Chapter 28: Evil Altar Two

I put my hand on Ave’s shoulder.

She was looking down the hall and obviously about to run off after Fred, even though she was carrying Dylan’s limp body. In her other hand, she held a war hammer tightly and I marveled at her strength. Avery turned her gaze toward me.

“Please, stay with the group. I’m not trying to be mean, but this happened because you didn’t wait for me to check for traps. Then Fred rushed ahead. We have to stay together. We’re going to get Fred back, but we have to be careful.” I nodded, trying to get her to nod, too, “Ok, Ave? Can you do that?”

Her bottom lip trembled. She looked down, then back up at me. “Got it, Boss.”

“Great. I’m on point. Bent, right behind. Let’s go!”

The room was at the end of this stretch of the hallway, which then angled sharply left, toward more rooms, the elevator and central stairs. Down in that direction, some distance away, a man in a suit stood, head turned to us, rotting face. More behind him.

“Zombies. I hate those guys. Everyone, in the room! Ave, you’ll need to deal with them if we can’t lock the door.”

“On it.”

I rushed in the room, Bent behind me, then Marci, Ave got in. The doorway was cluttered with debris of all kinds – the entire room had piles of dirt, torn apart furniture, torn clothing, the smell of rotting meat, putrid mud – I could only hope my nose would adjust quickly.

Ave gave up trying to shut the door, put Dylan down on the ground, pulled out her hammers and faced the hallway. “I’m gonna crush every last one of these motherfuckers.” She headed off the incoming zombies, hammers at the ready.

“Shit,” said Bentley, pointing into the room. “Three of them!”

Marci gasped, hands to her mouth, “What are they doing?”

Two were crouching over Fred, who was laying on his stomach, the other stared at me with its awful, vicious toothed smile. One of the two looked up, blood dripping out of its mouth. The other moved over his left leg, tugging at it. Fred’s bare leg welled up with blood, pants around his ankles.

She screamed, “They’re eating him!”

I cracked my whip over their heads. That got the third one off of Fred’s leg, bloody teeth pulling skin up, which it tore off. It tilted its head back and swallowed, then stared at us. Pushing the revulsion down, trying not to throw up, I worried that Fred couldn’t hold on much longer, bleeding like he was.

They glanced at each other. The first one growled out, “More food.” As one, they ran toward us.

In my peripheral, I saw Bent put his hands up and Marci draw her sword.

I lashed the bullwhip out, wrapping around the feet of the one racing at me, yanked hard, and it faceplanted. Glowing sword in my left hand, I sliced across the one running at Marci, cutting down its left arm. It turned to attack me, and I kept my sword leveled at it.

Marci then rammed her sword into its abdomen and the thing screeched.

I cut down hard on its left hand, slicing right through it, hand falling to the floor. Marci yanked her sword out sideways, flesh bursting forth from its body, but the wounds closed immediately.

Then flames filled up the room. Had to be Bent, torching the creature he faced.

I didn’t have a chance to see because the one behind me wrapped its fingers around my right ankle, its nails biting into my flesh. It pulled. I fell face forward, then kicked its face over and over with my other leg, pushing it back. Until it caught my left foot mid-kick, chomping down on my ankle.

I may have screamed, did my best to twist around to face it, ramming my Elvish sword through its head, and the biting stopped, its body twitching.

Pain spread up through both legs, like hundreds of wasps stinging at once, then numbness starting with my feet.

Marci shouted. I rolled over to see the creature facing her clawing at her with its remaining hand, matching her movements. She had the sword out, facing it. The creature kept its injured left arm back, but its abdomen seemed perfectly fine, not holding it back in any way.

I looked back, worried they healed quickly, but the one I’d stabbed lay still.

Hips felt like they were on fire, I didn’t have a lot of time. I threw my sword at the beast facing Marci, hitting it in the chest with the hilt and Marci took that moment to stab its other arm, leaving her sword in it. The creature snarled, jumped, teeth out, trying to bite her, but scraping on the armor. Marci yanked out her sword, then stabbed into its neck, down its torso, and they both fell onto the floor.

Bent was having a harder go of it. The creature had him on the ground, holding his wrists over his head and was about to bite his neck. Its front charred and smoking but still attacking him.

I crawled toward Marci as best I could. The pain receded, numbness overtaking my legs, but my arms were still mine. The creature’s teeth were in her shoulder, jaw biting and biting against the armor. I took hold of its ruined arm and pulled as hard as I could, shouting, “Get my sword! On your left!”

It rolled up over me, pinning its one good hand against my chest and leaning down to bite my neck. I put my hands on its neck, pushing with all my strength, holding as best I could away from me. If it bit me, I’d be done.

The Elvish sword appeared like a flashlight through its face and then the body dropped on me. Marci ran over to Bent, stabbing his attacker in the back, neck and head.

With great effort, I pushed the deadweight off. Then crawled over the dirty ground to Fred, pain lancing through my legs. That was good, it meant I would be able to move them soon.

He lay atop old and torn, dirty clothing, scattered bones, and didn’t look good. Blood caked his legs, chunks of his calf and thigh were gone. But the blood had gelled, and he was still breathing, if unconscious. Or paralyzed. “Fred! Can you hear me?”

“We have to turn him over!” said Marci.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. The wounds are pretty deep and he’s resting in filth.” I looked up, “Bent, you ok?”

“Yeah, that was close.”

Marci dropped her pack, squatted and started going through it and said, “We have to turn him over so he can drink a pot. Put, I don’t know, your backpack or tent or whatever under his legs so they don’t get infected.”

“Good idea.” I pulled the tent out of my bag, it was the first cloth available, laying it flat beside Fred. “I’m out of healing pots. How many do you have?”

“Still got two.” Bentley said, dropping his pack to the ground and rummaging through it, shortly pulling out both pots.

“We really have to keep these on our belts or something,” said Marci. “In a more accessible place.”

“Yeah. Help me turn him over. Onto the tent. Ready, on three. One. Two. Three.” Fred was heavy. Even with all of us pushing, it took a good ten seconds to flip him onto his back.

When we did, he blinked.

“Fred, you awake?”

He blinked again.

“Ah, paralyzed. Ok, I’m going to open your mouth and dump this in. Swallow, if you can.” I did just that, opening his jaw, tilting his head up a bit, then forward once the red liquid was in his mouth.

“I’m going to check on Dylan,” said Bent, standing up and heading over there.

“Looks like his legs are healing nicely.” She lifted a leg. “But he probably needs both potions.”

“Good. Good,” I said to Marci, trying not to think about what we’d just been through. I had to stay focused for her, for them. “I can, uh, I can move my legs again. Oh, but that is not a fun experience. Hurts like hell.” I patted Fred’s thigh, knowing he’d soon go through the pain part of the ordeal, “Hang in there, Big Guy.”

He blinked.

“Hey,” I said, “what about you? That thing was biting into your neck.”

“It was chewing on my armor. What a sound that made.”

“Sorry for asking.”

“I wonder . . .” said Marci. “You recovered very quickly, well, much faster than Fred and Dylan. Dylan’s human, so it’s probably not a race thing. I wonder if it’s a class thing.”

“Maybe.”

“Or a stat thing.”

“What’s that?”

“What are they called again? Abilities? Our strength, intelligence, agility, those things. You put points into intelligence, right? Fred put them in strength. I’ll ask Dylan what he did later.”

“Yeah, intelligence. That’s, uh, odd. You’re saying I thought my way through the paralytic?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You recovered faster than these two. If you’d asked me before who’d recover from a poison, I’d have guessed them.”

“Maybe it’s not a poison.”

Marci tilted her head at me, “You think it’s supernatural, that the nanotech is tapping into the spirit world?”

“Ha!”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“I meant, based on what you said about stats – why are they called stats? – that maybe the nanotech is deciding who gets paralyzed and for how long based on our attributes.”

Snapping her fingers, she said, “That’s what they’re called! Attributes.”

“Shit!” I grabbed her hand, “Ave!” and struggled to stand. My legs weren’t fully functional just yet.

Standing in the doorway, war hammer over her right shoulder, Avery said, “I’m fine. The hallway is clear. The entire floor.” She quickly strode over, and gently asked, “How’s Fred?” and knelt down at his side.

“He’s going to be ok, Ave. We’ve given him healing potions. It’s just a matter of time before the paralysis wears off.”

She nodded, stroking his face.

Marci placed her hand on my shoulder, gaze off somewhere behind me, said, “There it is. The altar.”

“Let’s smash it.”

We did, releasing all our pent-up anger and rage and frustration. I climbed up on the table and punched the heptagram, smashing into pieces, then kept going. Marci tore the upside-down candles out of their holders, smashing them into the ground over and over.

I jumped off, and together we pulled down the house-like shrine, breaking it into pieces, tearing it apart, stomping on it. I even spit on it once, and that caught a double take from Marci. Finally, we’d completely destroyed the damned thing.

Marci looked up at me, said, “Forget daddy issues. We have altar issues.”

“Fucking evil altars.”

A familiar bell sounded:

YOU HAVE DESTROYED TWO ALTARS AND MANY ENEMIES AND GAINED A LEVEL. CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE NOW LEVEL THREE AND HAVE THREE FREE POINTS TO SPEND.

“Three points?”

“I got the same.”

Ave and Bent confirmed, them too. The others were still frozen.

I asked Marci, “Why three points? The other levels were two.”

“Hold on. I’m working out my character sheet.”

I don’t know why, but for a moment, I was jealous. Why didn’t I have a character sheet? I shook my head, even tsked, and told myself it didn’t matter. Damnit! I wasn’t here to play this stupid game. We needed to learn more about this attack! Why these worlds were falling to the nanotech. Who was causing it and how were they traveling between the stars without our navy noticing? This was why I was here, the questions I had to answer.

Marci broke me out of my thoughts, “Two general points and one point for, uh, combat. Weapons, spells or whatever you use for combat.”

“General points? Are those what we’ve been spending on the, ah, attributes?”

“Yeah. You could also spend them on basket weaving if you wanted to.” She gave me a look, wagging her finger at me, “But don’t ask! Because your game is screwed, you might actually get points in basket weaving. I think you should stick to the fundamentals. Either go intelligence for your class or invest in sword or bullwhip or, well what about trapping?”

“Trapping?”

“River. Come on, you’ve been finding traps and disabling them. Just a sec.” She paused, eyes staring off into nothing. “Yeah, trapping. It’s a class skill. I can buy it, but it’s really expensive.”

“Trapping. Did you notice in the fight, your sword did nothing? The Elf sword, it caused real wounds to those creatures. Your sword just entered them.”

“Yeah, I wondered about that.”

“I think I’ll put points into sword and bullwhip.” I looked over at the group and then the ground where my whip lay, “The stuff I can do with that whip is crazy. I’ve never held one in my life before, Marci.”

She reached out, taking my hand, “I know, I know,” and smiled. “I’ve never been an elf before.”

“Honestly, you look cute as an elf.”

“You like cosplay, huh.”

“I’m digging the ears. And your hair. You’re eyes. They’re almond shaped now.”

She pulled away a little, looking down, “Don’t!”

“Don’t what?”

“Look at me like that. Right now. I. Uh, I need a shower.”

“I mean, I’m just as gross.” I pushed something off of my shoulder and it splatted on the ground. “But now that you mention it, yeah, you’re full of yuck.”

“Thanks. Hey,” Marci reached over, taking my other hand, and we moved closer. Then she said, “There’s one good piece of news. I can spend points to overcome being down here.”

I backed up a touch, “What? What’s that?”

She let go my hand, gestured all around, “It’s being underground that’s dampening my powers. Like we talked about before, Earth versus Air. Down here, I’m less potent. As an air sorceress. My magic or electricity or whatever.” She shook her head, “Anyways, I can spend points to overcome that issue. I’m going to.”

“Is that the best use of your points? I mean, we won’t be down here forever.”

“We’re low level and we’re down here now. And I think, you know, the game probably has a lot of dungeons in it. We’re probably going to be exploring them often since we’re searching for the nanotech mainframes.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“Ok, spending points time. Give me a sec. Spend yours, too.”

I let go of her hand, feeling a little embarrassed. Moved a bit away. This was something everyone else could do, had insight into, that I couldn’t and didn’t. As their leader, it was just strange to be missing out on all this info. Maybe I shouldn’t be leader. This was an important part of our lives now and I had to rely on them to solve it. On the other hand, maybe being an outsider gave me a good perspective as leader.

Only, I didn’t feel like an outsider at all. Just missing out. Me, the FOMO guy.

Pushing these thoughts away, I said, “Voice, I’d like to spend points. One point into sword, one into bullwhip and one into trapping.”

YOUR POINTS ARE SPENT. CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE NOW A STRONGER EXPLORER

I looked around the room, wondering what to do next. Bent, sitting beside Dylan, Ave beside Fred, and Marci standing beside me, were staring off into space. Probably working out the best use of their points, whereas I was basically just guessing in the dark.

I hoped that didn’t wreck my class, but then was angry at the thought. Reminded myself of all the reasons the game didn’t matter but couldn’t quite shake the worry.

Well, I thought to myself, looking around. I am an explorer. What would an in-game explorer do after they killed the baddies in their lair and leveled up?