One Minute to Midnight (4 page)

"Right on." Tony said. He looked up at
some smaller flying creatures that were brandishing large iron
maces "Hey Willy, watch out for those gargoyles."

Willy was already ahead of him, and
his dragon had caught a whiff of the offenders from more than a
mile away. His dragon shot a cone of flame toward a band of
incoming gargoyles, and set them ablaze. As they fell to the earth
their screams were music to the dragon's ears. It
laughed.

"I'm going to come back later and eat
their ashes." Said the dragon.

"You speak? How wonderful. What's your
name?" Willy asked.

"Bartholomew the Kind, at your service
my lord." The dragon said.

"Pleased to finally meet you in
person. I had no idea dragons could talk, since you don't do it in
the game." Willy said.

"We're a long way from there, Master
William. Ha ha ha." Bartholomew laughed.

Minutes later, they were in the black
courtyard, facing an army of demonic undead and a cavalcade of
monsters. They remained motionless as the players approached and a
giant ogre blocked their passage into the court. He looked
menacingly down at the three adventurers and snarled, giving them
an evil grin as he hefted a two-handed battle-axe, easily the size
of an adult human.

"You boys ready for this?" Scott
asked.

They nodded. "Let's get it
done."

"I got you on heals." Tony
affirmed.

"I'm ready for ranged damage. You hit
him hard, and I'll keep firing." Willy said.

Scott rode in on his horse, charging
the giant beast as he roared a battle cry. His warhorse slammed
into the ogre knocking it back as he stood on the saddle and leapt
forward with his battle-axe. Scott cleaved down, slashing the ogre
across its right wrist, causing it to drop its weapon. However, as
Scott halted, the ogre smacked him in the face, knocking him over
on his back. Tony began to cast a healing protective spell, and
marveled as purple light emanated from his fingertips. Scott felt
his energy begin to rise, and he quickly leapt to his feet to
charge again. The ogre saw him coming and picked up a giant log. It
swung down as Scott performed a forward roll, springing up and
slicing the ogre in its stomach. Its entrails sloshed out onto the
ground, making a thick wet slapping sound as the ogre moaned in
agony. It swung one final time with the dead tree, striking Scott
in the side. His plate armor deflected the blow and as he spun
clockwise Scott ducked down and cut the ogre behind the knees. It
went down, and when Scott looked up he saw that Willy, true to his
word, had fired three times into the ogre. It sat on its knees
wavering, with nine crossbow bolts in its face, a huge gash in its
stomach, and no ability to stand. With a crash, it fell forward,
clearing the way for them to enter the courtyard.
The ensuing battle with the undead took them another forty minutes
to complete, and when they got to the gate each of them could feel
the battle fatigue associated with a huge surge of adrenaline in a
fight.

"This was a lot easier behind a
keyboard." Scott breathed heavily. He was leaning against the
two-story tall iron door leading into the castle.

"Yeah, agreed. We have to keep going
though; this is just the beginning of the dungeon." Willy said,
panting.

Scott and Willy were covered in black,
sticky, orc blood, and looked like they had been crawling through a
tar pit. The undead lay strewn about like cord wood, their corpses
fading into the ether as they vanished back into the game world.
Tony strutted up to them, a huge grin plastered on his
face.

"You two look tired. What's the
problem?" Tony joked. Scott knelt over, putting his hands on his
knees.

"We have a ways to go, boys. No sense
hanging out here all day." Scott said. He had a slash across his
right cheek from one of the zombie’s sharp claws, so Tony wiggled
his fingers and the gash went away, leaving a deep scar. Scott felt
his face, smiling, but the smile faltered when he touched the
scar.
"Chicks dig scars, pain heals, and glory lasts forever." Tony
said.

"I guess so." Scott said, shrugging
with a small smirk.

He turned around and kicked open the
large iron door. Inside the castle, they faced a grand staircase
leading up to an enormous stained glass window depicting a spider
encasing a human sized victim in her iron web. On the bottom of
this stained glass masterpiece were images of piles of skeletons
and advancing soldiers clambering over them to strike the goddess.
At the foot of the stairwell were two black knights wearing plate
armor. One had a two handed sword with a blade that, Tony surmised,
had to have been at least six feet in length. The other knight
wielded a morning star, and began to swing it around his head like
an upside down weed eater.
"The map’s changed. I don't recognize this from the game at all."
Willy said.

"Welcome to your doom, young warriors.
I love this realm of yours because it took me no time at all to
renovate the castle." A hideous cracking voice said from the
shadows. "Do you like the changes?"

"Show yourself! Let's get this over
with, spider demon!" Scott yelled into the cavernous room.
Willy aimed his crossbow at the knight on the right and fired a
volley of bolts. One of them entered the knight’s face-shield and
it fell backward like a large beetle, groaning in pain. It began to
stand again as the other knight rushed from the top of the
stairwell toward Scott. The knight slashed down, and Scott parried
the blow, sending a shower of sparks flying into the gloom. Willy
fired a volley at the other, piercing the steel plating of the
knight's chest armor. Then, as the knight raised his morning star
again, he fired three bolts into its armpit, and rolled out of the
way to draw attention away from Tony. Meanwhile, Scott kicked his
knightly opponent in the chest, but was knocked backward on his
rear end as the heavier, larger adversary stood his ground and
laughed.

"You are all going to die here!" It
growled.
Then, it raised its face-shield to reveal the decomposing face of
what may have been a human head at one time. "That’s right! Look at
your future. You three will be the slaves of Lady Kalindora before
this day is through!"

Scott leapt forward and punched him in
the nose, crushing it in with devastating force. Scott's gauntlets
absorbed the blow to the knight’s face, and he struck again,
destroying the rotted left eye of his opponent. But the knight was
not so easily defeated, and it managed to slip a dagger under
Scott's chest plate, skewering him in the rib cage. It knocked the
wind out of him and he fell backward onto the floor, gasping for
breath as the knight raised its two handed sword in preparation for
a final downward strike.
"No you don't!" Tony yelled, and cast a life-draining spell on the
demon.

While his right hand drained life from
the knight, his left one diverted that energy into Scott, healing
him with green light. The knight began to waver where he stood as
he struggled to raise the sword and strike out at Tony, but it was
to no avail. The large knight toppled over in a heap of metal, his
flesh turning to dust that blew and swirled around in the
draft.
Willy holstered the crossbow and ran toward the other knight in
what he would later consider a colossal error in judgment. He
removed a boot knife from its sheath and jumped through the air in
an impressive display of acrobatics. He performed two forward
summersaults in the air with his knife pointed down. The knight
sidestepped out of his way, allowing him to pass by, and then
struck him hard in the back with his fist. Willy hit the floor with
a thud, smacking his head on a granite stair. Far away in the
darkness, he could hear Lady Kalindora laughing at his pain.
Consciousness wavered as he lay there for a moment, desperately
trying to regain his senses. Instinct told him to roll out of the
way as the morning star’s spikes came down with a crash beside
where his head had been seconds before. Willy got to his knees, and
stabbed the knight in the only exposed part he could see, the back
of its knees. With lightning reflexes he slashed one, and then the
other, and then rolled out of the way as the knight fell onto his
back. As it landed, the knight’s face-shield popped up and its head
was beside Willy, who threw a hammer fist punch with his blade
directly into the forehead of his enemy. The undead knight bellowed
once, and turned to dust just as his partner had.

"Wow! That was intense!" Scott said,
picking himself up off the floor. "Thanks boys well played. Too bad
we don't get experience points for this in the game." The three of
them chuckled.

Deafening silence followed as the
three warriors stood at the foot of the long staircase, staring
into the stained glass horror show at the top. Lady Kalindora had
quieted, and no longer cackled or taunted them.

"I think she's taking us seriously,
now." Tony said. He looked around in the darkness above them, but
could see nothing.

"It's still in here, and too quiet for
my taste. Where did she go?" Willy asked. He was looking around as
well, his crossbow unholstered and at the ready.

"Good question, let's go find out."
Scott replied.
They crept up the staircase looking up, forward, and behind them as
the eerie silence was broken only by their footsteps.

"Well, this is creepy." Tony said.
They could hear the wind whistling down a hallway at the top of the
stairs.

When they reached the second floor
they were confronted by two divergent hallways. One was empty, and
the other had a group of the shambling ghouls wandering
around.

"I say we check the empty one first
and then work our way back if that doesn't pan out." Scott
said.

"Where's your sense of adventure? We
should definitely go down the monster hallway. More experience."
Willy said with a smile. Tony and Scott looked over at him, but
they were not smiling. "Or, we could go that way." Willy
grinned.

As they walked down the empty hall,
they admired the hanging tapestries of various regal human men and
women. The eyes of those trapped in their paintings seemed to
follow the trio, mocking their progress with apathetic gazes from
beyond the grave. These were the faces of those who lived long ago,
and had experienced a far different life than the twenty-four hour
a day Internet, TV watching, and mall shopping crowd of this
generation.

"This just gets better and better. One
of the heads in those paintings turned to face me back there." Tony
said.

"Well, with any luck we'll be out of
here soon and heading home." Scott said. He was moving his eyes
across the ceiling and moving slow with his battle-axe ready. Down
the corridor something moved in the dark and vanished into thin
air.

"How long is this hallway anyhow? It
just keeps going." Willy said.

"Quit bitching, at least we're not
surrounded by zombies." Scott replied.

"I
wanted
to go that way." Willy said.
"Hey, where's Tony?"

They turned around and Tony was
gone.
"It looks like you boys are short one healer. Such a pity. The
first rule in combat is to always protect the healer. Without him,
well…" Lady Kalindora said. She was somewhere close.

"Well, shit." Scott said. He shook his
head in disgust. "We're coming for him, you coward!" He
screamed.

"Meet me on the roof, boys. Come claim
your prize." She hissed.

A portion of the wall slid open,
revealing a set of upward stairs.

"After you." Willy said.

Scott fixed him with a wry glare,
sighed, and began to climb the stairs. At the top they could see
daylight and a doorway leading out of the darkness.

"You think those dragons are still up
there?" Willy asked. As if in answer to his query, they saw a large
dark wing eclipse the light of the door for a split second, and
then it was gone.

They moved up in silence,
feeling the severity of their situation. With Tony gone, they would
have to be on their toes against Lady Kalindora. They both hoped
their friend was still alive, and when they reached the top of the
stairs, they quickly learned the truth of the matter. Tony was
dangling from a pole overhanging the open bailey, like a worm on
the end of a fisherman's rod. He squirmed and struggled to break
free of the webbing holding him, and as his friends entered the
court he looked at them with such fear in his eyes, that it
threatened to steal their resolve. The dragons were still circling
overhead, but paid no attention to the warriors below. Willy
suspected they were on sentry duty against intruders. One police
car had already arrived at the scene, but was promptly set ablaze,
along with the vehicle’s occupants.
"Guys be careful, she just went…" Tony started.
"Behind you!" Lady Kalindora said. She leaped effortlessly over
Tony and floated down with grace twenty feet away from Willy, and
Scott.
Willy wasted no time and threw his boot knife at the web strand
holding Tony up. With a
thwick
sound, the strand popped and Tony dropped to the
ground like a hot rock. Scott skipped the usual heroic monologue
and rushed forward, quickly severing one of her legs with his
battle-axe. The spider screamed in pain as poison dripped from her
mandibles, spilling onto the ground in green stinking pools. Her
severed leg twitched and jerked as the nerves died. The next round
was hers, as she kicked Scott in the crotch. Luckily, the armor he
wore protected him for a potentially painful ending. Willy cut
Tony’s hands free. Tony quickly cast the life drain spell once
more.
"Nice try, healer, but you need to be much more adept at that spell
and a little higher level." Lady Kalindora shrieked with
laughter.