Chapter 50: The New Quest Is Old

My hands felt dirty and smelled of metal. Handfuls of gold, silver, and copper coins spread out over one of the stumps we used as a chair. Crouching in front of it, I’d arranged them into piles. “Alright, looks like we have a hundred, thirteen gold coins and, uh, two-hundred, thirty-seven silver ones, and a bagful of the copper-colored ones. I didn’t finish counting those. Given their commonality, I’m thinking these are the pennies or equivalent. We’ll just divide them as evenly as possible, then split up the copper.”

“Boss,” said Fred, green arms folded in front of his green face, standing above me, “maybe you should hold onto most of it. Because you’ll be making the spending decisions.”

“Uh, not sure we should put all our eggs in one basket,” said Dylan, behind the fire and to the side. “The various classes – what if there’s a thief class? Or something.”

“Good point. Hey, where’s Bentley?”

The fighter looked away and down, saying, “Getting ready.”

“Did you destroy the spellbook?”

“Spellbook?” Fred asked, glancing over at Ave.

She shrugged.

Dylan shook his head, “No.”

“Damnit.”

“What spellbook and why does it need to be destroyed?” asked Ave.

I’m sure I frowned, but tried to move on, “Yeah, anyways, it’s probably too heavy for me to carry all this coin. And there probably are thieves, well, like Dylan said. Let’s split it up. Take, I don’t know, something approximating a sixth each.” Standing up, I gestured to Dylan, pulling him off to the side and around a stalagmite, “I get that he’s embarrassed, but is he ok? To walk? Should we wait another day?”

“I think he’s fine . . . to walk.”

“Then, do you mind bringing him some breakfast? We’re getting out of here.” I looked from him to the green grasses of the meadow. Fresh, warm air blew in, pushing away the heavy damp of the cave. “We’ve spent enough time underground.”

***

Arguing and yelling from inside their tent, “No! We have to destroy it! Look what it’s done to your face!”

“You can’t! Dylan!”

The fighter burst through the tent flaps, carrying the large tome in his right hand, tossing it underhanded straight toward the fire, Bent rushing out, yelling at him to stop, the book arching up, then down against a burning log, falling backwards into the coals, puff of ash up into the air.

Bent ran up, frantically reaching for the book, then pulled his hand back instantly.

The coals darkened where the heavy tome lay, fire dancing on charred wood above it, but nearby, the flames flickered, going out, coals under it changing from orange to red to black to grey.

Tearing my gaze from the fire to our wizard, Bent took a step back. “It . . . doesn’t burn?” He looked around, found a thick stick, and started digging the book out.

I crossed my arms. “Bent, we should just leave it.”

“It’s valuable. And it’s clearly ensorceled.”

“Look what it did to your face!”

“We don’t want anyone else finding it then, do we?”

“We can toss it somewhere people won’t look. Under some of these rocks or something. It’s clearly too dangerous! We need to get rid of it.”

He pushed the not burning book out, then put his sleeve over his hand and picked it up. “It didn’t burn, I’m keeping it.”

“Bent, listen to reason here.”

He wouldn’t look at me, but his skin was tight against his cheek bones and had dark red streaks running vertically down them. Bentley turned away and walked back into his tent. “I just used it wrong is all!”

I took a deep breath, wondering what to do. Chase him, throw the book deep into the cave? Didn’t seem like a very leader-like thing to do. But neither did standing here doing nothing.

Dylan stepped forward palms toward me, “Let me, let me talk to him again. Get him to see reason.”

“Yeah, alright. Do what you can.”

He then followed Bent into the tent.

I stood there feeling stupid for not having done something. What, I don’t know, but something. Why was he so desperate to keep a book that was so dangerous for us all? Maybe I could shoot holes into the book, breaking its magic or at least making the pages ineligible.

“Hey,” Marci took hold of my arm, leading me away. “He’ll come round. It’s too raw for him right now. Let’s just give this some time.”

“I guess. I don’t understand why he wants to keep that book. It’s dangerous.”

She took hold of my right hand, squeezing gently, “Help me take the tent down?”

“Sure.” I went with her, packing everything up, getting ready to leave, wondering what to do about Bent and hoping nobody else would break rank like he was.

***

Later than I wanted to, we were on the road. The sun was nearing its zenith, and we were almost down the mountain, nearing the road to the village. Pine trees forested the area, waist-high grass with feathery tops covered the meadows, waving was we passed.

Once we reached the road, I lead the group along it in the opposite direction to the village.

Marci, woven armor scintillating in the daylight, asked, “You sure it’s this way?”

“Not really. But it can’t be the other way. The village gets supplies along this road, and the traders must come from somewhere.”

She looked back, “I guess so. Anyways,” she sped up in front of me, spun around like a ballet dancer, her golden hair briefly lifting into the air, stopped, and raised her hands to the sky, “it’s great to be outside!” Little sparks tracing along her cheeks, entered into her now golden eyes, she blinked, and her eyes were once again bright blue.

“Wow.”

Marci reached toward me as I closed the gap, taking my hand in hers, sliding alongside me, “What’s that?” Her hand was warm.

“Your eyes glowed there for a second.”

“Being outside suits me. Maybe we should take more outside quests!”

It was nice to see her smile again. “Ah, if they can bring us the information we need, sure. For now, though, we’re going to follow through with the plan. Buy some healing potions, hopefully hire a healer, then find a military base and hopefully more answers.”

“Are you even,” Marci looked up at me, “a little curious how your class goes?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, what happens as you gain levels. I get more spells, more power, and I want to learn what they are.”

“I don’t think it matters.”

“We’re here! On this planet and in this game. You can consider it part of the mission. The investigation. Learning about the system as well as the attack.”

“It’s a game, right? It’s just going to throw stronger and stronger enemies at us, to match whatever power the game gives us.” I squeezed her hand and said, “It really is all an illusion, Marci. Nothing more.”

She lifted her hand, palm flat to the clouds over the tree line, crackling lighting shot forth, off into the distance. “Illusion, huh?”

“It’s not real life.”

“It is our life right now.”

“What I mean is, there’s no point in advancing our classes, in playing the game beyond what we have to. I sound like a broken record at this point, but we’re emphatically not here to play.”

“Yeah. Only,” she looked back at our trailing teammates, “I don’t know if we have much of a choice.”

“You think Bent’s going to keep studying that spellbook.”

“River, you’re,” she looked at the ground, “not experiencing the game the way we are. You’re more or less cut off from it, so you don’t feel the pull. That’s good, for the mission, but it means . . . well, it’s like you’re the only sober one among us. And the rest of us are eyeing our next fix.”

I squeezed Marci’s hand in mine tighter, saying, “When you analyze situations, you still sound like yourself. When you talk about the game, though, you’re, I don’t know, sounding like a character in it. We either need to find a faraday cage or we need to build one. Slow down the changes if we can’t reverse them.” Little pebbles crunched underfoot, stepping along this road, some scattering forward, bouncing along a ways before settling.

“Is that the real reason you want to find a military base?”

“It hasn’t been that long since the system took over the planet. There may yet be people hiding out, and remaining normal, in a large faraday cage. If they could build one in time, if they could work a way to get the food they need.”

“You know, I could effectively function as one. If I had an insulated suit, with copper wires crisscrossing it. And assuming my electricity works continuously inside the cage, I could magnetize it to keep out the signals the nanotech is using. I think that’d be better than a regular one, since the nanotech could potentially attack say, fabric, or metal.”

“You only got one blast off when the Victoria nuked the planet. You might not have, uh, enough juice to run continuously.”

“Right. Ok, so let’s assume the military here work that out – individual faraday cages. With a battery pack or something. If they could achieve that, they could gather food.”

“There’d be a host of engineering problems to overcome. Insulation, the battery pack itself, some kind of cooling system-”

“Yeah, yeah, details. The point is, if they could work it out, they’re still alive and unchanged.”

“Right. Just one more reason, Marci, to find a military base. To see if there are unchanged survivors, to see if we can find evidence of the origin of the attack, and a communication system. We need to alert the Victoria with our findings. And if there’s a faraday cage and people in it, all the better.”

“Except, for this situation to work, we have to make several assumptions here, you know.”

“Yeah,” I shook my head. “I’m hopeful, but not optimistic.”

“The nanotech might actively fight a faraday cage, pulling it apart the same way it dismantled the cars, the chairs in the hotel. Atom by atom. Repurpose them for something else. Unless the people inside have a way of fighting back or remaining hidden.”

“If this really is an attack and not some outrageous gaming accident, then it’s likely the nanotech have such capabilities.”

“You see, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“That our mission is doomed to failure if this is a real attack?”

“If it is, we aren’t going to find any communication equipment. Or any unchanged survivors.”

“I get that. And?”

“It means, River,” the lithe elf stepped in front of me, stopping us on the road and taking my other hand, “that we’ll need to build a coms unit from within the confines of the game. The nanotech doesn’t seem to attack within-system equipment. I bet you could build a gun here and it’d become like our swords, part of the system, leveling up with us. Not like the rather limited guns we have now.”

“I did start the game with an empty holster.”

She smiled, “That strongly suggests there are magical guns around somewhere.”

“So, it all comes back to your previous position. We have to play, we have to level up, if we are to accomplish our mission.”

“Yes. Yes,” she nodded, “if and only if there are no faraday ages, no survivors and no coms equipment. Maybe no military bases. Though we also know the system doesn’t attack everything. We found the security video.”

“Which means, we might find the necessary equipment even if we don’t find survivors. But, it’d be buried or hidden somewhere.”

“Right. And you know what that means?”

“Don’t say it.”

Marci closed her eyes, then opened them staring directly into mine, “We are on . . . a quest!”