Level One

  The three snakes weren’t actually doing anything. Just lying there in the middle of the hallway. The longest of them was about three feet with no rattle or bright colors or anything. The other two were even more obviously harmless. Still, Cooper opted for a sneak attack, jumping out from the next hallway and bringing the staff down on the largest snakes’ head.

  He gave the snake three or four good whacks until it was obviously dead. Then turned to the next snake in the line. It had done absolutely nothing while the first snake was getting bludgeoned to death, and it barely even twitched when Cooper gave it a taste of the same medicine. The third snake, meanwhile, at least tried to slither off down the hallway to escape the slaughter, but that only took him right into the wall of Geeks Cooper had parked there. The Geeks killed without emotion or remorse, but also without any particular skill or understanding, so it took several rounds of clumsy spear thrusts before they managed to send the third snake to Snake Heaven.

  Once it was all over, Cooper went over the corpses. The two smaller snakes had each produced a single dull black marble, which was apparently clay. The larger snake had dropped two clay marbles. Cooper added them to his collection.

  A few hallways over from the snake hallway, Cooper and the Geeks found another cafe room that had a couple of pill bugs in it, plus a centipede and two furry little rat things that might have been chinchillas. Cooper killed the centipede himself. It produced another clay. He sent the Geeks after the pill bugs, but they didn’t produce any marbles at all. The chinchillas managed to get away. Cooper probably could have killed at least one of them if his heart was in it, but the truth was he didn’t really enjoy killing things that were furry.

  Once the cafe was cleared out, Cooper decided to call it a day. He led the Geeks back toward the other side of the maze, killing any reptiles or insects they came across, but mostly leaving the furry stuff alone. Finally, they reached the invisible line near the center of the maze where the animals stopped appearing, which Cooper thought of as the beginning of Kayin territory. Beyond that point he had to be much more careful, since there was a risk of them running into a Kayin patrol. He put on the naked chick ring and had the Geeks hang back a ways so he could make sure the coast was clear. As it turned out there was no reason to worry. They reached the High Roller’s Lounge with no trouble at all.

  Cooper had made the Geeks practice before they left the pr, so on the way back they knew exactly what to do. All Cooper had to say was, “okay guys, you know the drill”, and they immediately linked up hands right in front of the green maze symbol. Cooper put his left hand on Geek 1’s shoulder, then punched the symbol with his right. There was a rushing sound, then a dropping sensation in his stomach, and next thing he knew they were back in the Round Table room.

  “How did it go?” Amelia asked, standing up from the enormous table.

  “It went,” said Cooper

  * * *

  Ten clays and one lead. That was all he had to show for three hours in the maze.

  “Well, I don’t want to say I told you so…” Amelia began when she saw Cooper’s haul.

  “Don’t start with that,” Cooper replied. “Just tell me if you think this is enough marbles to start making holy water.”

  “Maybe I didn’t explain this property, but it’s not just about the amount. It’s about the quality. If we want to break a gold-tier curse, we really ought to be using gold-tier holy water. Silver at the absolute minimum. And we still haven’t dealt with the matter of who you’re going to get to bless it.”

  “I was thinking about that,” Cooper said. “What if I just do it myself?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m just saying. Why can’t I just bless my own holy water?”

  “Becaues you’re not a priest.”

  “So?”

  “Okay,” Amelia said, “so if I understand you properly, what you’re asking is whether someone who is not a priest can make their own holy water. You know what? I’m going to be totally honest with you. No one’s ever asked me that.”

  “So you don’t know for a fact that you can’t?” Cooper asked.

  “Correct. I’ll have to look it up. What I can tell you, for sure, is that making your own holy water is going to be costly, and clays are never going to do the job.

  “Is there any way to exchange a bunch of clays for a lead, or a bunch of leads for a copper?” Cooper asked.

  “There will be traders who offer that service down on the second floor. There is also the Market, which you can access for the first time in between levels 2 and 3. But if your goal is to collect your own marbles, as you call them, I don’t see any way you’re going to manage to do that up here. The animals simply aren’t big enough.”

  “So you’re saying big animals work better?”

  “Yes,” Amelia said. “The larger and more dangerous the better. Also, demonic and undead animals tend to give better rewards, though those tend to start appearing around level 3.”

  “Hmm,” Cooper said.

  * * *

  The moose saw them coming a mile away. Even before Cooper got the Geeks into position, it had left off grazing on aspen trees and begun chuffing and moaning and stamping the tiles around it. The agitation of the moose definitely gave Cooper some doubts. Up until then it had seemed like little more than some big down cow. But since he had come this far, he decided to try his plan anyway. So when the moose turned around to take another bite of aspen leaves, Cooper crept up to it with his naked chick ring on, drew the green-bladed dagger, and slashed the moose on the leg.

  The kick caught him just below the left shoulder. It was a glancing blow, which was good, because otherwise it might have killed him. Even so, it was enough to break Cooper’s arm, and also to send him bouncing off the far wall.

  “Swarm!” Cooper croaked from the ground, doing his best to regain his feet. He had been worried at first that the Geeks would forget their instructions, but for the most part they did just as he asked, storming into the hallway with their swords and shields raised. The didn’t form a shield wall the way Cooper has asked them to, and he wasn’t entirely sure they even knew what they were protecting him from, but they were still between him and the moose, so that was good.

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  One thing you could definitely say about the Geeks though, they were brave. WHen the moose dropped its head and charged they didn’y even hesitate. The creature hit Geek 3 right in the shield, knocking him backward. Geek 3’s circle plummeted, but Cooper, back on his feet now, left off healing himself for a moment just long enough to give Geek 3 a hit from the snake stick. Meanwhile, the other Geeks surrounded the moose, closing in. They weren’t stabbing it so much as they were simply poking it with their spears, but they were accomplishing their main goal, which was annoying the creature. Just then, Cooper realized that the moose had turned its back on him again, so seizing the opportunity, Cooper dashed forward and slashed the moose on the other leg.

  This time he took an immediate step sideways afterward, so the kick missed him. Unfortunately though it clipped Geek 5, send him skittering backward. Cooper turned the snake stick on Geek 5, but meanwhile Geek 4 took an antler to the groin. Then Geek 1 knocked over and stepped on. Cooper healed each of the Geeks in turn, helping them get up and return to their place in the line around the now-engraged moose, but meanwhile the Geeks’ circles were falling, while the mooses’ circle was still basically at 100%. They hadn’t accomplished anything.

  “Fall back!” Cooper finally cried after the moose kicked Geek 4 in the elbow, sending his spear clattering to the other end of the room. The Geeks seemed a little confused by this command - maybe because they didn’t actually know what the words “fall back” meant - but eventually Cooper managed to get them organized in a rough line and moving toward the door. It helped that the moose let them go. Once there were ten feet between them it turned back to the aspen trees and continued its meal. Though Cooper could still hear it hooting and groaning in the distance until they were halfway across the maze.

  “Well that was a fucking diaster,” Cooper said once he and the Geeks were safely back in the par.

  “Again, I really do hate saying I told you so…”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that,” Cooper shot back.

  “What you did was brave,” Amelia conceded. “Reckless, too, but still brave. Now that it didn’t work, can you please just humor me?”

  “Fine,” Cooper said, “tell me what you want me to do.”

  “It’s not that difficult,” Amelia said. “First of all, we both agree that this curse is very dangerous and your first priority should be finding a source of holy water to treat it, correct?”

  “I only know that because you told me, but sure.”

  “And you’ve made it very clear that you are not interested in going down to the second level early, correct?”

  “Correct,” Cooper said.

  “Alright then. So if all that is true, and if hunting up materia on your own isn’t an option, then what else is left but going to the other people on this level and attempting to make a trade?”

  “First of all, I never said I was totally giving up on hunting. I have score to settle with that fucking moose. But even if I wanted to trade with Blue Team, like I told you, they’re all assholes. They don’t have anything I want.”

  “Didn’t you say that one of them was a priest?”

  “I said he dressed like a priest. I didn’t say he was an actual priest. And even he was, was good is to me without the actual marbles it takes to make holy water?”

  “If everything you’ve said is correct, Blue Team has been in the Labyrinth much longer than you have. There’s a decent chance they’ve collected more than a few marbles on their own. The only way to know is to ask.”

  “Okay fine. So maybe they can help. The other thing is they don’t want to talk to me. At least not until I give them the snake stick back.”

  “Bring them here,” Amelia said simply.

  “What do you mean?”

  “To the par. Bring them here. Feed them. Let them take a hot shower and have some ice cream. Believe me, after months or years in the Labyrinth, an afternoon in the par speaks volumes.”

  Cooper thought for a second. “Okay, that’s actually a good idea,” he said. “But I thought you said only jelly-bots could come to my par?”

  “What I said was only your allies can enter your par. Your jelly-bots, as you call them, automatically count as allies. But so do any normal humans who wear one of these.”

  Amelia pointed to the pile of metal hoops on the felt, the ones she had called ‘ally collars’ before.

  “Is that really a good idea, bringing them here?” Cooper asked. “I mean they’re not the most intimidating cats alive, but what if they try something?”

  “Anyone wearing one of your ally collars cannot harm you in any way,” Amelia replied. “They will also be magically compelled to follow your orders. Anything you tell them to do, they will be forced to do.”

  “Hold on a second,” Cooper said, frowning. “You’re telling me that if I put one of these metal collars around someone’s neck, they then have to come with me and do anything I say? Because that doesn’t really sound like an ally then. That sounds more like a slave.”

  “As I said previously,” Amelia replied calmly. “This Game is very old, and very old-fashioned, and the trick is to turn the rules to your advantage. Yes, these collars can be used to enslave people. But they can also be used to create allies. And if you’ll just let me explain, I’ll be happy to tell you how.”

  “Alright fine,” Cooper said. “Just let me eat something first.”

  * * *

  The conversation went on for like an hour, until eventually Cooper just got tired of talking. He told Amelia he was willing to try making a deal with the Blue Teamers, even though he had no confidence that any sort of deal could be made. Then he went back into the maze one more time to see what he could find.

  The last time Cooper had talked to Bird Girl he had lied his ass off, so he figured an apology would probably be in order. Also he was pretty sure he would need to lie again, so some food might be a nice gesture as well. He first returned to the Bunkhouse to see what kind of ingredients he had left behind. As it turned out there were more than enough freak-carrots, but only a little bit of honey, and no olive-berries, so Cooper decided to go out into the maze to gather a bit.

  After collecting all the olive-berries he needed, he headed back to the beehive part of the maze for the first time in a few days to gather some fish. He managed to spear them in fairly quick order, and was just headed back to the Bunkhouse to gut and fillet them when he heard a low, gutteral grunt from the next hallway over. The grunt sounded kind of familiar, and even beore Cooper turned the corner, he kind of already knew what he would see.

  The truth was he had kind of just forgotten about the black bear that had chased him around the maze a few times the week prior. After all, a lot of shit had happened since then, and for all he knew the fucker had just wandered out the same way he came in. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Instead, Cooper found the emaciated bear lying on its side an alcove, its lips cracked and dry, its fur patchy, its ribs were visisble through its hide. The bear tried to raise its head when Cooper appeared, but let it drop with an audible sigh. From what Cooper could tell, it was struggling to breathe.

  Cooper walked up to the bear, trying to remember exactly what Amelia had said about marbles. He was pretty sure that anything big and predatory was an automatic silver. He didn’t know if that included animals that were already dying or not.

  “I’m sorry, big guy,” Cooper said pulling the spear out of his duffel bag. “This is the only way I’m going to get those marbles.”

  The bear eyed Cooper warily, too weak to resist. Cooper raised the spear.

  * * * * *

  Name: Cooper of Vancouver

  Gender: Male

  Affiliation: None

  Age at Entry: 29

  Current Level: The Labyrinth (1)

  Jing: 10/10

  Qi: 14/14

  Shen: 0

  Life #: 2

  Status: Cursed (3)