Moons of Jupiter

by V R Tapscott

  I told Pimento, “This is Westland. This area was invaded by a pirate ring and it’s a constant battle to keep them from taking over the rest of the area. They’ve overrun this town, called Sunbrook, but for the most part they keep to the inside of the old mine. Our job is to infiltrate and try to take out the leader.”

  He nodded. “I see. So, have I got enough power to take on the bad guys?”

  I smiled. “No.”

  “Um, then why am I going in?”

  “This is just for fun. I’ll be taking out the bad guys and all you need to do is to keep very close to me. As long as you stay right next to me, you’ll be fine. And at your level, you act as some kickin’ good bait! They’ll come running to kill you.”

  He blanched. “Kill me?”

  “Uh huh. Hey, what’s a game for, anyhow?”

  “Well, I never really thought of being a target, more a hero.”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes being a hero winds up just being an available target that the bad guy can waste her ammunition on while your friends get out alive.”

  Pimento seemed to think about that for a bit. “Well, if you put it that way, maybe I understand. Putting yourself in harm’s way for a friend, that is. So, what’s the plan?”

  I pointed out the mine buildings. “We’ll sneak in the main shaft and make our way through to the internal workings, taking out the guards and other assorted evil characters, and finally win our way to the big bad pirate captain. Where we’ll take him out as well.”

  He grinned at me. “So, no plan?”

  “Hey, I thought that was a great plan!”

  We started through the town, picking off guards as we moved through. They did make it pretty easy, since they all came running after Pimento, and all I had to concentrate on was making sure none of them got a good hit in. Finally, we arrived at the mine entrance. Pimento was panting and looked scared out of his wits, but was still with me.

  “So far, it’s been pretty easy, but it’ll start getting a little rough inside. They get tougher as we get closer to the boss man.”

  Pimento boggled at me. “Tougher? I thought for sure I was dead a bunch of times already!”

  I smirked. “I’m a mage, Jim, not a bloody tank.”

  He muttered, “I’m the bloody one, if you ask me.”

  I shrugged, a little miffed. “Well, it’s easy enough to stop here, and I’ll just fly you back to where we started and you can kill gnolls the rest of the night, no skin off my nose.”

  He held up his hands. “No, no, I’m sorry. I’m just reacting. I’m having fun. And thanks for taking me this far.”

  Mollified, I said “Ok, well, let’s head on in. Now, inside it’s going to take even more concentration for me to keep them from killing you, and you’ll have to stay right with me. If you stray or get distracted, I can guarantee you will die.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk.”

  “Hey, what are friends for?”

  He impulsively hugged me and said, “Yeah, I know.”

  I smiled and hugged him back. “Friends are more important than about anything, Olive.”

  He grinned. “I’ve been found out!”

  I smirked, “You’ll always be my little Pimento, though.”

  We entered the mine and immediately a thug jumped out from behind the stairwell and hit Pimento with a fireball. Which also immediately dropped him in his tracks. I took out the thug and his companion. She’d also taken a shot at Pimento, but she’d been slower than her compatriot.

  He sighed and said, “I’ll be right back, don’t start without me.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  I did clear the area and make sure there was no threat in the room where he’d come back to life. In a few minutes, I could see his ghostly form, and after he got near me, he resurrected and sat to recover his health.

  “Wow, I see what you mean about them being tougher.”

  “Yeah. You may suffer a few deaths. Once we get into the main instance, that is, the part of the game set aside just for us, you will have to resurrect at the beginning and run through to wherever we are. Since we’ll make sure to clear out the bad guys on the way, it shouldn’t be a problem, but just watch it.”

  He chuckled. “You sound like you expect me to die again.”

  “Oh, trust me, you’ll die again. A mage doesn’t have any way to make people notice her and besides, you’re a tasty morsel.”

  “What am I getting out of this again, anyhow?”

  “Loot, money and the pleasure of my company.”

  He grinned. “Oh, well, in that case I’m looking forward to it.”

  I patted his head. “You should be.”

  He stuck his tongue out at me and I returned the favor.

  We made it through the main parts of the dungeon, only losing him twice. He’d leveled up several times since we’d started on our adventure and his added strength along with his additional armor points helped a lot in keeping him alive when I missed killing all the enemies before they got to him. We’d also picked up pieces of armor and weaponry along the way, so he was looking far more like a ‘real mage’ than he had been when we started.

  We triggered the cannon that blows out the door of the final area to be explored. The room filled with thugs as the door went down, but I managed to get them all with only a token pounding for Pimento. He seemed gratified at this, since he’d gotten pretty battered and bloody along the way. I told him he should be happy, since having a mage tank wasn’t much protection. I got another tongue stuck out at me for that comment.

  I grinned. “You should have rolled a paladin or a warrior.”

  He shrugged. “My best friend is a mage. Maybe next time.”

  I smiled and hugged him. “Mages and paladins are a great team.”

  We set off along the docks, heading toward the ship moored to the far side of the cavern. Suddenly, a giant parrot dive-bombed Pimento, causing him to yell. I dispatched the parrot, saying, “What, you don’t like birds?”

  “Sure I like birds. But birds this big should be on the dinner table, not trying to take chunks out of me!”

  “That reminds me, should we have turkey for dinner tonight?”

  He smirked. “I don’t think that matters much, Ms. ‘Apples and Fruit!’”

  I growled at him. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “Just part of the service, ma’am.”

  I shot down another one of the roc-sized birds before it saw us, and we made our way along the rest of the docks. We started having to dodge cannon shot as we slunk along the hodge-podge of docks, but that wasn’t too bad. Poor Pimento caught the edge of one of the blasts and it knocked him into the water. I waited while he swam around, found the way back up on the land and gained the dock again. He came running along the way, scowled at me and said, “You could have told me.”

  “I guess. But it was a good object lesson and besides, it was more fun that way.”

  He snorted at me and we moved further along the way, dodging cannon balls as we went.

  I dispatched the first mate without issue, then had Pimento wait at the bottom of the ramp up to the scaffolding that surrounded the ship under construction.

  I usually run around the lowest deck of the ship and gather all the hangers on, the pirates that just seem to stand around being “extras” in the game. I take them all out at once that way, and it’s a nice bit of loot for whatever low-level character I’m running through the dungeon that day. Only this time, I got around about halfway and saw his health meter start dropping, almost instantly zeroing out.

  “Pimento, what are you doing?”

  “Um. Dying, apparently.”

  “I told you to just stand there!”

  “Well, I wanted to see what you were up to!”

  “Uh huh. Get a good look?”

  “Well, I can NOW, since I can run around in spirit form. Doesn’t that hurt, having them chopping at you like that?”

  “Nah, not so much. They don’t do any real d
amage.” I shrugged. “Ok, I’ll hold them here a couple minutes and then drop them so you can come back and grab the loot. Another couple levels of ship and we’ll be done here. Time to log out and head for bed.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  I laughed. “Not gonna happen, dear.”

  He smiled. “I know. But I gotta keep my hand in.”

  “I suppose. But the way I feel right now, most of my brainpower is going to my mouse hand. And besides, there’s always Dale. And he’s been around longer than you have. He’s got dibs.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah. I know.”

  I waited for him to come back in ‘physical form’ again and then hugged him. “You know I love you too, don’t you?

  He nodded. “Yeah, I do. And besides, I don’t know what to do with this body yet, anyhow.”

  “You mean, Olive’s body?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s kind of strange, I have to admit. Playing CoW is the only way I ever ‘met’ Kit. Having Olive as a real person is a whole new departure.”

  “You think it’s strange for you, you should be on this end.”

  “How far can you take it?”

  He sighed. “I’m not sure. I know it has to have been done before, but I’m handicapped not having access to the libraries. But, I’ll take it as far as I can, so long as it doesn’t endanger … ‘the mission’.”

  “You mean, ‘Mission Protect Jane’”?

  He looked at me a moment. “In the end, there isn’t any other mission.”

  I looked up at the ship. This conversation had gotten a lot more serious than I had intended. “Let’s go take out the pirate king. I have a need for some more ‘Apples and Fruit!’”

  He snorted. “Yeah, I bet. Any idea how long it will be?”

  “Not that I’ve heard, yet. But I have another doctor looking at me in a few days. I’m in hopes he’ll relax my diet a little.” I took a breath. “Olive, did you do anything to me? I mean, when ‘it’ happened?”

  Pimento took on a little bit of an evasive look, at least as much as the game allows.

  “Noooo ...”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Olive?”

  “Um, well, when I put that bandage on, it might have had some residual nano-bots on it. Ones specifically designed to heal and protect.”

  I blinked. “Oh. What does that mean?”

  He sighed. “I was hoping to not have to mention it, considering how skittish you might be about the idea. But you should heal pretty fast and it should make you pretty resilient.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad. How long does it last?”

  “Um. Well, it doesn’t … exactly have an expiration date.”

  I digested that for a bit. “Ooookay, and what does THAT mean?”

  He dug his toe into the ground. “You’ll have a long, healthy life.”

  “How long?”

  “Long. I don’t know exactly, since it was never designed for humans. It seems to be working fine, though. No side effects. No bad consequences.”

  “Olive, how long is long?”

  He looked at the ground, then muttered, “Um, maybe a few centuries.”

  I stared. “Oh.”

  Pimento took up his staff. “Let’s go down the bad guy so you can have dinner.” And he set off around the main deck. After a bit I ran after him, since he’d get killed on his own.

  Following all that discussion, taking out the head pirate was kind of anticlimactic. We finished, made the leap to the lower deck and then toddled out the tunnel to the exit. I flew us back to the Westland Inn, our conversation limited to talking in monosyllables.

  When we got settled comfortably in the inn, we sat at one of the tables in back where no one was paying attention.

  I took a breath. “Well, thanks. It takes a little getting used to, but thanks.”

  Pimento clasped his hands together and sat staring at them.

  “It was never supposed to happen that way, Jane. But I can’t apologize either, since from my perspective, having Jane live longer is the point of the operation.”

  I nodded. “It’s a lot to take in. Let’s just not say anything about this to anyone else, ok?”

  Pimento nodded. “I understand.”

  I have him a big hug. “I’m not mad, sweetie. After all, you just extended my life by ... whatever amount. Thank you. Stop calling me an ‘operation’ though!” I smiled and we sat drinking our beer and thinking.

  Chapter Six

  Paint the town Olive

  Bailey, Georgia and Olive stepped out of the elevator and it was gone. It annoyed Georgia no end, since she wanted to see what it looked like from the outside, but could never get turned around fast enough. Which was kind of funny, since it looked exactly like every other elevator, beyond that sometimes it was ThyssenKrupp, and sometimes it was Otis. Just depending on Olive’s mood. Only a true elevator aficionado could tell the difference, in point of fact. Olive had been tempted to make it really stand out, like having the flames of hell blazing out the doorway, or using the Doctor’s box again, but she figured Jane would have a problem with that, and she never wanted to cross Jane. Mostly ‘cause it didn’t make Jane mad, it just made her sad. And sad Jane was intolerable to Olive.

  Bailey looked around and said, “Where are we?”

  Olive smirked. “You told me we were gonna paint the town red. Y’all never named a town.”

  “Anyone ever tell you how annoying you are, Olive?” This from Georgia.

  “Yep. And I’m workin on it every day to make sure I hit the top ten of annoying people. Gotta have something to shoot for, sugar.”

  Bailey and Georgia looked around and Olive looked smug. A tumbleweed rolled by.

  “Olive, I don’t think this town is big enough to paint red. In fact, I don’t think they even have a hardware store to buy red paint!”

  Olive rolled her eyes again, a production she’d practiced many times to perfect, no doubt. “Bailey, you’re whining again. This is a great town!”

  Right about then, a man came out of the saloon across the street. He stood in the middle of the road for a minute, then pulled out a gun and pointed it down the road. Bailey looked at him and apparently without thinking, she charged across the road and tackled him to the ground. He went down with a thud, and the gun flipped out of his hand. Georgia grabbed up the gun and held it pointing up in the air.

  The gunman looked a little woozy, but he yelled, “What do you crazy broads think you’re doing?” He started to get to his feet, but Georgia conked him on the head with the gun. He went down again and didn’t seem to have any inclination to get back up this time.

  Another tall guy wearing a white hat and a sheriff’s star came charging up. He had his gun out too, but he put it back in the holster when he saw the three women.

  “What in the world are you three doing?”

  As he was talking, the street started filling with people, all talking and staring at Bailey and Georgia. Olive had sense enough to stand back out of the way, she figured she’d let well enough alone.

  “What’s the problem here, Sheriff? We just took down this guy who was about to shoot you! Why are you yelling at us?”

  The sheriff glared at them and bent over the downed man. He said, “Hey, Nate, you ok?”

  At the sheriff’s voice, Nate rolled his head around and tried to sit up. “She tackled me down, and then that other crazy one hit me on the head when I tried to get up! I wanna press charges!”

  Bailey and Georgia looked at each other. “Charges?? We just saved … well, someone from being shot!”

  Now that Nate was up, he was hopping mad. Almost literally. “This is a gunfight, you idiots! A staged gunfight! We do this every day at 10, noon and 3. I wanna press charges!”

  Bailey’s eyes got big. “Staged?”

  Georgia said, “Like - a play or something?”

  The sheriff sneered at her, “Yes, like a play or something.”

  About then, a cop walked ove
r. He was eating a donut and looked annoyed about being disturbed. He glared at the people gathered and said, “Hey, what’s going on here? Clear the street!”

  Nate looked at the cop. “I want to press charges against her and her!” He jabbed a dirty finger at Bailey and Georgia in turn. “I especially want to press charges against her, she hit me with my own gun!” He jabbed his finger a couple more times for emphasis, at Georgia.

  The cop said, “Geez, Nate, they’re tourists. You can’t press charges against them.” The cop looked at the ‘sheriff’. “Hey, Charlie, talk him down from this. We can’t have you guys stirrin’ up trouble, the council’s mad about Nate already.”

  Charlie the Sheriff looked at Nate, then at the girls. He turned to the cop and said, “I dunno, Alex. She come running across th’ road and about killed him knockin him down, and then the other one hit ‘im over the head when he was tryin to get up. It don’t seem right, it don’t.”

  Alex the cop sighed, then turned to the girls and said, “Well, I guess I gotta take you in.” He pointed down the street. “That way.”

  With the two “gunfighters” on their heels, Georgia and Bailey walked along in front of the cop. If looks could have killed, Olive would have had a lot of power spent in keeping her body alive. As it was, she just grinned at them. But at least she did follow them.

  After walking about a block, they turned a corner and came to a more ordinary looking part of town, that is, a part that didn’t look like it was born in 1860. Alex walked up to a plain metal door set in a concrete block building and they all trooped inside. There was a counter there, and they all lined up in front of it. A couple scarred old desks, both empty, and a matched set of two genuine barred-door jail cells completed the decor. Alex stepped around behind the counter, leaving Charlie the sheriff looking bored and Nate the gunfighter looking daggers at the girls.

  Suddenly, there were shouts, screams and gunshots outside the office. Alex jumped up and ran out the door, the two gunfighters followed him. And an elevator appeared next to the girls. The doors opened. Olive beckoned them inside.