Adam Drake - Blackout

“Vee!” Mudhoof cried.

I now stood directly behind the mayor and reached back to my empty quiver. With a single word an arrow appeared within it and I snatched the arrow out. Its feathers were bright red, and the tip glowed with a molten heat.

Mudhoof lost the grip of one hand, and he slid backward down the ax’s handle. He was shouting incoherently.

I fired.

The magma arrow struck home, burying itself deep into the back of the mayor’s misshaped head.

The mutant stopped inhaling and screamed with agony. Hot lava spewed from his mouth and out from his eyes and ears. Like a volcano, the lava gushed over him, melting him down in waves.

In moments, all that remained was a bubbling pool of molten rock.

I looked to Thorm and Feign. The black acid had vanished and the Holy Knight had dropped the barrier. Both looked at the mayor’s lava pool in amazement.

Mudhoof lay on the ground looking bewildered, one hand still gripping his ax handle for dear life.

I ran over to him. “Are you okay, Muddie?”

The minotaur looked up at me, wide eyed, and said, “This quest sucks.”

“That was intense,” said Thorm. He held a hand over a dark blemish on the armor of one arm where the black vomit had touched it. The armor glowed, and the blemish vanished.

“Thank you for your quick reaction,” said Feign to Thorm. “I shudder to think what the result would have been.”

“Not good,” I said and satisfied they were okay, walked over to Mudhoof who stood next to the molten mound that had been the mayor. The lava had hardened, but was still lethally hot.

Mudhoof said, “If this mayor idiot was our first fight, what are the rest going to be like?” It was strange to hear doubt coming from him. We’d adventured together many times, and he’d never expressed this much concern over a quest.

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging and watched the molten mayor puddle cool. “Probably worse, would be my guess. Quests usually get progressively difficult the further along you go. I’m under the impression we have our work cut out for us today.”

“That voice he used,” Feign said. “Someone was speaking through him. Taunting us. The final boss, perhaps?” Nearly every big quest had a final bad guy to fight to gain access to the quest’s greatest loot.

“Guy had it out for us, that’s for sure,” said Mudhoof. He hefted his great ax onto one shoulder. “Nice play with that arrow, Vee. We could have wiped right here. Just as we were starting. We would have been the laughingstock of the whole game. Not something I would have enjoyed.”

I patted the minotaur on the elbow, the highest spot I could reach. “The game caught us with our guard down, so to speak. But now we’re armed with the special knowledge we didn’t have before.”

“What’s that?” Mudhoof said.

“That we need to treat every encounter as a possible wipe scenario. No getting lazy, or expecting an easy ride.”

Thorm and Feign came to stand next to the rocky puddle. Phlixx threw pebbles into it and giggled at the hissing noise they made.

“He didn’t drop any loot,” Mudhoof said. “I figure after all that we deserve something more than this puddle of crud.”

“It hasn’t cooled enough, yet.” To Feign I asked, “Perhaps you can speed things up a little?”

The ice mage gave a small bow. “Of course. Allow me.” He leaned forward and blew out as if at a candle. A cold gust of icy air enveloped the hot rock. It crackled loudly, then turned from a hot red to black.

“That should do it,” Feign said.

Phlixx tossed another pebble and when it landed, the mass of black rock shattered and crumbled to dust. Soon it all faded away.

“Okay,” Mudhoof said. “Where to next? The town? He was the mayor so that makes sense.”

Stating the obvious was Mudhoof’s way of dealing with his anger, so I didn’t poke fun at him. At least not right now. “That sounds like a plan. We’ll go see what the mayor was ranting and raving about.”

We continued down the trail, but now more on edge than ever. This game had proven it would throw in fatal encounters from the get-go and we needed to respect that. I kept Phlixx on snoop mode while Thorm had cast an aura of alertness over the entire group. That should boost our perception and limit any potential of a surprise.

Soon we reached a fork in the trail. A crooked sign pointing north said, ‘Old Mine’, while another said ‘Ashbrook’, pointing west.

“Should we take a vote?” I asked the group. It was common etiquette to ask for other members opinions when faced with a decision to make.

Mudhoof shrugged. “It’s your show, Vee. I’ll follow you whichever direction you take us.”

“Yes, I believe you are our de facto leader,” Feign said with a smile. “It is your quest after all.”

“Lead the way, m’lady,” said Thorm.

Phlixx crossed his arms and sneered at the men. “That’s right. You know who the boss is here.”

I laughed. “Okay, fine. Be that way,” I said and looked at the signs. “The mayor screamed about Ashbrook so we’ll check that out first. But I think we’ll find ourselves in the Old Mine soon enough.”

We headed west.

The trail became a simple cobblestone road, but we didn’t see any other travelers along the way. Mudhoof took this to be a bad sign stating the game was bottling up everything in one place. I begrudged him the point.

The strange black tower became more clear as we got closer yet just as confusing to look at. Was it an actual tower with beings inside or was something more sinister at work? Feign thought we’d probably end up there if we survived the journey.

The road turned out of the forest and we emerged right on the edge of Ashbrook. It looked like every typical medieval fantasy community the game likes to create. Stone-brick buildings wedged up against each other and crowding over a narrow road.

We paused, taking in the new environment.

“No one is around to welcome us,” Mudhoof said. “There’s always a greeter of some type or other. If not to give you a quest then to annoy you with a history of the place.”

It was also silent. No crowd noises or wagons rolling over stone or hawkers trying to sell their wares. Nothing.

On a hunch I checked my quest tracker which logged our progress.

’ After your encounter with the mayor you decide to investigate Ashbrook and what befell its inhabitants .’

I read this to the others.

“Simple enough,” said Thorm. “But I’m not taking any chances. Keep your eyes peeled.” He insisted on leading the way.

As we entered the town-proper the shadows of the buildings fell over us and I felt a chill. Normally, I welcomed the presence of shadows, but this was off. Something was very wrong.

Each building we passed appeared empty, even the shops.

“Maybe we should break in to some of these places and loot them,” suggested Mudhoof.

“And how would that be helping the residents of the town?” I countered.

Mudhoof shrugged. “I should have rolled a thief. They get all the fun.”

The further along the street we went the colder it got. Again, I resorted to adjusting my simulation suit’s temperature controls.

Mudhoof shivered. “I’m freezing off my bull-bits. Someone turn up the heat.”

I said to Feign, “You must be enjoying this.”

The ice mage shrugged. “Now you know what it’s like to be me all the time. Still, this drop in temperature is an indication of bad magic. Demon magic, possibly.”

This made us even more wary.

We passed by side streets and when I looked down them it was more of the same. Nothing. No people, no activity.