.
Locke was now positive this witch was reading his every thought. People are worried about whether or not the government is listening in on them? What the heck is with this?! She’s reading my mind! That’s not fair! Locke stood up, half-mad that Ash had once again pulled on his strings like he was some sort of puppet, half-happy that he had a reason not to be sitting on his rear-end making poisons and potions for the rest of the fight. “Sampson, Sparky, can one of you guys give me a light?”
“I can,” Tubal offered instead. His arrows immediately blazed up with the signature blue fire of the Blue Phoenix Brigade. “You going to throw those poisons in the air again? Can you aim them toward the gaps on our sides so that our three tanks don’t get flanked? I don’t know how long Katherine will be able to hold out.”
“Yeah, sure thing.” Locke pulled out a handful of poisons, and as he tossed them toward the areas Tubal pointed to, the archer’s fiery projectiles struck them mid-air to create Locke’s signature poison clouds.
The clouds didn’t seem to have much of an effect the dolphins. Despite the poisonous green cloud of vapor that hung in the air, they continued on in their attempts to get past Bianca and Sampson on the edges. They charged blindly through the billowy plumes much like the Piranha Priests had swum right through the poison he had poured into the swamps. It left Locke feeling apprehensive and scared that it wasn’t doing any good, until finally, he noticed that Katherine’s whips and Tubal’s arrows were killing them much faster.
So, it is working, just not by much, Locke noted. “Tubal, I’m throwing a few more,” he said, tossing four or five more off to either side. Locke saw dollar signs flying through the air, but it didn’t stop him from lobbing bottle after bottle at the oncoming creatures and creating a perimeter around his companions. In the end, it almost seemed completely worth it as he watched one of the dolphins literally croak and die on Bianca’s side from the gas of the poison cloud alone.
So, this is what it’s like to not feel worthless during a fight. That was worse than being a fifth wheel on a double date, Locke grinned, casting out another two poisons. He knew he couldn’t keep this up if they ran into another fight this big, but for the moment, he was just happy that he was able to lend a hand.
Within a few moments, Tubal and Locke had managed to start pushing the gas aggressively further and further into the dolphin pod. The rubbery, towel-covered enemies began to pile up in mounds of corpses around Bianca, Sparky and Sampson, who continued working to hold the line. Before Locke even realized it, the fight was over, and they were staring at a wave of foul gas hovering over dozens of dolphin corpses.
“That was fun,” Tubal declared happily, walking over to Locke. “Talk about some serious teamwork there, Shy.”
“Yeah, it was,” Locke responded, looking at the cloud in satisfaction.
“So how do we clear away the bottled Sampson farts?” Bianca asked, looking at the poison in front of them and waving her daggers through it a few times to test it out.
“Oh.” Locke thought for a minute.
“They are not my farts!” Sampson protested, continuing to deny the accusation, but no one seemed to pay attention to her protest.
“I think her farts turn into explosions if they’re struck again with
more fire,” Locke stated. He was playing along with the running joke but still offering a solution to the looming miasma.
“Shy!” Sampson said as she stamped her hoof. “Cut it out, or I’m tossing you to the next dolphin, and they can do to you whatever unspeakable act we apparently can’t mention in front of baby Reginald.”
“That’s no way to talk to your master,” Katherine said, tut-tutting Sampson.
“Whatever,” Sampson replied, giving up. She took her axe and activated the ranged fire sweep right into the gas cloud. Her meager action elicited a massive explosion and a thunderous boom that knocked her and Sparky back a couple of steps.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding about the explosion, were you?” Tubal said while scratching his head. “I think this has a lot of potential in the future.”
“You mean like a combination attack?” Locke asked.
“Yeah. Sparky, Sampson, and Reginald have a very good opener. Their little yellow-shielded, whirlwind of smash does wonderful burst damage. Now, I think we might have found our combination finisher. Up, up, down, down, left, right, boom,” Tubal said, shooting a fire arrow into part of the remaining cloud and causing it to ignite. The explosions didn’t seem to have a chain reaction, they only seemed to blow up in proportion to the amount of fire that struck them, but the short, limited bursts eventually cleared the room of the deadly vapor.
