by Paul Bellow
“Put that down,” Thomas said behind me.
I kept the ring in my left hand and turned.
“Make me,” I said, grinning.
During my time on the penalty level, I’d become more confident in myself and my abilities. A lich would be tough to kill, but I could take him.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “That ring’s special to me. It’s the first magic item I found after coming into the Tower of Gates.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have left it on a shelf,” I said, slipping it into a sack at my side.
“Give it back!” he yelled and raised his arms.
I ran to the left as two streams of electricity shot out of his hands, hitting me.
[PC] Thomas the Lich MUTILATES you for 78 damage.
You have [187/311] health remaining.
Ouch. I need to stop being so conceited and full of myself.
I wanted to stop him from blinking away again, so I ran forward while grabbing my spear. As I ran at him, I threw it, piercing his chest.
Your pierce INJURES [PC] Thomas the Lich for 14 damage.
He pulled the spear out and snapped the wood over his knee.
“No!” I shouted and instinctively raised my hands to cast.
Three lightning bolts fired out of my palms, all of them hitting him.
Your Lightning Bolts EVISCERATE [PC] Thomas for 131 damage.
“Why won’t you die?” I asked in frustration as he merely laughed.
“I’m already dead,” he said then cast again himself.
He blinked out of existence before I could do any further damage. I pulled the ring out and cast identify on it.
Ring of Friendship
If you give this ring to a person and they put it on in your sight, they will become your friend for life.
Whoa. Good thing I didn’t put it on. Was it why he liked and worked with Magi Inyontoo? Had the Ring of Friendship been used against him? I felt sorry for Thomas the Quest Giver lich, but I had to concentrate on helping myself. The Tower of Gates didn’t take kindly to players who gave up or tried to cause too much trouble for the system.
I searched for other magic items but didn’t find anything. The wand of smoke apparitions and the brass Ring of Friendship were the only two items he stores in the room. A lot of books and useless knick-knacks filled the shelves. I started searching for a hidden door on one of the book shelves, slowly making my way through the room.
The last shelf had a book that wouldn’t pull out all the way. When I tipped it, the entire bookshelf swiveled, revealing a hidden room. I walked inside, not seeing Thomas or anyone else. An ornate stone door with a stone frame carved with ruins stood in the center of one of the walls. I walked up to it and read small text carved along the top.
“Generator of Monsters.”
That was it. No other explanation. I didn’t see a handle again, but a rune of Open Door would work. With no other creatures nearby, I pulled out a flat stone and got to work carving the rune to open the door. Thomas would likely be somewhere behind it, hiding out and planning to kill me somehow. I had nothing against him personally, but I might have to kill him.
A friend of Magi Inyontoo couldn’t be a friend of mine.
Chapter 31
Just a Lonely Being
Sarah
Once I finished the rune, I tossed the flat, polished stone at the door. When it hit, the door rumbled before sliding open. Unable to use the stone for another ruin, I left it behind as a sort of calling card. I could see my Valkyrie Skyrider becoming powerful enough to dominate in the game—if we failed to escape.
During my almost twenty-years on the penalty level, I’d grown to accept the fact we might not escape, that I might be stuck in the Tower of Gates a long, long time. I wasn’t happy with it, but I had to live like I might never get out. Any sort of hope—no matter how small—meant living in the game would be even more horrible.
The “Generator of Monsters” carved into the door had given me some pause, but I figured it meant Thomas the Lich creating undead. I saw a square stone room behind the door. Anxious to explore, I stepped forward. Each of the other three walls had a closed wooden door in the center. All of them looked identical.
I took a moment to cast Improved Healing, bringing me back to two hundred and sixty-three health and down to one hundred and eighty-one mana. While I’d brought one restore mana potion with me, I wanted to save it for the absolute last moment before I needed it. The sickly sweet and sour potion would restore all of my mana.
Not seeing Thomas or anything else, I walked to the door on my left. I touched it before placing my ear against the roughhewn wood. Nothing. I tried the handle and found it unlocked.
As I turned it and pushed the door open, I heard a blood-curdling scream on the other side. Two wolves on the other side were attacking a goblin shaman.
I slammed the door shut and walked over to another door. They must be insulated pretty well if I couldn’t hear that ruckus. I wonder what’s behind the other two. After stopping at the next door, I turned the handle and pushed it open a few inches to peek inside. This time, I saw a bloody eagle flying around the small room with an agitated crocodile on the floor.
No thank you. I wasn’t sure why I was expecting to see anything else. The sign had warned of monster generation. I pulled the third door open and looked inside the room. Three hobgoblins battled a black bear up on its hind legs. I once again shut the door. Would the goblin or hobgoblins come out and attack? I moved to the center of the room, watching the doors.
When nothing came out after a few minutes, I went back to the first door. The monsters on the other side weren’t as bad as the other rooms. I opened the door and saw the goblin field dressing the wolves. He glanced over but kept working.
“The meat’s mine,” he said in common. “Find your own.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Giblet,” he said, still working. “I don’t know how I got here, so don’t ask. People keep asking me, but I don’t know.”
“Um, okay,” I said, glancing around the room.
Another three doors were set in the other walls of the room, all closed. I stepped in, wondering which one I should try next. As I did so, I closed the door behind me out of habit. The goblin leaped to his feet, bloody knife still in his hand.
“Don’t close the door!” he said. “Are you nuts?”
I cocked my head to the side as I stared at him.
“Why not? It’s not like we can’t open it again…”
To prove my point, I turned and opened the door. A tall, gangly man wearing piecemeal armor scraped together from different sources turned, eyes open wide.
“Keep the door open!” he shouted, running toward me.
“Close it!” the goblin yelled.
Not knowing who to trust, I went with my gut and slammed the door shut.
“You can’t just go around opening doors willy-nilly in here,” Giblet said.
“Sorry. I just got in here.”
“Who sent you in here?” he asked.
“I came in on my own. Why?”
He chuckled and went back to skinning the wolves.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re something else…”
“Piper,” I said. “Nice to meet you. Have you been in here long?”
“Only a couple years,” Giblet said. “Some have been in here a lot longer. With new rooms and creatures spawning every hour on the hour, it goes on forever.”
“No…”
“You got somewhere else to be?” he asked.
“Anywhere but here. Have you tried to get out?”
“There’s a rumor that if you can stop the spawning of rooms and monsters you can eventually find your way out if you survive long enough. Wolves are easy, but I’ve seen some crazy stuff in here.”
“Yeah, I saw a couple of the other rooms.”
I glanced around, so confused.
“What else do you know about this place?”<
br />
The goblin sighed. “Every time a new room appears, a monster comes with it. Or someone like me. I like to think I’m a civilized goblin. Anyway, almost none of them stay in the room they spawned in.”
“Do you want to stick together?” I asked.
Giblet peered up at me, shaking his head.
“No? Really?”
“Sorry, sweetheart, the way I’ve stayed alive in here is not helping anyone else.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “Surely some people are helping each other.”
“Don’t call me crazy!” Giblet shouted and stood, gripping the knife in his right hand as his brow furrowed.
“Settle down. I didn’t mean it,” I said.
“You need to say what you mean if you’re around me. Got it?”
“I got it, Giblet,” I said then cracked a smile.
He rolled his eyes. “That the best you can come up with, eh?”
“You’re the oddest goblin I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a few.”
“I bet we all look alike to you, right?”
“No, not at all. You’re so mean.”
“I’m a goblin, lady! What do you expect? Not to mention I’ve been trapped in this weird realm of rooms for a long, long time. Can you leave me alone, so I can finish dressing these wolves? I expect you’ll want some of the meat too, huh?”
“No, I’ve got food, thank you.”
“You do?” Giblet asked, his left eyebrow raising.
“A little,” I said. “Are you hungry?”
“Do you think I would be eating a wolf in a dungeon if I weren’t?” he quipped.
“Fair enough,” I muttered as I dug in my sack for some trail rations. “Here…”
I handed him a packet of six granola bars. His eyes widened as he tore into one, chewing madly.
“Water?” I asked, handing him my flask.
“Oh, that’s good,” he said, mouth still full of food.
I smiled, remembering the brownies when I’d first met them. As he stuffed his face, I glanced around the room again.
“We’re getting out of here,” I said, nodding my head.
“Oh, yeah?” he mumbled.
“At least I am. I’ve got a spell to teleport me. All I need to do is blink back to the last room where I came in, and I’ll be near the beginning.”
Giblet laughed, spraying granola all over the floor. He bent to pick up even the tiniest pieces and said, “You’re funny. It doesn’t work that way. Once you closed that door, another room materialized behind it. We just have to keep going through them one at a time until we find the way out or the generator.”
“The generator?”
“Yeah,” he said, straightening back up. “It runs the whole dungeon.”
“Well…”
My voice trailed off.
“Welcome to my world, lady,” he snorted.
An idea hit me because he was acting so realistic.
“Do you want to join my party?”
“Hah! Are you kidding? I know what that means. Giblet, gather firewood. Giblet, check to see if there’s any traps. Giblet, touch that chest and see if it’s a mimic. I’ve been in adventuring parties before. No thank you!”
I guess he’s either not a trapped player or he wants to stay as an NPC. Either way, I didn’t feel as bad about leaving him behind if need be.
“What about down?” I asked.
“There’s no doors down, lady.”
“But what’s underneath?”
“Teleport and find out,” he said.
“I just might.”
Casting the spell without knowing the exact specifics of the location could be dangerous. If nothing was under the dungeon except dirt and rocks, I’d be trapped when I materialized again, unable to move or cast. The Tower of Gates loved giving you spells that you thought would be cool but turned out to have catches.
“I wouldn’t do it if I were you,” he said. “Come on. We should clear some rooms and try to find one to spend the night. The smell’s getting bad in here.”
When a goblin complained about the stink, you knew something was wrong.
“Okay,” I said. “We can stick together. I can help protect you.”
He laughed again. “Protect me, eh? More like I’m protecting you!”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Are you coming?”
“Hold on,” he said, pulling out his knife. “Never enter a new room without your weapon. A human guy I knew a while back did once, and...well, he’s not around anymore.”
“Noted,” I said, liking my new companion.
Was the Tower of Gates trying to make me happy? Or trick me?
I opened one of the doors, seeing a camel and three large bats. Not wanting to deal with that craziness, I slammed the door shut.
“What are you doing?” Giblet cried. “That was an easy room! You’re gonna kill me.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Bats freak me out.”
“Typical human,” he said, shaking his head.
I opened the door again, seeing a completely new room. The colors of the tiles looked a touch darker than the last room. A zebra squared off against a band of five goblin warriors.
“Guys!” Giblet yelled. “I found you!”
The zebra neighed and lifted up on his back two feet before kicking one of the goblins, throwing him across the room.
“Kill that zebra!” Giblet shouted. He ran into the room, knife held up, and headed for the zebra. I sauntered in, closing the door behind me.
“Don’t close the door!” the other five goblins cried in unison.
“She’s new,” Giblet said as he slit the zebra’s throat.
I recoiled at the killing of the innocent, scared creature.
“Can we eat her?” one of the other goblins asked.
“Not yet,” Giblet said, concerning me.
“Hold on a minute, guys. Nobody’s going to be eating me.”
“She’s not fatty, but she’ll do in a pinch,” another goblin said.
I pulled my spear off my back.
“Keep your distance,” I said. “All of you.”
I stepped backward toward the nearest door, reaching around to open it.
“See you guys,” I said then slipped through to the next room, slamming the door behind me.
A giant white snake sat coiled in the corner, a huge lump near its head. I stood perfectly still, watching the snake for any sudden movements. When it didn’t stir, I relaxed for a bit. The stone room held four doors like all the others I’d been in. How am I going to get out of here?
I panicked, my heart beating faster as I remembered the others getting trapped in the Roguelike. Was I trapped in the Vault of the Quest Giver even if it wasn’t a separate game? I slowly slid sideways toward the door to my left.
The snake stayed curled up, satiated by whatever it had just eaten. I paused before opening the door, wondering if I should stay in the room with the snake. The devil you know, they said. Listening to my gut, I opened the door and peered inside to see if it was safe or not to go in.
The six goblins from earlier sat around the heavily decomposed corpse of what must have been the zebra. How long had I been gone? All of the goblins stood, grabbing whatever meager weapon they had available to them. I held up my hands as I stepped in, leaving the door open this time.
“Hey, guys, it’s just me. What’s going on?”
“Oh, yeah,” Giblet said. “Time is weird in here too.”
“Great,” I muttered. “There’s a snake in the other room. Are you guys hungry? Why haven’t you left?”
“Long story,” Giblet said as he walked over.
The other five goblins followed him. I watched as they surrounded the snake then killed it. As they cut up the body, I glanced over at the zebra remains. What had happened to them? And why did the dungeon let me find them again so easily? What was I missing? I took a deep breath, starting to feel hungry myself.
“Cat,” a goblin said.
I glanced o
ver and lost my appetite when I saw him pull the partially digested animal from the stomach of the snake.
“Want it?” he asked, holding it toward me.
“No,” I said, turning my head.
“She’s human,” Giblet said. “They don’t eat cats. Or snakes. She’s got some good cereal bars, though.”
All six goblins turned to me. I noticed their faces looked slightly more sunken in. How long had I been separated from them? While it only seemed like a minute to me, it must’ve been a long time for them. I watched as they cut up the snake meat into chunks. How am I going to get out of here? I wondered, flustered at the dungeon.
Then it hit me. Where else had I recently run into a single room? The dungeon template 1b! Could they be connected somehow? Why hadn’t I allowed Crusty to come with me after the raid on Monkey Island? If I kept making foolish decisions, I’d get myself killed again.
As the goblins worked on eating the raw meat, I pulled out the map to the Ruins of Monkey Island on a hunch. Finding nothing, I pulled out the paper that had led me to the dungeon template underneath the statue back on my island. A flood of memories washed up on the shores of my grey matter as I stared at the crumbled piece of paper.
“You rolling some smokes?” Giblet asked. “I could go for one.”
“No, I thought I might have an idea, but I don’t think so.”
“She is a strange human,” another goblin said.
I blocked them out and studied the first piece of paper. Something about the lines struck me as I stared at them. When I turned it upside down, I still didn’t see anything useful. Frustrated, I pushed both of the pieces of parchment back in my sack.
“That’s when we found the hole down,” a goblin said.
I turned to them.
“What did you say?”
“About what?”
“The hole down,” I said. “Where did you see it?”
“Oh, that was rooms ago,” the goblin said.
“You don’t understand.” I walked to the center of the room. “The hole down might mean there is something beneath us. I think I might teleport down and hope for the best.”
