Chapter 53. Happy Gilmore Golf Swing

  “You can’t be serious, Arthur,” Christian said. “You had me log in for this?”

  “Let him speak,” Cassandra said.

  “Thanks for coming,” I started. I didn’t love apologies, especially when I didn’t believe the person. Back in high school, a principal had made a kid apologize to me in her office. It was empty. Just words meant to placate me. And it didn’t stop the bullying. I meant to try something different.

  “I’m kind of messed up,” I began. “I haven’t had the easiest life. My parents died some years ago and left my sister and I with nothing. I was mistreated. People took advantage of me. It’s hard for me to trust others. To open up. But I’m going to try. Because I’ve wronged every one of you in different ways. It’s not an excuse, but I need to say some things.”

  Rowan leaned into the bars, looking at me.

  I swallowed. “My sister and I got into this game in a pod that the government loaned us. Before this week, I worked in a sewing factory. I hated my job. We barely make rent. I love my sister more than anything; she’s the only person who’s never let me down. So my goal was just to make money. To farm, mine, fish. Anything. Then in character creation something crazy happened. For the first time in a long time, I chose to be myself. What you see is what I actually look like in real life. And Warren is my real name. The game rewarded me for choosing to be myself with an option to take a special Attribute called the Integrator. It allowed me to bring my talents from the real world into the game.”

  People audibly responded to this. Gasps. Sounds of sudden understanding.

  “Ohh,” Rowan said. “That’s how you got the Musician Job.”

  “Yep,” I said. “And the Instructor Job and the Enchanting profession. Arthur witnessed me discovering a Fire spell a little while ago. I did that by demonstrating the spell in-game. If I can do it, I can learn it.”

  “You can create spells?” Christian asked, impressed.

  “Why are you telling us all of this?” Rowan asked. “Why now?”

  “I’ll get to that,” I said. “There’s a little more.” I looked at Arthur, Christian, and Thomas. “Fellas, you already know how I betrayed you. I’m sorry about that. You reminded me of people from my past, so I judged you before I knew you. That wasn’t fair.”

  I looked at Rowan and Cassandra. “But I haven’t told you girls yet how I betrayed you. And Henry.” I swallowed. Each of them shifted their posture. “Back in the dungeon, Janica and I made it all the way to the ninth floor by ourselves. I found a hidden item that opened up a portal all the way to floor twenty-nine.”

  “Whoa, seriously?” Thomas asked.

  “Seriously,” I said. “It was a trap that Clarity set for me. I don’t know how, but he knows me a little too well. Instead of going back to town and finding y’all to help save Henry. Instead of taking a whole team into the boss room, I decided to go with just Janica. See, I didn’t really want to save Henry. I wanted to save myself. You all probably know about the $50,000 reward for helping the developers find the source of the corruption in IO. Well, it’s in this dungeon. When we created the dungeon, the witch gave me a clue. She said, ‘Together we can change the world.’ That’s the slogan of a small AI company in Chicago that my parents interviewed with before they died. I didn’t want to share that information or the shortcut to the boss room. I wanted to defeat Clarity by myself, find a clue at the end of the dungeon, then open up a ticket with the game masters and prove my case. That’s the darkest truth. I’m selfish. I risked Janica’s life for my own gain. And Henry’s.”

  Silence followed my confession. Silence that lasted moments. I didn’t know if anyone would forgive me. If they even understood. But a weight seemed to have lifted off of my chest. A freedom. At least the truth was out of me.

  “Thanks for letting me say all that,” I said, not waiting for their reactions. “But that’s not the only reason I asked Arthur to bring you back here.”

  I removed the Shining Enchanted Wire from my inventory, and set it down in front of me. Over the past hour, while I had waited for them to log in, I had worked the metal. Using the pliers that Dread had given me, I shaped it. I curved, kinked, and bent it. The glyph I had made was circular, about six inches across, with a five-pointed star in the middle. It looked like a Christmas ornament. I had found a glyph in Bill’s book called a Dampener. It was used to create small pockets of space protected from other glyphs. Like the device that the bartender had used in the Dancing Cougar.

  My design was nearly complete. A glyph, like any circuit, needed to be never-ending. Mana needed to flow around and around forever. I had waited to finish the glyph until this moment.

  I issued a silent plea. Then with my pliers, I bent the end of the wire, connecting it with the other end, forming a connection. I twisted them together.

  Nothing happened. I cursed. Something was off. And then the stars in the wire began to glow. A sphere of light brightened around the glyph and grew until it encapsulated me in my cage, pushing back the purple aura that filled the room. Like I was sitting in a bubble.

  I heard a gasp, but ignored it. I didn’t know how long my device would last, but I knew it wouldn’t be for long. I needed every second. I looked at my character sheet. My stamina and mana regeneration had been restored from negative ten to the positive. I watched as my mana and stamina ticked up… up… The moment my stamina hit two per second, I activated Spiritual Embodiment.

  Janica popped into existence. She looked confused and angry. “I will actually kill you this time, Warren,” she said. “I’m not even joking.”

  “Janica!” Rowan and Cassandra called out in unison.

  “Kill me later,” I said. “We only have moments. Maybe seconds. We’re being held hostage by that totem over there. Can you…”

  Janica nodded. She approached the bars of my cage and slipped her hand through first. The bars were tight, possibly too small for her body to squeeze through. She stretched her body to its thinnest. A grunt erupted from her lips as she pushed through. She flew across the room, tumbling end over end into a cage on the other side, then fell to the ground.

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  “That thing will drain your stamina,” I called.

  She righted herself and removed her mace. She twirled in the air, harnessing the drama of the moment. Then, like Happy Gilmore from the movie, she swung her mace at the totem like a golf club, sending it flying across the room. It shattered against the ceiling, wooden pieces flying everywhere.

  The result was instantaneous. Each of my fellow prisoners sat up, their stamina restoring from zero.

  People clapped and cheered.

  Janica bowed once, twice, three times. Then waved for us to continue our applause.

  “Alright, alright,” I said. “Let us out already.”

  “Do you have a key?” she asked.

  “I have a lock pick,” Cassandra said. “And twenty-five Expertise,” she said. “It’s from the Thief Job.”

  “Why didn’t you pick the lock earlier?” Christian asked.

  “Because it takes stamina, dummy,” Cassandra replied. She removed a set of tools, reaching through her bars and working at her own cage first.

  A clicking sound signaled her success.

  She pushed the door open and rolled out of the cage.

  “Warren’s first,” she said, “for setting us free.”

  #x200e “I set you free,” Janica said. “I thought we covered that. Don’t give Warren too much credit. It goes to his head.”

  “Goes to my head?” I asked.

  Cassandra picked the lock on my cage, then moved on, opening every cage, including the ones that had nobody inside.

  I picked up the glyph before stepping out, inspecting its battery life. I had expected it to drain in seconds, but the charge surprised me.

  Glyph of Dampening

  Item Class: Glyph

  Item Charge: 59/60.

  I disconnected the two ends with my pliers, and the sphere of light winked out of existence.

  I stepped out of my cage. The others stood there, looking at me. Maybe they didn’t know what to do with my confession.

  Rowan walked up to me and gave me a hug. She pulled me to her with strong arms. “Thanks,” she whispered. “For your honesty. I don’t fully forgive you, but I understand a little better. The need to take care of your family first. To settle for what you need and not what you want.”

  “Hey,” Janica said. “That’s enough of that. Get out of my way so I can murder him.”

  Rowan turned me around, holding my hands behind my back. “Get him, Janica.”

  Janica flew at me and poked my ribs. “That’s for not listening to me.” She poked me again. “That’s for sending me back to level one.”

  “And he lied about why he was going after the boss,” Cassandra told Janica. “It wasn’t for Henry at all. It was for money.”

  Janica raised her eyebrows, then punched me in the sternum.

  The air left my lungs, and I found myself unable to breathe.

  “That’s for lying to me,” she said. She looked at Cassandra. “Anything else?”

  “Did you know about the Integrator passive?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about betraying these guys?” she motioned to Arthur and his friends.

  “Yeah, I knew about that.”

  “What about the fact that he can create spells from scratch?”

  #x200e Janica looked at me. “What’d you create?”

  “Fire,” I said, coughing. “And Fireball.”

  “Seriously? So we’re only Ice and Earth away?”

  “Away from what?” Rowan asked.

  “Elementalist,” I said.