Chapter 33: Code Name: mnd_ur_bzwx

Unlike Gnarlroot, no respawn timer had emerged above the harvested redwood’s stump. The Druid had assured us that the deathly pall hanging around it would help with spirit magic, but his explanations were haphazard. I recalled Azwold telling me that there were multiple ways to complete the summoning step of his epic questline. He and Ralos had manipulated the quest to allow for Gadget Craft incorporation. As we inspected the hodgepodge array of items Ursamigo expected us to work with, more questions arose than answers.

“It’s not even raining,” said DarkNeon. “Didn’t you say rain was a big factor to wake you up?”

“It was,” I said, growing dismayed. “And whatever spell Azwold read on that night might be useless without bones to reap.”

“This place is a graveyard too,” said Relja. “Obviously, right? Has ‘Grave’ right in the name. According to lore, they planted each old tree along with the body of an Earth Clan member. Spirit Trees. All of them.”

“Do we really need to grave rob to cast this spell?” said DarkNeon. “We’re not Telemoon here.”

“Azwold told me something once,” I said. “Let me see, it was something like: ‘You won’t make it too far as a Spirit Mage worrying about whose granny-gram or pappy-pop any particular corpse might be.’ However, a full summoning may not be the way. What if we simply open a Spirit Realm portal?”

“Do you intend to deviate from Ursamigo’s instructions?” said Vick5.

“What instructions?” said DarkNeon. “He left us with a pile of junk. Glass bells? Silver wire? You said Azwold used Gadget Craft to complete his spell. How should we do this?” she asked, staring down Vick5.

“Unknown,” he said. “Air Mystic Relja and I may combine abilities to produce precipitation, however. Is this required?”

“I think only a Spirit Mage with Gadget Craft and game devs helping him could do what Azwold did,” said Relja.

“Are you saying that Ursamigo overestimated our skills?” DarkNeon frowned.

“I grow weary of waiting for others,” I said. “And I have an easy idea. This place is both a Spirit Realm nexus and a graveyard, correct?”

“Seems like it,” said the Rogue.

“Good,” I said. “Kill me.”

DarkNeon’s eyes lit up.

“But wait,” said Relja. “Have you died in game yet since Azwold disappeared? Aren’t you afraid? We don’t know what’ll happen.”

“Dying in game is an inevitability,” I said. “I would rather find out what happens while surrounded by trusted party members than die to a random monster in a dungeon somewhere. You would search for answers if I fail to reappear.”

Without a moment to reconsider, the Rogue was upon me, slamming both daggers into my spine. My health bar dripped away as she stabbed again and again. The deep greens and browns of the grove faded to greys and whites.

I saw my form crumpled in the dirt as a corpse. I looked up and saw Belvan standing on the stump. I engaged him.

“Good afternoon. How may I be of assistance?”

1) I’m lost. Help! (Marks map with your body’s location)

2) I need directions to the nearest town.

3) I’m dying too much. Can you suggest a more level-appropriate zone for me?

4) I’m interested in Spirit Magic training or quests.

5) The Grandfather NPC is out-of-order. Let Belvan give you his letter. Read it quick!

6) Know any jokes?

I looked through the options, slow and confused, but then saw option 5. I chose it. Repeatedly.

With no further word, the dialogue menu vanished and Belvan bent to hand a ghostly piece of paper to me. Like a hastily scrawled pencil note, it read:

“Listen, Eld, you have to do this quick because anyone who tries to access the Grandfather NPC could read this text, game-wide. I need you to recreate your original summoning spell, but the Druid-who-shall-remain-nameless couldn’t get everything. You’re going to have to sacrifice something powerful. I can’t believe I’m saying this... you have to sacrifice the Scepter. Just trust me on this. Go back to your corpse. Find a secret file on your tablet, code name: ‘mnd_ur_bzwx.’ Spell’s in there. I’ve got help, but it won’t last, so hurry. Do you understand? [Yes], [No].”

I pressed [Yes].

“Okay, this message is going to delete itself. Can’t wait to be back! -AZ”

Simple instructions, but I was abuzz with befuddlement. How could I sacrifice the Scepter? I looked around at the Spirit Realm version of the Grave Grove. I could only peer as far as the dead circumference around the stump. Had Azwold and Ursamigo engineered some kind of safe zone here?

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I lay on the ground, aligning my ghostly form with that of my skeletal one, then stood up.

I peered through the normal Grave Grove. I was alone. It felt like only minutes had passed while I was dead, but my party members had gone and the sky had darkened. In the distance, I heard the clamor of battle, echoing in a strange, muted way between the trees.

A drizzle began.

Had Telemoon found us? I considered the haste in Azwold’s message. Another thought occurred to me; the message sounded like it could have been Azwold, but I had no proof. Except that the Druid, and by extension Azwold himself, were expecting my party and I. What if it were another trick of Trojainous’s? Or Ralos?

I shivered, remembering Ralos might be free, roaming Realms of Lore like any other player now that my [Spell: Plunder Memory]s were undone.

I wished for a sign. One of Relja’s omens. As I searched my scapula tablet for the hidden file called “mnd_ur_bzwx,” I considered whether I was being misled to destroy Azwold’s class weapon like Trojainous had done to his. An eye-for-an-eye trick.

As I looked blankly ahead of me, I detected a faint shimmer above the stump. A fleeting image appeared to me there, mingling among rain drops. Unsure if it was just vapor, I stared until it resolved.

Belvan. He tipped his top hat, leaning to look at me closer through his monocle. I glanced at his hourglass talisman, at the sand swirling there. Inside it, existing as faintly as a thing could, I thought I saw my former master mage, tiny and caged in glass. Upon noticing me notice him, he tapped on the glass, then tapped on his grave iron band like a wristwatch, as if to say; “Tick tock. Get a move on.”

I glanced at my tablet and the file in question appeared on my next click. The battle raging outside the grove sounded like it was intensifying.

These things would have to be ominous enough for me.

I unclasped the [Hive Scepter] from my metal hip loop and wedged it between stump roots like Azwold had on Gnarlroot Hill. I opened the secret file and read from my tablet.

The words were almost comprehensible, as if written in a language my ancestors might have spoken. Tongueless, I read, producing the closest sounds an ectoplasmic animation source could.

Belvan bent down to place his hourglass talisman overlapping the [Hive Scepter]’s head. I watched the miniature, ghostly Azwold insert a faint little key, then wriggle himself through the hourglass’s side and into the scepter itself.

As I completed my reading, a lightning flash struck from the rain clouds above, blasting the [Hive Scepter]. I was dazzle blinded, as if DarkNeon had cast a disorientation spell at me. I fell back onto my bony rump.

When I could see again, I found the scepter rent asunder... and Azwold was nowhere.

A wave of anxiety rushed down my neck and into my chest. My bees were rumbling. Could they sense the massive mistake I had made? How could I have been tricked? No, not tricked. I knew the risk, and I stupidly went along with a nefarious plan.

I was a fool.

The sounds of combat drew nearer with haste. My mood threatened to spark new depths of woe. My waxworks felt like they were on fire even though I was immune to temperature sensation. The bees were roiling in a chaotic jumble, inside and outside of my ribcage.

DarkNeon un-stealthed several fathoms away between two trunks. She was running.

“C’mon Eld! We gotta get outta here.”

“But...” I stared down at the shattered remains of the scepter, contemplating the implications.

“Snatch it all up,” she said, already grabbing Ursamigo’s scattered materials from atop the stump. “Get it together! Put it in a sack, pockets, whatever. So it’s together. We need to go!”

Relja and Vick5 were not far behind her, Air Mystic floating, ex-Chemist hydro-leaping swiftly to our location.

“The Beast Budz are holding them off,” said Relja, winded, “but it’s you they want, Eld.”

“And me,” said Vick5. “W3dge is displeased I am no longer a Telemoon member. We must vacate the Grave Grove with haste.”

“We have not achieved our goal,” I said. “No Azwold, no leaving.”

“Not much of a choice,” said DarkNeon. “Leave now and fight another day, or Telemoon finds us and it’s game over.”

“Would it inspire you into motion if I were to confirm a Ralos sighting?” said Vick5.

I turned my sharp attention to him. “I knew it! What a fool I am.”

“Not sure what you’re talking about, but I saw a guy named Ralos, too,” said DarkNeon. “Looked kinda out-of-place fighting alongside Telemoon, but yeah, he was there. Know him?”

“He was busy fighting, you say?” I said.

“More like observing from the sidelines,” said Relja, “But yes.” I saw her scoop up a handful of dead pine needles and pocket them, but had no headspace to question it.

“I’d say kinda like directing more than observing?” said DarkNeon. “I was a little busy stabbing. Let’s gooooo!”

“Come, we can discuss further as we make our departure,” said Vick5, heading for the mounts without further talk.

“Did he not mention Telemoon suffering a disruption in their guild structure?” I asked.

“I think so,” said Relja, grabbing my hand to pull me along.

I snatched the last scrap of [Hive Scepter] glass I could see and deposited it into my inventory, then ran alongside Relja.

“Gnarlroot_The_Eld,” Vick5 called back to me, scanning me, more frantic than was typical. “Why are you swarmed with bees? Explain this highly abnormal coding. If you can control them, do so!”

“They are a part of me,” I said, surprised by the matter-of-fact way I felt about it. “It is the [Hive Scepter], how I was made.”

My skull hung low, distraught at the shattering of such a precious weapon. Was the [Hive Scepter] even a weapon? I had never seen Azwold swing at a monster with it. It was a permanent fixture in my life as a minion. A given. Foundational to my existence here.

“Are they a part of you?” asked DarkNeon, ninja-running. “Because it looks to me like they’re buzzing off.”

The moment she said this, I knew. My bees were vacating my ribcage waxworks.

“Oh no,” Relja said. She put a comforting hand on my shoulder as we arrived at the grove’s wattle fence; to our mounts. “What’s happening with your bees?”

“I shattered the scepter. Azwold is no closer to us. My bees are becoming unbound. Where are you going!?” I rasped at the bees as if they could answer.

I clutched at my ribs as if to hold in guts and blood from an eviscerating wound. Resistance was futile to insects set on escape. I could do nothing to stop them.

Vick5 was still scanning my bees as they fled. Once the probability of an attack diminished, he reported: “I have calculated their swarm movements and potential trajectories. If you look, you’ll see the majority seem to be heading in a general direction. Mount up. Then consult your maps.”

Desperate for an answer, I did as instructed. Once on Yolo’s back, I looked to the gadget-enhanced player, observed his scan beams, and watched as he pointed. He indicated his trajectory calculation.

I searched my map. Where were they going? I dragged a finger bone along the map, waiting for any destination of significance to reveal itself to me. Were my bees still mine? Were they simply returning to whatever hive or colony they had belonged to before my waxworks had attracted them? Or were they leading me somewhere?

And then as I tracked Vick5’s projected trajectory, my finger landed on somewhere of note.

Azwold’s abandoned tavern.