Ready Player Two (9781524761356)

by Cline, Ernest

  Up above, demonic-looking vultures perched on the rocky cliffs, glaring and squawking down at us. I realized that Aech’s invisibity spell didn’t appear to have any effect on the creatures that resided here, so I asked her to deactivate it. She complied, and we continued our way up to the two massive iron doors set into the sheer cliff wall ahead.

  When we came within a few hundred yards of the gates, our horses refused to proceed any farther. Aech and I dismounted, then I spoke the name of each horse once again, and they shrank and morphed back into tiny glass figurines, which I scooped up and placed back inside my inventory.

  On foot now, we reached the gates—to see that they were standing wide open. But a giant black wolf lay guarding the rocky plateau in front of them, glaring down at us with a pair of unblinking eyes that glowed bright red in the shadow of Angband.

  This was Carcharoth—one of the most fearsome creatures of the Elder Days.

  When Aech got a look at the size of the wolf, she reached down with both hands and tapped the stripes on the sides of her Adidas once again, and their color scheme changed from blue and black to silver and gold.

  “Got a pair that I wear when I’m playin’ ball,” Aech recited. “With the heel inside, make me ten feet tall.”

  When she finished speaking the command phrase, she suddenly grew in size, until her avatar stood exactly ten feet tall. Thanks to the change in proportions, Carcharoth would no longer tower over her. Now she would be able to stare him directly in his demonic red eyes.

  Carcharoth continued to glower down at us until we reached the end of the road and arrived at the base of the steps leading up to the entrance. As Aech and I started to ascend the steps, she began to cast her sleep spell on the giant wolf, making intricate patterns in the air with her hands as she whispered the words of the incantation.

  But when the spell was complete, Carcharoth didn’t close his glowing red eyes. And he did not drift off to sleep. Instead, he bared his teeth and lunged down to attack us.

  He ignored Aech and came directly at me, probably because I was the one with the shards in my inventory. I raised my sword and took several steps backward as Carcharoth snapped with a black maw full of razor-sharp fangs.

  I continued to retreat back down the steps as the giant wolf advanced upon me, snapping his jaws again and again, just inches from my face.

  I struck him repeatedly with Glamdring, but the sword’s glowing blue blade didn’t even appear to break the wolf’s skin, not even when I managed to stab him directly in his black, slime-covered gums.

  Carcharoth turned to lunge at Aech, snapping his jaws shut on her leg. Then the beast shook her fiercely and hurled her aside. But Aech landed on her feet and counterattacked, hurling balls of fire and lightning from each of her hands, firing off one spell after another.

  I tried to attack the giant wolf while he was distracted by Aech’s fusillade, but he somehow sensed my approach, and before I could land a hit with my sword, he craned his neck around and bit me in the shoulder. My avatar took over a hundred points of damage, and then a message popped up on my HUD, informing me that the wolf’s teeth were covered with some sort of venom, and that I would keep on losing more hit points every few seconds from poison damage. Carcharoth’s venom had also temporarily immobilized my avatar, leaving me wide open for another attack….

  Aech and I had faced a lot of formidable enemies over the years, on a lot of different planets. The two of us once took down a Tarrasque on Faerun in less than five minutes. We livestreamed it. It was a cakewalk. But after less than thirty seconds, Carcharoth already had both of us on the run and hemorrhaging hit points.

  I took a Potion of Cure Poison out of my inventory and swallowed it in one gulp. But to my horror, I saw my hit-point counter continue to fall. I was still taking poison damage. The potion was supposed to cure it, but it wasn’t working. Just like Aech’s sleep spell hadn’t worked on the wolf. Clearly, I had missed something….

  Just as Carcharoth began to slink toward me to make another attack, I saw Aech’s enlarged avatar leap off the stairs behind him and onto his back. As he began to whirl and thrash around, Aech somehow managed to flip up and over the beast, land with both feet on the bridge of its nose, and stab it directly between its fiery red eyes.

  Then, as the beast howled and reared back in agony, Aech did another somersault and landed on the ground directly in front of him. While he was temporarily blinded, she put everything she had into another volley of attacks with her sword.

  Aech had saved me for the moment, but I could see that the bite to her leg had seriously weakened her. She appeared to have been poisoned by its venom, too, because her movements had slowed considerably.

  She dodged desperately as Carcharoth continued to swipe at her with his massive black claws—but after just a few seconds, the giant wolf knocked her off balance and clamped his jaws shut on her avatar’s midsection. I cried out Aech’s name in anguish, because I knew the beast had struck a killing blow.

  Aech turned to lock eyes with me just before she went limp and fell to the ground. Then her avatar slowly disappeared, leaving behind a pile of spinning items—all of the weapons and armor in her inventory.

  I stood there in shock for a second, wondering if I’d just lost my best friend forever. But I couldn’t let myself believe that, so I lunged forward and scooped up all of the items Aech had dropped, adding them to my own inventory, with the hope that I would be able to return them to her later.

  Then I took up the sword I had given her, Andúril, and equipped it in my left hand, so that I could wield it along with Glamdring in my right. Both of the Elven blades continued to glow bright blue as I turned to face Carcharoth. (I may have looked a bit silly wielding two such large swords at the same time, but my avatar’s combat stats made it effortless, and I had double-weapon proficiency and ambidextrous attacks, so I got three attacks per round with each sword, with each hand.)

  Carcharoth glared at me with his glowing red eyes, and as he did I noticed that they matched the hit-point counter on my HUD, which was flashing to remind me that my avatar was just a few seconds away from being dead. And when my avatar died, I wasn’t going to respawn and wake up in a brand-new virtual body. I was going to end up just like Aech and Shoto and all the others. Trapped in an ONI-induced coma, with little hope of ever regaining consciousness.

  Carcharoth kept advancing and I kept retreating, until he had me cornered at the edge of the plateau. He moved in closer and prepared to make his second kill, spreading his massive jaws in a rictus grin as he approached me. I raised both of my ancient Elven swords in an attempt to defend myself, but I knew it was hopeless.

  This was it. I was about to die a very real death, and my quest was about to end in total failure—a failure that would likely result in the deaths of millions of other people, including my two best friends. And I would never have the chance to make things right with Arty. To tell her that I loved her more than any other person who had ever come into my life….

  This was not how I wanted to die. Not even close.

  And then my ex-girlfriend fell out of the sky.

  First, I heard the insistent squeaking of a bat as Carcharoth snarled and closed in on me. I caught a brief glimpse of the bat’s wings, flittering across the edge of my peripheral vision. Then I heard a familiar transformation sound effect—one I knew had been lifted from the old Super Friends cartoon—and a split second later, Art3mis made a superhero landing on the rocky ground directly between me and Carcharoth. Then she rose to her full height and faced off against the Wolf-warden of the Gates of Hell, her long black cloak whipping out behind her in the wind like a cape.

  Carcharoth froze in midstep and cocked his head sideways to regard her like a curious dog. Art3mis took a step forward and raised both of her hands toward the giant wolf, as if to embrace him. Then she began to sing, and as she did, music arose out of nowh
ere to accompany her.

  “O woe-begotten spirit,” Art3mis sang to Carcharoth, her amplified voice echoing off the high stone walls of Thangorodrim, “fall now into dark oblivion, and forget for a while the dreadful doom of life.”

  The giant wolf’s eyelids fluttered, briefly obscuring the fiery-red coals burning at the center of each of his pupils. Then his eyes slammed shut, and the mighty Carcharoth dropped to the ground in front of Art3mis, causing a small earthquake. When the tremors subsided, the only sound in that desolate place was that of the giant beast snoring.

  But even before Carcharoth hit the ground, Art3mis was already rushing to my side.

  She laid her hands on the bite wound on my shoulder, which had already begun to fester, turning the skin and veins around it black. Then she began to sing another song. This one had Elvish lyrics that I didn’t understand, and my translator subtitles were obscured by my hit-point counter, which now filled my entire HUD. It was also flashing red, to ensure that I knew my avatar now only had five hit points remaining….

  Then Art3mis finished her brief song, and my hit-point counter jumped back up to maximum. And it stayed there—an indication that I had also been cured of the ongoing effects of the wolf’s deadly venom.

  I just lay there on the ground, shaking. Then I felt Art3mis take my hand, and I opened my eyes to see her staring down at me.

  “Thank you!” I said, throwing my arms around her. My voice came out as a whisper. “Thank you for saving me. Thank you for coming back.”

  I forced myself to let go of her.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said. “But what were you thinking?” She shook her head. “That you could just roll up to the Gates of Angband completely unprepared, and half-ass your way through the Quest of the Silmaril?”

  “I was not ‘completely unprepared’!” I replied indignantly. “Did you happen to notice that I’m wielding both Andúril and Glamdring right now?” I pointed up the road. “And I rode in here on Shadowfax! I’m doing my best. So don’t treat me like I’m some blockheaded Bracegirdle from Hardbottle!”

  That made her lose her composure and snort-laugh several times in a row. When she recovered, her demeanor had considerably softened.

  “You almost bought the farm, ace,” she said. “Close call.”

  “We didn’t know if you’d get here in time, so I did the best I could. I’m sorry I got Aech killed—” My voice caught, and I choked down a sob. “And I’m sorry I never finished reading The Silmarillion, even after I promised you I would. I’m so sorry….”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Pull it together, Z.” She motioned toward the open gates of Angband. “Right now we have a quest to complete. Aech and Shoto are counting on us.”

  “OK,” I said, getting to my feet. “Just give me a second. I want to call Faisal and confirm that Aech’s vital signs are OK, and check on Shoto’s status again too.”

  She nodded and I placed the call to Faisal. But he didn’t answer. I let it ring until the call rolled to voicemail, then I hung up and turned back around to face Art3mis. She had her avatar’s inventory open on her HUD and was scrolling through a long list of magic items.

  “Do you have Angrist in your inventory?” she asked. “Or Angainor?”

  She produced a long, curved Elven knife from her inventory. Then she took out a chain made of some sort of glowing metal and held it up too.

  I shook my head. A second later, my HUD helpfully informed me that Angrist was a knife that could cleave iron “as if it were green wood.” And I learned that Angainor was a chain forged by “Aulë to be stronger than all other chains.” It was made of an unbreakable alloy known as tilkal.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t have time to pick either of them up on my way here.”

  Art3mis handed me the knife, then equipped the chain on her belt.

  “Can I see the Fifth Shard?” she asked.

  I held it out, and we both reread the inscription:

  Win her hand through a feat of dark renown

  The last two shards are set in Morgoth’s Crown

  “It’s a trick, Z,” she said. “Don’t try to cut more than one Silmaril from Morgoth’s Crown—no matter how easy it looks. If you do, the knife will break, and you’ll awaken Morgoth and all of his minions. Then we’ll have Gothmog and Glaurung coming down on us, along with a host of Orcs, wargs, werewolves, vampires, and Balrogs, all led by Ancalagon the Black. Beren makes the same mistake in The Silmarillion.”

  I let out a sigh of frustration.

  “I did try to read it, you know,” I said. “But I couldn’t. It reminded me too much of you.”

  She studied my face for a moment, then she smiled.

  “What’s your avatar’s alignment these days, ace?” she asked me.

  “It’s still Chaotic Good,” I replied. “Why?”

  “Because if your alignment is any brand of evil, the Silmaril will burn your hand and you won’t be able to pick it up.”

  “Good to know,” I said, locking eyes with her. “I’m really glad you’re here, Arty. Thank you for coming.”

  She raised her chin up at the towering peaks of Angband looming above us. “Og and Kira were the ones who originally re-created Beren and Lúthien’s adventures here on Arda. They designed and coded this quest together. It’s insanely difficult. No one has ever managed to complete it. Including me. In fact, it’s the only quest on this planet that I haven’t completed. I’ve never even attempted it.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because it’s a two-person quest, Z,” she said. “And I always wanted to complete it with you….”

  “Then I ruined everything,” I said. “I know. I’m sorry. It was my fault. This is all my fault.”

  “It’s gonna be OK,” she said, grinning at me. “We’re going to complete this quest now, Watts. You and me.”

  “All right,” I said. “Just tell me what to do, and what not to do. I’ll follow your lead.”

  She started to smile—but then it morphed into a worried frown.

  “You’re starting to twitch, Z,” she said. “Are you feeling OK?”

  She reached out and took both of my hands in hers. That was when I noticed that they were trembling. And that I couldn’t make them stop. I also realized that I was grinding my teeth, and I was starting to feel like I had a migraine headache coming on….

  “Synaptic Overload Syndrome,” I said. “The symptoms are starting to set in. And it’s only going to get worse, so let’s keep moving. No one else can collect the last two shards except me, Arty.”

  She stared at me in silence for a moment, then nodded.

  “You sure you’re ready?”

  “I feel fantastic!” I lied. “Now that you’re here, I have a very positive attitude about all this.”

  She smiled. Then she opened her inventory again and took out a beautiful Mithril helmet cast in the shape of a dragon’s head, and covered with jewels and precious gems.

  “Here,” she said, handing the helm to me. “Put this on. It’s the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin. It will protect you in combat and prevent you from being poisoned by the cursed weapons of the Great Enemy. And here—put this on too.”

  She handed me some sort of magic fur coat called the Wolf-hame of Draugluin. As soon as I pulled it on, my avatar began transforming into a giant wolf, forcing me to drop down on all fours. Transforming into another animal when you were wearing an ONI headset was a strange experience, because you no longer felt like you were inside a human body. It took some getting used to. But I’d transformed into plenty of other four-legged creatures during quests, so I was already used to the sensation and had plenty of experience getting around on four legs.

  After she finished disguising me, Art3mis removed some sort of magic cloak from her inventory and put it on. My HUD’s image-re
cognition software identified it as the Bat-fell of Thuringwethil. When she lifted its hood and pulled it over her head, she transformed back into a large bat and took flight, flapping her dark wings and fluttering forward through the wide-open Gates of Angband.

  It took me a few seconds before I realized I should follow her. Then I bounded forward, running after her on all fours.

  * * *

  Art3mis led me through the massive black Gates of Angband, then down a steep stone staircase that led down into the cavernous depths below. At the bottom, we found ourselves standing at the entrance to a maze of dark corridors and passageways, all of them leading farther belowground.

  I was about to continue straight forward, toward the widest and most well-lit passageway. But Art3mis flew into my path and changed back into her human form.

  “If we continued this way, we’d be forced to navigate our way down through the Labyrinthine Pyramid,” she said. “It’s a massive subterranean dungeon maze, made up of one hundred procedurally generated levels of increasing size and deadliness. It’s a re-creation of the old roguelike game based on Angband.” She pointed off to her right. “Luckily, I know a shortcut that leads directly down to the Nethermost Hall, which is where Morgoth’s throne is located. Follow me, Bracegirdle.”

  I followed her down the adjacent corridor a short distance. Then she stopped and pressed her palm gently against a nondescript section of the corridor wall. With a grinding of stone, that section of the wall slid back, revealing the entrance to a secret passageway. Art3mis stepped into it, then motioned for me to follow. Once I was by her side, she pressed her hand to the wall again and the stone slid shut. After only a few minutes, we emerged from another secret door, just yards from Morgoth’s throne room.