Quest for Vengeance

by Benjamin Douglas

  Cell walls are permeable.

  My right hand was free. I pressed my fingers together, shaping them like a spade, and concentrated on pooling all of the mana in my body into that hand. It began to glow fiercely. Then I pressed my fingertips, gingerly at first, against the transparent shell of the bat’s belly.

  My hand passed through.

  The shriek of the creature shocked me out of Mana Sight and back to my mundane senses.

  “Shit!”

  The thing began to twist and turn, flapping erratically and screeching to wake the dead. My hand was enclosed inside its fleshy belly.

  “SHIT!”

  The bat let me go.

  My hand—the one stuck inside its body—held me in place for just a moment, but I could feel it starting to slip out. Soon I’d plummet to a very unpleasant death.

  No fucking way.

  Hefting the pickaxe with my left hand, I managed to hook it up above the bat’s left wing for just a moment, just long enough for me to reach higher inside it with my right. I went until I met bone, and grabbed, wrapping my fingers around the monster’s spine. Then I held on for dear virtual life.

  In the end, it was still a pretty ungraceful fall. The thing was dead long before I hit the ground, and I lost half my HP on impact. But it got me down low enough that I wasn’t just smashed to bits and sent immediately back to the runestone, and that, I hoped as I wiped my blood-and-guts-covered hand on my simple tunic, was worth it.

  “Gideon!”

  Angie almost dinged my HP again with her half-troll embrace.

  “Whoa, sis! Look out, injured player here!”

  “Oh, sorry!” She did not let go. “Are you ok? How did you do that?”

  I shrugged. “Well, my little sis the mage taught me this really handy skill, you see.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “You did the thing?”

  I nodded, smiling. “I did the thing.”

  Congratulations! You have defeated 1 enemy!

  +1 Mana

  +1 Spirit

  +5 XP

  +2 Giant Cave Bat wings (to be collected)

  Passive Skill Leveled Up: Mana Sight

  Congratulations, you have gained a level in the skill Mana Sight! This is a passive skill that will be leveled both by use and as your mana pool increases.

  Skill: Mana Sight

  Type: Passive

  Level: 3 (scalable)

  Effect: 9% increase in ability for mana to illuminate surroundings and other mana sources

  Cost: 1MP per 3 minutes

  Passive Skill Leveled Up: Outside the Box

  Congratulations, you have gained a level in the skill Outside the Box! This is a passive skill that can only be leveled with use. It is a sister skill to Strategy and Battle Planning, both of which can be leveled with attribution points.

  Skill: Outside the Box

  Type: Passive

  Sister Skill: Strategy, Battle Planning

  Level: 4 (scalable)

  Effect: 11% increase in likelihood for plans to succeed

  Passive Skill Unlocked: Mana Manipulation

  My, you’re a quick study, aren’t you? It seems like only yesterday you were learning about mana for the very first time. Now you have begun to explore how it can be shaped and weilded as a tool and weapon. It will take a long time for you to be a true master of mana, but everyone starts somewhere. Mana Manipulation is a passive skill that can only be leveled through use.

  Skill: Mana Manipulation

  Type: Passive

  Level: 1 (scalable)

  Effect: 5% increase in ability to manipulate mana from user’s body; 3% increase in ability to manipulate mana from environment

  “Ok, wow,” I murmured, reading the flurry of dialogue boxes. This was what I was talking about. And in increase in mana? And spirit? It was about time!

  Too bad about the bat wings. Not that I had any use for them anyway, but I’d learned long ago that you don’t turn down free loot if you can carry it. Thing was, I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to keep anything like them in my inventory without being detected. And suddenly my number one priority was keeping this place secret from my captors. This place belonged to Angie and me. Not to the Newlanders.

  “Uh… Gid?”

  I wiped the boxes away. “Yeah?”

  She sounded nervous. It didn’t take long to understand why. All around us, the sound of hissing and rattling was growing. I swallowed a rising lump in my throat just as the snakes came into view.

  Hundreds. Maybe thousands. We were completely surrounded.

  Subterranean Serpent

  Level: 1

  Race: Monster

  HP: 50/50

  Stamina: 10/10

  Strength: 5/5

  Attack: -1HP min, -5HP max

  The little one I’d focused on was preparing to strike, rearing its head up and back. The thing was nothing to us, even unarmed as we were. Angie roared and charged, stomping on its head. It stopped moving immediately.

  “2XP,” she grunted. “This could be a decent grind.”

  Problem was, they weren’t all little.

  The smaller snakes in front of us parted ways to leave room for a much broader, longer snake to slither our way. I checked it stats and audibly gasped at the Level 8 Serpent with over 500HP and a max attack of -100HP.

  “Angie?” My voice was high and choked.

  “I see it.” She was looking around for some way to arm herself, but we had nothing but our pickaxes. If they’d been useless against the level 4 bat, I didn’t see how they’d do any good here. Clearly tools and weapons were not as interchangeable in Hero Online as they were on the outside.

  “Ahhh! Shit!” Angie’s cry sent a thrill of real fear down my spine. The giant monster had struck her in the leg. “There goes a quarter of my HP!”

  “A quarter?”

  Six or seven of the smaller snakes shot up like streamers and wrapped themselves around her limbs. Alone, none of them could have hurt her, but altogether… she was bound. “Get out of here!” she screamed at me.

  Not that I would have abandoned her anyway, but even if I would have, the way was blocked. And another giant serpent was heading my way.

  The rest of it passed pretty quickly. Unable to put up an effective fight, we watched in horror as the surrounding snakes closed in, then attacked. We were both killed in minutes, both by strike attacks and, in Angie’s case, strangulation. The sight of one of the big serpents tightening its body around her neck was sickening and I got a Queasy Stomach debuff that dinged -2pts from my spirit and stamina. Not that it mattered. They made quick work of me.

  After the usual pointless wait in the frozen waste, we both resurrected at the runestone.

  “Well, well,” the wood-elf said, eying us. “What have we here?”

  I rose to my knees, hands up. “We can explain!”

  “Save it, douchebag,” he said coolly. “I don’t care to hear about how you pissed off Jacks again, or got strangled by a cellmate who’s grown tired of your snoring. Back to work, both of you.” He nodded at the tunnel that led through the prison to the mines.

  To work? We’d been gone… geez, how long had we been gone? I wasn’t sure, but I was surprise the workday was still in effect. I expected everyone on our shift would have been escorted back to their cells for rest by now. And that there would be a search for us when we were discovered missing.

  On our way back we were checked for items again, sure enough. I breathed a silent relief that I hadn’t been foolish enough to pick up the bat wings, which would have been impossible to explain. Then we were allowed to go back to work.

  “Uh, hey guys,” I muttered, walking back up to Fangs, Nemo, and Meatloaf. They were all busy with their tasks. Nemo grunted at me but didn’t turn.

  “What’s up, Dip?” Meatloaf asked.

  “Well, uh… I just wanted to say I’m sorry I was gone so long. And I hope nobody else gets in trouble for it.”

  He spun to face me, a puzzled
look on his face. “The fuck you talkin’ about, Dippy? Did you go somewhere?”

  “Uh, well, I mean…”

  “Back to work,” Nemo growled. “Guys, c’mon. Too many of these 30 second love-chats and you’re going to get noticed.”

  I frowned as the rest of them resumed their work. Soon I too was hacking away at the stone. Then I got Angie’s ping.

 

  I turned it over in my mind. Were we that forgettable? Hah. No. Our captors were cruel, and they delighted in punishing us for little things like taking too long in between swinging the pickaxe. So what, then? Some kind of illusion? Had they seen us the whole time we were gone, as if we’d never left?

  The dungeon description came to mind, and I mulled it over as I worked.

  Thrannick. The old god of time. Punished for for changing time to suit his own needs with no heed for nature’s course.

  Oh!

  Holy. Shit.

  I almost dropped my pickaxe as the realization hit me. We hadn’t just stumbled on a hidden dungeon. We’d found the treasure everyone was digging for.

  A place without time.

  CHAPTER 9:

  BAG IT, BAG IT UP

  _________________

  April 1, 2049

  TO: rb39hill@mailpro.net

  FROM: sarta1@janus.com

  RE: You son of a bitch

  Rod, you slippery son of a bitch. I know it was you. You fucking told them. You told them all about 001 and how we’d been locked out, and now they’ve fired me and they’re going to bring on some incompetent lowlife yes-man who’ll just suck them off and take the fall when the shit hits the fan. And it will hit the fan, asshole. The world will know. Janus is going down for this.

  Watch your fucking back, Judas.

  Aaron

  ___

  It was game on.

  Angie and I both tested the dungeon a few more times, sneaking back out instead of dying and resurrecting, and each time, sure enough, no matter how long we stayed away, it was as if we’d only been gone a few seconds when we went back to work.

  I knew time freeze was a gaming trope, but I hadn’t expected to experience it here firsthand. Just how this worked with my brain in real life, I had no idea. Happily, neuroscience was neither my forte nor my interest. The dungeon worked, and that’s all that mattered for now.

  We found we could grind out XP much faster by stomping out the smaller snake mobs than by working in the mines. That plus the time freeze made it well worthwhile to sneak away at least once every day for a few “hours” of sneaking around in the dark cavern. The trouble was that most of the mobs were much higher level than us, and we had no weapons. It was a real drawback until the fifth or sixth of our mutual dungeon visits, when we encountered a new monster chittering in the darkness. The thing moved sort of like a snake, but slower, and with a long rippling motion down its body. Peering closer with Night Vision, I discerned the ripples were in fact legs.

  Cave Crawler

  Level: 2

  Race: Monster

  HP: 80/80

  Stamina: 20/20

  Strength: 8/8

  Attack: -1HP min, -15HP max

  “It’s some kind of centipede,” I said, “or millipede. Never really understood the difference between the two.”

  “Centipedes have a—” Angie began.

  “Oh look!” I cut her off. “It has some wicked pincers. That explains the attack. Not a bad cap though.”

  “Yeah,” she said, reading the mob’s stats. “Worst it can do is 15? I think I can take it. Spot me though, will you? Look out for snakes.”

  “I got you.”

  I felt pretty useless most of the time down here. Without any weapons or spells, I couldn’t contribute much. Most of the XP I got only came because Angie’s friend had set up a shadow party for her, sort of like the shadow ping network, and Angie had partied up with me.

  That had been tricky, apparently. Turns out our party invite from Taco Tuesday was still in effect, which did explain some of what they were getting by working us to the bone. Just as Fangs had surmised, the hackers’ party got its share of the laborers’ XP. It was an imperfect party though, modified through some hack, and I hadn’t gotten any XP from any of my captors since that initial mongrel killing in the clearing. And apparently that was the loophole Angie’s friend had been able to exploit.

  “They’re going to want in soon,” Angie said, as if anticipating my next thought. “Our cellmates.”

  “I know.” I frowned. Neither of us were feeling particularly trustworthy. And even if we felt we could trust them, it stood to reason that the more people were in on a secret, the greater its chance of being uncovered. We were both loathe to share our secret dungeon with anyone.

  SQUISH!

  “Ugh! Sticky!”

  SQUASH!

  Angie hobbled back to me, scraping her foot on the stone floor along the way to clean off the Cave Crawler guts. I got a notification that I’d scored 3XP for her kill. Little by little, man.

  “Alright, let me see this thing.” I strode to the smashed corpse. Angie had got it right behind the head, a clean kill. Or at least quick. It was hard to say “clean,” with the goo that had splattered everywhere. I held my breath to keep from vomiting as I leaned over the stinking thing. Then I reached out, took hold of one of the long, serrated, fang-like pincers, and pulled. My now 19/19 strength made it an easy task. The thing popped right out.

  New Item: Cave Crawler Mandible

  The hunted becomes the hunter. Once this dangerous item was part of a monster trying to consume you, but now it is yours to use as you see fit. Do you wish to equip this item as a weapon, or store it in your inventory?

  I mentally chose to equip. Another prompt came up:

  Weapon: Manual Mandible

  Class: First Tier

  Range: Close Proximity

  Attacks: Slap, Slash, Stab. Can be thrown with requisite skill.

  Damage: 1HP min, 5HP max; 10HP with Power-up

  “No we’re getting somewhere,” Angie said, holding up the other mandible. She equipped it and furrowed her eyebrows at the prompt. “Manual Mandible?”

  “Clever.” I took a few practice swings. If felt good in my hand. Light, even. Maybe I really would benefit from all that strength and stamina. If I could get my hands on a decent sword, I shouldn’t have any trouble handling it.

  “If you say so. Bit of a mouthful though.”

  I guffawed.

  She rolled her eyes, not appreciating my sense of humor. “I think I’ll call it my M&M,” she said. “C’mon. Let’s hunt some mobs.”

  Today we were moving along the wall to the right from out entrance. Up till that time we’d always gone left, and never very far before circling back. But now we had weapons.

  The ground grew softer. Dirt? I bent down and felt it. Nope. Just mossy and slick with moisture. I wrinkled my nose. It smelled moldy in this direction. “Gross,” I muttered.

  “What’s the matter, big bro? Afraid of a little damp earth?”

  “It’s damp stone. And no, not afraid. Just… less than enthused.”

  Before I could elaborate we heard more chittering sound ahead. Crouching, we both weilded our new weapons. This time I came up and stood to Angie’s left.

  “Nice of you to join me,” she muttered.

  “Can’t let you have all the fun.”

  A trio of Cave Crawlers rushed out of the darkness. Their speed was intimidating and I took a step back, but Angie charged one, yelling and brandishing her M&M like a viking shield maiden. What was I doing? I raised my own M&M, yelled, and charged.

  My Cave Crawler turned to the side, dodging the brunt of my attack and thwacking the dull outsides of its mandibles against me on the backswing. I lost 3HP for the hit and 1 more for the impact when I fell on the ground. The thing sped up and made even stranger sounds, obviously excited as it rounded to crawl on top of me. I felt the strong, s
harp pincers take my thigh and squeeze.

  “AAAAGH!”

  Damage Taken

  -30HP

  30HP?? In the rush of the melee I hadn’t bothered to check the stats on the mob, but it was clearly packing a punch. Pain arced through my body and I beat madly at the things head, still attached to my leg. I was like a wild animal. I didn’t even think to use my weapon intelligently; I just pounded it with my fists. That wasn’t getting anywhere.

  The Crawler began to chew.

  “GOD DAMN!”

  Damage Taken

  -40HP

  You are bleeding. -1HP per second until you are bandaged or healed.

  I was down to 30HP total and bleeding. Great. I looked up for help and was dimly aware of Angie holding off the other two attackers on her own. It was up to me to survive, or it was back to the old runestone.

  “C’mon, you ugly son of a… gah!”

  I turned my M&M and tried to stab and slash, but the HP dings against the mob were negligible. Grasping for straws, I tried sawing the serrated blade back and forth across the back of its neck, but even though the mob’s drain became constant, it still wasn’t enough to get it to let go. I watched it’s HP slowly, slowly drain.

  Elder Cave Crawler

  Level: 6

  Race: Monster

  HP: 160/170

  Stamina: 40/40

  Strength: 20/20

  Attack: -3HP min, -50HP max

  159/170

  158/170

  I was going to bleed out long, long before this thing even noticed any damage. I needed to switch my tactics.

  So far as I could see, the entire body was coated in a hard, chitlin-like armor. An exoskeleton. And my M&M from a much smaller Crawler just wasn’t up to the task of breaking through.