It didn’t take long before the source of the scraping noise made itself known. At the end of the room, a figure with a glowing head ambled toward Rick.
To say the bot looked strange didn’t capture the effect. Wrapped in linen straps, the man’s face—Rick thought it was a man—consisted of only a mouth. The dirty cloth blindfolded the bot, masking its features. It swayed left and right as it strode toward Rick, as if it danced to a tune only it heard.
Though every bot in Ruckus Online was unique—the game created new ones every time it built a match—this bot looked mummified, which was something he hadn’t yet seen. Thematic? Does the game limit the bot builds here to fit the environment? Its appearance served as cause for strategizing. Maybe he could use the info later to help him avoid the damned panther Wild Ones that had caused him so much trouble. Did they only spawn in forest areas? The lungfish one had spawned near a river. Hmm…
The mummy bot took its time, though it looked absurd in shiny black satin boxer’s shorts and weightlifting boots. The damned thing was tall, too, which became more apparent as it approached. A low moan sounded as it stepped. Rick took a ready position.
Then, as it came into striking distance, it stopped and pointed to something behind Rick at the same time a shadow fell over him.
He jumped at the last possible second. Whatever it was that had been behind him had also broken the floor, sending chips of marble tile flying into him. Damn, damn, damn!
He spun, expecting the gangly mummy to have taken advantage of Rick’s distraction, but it hadn’t moved. It certainly hadn’t attacked. Instead, it had stepped back, and was stepping even further back as he watched it. When it got a few yards away, it stopped, its blindfolded face appearing to gaze at Rick and the other combatant.
He’d caught a glimpse of the creature who’d tried to strike him before the strange behavior of the mummy grabbed his attention. Rick scanned back to the towering thing that had tried to clobber him from behind.
The monster—there was no other word to describe it—was enormous and made of stone, like a twelve-foot statue come to life. When it raised its arms in a fighting stance, the sound of stone grinding stone accompanied the maneuver.
It flashed a smile and the entire vaulted room lit up, displaying the scale of the temple he’d entered. He was at the near end of a grand hall that extended at least a hundred yards forward and another hundred to both his left and right. The stone ceiling hung several hundred feet over them, seeming to defy gravity. Ornate, painted murals ringed the entire ceiling, showing bizarre scenes of gods battling other gods in an endless procession.
In the newly bright light of the room, the mummy appeared almost comical, as if it hadn’t been designed to be seen in all its glory.
The stone monster looked less impressive with so much empty space over and around it, but that didn’t make it any less a threat.
The mummified fighter roared, a ragged, unnatural bleat that put a shiver down Rick’s throat. Nonetheless, it wasn’t as frightening as the low tone the stone monster emitted, though. The intensity of the bass rumble made Rick’s vision swim, like he’d been standing next to a speaker tower at an electro-chemical rave.
When the statue finished its exclamation of rage, it dashed at Rick, who ducked, throwing himself off-balance before he began to tumble. He stopped trying to right himself and turned it into a leap and a roll away from the stone man.
The mummy laughed.
He glared at the wrapped man. “Fuck, really?” He leapt away again as the stone monster rushed him once more, slamming his fist down where Rick had been only a moment before.
Rick stepped lightly on his feet, trying to get behind the massive stone monster when another boom sounded. This time, all three glanced in the direction from which it had come. A bright light flashed through the windows, and another, more distant boom sounded.
The lightning ring had begun to catch up with him, but he doubted he’d survive even one of the living statue’s strikes. The mummy cackled like the leather-bound character from an antique flat-screen movie he’d once tried to watch with a girl but had been too stoned to follow. The sky outside the windows and the door through which he’d come had darkened.
The stone beast flashed by him again, but this time, the creature had charged shoulder first, as if trying to tackle Rick like a defensive lineman taking out a distracted wide receiver.
Rick followed as the beast rushed by, and when the stone man slowed, signaling it would soon stop and turn to face him again, Rick prepared his Iron Fist ability.
His fist came down as the creature turned, creating a boom of its own, though not one that competed with the monster’s strikes, nor with the crack’s of the lightning ring’s thunder.
The creature appeared stunned it had been hit, as if it were a thing of infinite existence, an immortal inhuman being that had never known what it was like to be struck.
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A crack appeared down the center of the monster, and Rick’s heart jumped. Had he done it?
He dared not advance. Instead, he tracked the line of separation as it rent the air with the rumble of stone heaving.
When he was most certain he’d beaten the stone monster, he was about to face the mummy. Then, two booms echoed through the room, and the stone monster that had been only one separated into two halves that each grew a new half to replace the one it had lost.
Rick sighed. “Two?” It was a miracle I landed that hit on one of them. Rick searched for signs of an exit, but any passage out of the huge room, if one existed, must have been from one of the walls in the distance, and those were far enough away to make it difficult to tell.
As if validating his decision to flee, the mummy cackled again, then said only one word. “Run!”
Rick nodded at the mummy. “Right.” He ran.
The most likely choice was to run straight to the back of the room. If there was no door there, he could reassess. As he sprinted, his stamina meter appeared, then blinked rapidly as every step whittled away a sliver of green.
Would he make it? The stone monsters charged, but the range of their rushes were limited; they couldn’t reach Rick without having to stop. After each of their charges, it appeared as though the monsters also ran low on stamina. Was that the way to defeat them? Could he punch stone to death?
A horrendous boom took Rick’s choice from him. The lightning ring was now inside the massive stone building, and however long it would take to fight the monsters—and likely the mummy who’d join the fight once the stone monsters were defeated—he didn’t have that kind of time.
He tried not to freak out. The player count had dropped to the mid-seventies, but it had been stuck at 74 the entire time he’d been in this most recent fight.
The lightning ring slowly advanced, taking the mummy and one of the stone monsters out of the fight. The remaining beast growled its eyeball-vibrating roar again as Rick stopped to let his stamina catch up. He fretted as he glanced at the wall that still seemed so far away.
He dashed toward the wall again before his stamina had topped up. “Almost there…”
Just…
Keep…
Running…
He had to stop again. The monster drew nearer, but the lightning ring advanced on the monster nearly as quickly. At the rate it was going, it might overwhelm the monster before it could get to him.
Rick groaned as the far wall came into sight. There were no doors or windows breaking the continuous line of stone bricks.
He turned. If he was going down, he’d go down fighting.
I’m sorry, Kris.
*****************************************************
The monster kept up its pace, jogging into range a few seconds after Rick stopped running.
He raised his arms in defense and tried to dodge, but his stamina hadn’t recovered enough, and the rock creature clobbered him.
He flew backward, then rolled to his feet a scant yard from the wall. He tried to dash out of the creature’s strike zone, but it had caught up to him. It lifted him from the ground by his gi. Just before the lightning overtook it, the monster threw him into the brick wall so hard he went through it.
He landed on his back and moved slowly at first, checking to see if anything was broken.
Though he’d been thrown through the wall, an invisible door back to the enormous entry room now stood open. Must be a game state that forces the door open if someone enters the room. So they don’t get trapped if they glitch through?
The stone monsters wasted no time pursuing him, so he wasted no time running away.
The small room in which he’d landed narrowed into a long hallway, the depths of which disappeared into darkness. Rick glanced back at his pursuers, then bolted away to the shadows, his arms held out in front of him to give him some sort of warning if he hit something.
Hitherto unseen lights flashed on as he passed them, dispelling his unease about madly running at top speed into the pitch black. He dropped his arms and blinked, then picked up speed.
Behind him, the stone creature, too large to comfortably fit in the hall, generated a cacophony of broken stone as it scraped through the hall. It broke many of the lights behind him, casting its outline in unpredictable flashes as it seemed to swim through the hall.
Rick nearly stumbled as his stamina quit, forcing him to walk. Oh fuck, oh fuck! How is it moving so fast?
He forced himself to breathe, trying not to fixate on the damnably slow rate of his stamina bar’s refilling. When it hit half-full, he jogged, which made it drop less quickly than sprinting had.
Ahead, something flashed in the dark. As he got within thirty yards of it, it became clear it was a doorknob. And a door!
He flinched as broken stones—debris from the stone creature’s wanton destruction—pelted his back in a shower of broken bits. it was close now. Fuck! He bit his lip and broke into a dead run, anxiously focused on his depleting stamina.
Two feet from the door, he abruptly slowed again. Though he shouldn’t have, he looked back. The stone creature locked its eyes on him. In what felt like slow-motion, and with his eyes still looking back at the creature, he reached forward for the door.
The cold metal met his hand and he twisted, nearly ecstatic when it gave and the door began to swing.
The stone monster, still five feet away, roared its eye-wobblingly bassy roar as Rick took two more steps.
Then stopped. A bright light flashed, blinding him.
He’d been transported, just as when he’d found the Branches path, though where he’d arrived now was anyone’s guess. Slowly, his surroundings came into focus again.
Sunlight streamed in from outside, intermittently blocked by stone columns that circled him like a ring. Outside, trees swayed in a gentle breeze visible from where he stood at the center of a large stone gazebo. The roof, also stone, gently rose to a low peak in the center directly over him.
The heavy, humid scents of a midsummer garden swam in his nose, along with the sweetness of cut grass, though that was fainter. He stepped from the center toward a gap in the columns, shading his eyes as the full brightness of the sun struck him, creating a warm sensation on his skin.
An outdoor pool, sunken into the ground and surrounded by unpolished white stone, sparkled lazily to his right. A cobblestone path stretched before him until it met stairs that ended at a dais with a shining golden box at the top.
He climbed the steps cautiously, though his fear had mostly subsided. When he reached the fifth step, something pulled him violently backward and blackness swallowed him. He waited in the darkness for a minute or two before we woke.