Networking

  “Your… dead horse?” I said.

  “My dead magic horse,” Will said, stomping off towards a clearing in the grass.

  “Oh my god, Sugarcube is coming back?” Anna said, running to join us.

  “Aw fuck, boss, don’t tell me your pal here’s got a celestial steed. We didn’t cover that shit in our contract,” Chum said.

  “What is he talking about?” I said.

  “Sugarcube is my real, magic horse. He comes from the heavenly realms. I didn’t want to mention it because you were making fun of my unicorn related near-death experience,” Will said. He was now kneeling down, and padding at the dirt, then began drawing a circle in the soil with his finger.

  “I didn’t know you could do magic,” Anna said.

  “Just the one spell,” Will said.

  “Dude, I was feeling really bad about you losing your horse,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, I did actually lose ten acquaintances that were pretty close to being friends. I deserve your pity, even if Sugarcube is coming back,” Will said. He did still pause at the mention of his slaughtered comrades, but there was a palpable excitement in his voice anyways.

  “Boss, no, for real, that horse is going to try to kill me,” Chum said.

  “It was alright the last time,” I said.

  “It was probably waiting for me to fall asleep so it could trample me while I slept,” Chum said.

  “Ssh, let me work, I’m bad at this,” Will said.

  We all took a few steps back from his prepared ritual circle, and he opened up a binder notebook, and began reading off of it while looking at a decent approximation of an arcane sigil. There were a lot of syllables in that spell, enough for at least a third tier one, but then again I knew that rituals worked differently and assumed that there were a few spells cast not using the standard casting procedure the Journal regularly went on about.

  When he finished his chanting, the circle filled with impenetrably deep white fog that then began shifting whiter and whiter until it was glowing like a cloud barely covering the sun. Then there came the sound of hooves and the unmistakable whinny of a horse. All of a sudden, out of the mist, just as if it had run through it rather than emerged from it there came a white horse, taller at the shoulder than any of our heads and still saddled and armored like the first time I’d seen it in a crashing charge against my enemies. It head-butted Will affectionately, but with enough force that I could tell just by the sound of its forehead hitting his chestplate that I would have been knocked over and possibly unconscious. Will instead put a hand on the horse’s face and said “Good girl, thank you for coming back to me,” to which Sugarcube answered with a snort. She stomped her front hooves against the ground a few times before she was satisfied and then went on to her horse business.

  “I can just sense it. Waiting to smite me when I least expect it,” Chum said. Then he proceeded to hide behind my head by standing on my shoulders and holding on to my hat.

  This was all interrupted by the arrival of Rafael, who’d been talking to Clarence.

  “Your man is very thorough. I am thinking I have all of the information about this group of yours here. But it is just as clear that I should be asking you about what you are going to do next,” Rafael said, politely ignoring the devil on my shoulder.

  “I am not really in charge here,” I said.

  “He also said that you would say that. But that it would be best to talk to you about it in any case,” Rafael said.

  “Well, Anna and myself at least need to get back to our town. There was some danger there last time I checked and we would be of help,” I said.

  “I need to go to my people too. But I will return, Alex, Anna. We should join forces altogether is my thinking, but I need to see what everyone thinks,” Will said.

  I was about to try to come up with some vague plan, just to have something to say, when I heard insistent scratching from my Journal. The log was full of details, but the scratching was coming from the Chat page, and I could always check in on my personal advancement later.

  Chat

  Alex, I just sensed through the party ability that you are back on this plane. Checkpoint is under attack. We are surrounded and need relief soon. We have built walls and with your wood to stone spell they have been solid, but we cannot hold forever. The portals in the woods need to be destroyed, but we cannot do it fast enough with the hordes descending. The Guild is working in shifts and killing the monsters well. Levels are rolling in for many, but we are losing people. Is Anna with you? -Artemis

  “Shit, I really need to answer this,” I said, fumbling for a pencil in my robes.

  We got them out, Artemis. Clarence is with us and so are 120 others. Will will be bringing reinforcements. I am kicking that cop bastard off unless he’s promised aid for Will. I don’t know what the people stuck in Nothing will want to do next, but Anna, Clarence and I are going straight for Checkpoint. Looking at the skyline and triangulating with the Divine Gate (big glowing pillar in the sky) I don’t think we’re more than 50 miles away. We will push as hard as we can. -Alex

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  I will have you know that, first of all, kid, I have a name and you will address me as such, second-

  I kicked Brandt off the party at that point.

  That’s the first good news I’ve had this whole day. Where are you now. Drawing a simple map of the ritual sites. Copy it somewhere. We need those portals gone. Tell Clarence I said hi. And be careful. Nowhere in this place is safe. -Artemis

  A village, seems like nice people. Led by this guy called Rafael, don’t really get the vibe vis-a-vis structure of organization, but at least doesn’t seem like an asshole. -Alex

  Ask him if he would allow for a Guild outpost. New ability, too complicated to explain, but could be useful for us both. -Artemis

  I’ll do that. We’ll be there in two days. Maybe tomorrow afternoon if we can rush it. -Alex

  Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. We can hold them a while longer. -Artemis

  I will see you soon. -Alex

  “You don’t look too happy, young man,” Rafael said.

  “We need to go now. Whatever was happening in the woods around Checkpoint has deteriorated and now they’re under a straight-up siege. Will, I’ve added you to my party, you can sense the direction I’m in and should have a chat option in your Journal,” I said.

  “Know how it works, thanks. Alright, sounds like you’ll need the cavalry to come. I will make sure it happens,” Will said. Even as the sun was turning towards the horizon, perhaps two, three hours before sunset, Will got on Sugarcube, dropped down his visor and nodded to us, “Don’t die without me, see you soon,” he said, and moved to leave.

  “Stay safe, good-bye,” I said, and Anna said her good-byes too.

  “So, I am guessing that you will be leaving too. Might not be smart to rush, a couple of your group have got pretty drunk here,” Rafael said.

  “Sorry, it is an emergency, I wouldn’t have interrupted our conversation otherwise,” I said.

  “I know how it is in here. And one of the ways it is, is that you do not go in the woods at night drunk,” Rafael said.

  I thought about it. I wasn’t in charge of these people, and I wasn’t going to give them orders to follow. But I wasn’t going to invite a bunch of drunk people just off a major win to follow me and expect them to refuse, no matter what the smart move would be. They could use their rest abilities and sober up before nightfall, but by then we might as well just go to sleep for the night. That didn’t feel good to me either.

  “They aren’t my army to command. And Checkpoint needs Anna more than it needs a hundred more fighting folk. Would you take care of them for a while? They are far from defenseless and will surely want to return the favor,” I said. My voice started off uncertain, but as I paced looking over the happy camp unaware of the danger beyond the village, I looked back at all the good choices I’d made and the times that my gut had been right about people. So I continued.

  “I am a representative of an Adventuring Guild. We solve problems, create and complete quests, organize monster hunts and many of us are damn good fighters. I am the head wizard of our Council of Wizards. I offer you this- an outpost of our Guild in your village. I am not sure what good it will be yet, but at the very least we should stay in contact,” I said.

  “Are you now, Alex? A wizard, eh? Well, I don’t really know what to think of that Guild business of yours, but you are right. We need to work together. And I will look after your people for now,” Rafael said, and held out a solid, calloused hand to me, and I was sure it hadn’t got that way from any Tower advancements. I shook it, and found to my surprise that my own hand was firm and unshaking in the grasp.

  I then called for Clarence and explained the situation to him. As expected, several of the people that had been drinking wanted to come with us, but between Clarence and myself we had the authority to dissuade anybody. Which, I suppose was the first time in my life I’d had actual authority. Sure they’d made me the head wizard before, but even the other spellcasters in the Guild copied my half-ironic attitude about the role. Here, I had people obey my orders- suggestions I corrected myself- because they had been with me through some awful times and I’d made the choices that meant they’d come out whole. Not all of them. Hell, anywhere but the Tower our attrition rate alone would be enough to make me a garbage leader. But we weren’t anywhere else, and I’d got them out of purgatory and back into the sunlight.

  We departed on foot at around six in the evening. This part of the challenge fields was farther away from the mountains, just beyond the woods that we had started traveling through when we first made it to the second challenge. As such, the trek began along rolling hills of meadow with increasingly frequent rocks and boulders, until we hit the forest edge.

  Clarence was in the lead, ranging ahead with ease that felt mismatched to his late middle age appearance and was certainly Tower enhanced, and with precision and acuity that was just as certainly not. Myself and Anna were both spellcasters, however, and even if she had put more points in her physical attributes than I had, we stumbled behind the rogue and he had to wait for us at the top of each hill. He was much too polite to show his impatience, but he was clearly insistent on not disappointing Artemis, and we were hesitant to disappoint him. In the end we made excellent time, but it had been clear from the go that we wouldn’t make much more than a dozen miles before the sun set.

  It was just as we hit the edge of the forest that the sun set, and we all knew better than to march into the woods at night.

  this dead horse!