“You return!” King Bikhorn cried. “With my gem, as well! I am pleased!”
“Of course,” Van said as he walked up to the dragon. “I am so thrilled to present to you this gem, so that you are able to—” He stopped talking and pointed behind the dragon. “Holy crap, what’s that over there?”
The dragon stared at him blankly. “Really?” it asked. “I am a thousand years old, so do you really think that would work on me?”
This response startled Van. While he had been expecting the dragon to fall for his Distraction skill use, the creature had instead spoken to him… like a real person. Van’s mind darted back to the dragon’s reaction when it had first seen Van. It had mumbled something about things getting more interesting upon seeing Van and, while it had tried to act like it was just giving the standard NPC speech, Van had known there was something off about it.
“We tried!” Van said as he leapt out of the way of the inevitable torrent of flames that would be coming his way. “Now, Sang!”
Sang ran forward, gripping the gem tight. She pulled her arm back and lobbed the gem in a perfect throw. The glowing turquoise gem sailed through the air, but before it could reach the king, it exploded, crashing against some kind of invisible force field that surrounded the dragon.
“Oh crap, run!” Bidane shouted as she scrambled out of the chambers as fast as she could. Dolly, Kylian, and Capello were close behind her. Only Sang remained—she had drawn out her bow and was ready to make a final stand.
Van tried to run to where Sang was, but felt the sharp sting of claws raking across his back. He fell to his knees and, before he could get up, he found himself being grabbed by the dragon.
“Hahahahaha,” the dragon said as he lifted Van up. “Now, that is some serious guts, I’ve got to say. Trying to kill me?”
Sang fired a few arrows at the dragon, but whatever force field surrounded King Bikorn was strong enough to cause the arrows to bounce off harmlessly.
“That was certainly one of the more entertaining things I’ve seen so far,” Bikorn said as it held Van close to its face. The large, yellow eyes seemed to pierce Van’s very soul as he squirmed to escape.
“I’ll tell you what... as you should know, a peasant army is of no real concern for me, and now that the gem, the only thing capable of doing me any harm, is gone for good, I’m going to be an exceptionally merciful dragon. You humans might be annoying, whiny, and frustrating, but I’ll be damned if you aren’t brave and tenacious, as well! For your mad courage in fighting against me, I, King Bikorn, hereby reward you with the rights to claim yourselves as a mercenary company.”
The words ENTER MERCENARY COMPANY NAME immediately appeared before Van. He let out a sigh of relief. The test had just been for show! They hadn’t blown their chance at becoming mercenaries at all. He paused for a few minutes as he considered what to call their group. With a shrug, he wrote in the words: The Iron Dragon Mercenaries. The title had a good ring to it, and would make sense when they had a dragon for a mount.
The game display immediately showed the stats and members of the mercenary company, and Van grinned. They had successfully completed the quest.
“Nice work, pal,” the dragon whispered to Van.
Van titled his head and looked at the dragon. “Huh? What did you say?”
The dragon said nothing more, merely grinning at him. It dropped him on the ground and resumed its pacing routine.
“Well, that surprisingly went well,” Sang said as she went over to check on Van.
“Where’s the rest of the crew?”
“They panicked and ran the moment the plan failed,” Sang said. “Such cowards.”
“I don’t know if it’s cowardice when they literally have no chance of winning,” Van replied.
“It’s only cowardice when you leave your own behind,” Sang grumbled. “Come on. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
As they walked out of the castle, the experience point tally appeared in front of them.
“Wow!” Van said, “That’s enough experience points to level up!” He quickly pulled up his character display and took a look at his options.
Grinning, he saw that he would now have one of the more powerful bard spells for this level. He selected The Dancing Fool’s Song. This song would force any humanoid enemy who heard it to dance until the song ended. It was highly powerful, as it would make any enemy completely helpless. Plus, he could probably test the spell out on Sang, forcing her to dance. That would be hilarious to watch.
Chapter Seven
Van squinted as the case to the pod slowly opened. They had been inside of the game for the max amount of time allowed—nearly 19 straight hours—and as much fun as it had been, he felt exhausted.
“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” said a familiar voice. Van looked up to see that it was Agent Neil hovering over him.
“Neil?” Van asked, coughing a little. Hydration was accomplished intravenously when in the tube, but his mouth always felt incredibly dry after playing for such a long time.
“In the flesh,” Neil said as he grabbed Van roughly by the arm and pulled him out of the tube.
“Easy, easy,” Van said. “I’m up.”
“We don’t have a lot of time here,” Neil said as he glanced around. Van realized that the operators who were monitoring the game and responsible for running the operation weren’t around. It was just him and Neil.
“What’s going on?”
“We’re hitting some snags in this operation,” Neil said as he motioned for Van to follow. “So, I figured I’d let you in on some state secrets.”
They walked into Van’s bedroom. It was only marginally better than the one in the abandoned office building where they had been hiding a month ago, but at least it had a softer bed.
Neil slammed the door shut behind them and looked around nervously.
“What are you looking for? This room is barely large enough for the both of us, let alone a third person,” Van commented as he sank into his bed. While he was interested in what Neil had to say, he was feeling sleepy from all of that gaming.
“Things are heating up internally. I’ll spare you the politics, but this program is looking at an early death if we don’t find something juicy soon,” Neil said. “But fortunately for you, I’ve got us a way out of this mess.”
“And what would that be?” Van asked.
Neil grinned. “Agent Sang caught us an actual informant from Draco. He’s some Draco pro named Kenwar. You ever heard of him?”
Van shook his head. “There’s too many to know them just by name.”
“Anyway, we nabbed this guy a few hours ago. Gave himself up and wants protective custody from Draco. Says he knows all sorts of interesting things.”
Van frowned. “That seems awfully convenient.”
“It is,” Neil said. “It’s convenient enough for me to wonder what kind of grift Draco is running. It could be a simple double-agent thing, or it might be more complicated. But still, the first rule to counterintelligence is to never let your opponent know that you’ve caught on. So… we’re hooking up a new pod and sending Kenwar in with you guys.”
“I’m sorry, you’re doing what now?” Van asked.
“This Kenneth guy is really smooth. Easy going, calm and unflappable. He seems to think that he’s completely fooled us. So, I say we act like we take the bait. He’s claiming he can lead us to one of the decision makers, someone who’s a core member of Draco. He’s also telling us that he knows a work-around that will let him shut down a player’s ability to log out. According to Sang’s reports, you guys have been trying to build a group to go capture someone important, right? Now we can be sure that he can’t escape. The best part is, since he’ll be locked in the pod, he’ll have to tell us the truth.”