One interesting difference between humans and dogs is that when a group of dogs all speak at once (e.g., “Arf arf arf arf arf”) it is perfectly intelligible. Danger, look out, run, heads up. When a group of people all say something at the same time, even as few as two of them—as was occurring at the moment—it communicates nothing. Helmgarth and Addrion pointed and shouted toward the awakened block behind Commander Zideo’s head, but their voices together might have been the babble of infants. “What?” he asked, as they gestured wildly, hollering. It probably didn’t help that I was barking over them.
As he stood there oblivious to what was happening behind him, several changes affected the stone cube. The eyes that appeared were sinister and red-rimmed, with a tiny dot of a pupil focusing nearly cross-eyed on the back of my human’s neck. A toothy frown carved itself into existence in the stone just beneath them, an upside down U-shape of which we could only see the dimpled corners. The eyes squinted and the teeth gritted, and the dull spikes like those of a meat mallet sprang from every surface. What was moments ago a dark gray cube was now some hellish stone meat tenderizer demon.
A rush of queasy fear washed over me—it had been too long since I had tracked the invisible force behind us. I felt my tail brush against something, and knew it was bearing down on us then to thrust us over the edge of the platform and into the river. I would have stayed to see what happened to Zideo, but it was jump or swim, so to speak. There were too many concurrent threats to address them all, a scenario in which dogs thrive more-so than humans.
“Terribly sorry about this!” came a voice from Zideo’s direction. The spike-covered demon block appeared to close its eyes, take in a deep breath (to what lungs, I could not imagine), and yelled something that sounded like “Shlooooooooomp!” It broke free of whatever force held it in place in the air above the rushing river, and hurtled toward Zideo.
Zideo dropped to the floor of the block on which he stood. The attacking block never changed course, but continued past us. Addrion was too busy hurling Helmgarth bodily onto the next closest platform, but I felt the wind swirling in its wake as it shlooooomped past. Over the river it went, taking a chunk out of another of its kin, bursting a tree trunk on the bank, and then clamoring into the woods. It may still be following its course today.
Things happened quickly. I looked back and forth to keep track of them, but also tried to imagine the progress of the invisible wall behind us so as not to be swept into the river. Addrion summoned up a stream of scalding stream of invective. Zideo stood. “Okay, so guys?” he said, making use of the extra altitude of his jump to reach a series of gray blocks that ran perpendicular to the river. It would almost have made a good bridge. Addrion pushed Helmgarth up to this walkway, but the seneschal could not quite surmount the edge with nothing to grab on to. Zideo quickly beelined over to him and grabbed onto the backpack, dragging his dangling feet up to solid ground. “I think these blocks don’t want us to be here!”
“To be fair,” came another voice as dull mallet spikes appeared and eyes blinked open to their left. “It really is a case of home defense.” I risked a big jump, hearing the snap of the bulbous fish’s teeth before I even knew it had lunged at me. It missed, but distracted me, and my landing was not one I’d like to share.
“We’re just passing through, man!” protested Zideo.
“Indeed,” said the block. “Through the valley of the Shloooooooooomp!” It launched itself in his direction. With little room to spare, Zideo sidestepped it. “Awww!” it said on its way past, apparently unable to change its trajectory. It shot back across the walkway and into the woods, plowing through trees. I glimpsed distant canopies rustling and leaves shaking free before returning my attention to the river.
“If only we were heading downstream,” lamented Helmgarth. “We could float along well ahead of the Wall Force.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Zideo. “Water can be instant death in platformers.”
Helmgarth looked at the river below with new eyes. The river piranhas circled beneath the surface, unfazed by the current. “Move move move!” said Addrion, her voice tinny through the static of her helmet’s speaker. I caught up with them through a series of jumps. The next few blocks stair-stepped downward, and gave way to relatively long paths of mostly straight platforms. This would be a balancing act rather than a test of our jumping aptitude. We balanced too closely, such that one stray hand flying out for balance might knock someone over. Much like the bridge over the B.O.P.O.D., I was mad with the desire for Helmgarth to move faster. My fur prickled with the sense of the invisible wall behind us.
“You really think so?” asked Helmgarth.
“It’s a coin flip,” said Zideo. “But even if it’s not, I don’t like the look of those piranha guys down there.” As if it thought itself summoned, one of the bulbous squeaky-toy fish arced out of the water, flapping its fins like wings biting at Helmgarth.
It attached itself to his backpack, however, either fooled by the scents of foodstuffs within, or more likely unable to distinguish its bulk from his body. Enraged, it only tried harder to close its jaws on something, and obstinately bit deeper into the canvas—single-mindedly refusing to return without food, though suffocating for water. Its gills flared and rasped, and its tailfins vibrated like a flag in a gale wind, dripping water. I growled, issuing a clear threat from one beast to another, and saw its stubborn lemon-slice eye pivot back to look at me. Thick canvas tore, echoing the sound of my own snarling, and I wondered how much more easily human flesh might give in the grasp of that awful maw.
We shuffled forward in a line, dodging another apologetic Shlomps blooming with spikes and rocketing into the woods. I began to suspect that they were sentinels with limited line-of-sight, triggered by proximity and able only to defend in one direction, like pawns in the board game that Krystal had once taught her little brother before I chewed several of the pieces apart—or more precisely, one-way rooks.
The path ahead of us disintegrated, evolving from short line segments of consecutive blocks into a cloud of single blocks at different heights and spacing. Unable to stand waiting, I found my own route, jumping to a side block to get out from behind them.
Helmgarth froze.
“Keep going,” exhorted Addrion. “Keep moving or you die.”
“Don’t you mean ‘we die’?” asked Zideo.
“Hell no,” replied Addrion, scanning the blocks ahead. “If you die, I’m out of here.”
Zideo’s lips tightened. “That’s the important part, right? The mission at any cost?”
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Her helmet unsealed, and the anger in her eyes was nearing the boiling point. “I’m doing all the work, and the Player’s getting all the credit,” she spat. “It’s taking most of my energy to keep your asses alive.”
“Great,” said Zideo. “Well I’ve got extra lives anyway…probably. So why don’t you get out of my face?” He made the kind of sarcastic face that typically presaged his saying something that he, I, and everyone would regret. “I’m a human. Not a humanoid, either, not just some little… bag of polygons and code. I’ve got free will.”
It seemed to me that an icy gust blew through the glen, from the direction of the Blue Frost. The exterminator’s emerald hair whipped like arcane fire.
“Not in an auto-scroller, you don’t,” she said.
“I’ve played a zillion of these things,” he retorted. “See, that’s the difference between you and me. Even when the whole world is pushing me one direction, I can find another way through. But you’re part of it. I’m sick of your holier-than-thou bullshit. You’re out of your element and you’re still talking to me like I’m an idiot. I’m the key to this whole…” He searched for the word, and failing to locate it, twirled his hands in the air. “…thing!”
“Yeah?” said Addrion. Her weapon blurred to life on her arm. I was too many jumps away to stop her, but I thought she really might do it. She took aim and charged a shot. I jumped, but knew I could never make it in time.
A large piranha fish gulped down her whole forearm, clamping its jaws over her elbow. It jerked its head—which was essentially its entire body—back and forth in a facsimile of a dog playing with a toy.
“Dumb fish!” shouted Addrion. Trying to shake off the fish, she did not see the approaching Shlomp until it was too late.
“Don’t take this personallyyyyy!” it shouted, and pinned her weapon against another inert, floating block nearby. She screamed, and verdant sparks splashed out from the crushing spikes, along with exploded fish parts.
The invisible wall had caught up with them, and Zideo’s pride got the best of him. He threw his arms to either side for balance, but was shoved into Helmgarth’s pack, who was propelled forward over the edge. Zideo caught him, and the next few seconds were a blur of midair wrestling in defiance of gravity. Eyes opened behind them as they fell toward the icy river and the rending jaws of swarming piranhas. The awakened Shlomp caught a strap of the backpack in its spikes, and hauled both of them upstream, fish clapping their teeth shut on thin air in their wake.
They left us far behind. I knew I only had seconds to figure out how to dislodge Addrion’s arm, pinned by the discharged and spike-covered Shlomp, which was profusely apologizing to her. When the auto-scroller terminus reached her, I expected her arm would be dismembered, and the rest of her bleeding body shoved into the river.
Zideo was ever my number one concern, but right now my number one concern was quickly disappearing into the distance upstream. I bolted across the walkway, and jumped to a higher block, then immediately made my way downwards and backwards, closer to the river and surely into the invisible face of the encroaching wall. Shlomps stirred to life like threatened blowfish, spikes and eyes protruding from every surface. Not knowing which of the blocks was inert and which was a dormant Shlomp, I was afraid I might trigger one that would collide with Addrion’s trapped body. But there was little time to inspect and no way to truly be cautious about it. So I ran, I jumped, and I dropped, drawing a diagonal arc around her.
The space exterminator groaned and twisted as one of the blocks’ prongs passed close, dinging the armor of her extended ankle. “Please don’t take this personalllyyyyy,” I heard it plead as it beelined for the woods, far out of earshot.
“If you’re going to get me killed, at least save yourself.” shouted Addrion. She waved me away with her free hand. “Get out of here!”
With blocks transmutating as it were into Shlomps, I was running out of places to stand. I was sure that our forward path had been ruined, so even if I could free her, there was little hope of escape from the wall that never stopped pursuing us. She was right. I should leave her, grant her a warrior’s death. So I did the only thing I could—which was to keep trying.
I looked to the left, saw the block I wanted. It was possible it wasn’t alive at all and my attempt was already doomed. I jumped into the space directly in front of it, heard the sound of spikes extending, like an umbrella opened indoors. I paused only for a sliver of a second, and jumped, and jumped again back to the walkway of blocks where she hung from her sparking arm, her dented ankle curled under her.
Addrion looked into my eyes, saw what was behind me, and braced herself. I knew these blocks worked on a grid of right angles, flying true each time. But if sufficient impact were introduced, could their courses be altered?
“Sorry lads,” the Shlomp pinning Addrion’s arm shouted courteously to its oncoming brethren, “but I’ve got this one. No assistance required.”
“Look out!” I heard behind me. Just inches away, I heard a great smack of stone against stone, and the grumble of breakage.
Addrion's eyes met mine. While I could not see what happened behind me, I could see the danger reflected in her tension. She braced for death. I lay as flat as I could, and slid on stone.
Spiked stone flew over my head, scoring my back. I am sure I helped. Having caused a collision, the block chasing me was already off-track, and it clipped the Shlomp pinning Addrion’s arm. She screamed as they clapped together, spikes entangled, rocking over the already crushed flesh beneath her gun. I was showered in hot sparks, and a brief dialogue between the Shlomps ensued.
“Pardon me. I’ll simply excuse my–”
“Indeed not–my mistake, if you’ll allow me to–”
“Listen, neighbor, move your–”
“Grrr! It’s just that–”
Then, simultaneously, they both shouted as if at one another, “Shlooooomp!” One shot off into the sky, the other spun and sparked against the catwalk and went spiraling over to the steep riverbank, embedding itself in mud with many complaints.
In a puff of smoke that reeked of burned blood and cauterized flesh, Addrion pulled her crumpled weapon back to her breastplate. Wordlessly, she reached for me with her other hand, got her arm around me, and we were airborne.
What happened next was impossible to make out. The warrior held me tightly, but she has a tendency to flip and somersault when she jumps. The world reeled and twisted, and I felt the icy breath of the leaping piranhas. I glimpsed into their quivering, blue-gray throats as they struck, but Addrion snatched me out of their way, and even punted one with her good leg like a football. I heard the sound of fish slapping against metal alloy, accompanied by the unmistakable, calcite shattering of teeth.
After what seemed like an eternity of up and down and tumbling–probably no more than seconds by sober, human reckoning–she set me down on the bank of a bend in the river, whereupon I threw up everything in my stomach. I was too miserable to run and walked in looping circles for a minute, not caring if the wall caught up with us, and unsure of which direction it was anyway.
The sound of the running river anchored me, and soon my head was clear. Addrion sat panting beside me. Zideo and Helmgarth were nowhere to be seen.
The green warrior’s ankle was deformed, or at least the outer armor was bent wrong. But it was nothing compared to her energy weapon, which was zigzagged structurally, pockmarked and smoking. It was wider in one direction and flatter in the other than it should have been, like streaked with carbonized fish parts. She shook it, and nothing happened. She did so again, and sickly mechanical sounds issued from her forearm: a flapping tread that was misaligned, an off-kilter gyre, an inconsistent buzz. After a third jerk of her arm, as though shaking off water, her green gauntlet returned. She flexed the fingers, good as new. “No firepower for now,” she said. “But we won’t let that stop us, will we?”
She turned her green eyes to me, and my cup ran over. She could have almost been my human in that moment, in another lifetime, another world.
“You saved me!” I wanted to say. Then I remembered I was a dog, and the world grew black.