Orc Glitch- The Mad King

by KJ Harlow

  “I’m not an orc and I’m not a hero. The human I killed in Gresshia could just as well be the guy you’re looking for. There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people like me. We will all respawn when we die.”

  Keizen stepped towards him. “And what about the Urath? The ‘Slumbering Catastrophe’?” He wanted to tell her that none of it was real, that it was a storyline embedded into the game. He surreptitiously opened his menu. No cigar; “Exit” was still greyed out.

  “That vision was you, Callahan.”

  He spun around. “How are you so sure?” He couldn’t keep the note of frustration out of his voice.

  Keizen looked surprised. “You saw the vision, didn’t you?” Cal stared at her, nodding curtly. “What colour was its eyes?”

  Cal furrowed his brow. “I… I didn’t…”

  “They were purple, Callahan. Quite a light shade, almost… amethyst.” Keizen’s eyes twinkled mischievously.

  Cal took a step back. That wasn’t possible. How had he not noticed that? Maybe all of her visions had purple eyes, he had no way of knowing that.

  “Where are you going to go now?” He could only stare at Keizen. He wanted to be back home, waste time and bitch about George to Erika until the world snuffed him out for good.

  Erika. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep her out of her head. Her and her damn letter and hair that smelt like a deep fryer and fruit at the same time.

  I wish that you would be honest with yourself.

  “Callahan?”

  “I’m sorry, I…” Cal strode to the doors and let himself out. Keizen looked lingeringly after him. She shuffled back into the room where her dead grandson lay. “Let’s hope that your death wasn’t in vain.”

  Mercat Lake

  The words shimmered momentarily before disappearing, right above him. The body of water was as luminescent and perfect as the day he first arrived in Terrafaytum.

  Cal stood knee deep. A new group of Dandyflyins on the side of the bank close to the entrance to Rawdriad Forest beckoned him to play, but he had walked straight past them. Mercats too had come out, hissing at Cal to get his ‘putrid feet out of our home’. Cal told them that he would be gone as quick as he came.

  “Orc.”

  Ugh. Trust Prince Pussycat to wreck his moment.

  “Orc!”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  “If you wanted to die again, you should have just come to me.”

  Cal chuckled. “Your grandmother told me that I was meant to take you under my wing.”

  There was silence again. Had Kai not heard him? Or was he so livid that he couldn’t speak?

  “I’d rather go with you than stay here.” Cal opened his eyes. That, he wasn’t expecting. There was a disturbance in the lake. Ripples lapped the crook of Cal’s knees. The blue werejaguar stood beside him and crossed his arms.

  “You know that you’re next in line to lead, right?” Cal looked across at Kai. He was staring up at Flulia. His ears twitched on their own as a drop of rain fell on his head.

  “Grandmother sent both of us to Gresshia to give us time to get to know each other.” Kai winced, as if he had just swallowed a slug.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t that fun for me either.”

  “But it was good. I got some EXP, even learned a new Skill.”

  “You almost got yourself killed.”

  “Nonsense, I knew what I was doing.”

  Cal turned to the werejaguar. “That eryn was more than double your level. She was toying with you, you idiot.”

  Kai pretended not to hear him. “I knew that you were going to do something.”

  “What happened to never backing down from a fight?”

  “I didn’t back down. I just knew that you were watching my back, though I didn’t appreciate you letting her step on my back.”

  “Um yeah. I didn’t let her do that. She beat you fair and square.”

  Cal abruptly turned and started walking back to the forest, water rippling around his thighs. Best to do that before Kai decided to try and drown him. “Where are you going?” Kai shouted.

  Cal raised a hand, waving it vaguely. He was going to find someone to talk to who wouldn’t give him a headache.

  “Hi Gram, have you got a sec?”

  Gram was talking to the sentry outside the village. In the moment of distraction, Gram didn’t see the tense look Arth had thrown Cal.

  “I don’t know what a ‘sec’ is.” She nodded at the sentry and headed back in to the through the village gate. “I’m assuming you want to talk.”

  “Yeah. Did you drag me back to the village after our battle with the direwasps?”

  They had come a little way into the village. A group of three werejaguars walked by, greeting Gram and nodding politely at Cal.

  “After I slayed the final direwasp, I gave you some antidote. I then carried you back to the village.”

  Cal winced. “Why didn’t you just let me die? You knew that I would respawn again.”

  Gram looked down, suddenly looking quite tired. “I don’t like letting people die on my watch.”

  Cal thought of pushing the issue but decided against it. “Thank you.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  They walked in comfortable silence back through the village. Gram either didn’t notice or didn’t care about how the other werejaguars behaved around the orc. Cal was too busy trying to think of something other than Zkar to talk about with Gram.

  “You fought the eryn who killed Zkar again,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah, we did.”

  “You have my gratitude for keeping Kai alive.”

  Cal was taken aback by the warm acknowledgement. “That’s alright, he would have done the same for me.” Gram couldn’t help scoff at this, eliciting a chuckle from the Cal. “Yeah, maybe he wouldn’t have actually.”

  Cal replayed the battle in his mind. It was such a vivid memory, it was almost as if it were a replay. He smiled stupidly when he realised that he was watching a saved cut scene from the battle. He arrived at the end and froze, seeing Hector’s final moments.

  “Do you know who King Fetter is?”

  Gram shook her head. “The only king I know of is King Fairshade. He rules over Dresham, which is one of four countries in Terrafaytum. His kingdom resides in the north in a city called Thaylia. Rawdriad Forest is at the very southern point of Dresham. It could take us several moons, if not an entire cycle for us to know. News can take a long time to get to us, if at all.”

  “Was he an old king?”

  “I’ve never met him myself. I’ve only gone as far as the Valley. I haven’t even been to Gresshia.”

  “Did he have a son?”

  Gram shook her head. “I’m not the best person to ask. Keizen might know more.”

  Gram had been so engrossed in the conversation with Cal that he hadn’t even noticed that they had arrived at the door to the chief’s residence.

  “I think I’ll go and ask her now. Karst imbues you, Gram.”

  She nodded. “Good night, Cal.”

  “It’s about 80 moonshifts to travel to Thaylia by foot.” Keizen said. “I made the journey with the then chief about 120 cycles ago now.”

  “Did you meet King Fairshade?” Cal asked. Keizen had offered Cal a seat on the throne but he had declined.

  “Yes, I did. The visit was diplomatic, Fairshade had ascended the throne two moons earlier - Sibelle, I think it was – and he wanted to meet the leaders of the major communities in Dresham.

  “What was he like?” Keizen stared into the giant fire in the middle of the room.

  “He seemed like a good man. I remember being told that the previous king wasn’t liked. Fairshade challenged him to a duel, won fair and square so he the crown was rightfully his.”

  “The human I met at Gresshia, he had an emblem of a black gauntlet against a red background.”

  “That must be the Thaylian coat of arms. I can’t remember to be
honest.”

  “He fought for someone called King Fetter.”

  Keizen folder her arms, her tail swishing languidly. “Fetter, hm? There has been no news of a new king.”

  “Keizen…”Cal’s eyes blurred out of focus. Keizen looked at him curiously.

  “What is it, Callahan?”

  Cal didn’t respond. A memory started surfacing. It was murky but its hooks were starting to cling to his consciousness.

  He was caught in the net… five werejaguars looking up at him: snowy white, blue, dusty gold and two green… a notification about… a “Battle of Urath”.

  Cal spoke slowly careful not to let the memory slip between his fingers. “The vision before… what did it say at the end?”

  “At the end?” Keizen narrowed her eyes momentarily:

  Only the hands of the Urath can remove me from this world, and my own.

  My purpose is to save Terrafaytum before the Slumbering Catastrophe awakens.

  Remove me from this world… What did that mean? Was that a way out? Pieces of the puzzle were appearing. What was frustrating was that Cal wasn’t sure whether they were even part of the same set.

  “I’m going to Thaylia to meet King Fairshade,” he declared.

  Keizen nodded, a hint of a smile on her mouth. He could’ve sworn he heard purring underneath the crackle of the sparkfire.

  “…And it would be nice to have someone come along with me.”

  “What excellent timing. I have just the cat for you.” Cal was half-hoping that she meant Gram, but the earlier conversation put any hope of that to bed. She put her hands on the rests and pushed herself off her throne. “If you could summarise your experience with Kai on your last mission in one word, what would it be?”

  Naïve. Petulant. Spoilt. Hot-headed. Immature. Impatient. Cocky. “Brave.”

  Keizen laughed a booming laugh. “You’re rather generous with your assessment. His behaviour is normal amongst werejaguars. As a race, we prefer to solve problems directly. If this means that we fight to the death, we will.”

  Her smile faded. “Something is coming, Callahan. I can’t see it yet, but I can feel it. The vision called it ‘the darkness’. Kai’s responsible for leading the werejaguars out of it. But…”

  “He’s not ready,” Cal said.

  “He’s not ready.” Keizen echoed. “Even just from this one expedition, I could see a change in him. Not just the levelling up and new skill, but also in the way he looked at me. There was a hint of something, something he needs before he can be the leader that we need.”

  Cal and Keizen locked eyes. She wasn’t begging; she didn’t need to. There was an intensity in her gaze that Cal lit a candle inside Cal’s heart. “Take him with you, Callahan. He will grow. Maybe you will even come to be comrades in arms. Just promise me one thing.” Cal waited for Keizen to speak. “Bring him back to the forest one day.”

  Mission II: Turn Kai Into Chief Material

  Kai is the next in line to be Chief of Rawdriad Village, but he’s not ready yet. Take him on your adventure and let him grow by your side. Reward: increased Repute with werejaguars.

  Accept?

  Yes | No

  Cal hovered between the two options while Keizen stared at him. Kai was responsible for the suggestion to flip over the stonecritter and he did back him up when he faced the chatterlings and the chattox. Maybe he would come in handy.

  The ‘Yes’ pulsed and the mission prompt faded away.

  Keizen had tears in her eyes. “Thank you, Callahan. You have made an old cat very happy.” Cal’s heart swelled to hear this, but all he did was give a short nod and a quick smile. “I have something for you.”

  She took something from a small table on the side of the room. “On the way to Thaylia, you will come across Bracewell city. Look for Javal there and give him this letter.” She handed him brown-green, slightly furred envelope. It was sealed with a rubber stamp. “He should also be able to prepare you to meet the king.”

  She shuffled to the sparkfire. She muttered an incantation, drew a symbol in the air so fast with her hand that it blurred before plunging her arm into the flames. Cal’s eyes went wide.

  She turned to look at him enigmatically, a wicked grin on her face. Slowly, she drew her arm out. In her hand hovered a flaming symbol, encircled in a ring of embers. “Come here.” Cal stepped to her nervously. “This might hurt a little…”

  Without warning, she slammed her hand on Cal’s left upper arm. He yelped then gritted his teeth. It got hotter and hotter then suddenly, the heat disappeared. Keizen drew her hand away, satisfied with the result. “Come.” She tugged on Cal’s hand towards a wooden bowl filled with water. In the reflection, he could see a mark. It was the profile of a werejaguar head, jaw open, mid-snarl. It was black, like a tattoo but every few seconds, it would pulse and glow white hot before fading and becoming black again.

  “This is the Mark of the werejaguars. It is bequeathed by leaders only to non-werejaguars who have earned the trust of the community. It also means that you can’t be in a burned state ever again.”

  Cal sighed. “You barely know me.”

  “Oh, I know you plenty.” Her red eyes twinkled. Something told Cal that she knew more than she let on.

  “I’m going to leave next moonshift,” Cal said.

  “So soon?”

  Cal nodded; adventure beckoned. “Karst imbues you, Keizen.”

  Her eyes travelled to the Mark. She looked up at him, a faint smile on her face. She left the room, not saying a word more.

  Part II

  Bracewell

  11

  A New Adventure

  20,155th Cycle

  3-Flulia

  Plains of Anguish

  Cal looked around the flat lands. Groups of direwasps buzzed around, closer to the forest. To think that one of them almost killed him when he first battled them with Gram. That felt like ages ago now. She had been right: they were coming through the Valley. Something was driving them away from their natural habitat, upsetting the ecosystem. Cal grimaced, pulling out his iron axe. He’d be pretty upset too if a tornado came out of nowhere and ripped through his home… but direwasps were direwasps.

  Cal and Kai had developed an unspoken short hand when fighting together. Kai would go on the offensive and Cal would throw up Earth Walls to protect him from harm. Cal would have crapped himself back then if he had seen the swarm of 50 Direwasps that were buzzing towards them now. His supposed ‘immortality’ didn’t go to his head, but it did make him feel calmer.

  Kai gripped his spear, holding it like katana. He leapt and swung it down, crunching into the dusty earth. The air rippled and the fireball crackled to life, rolling towards the swarm. The direwasps lazily divided into two groups, letting the fireball tumble by before it dissolved into the air.

  “Gotta work on that.”

  “Silence.”

  Kai adjusted his angle slightly. He closed his eyes, then swung his lance vertically. Again, a fireball materialised out of thin air. This time, it arced in the trajectory of a crescent and significantly faster than the first time. The direwasps had come closer and moved to avoid it. Not predicting the path of the fireball, they moved away from it but stayed on its trajectory. Screeches of two dozen or so direwasps filled the air.

  Of the ones that had scattered, another 10 caught on fire when their panicking comrades buzzed into overdrive, spiralling through the air like a plane whose pilot just had a heart attack and died.

  “Rargh!” Cal slammed his iron axe into face of an errant Direwasp that was making a waspline (pun intended) towards him. Man, it felt good to be powerful. It wasn’t so much the levelling up, though that was a part of it. Being stuck in a wheelchair for most of his life was something that gave him the ability to appreciate his new-found physical freedom.

  It wasn’t as bad embarking on an adventure with Kai the second time round either. That chat with him in Mercat Lake was weird, but it was probably his way of saying that he wa
s thankful for the experience of fighting by his side. He wasn’t being as much off a kill hog anymore.

  He yelled to the werejaguar: “let’s go halvsies”.

  “I told you, speak normally.” Despite his complaint, Kai seemed to have already worked out what Cal meant. Holding his lance out in his right hand, he sprinted towards a group of eight direwasps while Cal ran towards the remaining group.

  Cal had experimented with the Featherfoot boots and the boots that had come with him when he first entered ValorVale. As he hacked, dodged, side-stepped and jumped around the direwasps, he knew that his newer ones weren’t a gimmick.

  He holstered his quickly deteriorating iron axe, put his hands on his hips and surveyed the pain he had just wreaked. Satisfied that the direwasps were of no further harm, he looked up at Kai. His group were scattered over several yards, most not moving as embers scorched their fuzzy fur.

  “Too easy,” Kai said, sliding the lance back into the holster on his back.

  “You won’t be saying that pretty soon.”

  Kai opened his mouth, but decided to save his breath. Hopefully that would become a habit. They both looked towards the mountains that they had traversed several moonshifts ago. Between their location closer to the entrance to Rawdriad Forest and the mountains painted violet, blue and grey against the sky, shimmering rivulets branched out along the ground from the unrelenting Flulian rain. They snaked and reached out towards a new pond-like body of water that occupied an area 40 to 50 yards across.

  A familiar whispering lilted and swirled through the air from the pond to the two wayfarers. A slow smile played across Cal’s face. “Come with me.” He started walking towards the water and the quiet voices.