Chapter 36: The Difference Between Good Players and Amazing Players

As the Gremlin careened over the last paved hill, flying out from between pine trees, the cliffs of southeast Soleus Mesa rose into view.

We landed on dirt road, the force of impact as jarring as the shift of color schemes between zones. A fleeting memory; when driving from one county to another, crossing over the territorial line, one road fresh, black, with sharp yellow lines painted. The next county’s road was old, turned to ragged rubble at the edges, weathered with hard-to-see lines. It was a strange comparison to draw, especially when escaping imminent danger, but such mental flittings were becoming more common as I collected each stolen bone.

Azwold looked in the rearview mirror every few seconds. “We can’t have lost them yet,” he said.

“Nitro boost, oil slick, caltrops,” I said, cataloging his cartoonish arsenal we had deployed on our pursuers. “What have we NOT thrown at them yet?”

“I’m afraid most of my tricks will only slow them down.”

“Then why have them at all?”

“Fun?” he shrugged. “So I can do things nobody else can? Cool tricks and extra game functionality?”

I gave him a blank gape. My silence seemed to be answer enough.

“An average player would’ve been blown to next week. Telemoon’s different,” he sighed, closing his eyes despite driving. “I don’t see them yet,” he said, opening them. “Maybe we’re not in totally bad shape.”

A dune buggy leapt out from between the stunted pines marking the end of the pavement.

Azwold emitted a soft growl.

“Have ye any more nitro boosts?” I said. “Their motorcars appear to be damaged. We may get away after all.”

Peering back to confirm my observation, Azwold’s growl turned into a hum. His frown dwindled.

That is when I noticed a dust trail in the distance to the northeast; inbound from a Dreen road. But Dreen was too far away to matter.

“Look,” Azwold pointed to the west. Another mount was heading our way from far off. We scanned the distances, finding multiple roads with riders approaching. If they maintained trajectories, the riders would converge on our location prior to arriving at the Acrophos Stair.

“Impossible,” Azwold whispered.

Telemoon ambushes were not impossible. Perhaps he meant our situation, and the sentiment was contagious. I felt a sinking feeling.

When the Gremlin was midway between the vehicles ahead and the slower, damaged ones behind, Azwold brought us to a stop, letting the car idle in the middle of the dirt road.

“Oftentimes,” he said in a forced calm, “I find the difference between good players and amazing players is simply knowing all the tools at one’s disposal. Swift access to strong or common abilities isn’t hard to get good at.”

He had chosen a confusing moment to wax expertisedly.

“But it’s swift access to one’s more dusty items and abilities that defines a truly great player,” he said. “But guess what?”

I stared at him as I often do.

“I got nothin’,” he said.

“All we can do is sit here and wait to be waylaid?”

“Or we can go at them ramming speed?” he shrugged.

Unwilling to accept doom, I took stock of my own abilities and items.

“I mean, we can fight them off for a while, but I counted six or seven incoming transports,” he said. “Telemoon protocols used to demand the buddy system, which means we’re looking at a dozen enemies. Minimum. Probably more like twenty, I’d guess.”

“More second thoughts about trying to take on Telemoon by ourselves?” I said, still examining my skills and meager inventory. My attention fell upon the two special potions I had been gifted. The [Barkskin*Potion], gifted by Medett, and the [Potion of Spell: Levitate] gifted by Relja.

I quaffed Relja’s sky blue potion. It felt light and effervescent, drizzling down into my honeycomb.

“What was that potion?” asked Azwold. He glanced back toward the pine tree line. “Oh great,” he said.

I looked. Bats. Big, spooky-looking bats swooping up and over the scraggly pines toward us.

“Do they really need air support?” he said, exasperated.

“Flightpaths are one-way, correct?” I said.

“Yes, unless Telemoon figured out how to hack that, too.”

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“Once someone is on the path, it goes to its destination?” I said. “Cannot stop mid-flight?”

“Didn’t I just tell you yes?” he said.

“I have an idea. Let us exit the vehicle.”

He looked skeptically at me, but got out and shut the door. I followed.

“Hey!” he said as I scrambled up onto the hood, and onto the Gremlin’s roof. “Actually, I dunno why I’m trippin’. Not like you can scratch the paint of a game car easily. What’s your bright idea?”

“Relja gifted that blue potion to me,” I said. “It gives me [Spell: Levitate]. An Air spell.”

“So we float straight up for a number of seconds and then float back down?” he said. “Real helpful.” But then a shadow of understanding fell over his countenance.

The dune buggy approaching on the road from Dreen came into range first. It rolled to a stop 100 feet away and three Telemoon goons exited. They trudged in our direction, loading and adjusting strange weaponry.

The less damaged truck from the previous zone arrived second, and the occupants behaved the same. They exited and walked toward us. Any expectation of failing their mission was absent.

And it worried me no less to see that I recognized none of the current hostiles. No W3dge, no Tect0n, no Sprock3t, and no Ralos. The vast scope of Telemoon membership was mind boggling. Why did these people want to be in such a horrible organization? Mayhap the Mentalist Troika truly had more than a simple persuasive grip on their guild members.

I was undecided on which was more fear-inducing: individual guild members with personal vendettas, or guild-wide cooperation toward impersonal yet harmful objectives. Probably the latter.

“Here they come,” said Azwold, casting [Spell: Summon Boneling]. A small squad of cobbled bonelings materialized from the dirt below us and arrayed themselves around the Gremlin. “If I had more mats, I could get us outta here with a Fading Gate or something. But I’m avoiding the Spirit Realm until we debug Grandfather. Didn’t stock up.”

“My plan is not amazing,” I said, “but it will work.”

“We’re flying by the seat of our pants here, Eld.”

“I thought that was your normal way of doing things.”

He gave me an ugly look.

I placed my bony hand on his shoulder. “And it has always worked out.”

His ugly look morphed into a nod.

“Alright,” he said, then cast [Spell: Haunt II] at the nearest, most dangerous looking attacker; a tall Fire Mage Demolitionist. He had a grenade primed to throw, but the ghost swirled and ripped at his central essences forcing him to drop it.

It exploded.

A shard of metal whizzed past my skull as the Demolitionist and his nearest party member were blasted to the dirt.

Meanwhile, Azwold’s bonelings swarmed the Telemoon goons incoming from the blue truck. They dispatched his weak creatures, electrifying them with a net and then crushing them with steam-powered boots and gauntlets.

Looking beyond them, I saw that the original dune buggy had wobbled its way to join the truck. Only three of its four wheels remained.

Doing my best to ignore the growing army surrounding us by the minute, I cast [Spell: Clutches of Death]. It was a new spell, gained at level 35 when Trojainous had boosted my levels.

Azwold gasped. “Hey. Is that necessary?”

“It is,” I said. Then I cast [Spell: Levitate].

We began to float, but only just. My toes dangled less than two feet above the Gremlin’s roof. I had forgotten to ask if the spell could levitate more than my own weight. We were not rising fast enough.

One of our Telemoon enemies shot a grappling hook at us, but it crashed through the Gremlin’s side window. Electricity ripped along the cable, turning the whole car into a shock trap.

“Bat turds!” Azwold spat at them. He cast [Spell: Dread].

I watched the result, a heavier version of my [Spell: Fright Hand]. Every hostile within radius turned to flee for the hills. But one Telemoon party member, a Water Mage Mender, shot a plain-looking metal orb into the midst of the fleeing combatants. The object emitted a blue pulse of light like a tiny supernova.

The fear effect dispelled, and the attackers resumed their objective: us.

I had timed my levitate spell cast because I had been watching the bat riders. Their trajectory put them above the road we were on. But at the rate we were rising, they would pass overhead. I wanted one to ram into us. My plan depended on it.

Under the effects of [Spell: Clutches of Death], I had an unshakable grasp on Azwold’s [Tomb Cloak], but the Demolitionist reached up and snagged a fingertip through Azwold’s bootlace, halting our upward movement.

The Bayou Bats were close enough now to see that Fred “The Frog” Woggins was leading a quartet of bats.

“Didn’t we get a pair of boots as a quest reward recently?” asked Azwold as he poked around on his tablet screen.

“We?” I said, looking down at my [Spirit Walkers]

And then I saw why he had asked. In his inventory menu, Azwold selected the item [Swamp Stompers], his equipped boots, and then clicked “Unequip.” A confirmation button appeared, and he looked at me as if to say, “Here we go!” then tapped the button.

His feet became bare, and the Demolitionist fell to the dirt once more. I saw several of our attackers preparing projectiles weapons.

We rose, faster now without the weight of bulky boot-grabbers. “They are going to shoot at us,” I said.

“I’m thinking. Let me try this.” He began casting [Spell: Umbral Veil].

I thought he had used up all his [Gloomgill Bulb]s, a required material for this spell.

“How?” I said.

“Not now,” he said in a forced whisper.

A chain bola whirled at us and found its mark around Azwold’s ankles.

“Gah!” he said, fumbling the spell.

“Here,” I said, sliding off my [Shadow-Wise] bracelet and shoving it onto his wrist. “Borrow this.”

“Nice,” he said, then completed his spell moments later. The inky flow of shadows enveloped us just as an electrified harpoon scuffed across my [Helm Wheel]. Another near miss.

The tumult below us silenced. The eerie timing made me wonder if [Spell: Umbral Veil] had a side effect of quiet within its tattery shade cloud.

“Quiet is good, right?” I said, hoping [Shadow-Wise] had buffed Azwold’s casting.

“Probably not,” he said. “Anyway, Gloomgill fish swim in some Spirit Realm waters. If you can call them water. I can’t prove it, but I think there’s another nexus under the Bone Bramble.”

“What will happen to the Gremlin?”

We continued to rise.

“Nothing,” he said, retrieving the [Gremlin Signal] from his inventory, “just gotta...”

One moment it was there, the next an unseen crossbow bolt, or bullet, clinked the device out of the Mage’s grip. It vanished with a spark of metal against metal among the shadows.

Azwold’s jaw dropped.

“Let me go,” he said, teeth gnashed.

“I cannot. Ten more seconds on Clutches of Death. Even if I could, I do not think it wise to drop you.”

“Once the spell ends, I’m diving, like it or not.”

“Your car is more important than quest progression?”

“Yes,” he said, firm. “We’ll take all 20 of them. I don’t care.”

“Five seconds,” I said, considering whether or not to cast [Spell: Rib Cage] on him and see if it would prevent falling.

“How far up do you think we...” A bat rider slammed into us midair, cutting Azwold’s question short.