Irrelevant Jack 3

by Prax Venter

  Jack caught Lex’s big golden eyes and got a nod from her. He and the Bastion clasped hands as the group of Heroes returned to the gates.

  “I never thought I’d see anything like that,” Nera said as she hooked her two-handed mallet through a strap on her back. “What a fantastic way to enter a new Town.”

  “That chain-lightning…” her heavily armored brother mumbled. “This strange Town could withstand a small army with hardly any defenders.”

  Kron was walking with them and turned his horned head to study the younger Guardian. It was the first time Jack had seen two climbers with the same Class.

  “Glad to see brave new Heroes,” he said in his rumbling voice. “You have my respect for charging out to defend our strange Town.”

  “The attack came when we should be in the Tower,” Jack said as they crossed back under the arch. He turned to Harrak before continuing. “Do you think they’ve been watching our movements and planned this attack around when all of the Town’s Heroes would normally be gone for seven hours?”

  “It’s likely, especially since we know Stalkers have been around.” The Combat Master focused on his daughter before he continued. “I hate to bring this up because I know what type of danger it means, but I would be doing you a disservice as Blackmoor’s Combat Master if I didn’t point out that right now would be the absolute best time to launch a counter-attack.” He turned to face Jack. “That is if the Town could handle you Heroes missing your chance to gather items from the Tower.” The man in front of Jack appeared to be pleading for a no.

  Jack got an instant answer from Alt.

  “The short answer is yes.”

  “It can.” Jack nodded swiftly.

  “How is that possible?” Blim asked. “How can a place such as this exist?”

  “Hidden secrets,” Thymus said from behind the red-robed Hero, seemingly to appear out of thin air.

  Blim’s eyes grew wide. “A Sage. You must be the one responsible for these turrets. I have many questions, especially-”

  The newcomer Guardian named Jarku held up his blue-gauntleted hand and interrupted the excited Mage.

  “Are you suggesting we go to recapture a Dark Tower right this moment?”

  Harrak inspected the new Hero and then looked him in the eye.

  “If you newcomers are willing to help us with this madness, I’d say there may never be a strategically better opportunity.” Harrak paused to gather everyone’s attention with a commanding glance. When he spoke again, it was with the weight of confidence and authority.

  “Our enemy just lost what had to be a major portion of their numbers and will need time to replenish them. I can tell you that the Behemoth did not expect to lose or be defeated. The foe remaining at Emberstone would never expect eight mid-level heroes turning up so soon.”

  “Nine,” Kron said. “Not only should these defensive turrets stop any attacks for the rest of the day, taking back Emberstone would only strengthen us in the long term.”

  Jack held up his clenched fist, the leather wrapped around his fingers creaking with the pressure.

  “Damn straight!” he said then turned to the four new Heroes who’d only just arrived by boat. “If there’s one thing we climbers have learned from our countless hours in Tower, it’s when to push forward and when to Exit. Now is the time for all System Sana to move forward as one. Are you with us?”

  Kash the Light Mage answered. “I’m sure you’ll understand that we will need a moment before committing to… this.”

  Jack nodded and the group of four new Heroes took a few steps away to discuss their plans and while they worked it out, Jack noticed Farah move over to stand very close to Kron.

  “Check your first inventory slot,” Alt said in his mind and Jack pulled up his inventory.

  Silver Sledge - [Two-handed Mace | Value 197]

  | Dmg: 85 |

  | Max HP +200 |

  | Max MP +52 |

  | Target’s Speed reduced by 50% for 3 seconds |

  ~ Let no one escape your silver sledge swings.

  The AI continued. “I’ve been resetting the ‘value’ number you see in your user interface to zero every time you deposit items into the Town chest, so it’s not a true representation of what’s stored. I figured you’d want to know how much you picked up on a run, not how much I had set aside for a rainy day. I have a gift of better gear for each of them and that should help seal the deal. Also, you’ll need to head back to the Fountain so I can deposit enough value to tide the Town over until tomorrow.”

  “How much do I really have, then?” Jack said out loud, not caring if he looked like a madman talking to himself. He’d stopped paying attention to the countless icons in his Inventory interface after a while and only checked the top few rows for newer drops.

  “You were intended to hold maybe two Floors’ worth of items every day, and since you’ve been taking everything that wasn’t nailed down, you currently have about 63,000 worth of spare value.” Alt read his shocked reaction and quickly clarified. “Remember that we needed 19,802 to reach the latest Town Level? You brought 28,149 out on yesterday’s run. I haven’t been dumping everything, Jack. I’ve been saving for this very day.”

  “Jack?” Lex said, pulling his attention. “Everything okay?”

  He shot her a smile. “Yeah, Alt was just telling me that he’d held over sixty thousand points worth of items in my inventory for a situation like this.”

  Her eyes went wide. “What?”

  He just shrugged and checked the time.

  00:40:36

  “Everyone,” Jack began loudly. “We have about forty minutes before Close to decide. I still need to run to the chest and make a deposit, but if we’re doing this, I think Harrak is right- the sooner the better.

  “You four, Jarku, Nera, Kash, and Blim, you must realize by now that this is no ordinary Town. This is the birthplace of a new resistance against the Corruption. Before you make your choice, I’d like to offer you each a gift.”

  Jack stepped forward to where they stood and initiated a trade panel with each. Nera the Fighter accepted her new weapon with a bright grin, but Kash paused when she saw the rare staff with a high healing bonus and focused her deep-green eyes on his. Jack was getting the impression that she was this group’s informal leader.

  “I find it inconceivable that you happen to have four items in your inventory that are exactly what each of us needs. These defensive towers, the rare buildings, your strange Class and abilities… What are you?”

  Thymus was still quietly standing nearby, and he attempted to give her an answer.

  “From my careful studies, I can tell you that Jack is an anomaly that shouldn’t exist in this world. It’s perfectly natural to feel suspicious of the unnatural gifts he has, but anyone who comes to know him knows that no matter where he came from, his destiny is to save us from the horror that is the Corruption.”

  “I trust him,” Jarku said after a moment of contemplative silence. “What he is or how he does it is irrelevant as long as the result is pushing back our mortal enemy.”

  Harrak nodded. “Aye. Well spoken.”

  Kash accepted the trade, and Jack gave her a soft smile.

  “This staff is yours whether you decide to help us or not. I’m headed to the Input Chest. Everyone else take care of what you need to and meet back here in fifteen minutes.”

  Lex and Haylee were the only ones to walk with him back into Blackmoor while the rest spoke among themselves. The Bastion looped her arm through his as they passed the Arcade and he had never felt more content.

  “Leaving the Town feels much more… intense than entering the Tower,” Haylee said.

  Lex took in a deep breath. “I understand. I’ve lived with it my whole life. Although the inside is filled with the unknown, it was an unknown I was used to.”

  The Dark Prism told them she’d see them at the gate before she broke off to meet her father standing by the wooden fence around the farm. Jack wondered what
Sol would say about Haylee heading out today to go take back a Dark Tower.

  “I’m going to tell Demi what’s happening,” Lex said as she too split away from him when they reached the crossroads, and Jack was left alone with his thoughts as he approached the silver Tower stretching up forever. On any other day in System Sana, he’d be in there, probably waltzing through Floor 3 by now.

  “It feels like I’m calling off work today to go on a road trip,” Jack said to the AI connected to his thoughts. It was something he almost never did and despite his proper use of allotted sick time, he always felt as if he was doing something wrong.

  “I’m disappointed I won’t be able to talk to Haylee today,” Alt said, “but if you can take Emberstone back from the Corruption? It’s a huge step, Jack- maybe the most important one. I wouldn’t think of it as a day off. We have no way of knowing what challenges are involved and you’ll need to be prepared for a fight.”

  Jack held out his hand to the input chest as Alt automatically moved over enough items to hold Blackmoor Cove over for one day.

  “I’m ready to fight, the last few weeks and hundreds of Floors have prepared me for that. But I don’t fight fair, and I don’t think these Demons have a clue what kind of unstoppable tidal wave of change is coming for them.”

  - 13 -

  After the reserve items for the day were fed to the Town, Jack followed Lex into the Eye ‘o the Storm. There he was reminded by Demi that they would need food for the trip as hunger was an easily overlooked issue when Heroes spent all day outside the Tower. Jack thanked Demi for her wisdom yet again and purchased a good stack of various sandwiches for everyone. Food never went bad in System Sana as far as he knew.

  They both went to gather Haylee, and Jack received some intense looks from her owlish father. He told Sol that they wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks, also that Kron was coming with and that there was no way he’d allow otherwise.

  The three then walked back up the road to the gate to find the four new heroes onboard with the plan to at least scout the fallen Town, and then proceed from there. After Lex and Harrak shared a long hug, the Combat Master turned his eyes on him, and Jack expected the man to lob thinly veiled warnings about protecting his daughter, but Harrak grabbed him instead and hugged him like he was his own son.

  “Come back, both of you,” he whispered and then the Bygone Hero stalked back into Town, preferring to not watch them go.

  Everyone was ready, and with the advantage of surprise dwindling with every second, the group of nine Heroes set off toward the snow-capped mountain range far across the rolling emerald hills that stretched before them. A few steps after the dirt path that led to Blackmoor faded into the lush countryside, Kash turned to face Farah.

  “You said you once lived in the Town we are headed to reclaim?”

  “That’s right. It was only two days ago, but it feels like much longer.”

  The Light Mage dipped her head once. “I’m sorry for your loss, yet your knowledge of the area will be invaluable.”

  “We already have half a plan,” Jack said. “And the Town is like a bowl surrounded by mountains with four ways in or out. I was thinking that Farah and I should creep close through these paths they call-” Jack paused to make air quotes, “the Fangs. Then I could use-”

  “What was that?” Farah asked, mimicking Jack’s finger movements.

  “Air quotes. Uh, like quotes in a book. Never mind, it’s not important.”

  Farah chuckled and did it again toward Lex. “It looks as if you’re making tiny cute fangs with your hands.”

  The short Bastion and Blim both tried air quotes too, and Jack didn’t know whether to be frustrated they interrupted his plan or to just enjoy these otherworldly people. Before he could figure it out, the Fire Mage turned his finger-fangs toward his Guardian friend, Jarku.

  “Do you wish to keep those hands?”

  “Please continue, Jack,” Kron said after the Fire Mage dropped his fingers to his sides.

  Farah sent a final barrage of air quote fangs at Kron, and Jack couldn’t help but grin as he shifted his thoughts back toward their plan of attack… but the way the tall Farah and the taller Kron looked walking together reminded him of something she had said earlier this morning. And a much better idea began to take shape.

  “Hey, Farah,” he began. “You said you climbed these huge rocks you call The Fangs, correct?”

  “Yes, when I was a child.”

  “Well, I used to climb up and down rocks for a living a long time ago, in what seems like another life…”

  Lex turned to face him, lending him her confidence and understanding with a glance. It felt comforting that she knew everything now- Everything about the nature of her world and everything about him. Jack continued to propose his potentially improved plan.

  “I was going to say we sneak in and take a look through a path, but now I’m thinking I climb up there and Omni Strike everything in sight.”

  Farah nodded. “That could work… I used to sit on the top of one and watch the fireflies gather near the mushroom bog cave. You should be able to see the whole Town.”

  “Ah- a moment,” Nera the Fighter said, holding up a finger. “What’s this Omni Strike? Was that the bizarre ranged melee attack you did on the Behemoth’s backside?”

  Jack looked over at the leather-armored melee Hero and saw the lust for battle in her dark eyes.

  “Yes, it was. I have a Path called Dimensional Blade and in it is an ability called Omni Strike. It deals Main Hand damage to every visible enemy. And, if I synergize it with the first ability in that Path, I can instantly slice every Demon I see- twice. If I get up high enough on these rocks, I might be able to take out all the lesser and normal Demons they have in the blink of an eye.”

  “That’s impossible,” Jarku said, “isn’t it?”

  Blim shook his head. “I think that Dockmaster had the best advice for us as soon as we stepped foot in these unheard-of lands. Doubting is just wasting time.”

  Haylee spoke up. “Even though Jack is telling the truth, I still believe it is wise to question everything.”

  Jack pointed to the Dark Prism. “You think I have awesome abilities? Did you see this young Hero land a critical, Blue Shifted Light Ray on a charging Behemoth’s eye from over a hundred yards away? Haylee also holds a special bow that grants her magic arrows the Piercing effect. We were thinking of having her stand at the end of a pass and destroy whole swaths of them as the melee Heroes hold the Demons bunched up. The last thing we want is to lose control of the battle and get surrounded.”

  The group discussed their plans and abilities as they moved farther away from Blackmoor Cove and more than once Jack looked over his shoulder for a reassuring glimpse of his Tower. Kash had just finished explaining her area-of-effect healing orb ability when they came upon the place where the Town’s influence stopped, and the Corruption began.

  “We should pick up the pace,” Kron said.

  Jarku nodded. “We want to take as little damage as possible.”

  Jack wasn’t sure what to expect in this fantasy videogame world as far as the landscape outside of the Town, but it had been mostly verdant grasses and rich earth for the last twenty minutes outside of Blackmoor, and if it weren’t for the too-orange sun, he could be in Ireland or Iceland. Now, everything ahead of them was a barren mess of writhing purple tendrils.

  To his surprise, Haylee moved out in front of the group. With only a moment of hesitation and a deep breath, she was the first one to cross into Corruption-held land.

  She took a few careful steps and turned to face Jack, her thin lips curved downward in a sour frown.

  “I didn’t expect it to feel this unpleasant.”

  Jack had come a long way since he sprinted over the vile substance to retrieve Garl’s net and joined the Dark Prism within the Corruption with seasoned confidence. As soon as his boot pressed into the indescribably wrong ground, he felt the nausea spread through his body.

&n
bsp; Weak Corruption Drain -

  Lose 1 HP/60 seconds | Active while touching corruption

  ~ It will consume you

  Before he could ask, Farah pointed to one of the mountainous peaks far ahead of them.

  “There’s my home. If we move fast, we should get there in a little over an hour.”

  “That’s not so bad,” Jack said, moving with the others at a light jog. “That’s only a little over 60 damage.”

  “No,” Kron said, as he removed his chest and leg slot armor so he could keep pace. “We should see stronger infestation as we get closer.”

  “I’ve run through stronger infestation than this,” Nera added. “The deeper we go, the worse it will be.”

  “And correct me if I’m wrong,” Blim said. “But none of us have ever approached a Dark Tower before. The Corruption Drain there could be 100 HP per second.”

  A hush fell over the group as they jogged over the ruined, slurping landscape and since Jack, Lex, Haylee, and Farah were still in a group, they all saw the first damage notification.

  Haylee -1 | HP 388/389

  The petite Bastion with elf-like ears increased her speed, pulling ahead of the group and encouraging everyone to move faster.

  “No,” Lex said without looking back. “I know the Corruption drain damage will be tolerable and taking a Dark Tower is within our grasp. This is our world, and we we’re meant to take it back.”

  Jack pushed forward until he was jogging by her side. He knew where that phrasing came from and that telling her the truth only made Lex more confident in her role in this world.

  “You’ve done good,” Alt said in his mind. “You’ve already gone beyond my most biased calculations. I honestly wasn’t sure if you were capable of becoming a leader to these people when I first scanned your brain, but you’ve inspired everyone you’ve met to become the best they could be- including myself. That is the hallmark of a true leader, Jack. Thank you for stumbling into my spaceship.”

  “You got it, buddy,” Jack whispered as he patted the ornate leather scabbard bouncing as he ran alongside the group of Heroes charging toward their destiny.