Starter Village

  The shifting of the space began just as I noticed that we had not, in fact, cleared it out of all monsters. The walls began to shift around us, as did the floor under our feet, and we had to move to stay standing, but from the corner of my eye I saw shadow figures meld into the walls and I could feel the malice of them, if I was not imagining it. There was a terrible glass-against-glass grinding noise all around us, as the labyrinth reshaped around us, until we could begin seeing the shape it was taking.

  None of the passages disappeared, they simply straightened and were made permanent, as we saw the entrance first shift to in front of us and then the mist of the dungeon door dissipate, revealing sunlight and the green of wild country shift into view, far enough that we could make out little detail but that it was there.

  So, what was important in the moment was behind us, and so I turned and saw that the same thing- more or less- was happening behind us. The walls were widening out, rising in height and straightening, until eventually we could see all the way back to the circular boss room. There too the dungeon exit became transparent, and we knew that Adam had done it. There was now a permanent, stable portal between the grounds of the second challenge and Nothing.

  Will was the first to move to action once the shape of this place had mostly established itself. Since, for a change, I had taken almost no damage in a fight I followed right behind him, and soon we were all jogging towards the people we had left behind in Nothing. We reached them, and it had been just over an hour since we left, and so not much had changed. They were still waiting for us, many standing near the entrance. Having been stuck in Nothing for nearly ten days, after the ordeal that the first challenge had been, I could easily understand their enthusiasm. Clarence stepped up first and began a speech to the gathered crowd of dour people in bruised and patched clothes. They looked up to him, both literally and figuratively, and he stood on the stairs leading to the dungeon with a small smile on his face.

  “I know it has been challenging for all of us these past two weeks. Many of you can barely stand the sight of my face by this point, and I must admit that in my darkest moments that feeling has been mutual. But all of that matters little now, as we have been successful in the restructuring of the dungeon into a permanent portal. Mr. Adam successfully transformed the dungeon, and likely lost his life in the process. I ask that you keep his sacrifice in mind with thanks. Come now, open sky awaits on the other side,” he said. There was a stunned silence, and people looked at each other, as if to reaffirm what they were hearing. Then a call came from somewhere in the crowd, crying “fuck yeah!” and soon enough there was a tired cheer going through the crowd here.

  “Why don’t we get moving? Sure, as far as I know the thing is solid, but I don’t want to risk waiting around to find out it closes in n minutes or whatever,” I said. And then the people of Nothing began pressing towards the dungeon entrance in a throng.

  “A moment please, friends, rushing ahead will give you very little advantage. Please understand that it will be a difference of seconds, and I am sure you can bear as much after two weeks. Now, one at a time, and let us get a headcount,” Clarence said, barely above his speaking voice, and everyone listened. In the end, 125 of the 198 people we had had to leave behind in Nothing at the end of the first challenge had lived long enough to leave it now. I wanted to blame myself for the 73 dead, but it was the Tower. It was a miracle of hard labor and sacrifice that any of them still drew breath. And so I could find joy in this triumph as our group began their march into the dungeon gate with me, Anna and Will at their head.

  There seemed to be little of note happening, but for the enthusiastic push behind us. Clarence had taken it upon him to count his people and take the rear, so he was far behind us as we walked through the long obsidian and gold hallway towards the light on the other side.

  When we approached the door, however, the scene in front of it had changed. There were enough figures standing in front of the door and my mind flashed back to the dark elves that had massacred Will’s friends. But as we got closer, they resolved into human shapes, clad in that classic Tower mix of Earth fashion and enchanted gear. They were armed, suspicious and taking a wide enough perimeter around the entrance to be able to respond to whatever came out of the dungeon. At least they were not waiting hidden in ambush, I thought.

  “We’re friendly! From Earth!” Will called out when he saw them, standing next to me and raising his arms up in the air.

  “Happy to hear it. Now come out slowly, no sudden movements, let’s make sure we all stay real friendly, okay?” a man among the people on the other side responded, not lowering his own long blade.

  “It’s not like we cannot take a few dozen if it comes to it,” I whispered to Will, and he shrugged and sheathed his sword.

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  “Not a problem! We’re coming now!” I yelled ahead.

  As we got close to the exit, we could see the environment more clearly now. It was a green and pleasant place, a field or a valley of some sort with rolling hills of meadows. There were several buildings immediately visible, and while many had the prefabricated perfection of token made buildings, others were simple log cabins made by hand.

  “Rafael, it looks like there is a lot of them,” someone said to the man that had spoken to us before.

  “There’s one hundred and twenty five of us. Most of us have been lost in the place between the walls for a very long time,” I called ahead, still approaching slowly.

  “I told you there was something there,” one of the people waiting for us said.

  “Shut up. Do you need medical care? We cannot spare much food,” Rafael shouted back, and by now we were close enough that we scarcely needed shouting.

  He was a tough looking older man, gray haired and wearing khaki shorts and sandals with a dented breastplate and a wide-brimmed panama hat. He had a longsword glowing with magical energy and a suspicious look on his face.

  “No emergency injuries, but if you have a healer we have someone with a badly healed leg,” I said.

  “That can wait. Now, I am Rafael de Leon, the kids decided to call this place the Starting Village, it’s some kind of a video game joke, I think. So who are you, and how did you get here,” Rafael said, as he stepped back from the entrance to let us step back into the world.

  There was almost a pressure I could feel as I entered the much realer space of the second challenge grounds once more. The people around me were suspicious, but had neither apparent malice nor bravado that would have screamed danger to me.

  “My name is Alex Vorhal, and I’m with a group calling ourselves the Adventuring Guild, so I know all about video game jokes. Why we are here is a long and complicated story. The simplest way I can explain it is that we had to leave some people behind at the end of the second challenge. We managed to get them back,” I said.

  “Shit. Goddammit. Are you telling me there was a way to save the poor bastards?” Rafael said. He threw a hand up in the air and lowered his sword to his side when he saw the relatively despondent state of our group, “Very good, Alex, we don’t want any trouble, and we’re going to assume you don’t want any trouble either until you give us reason to do otherwise. Now, let’s wait for all your friends to come through, then we can talk more.”

  While my own and Will’s reaction to finding ourselves under a sunlit sky once more had been visible relief, the people following behind us reacted far more strongly. I first jumped when I heard an audible sob from a large man behind me, but I soon saw him stare directly at the sun crying tears of joy. And he wasn’t the last. As our exiles in Nothing arrived onto the second challenge grounds, they dropped to their knees to touch grass, they fell prone and rolled around among the meadow flowers, and some even hyperventilated in a panic and had to sit down. Much of the tension broke when seeing new friendly faces for the first time in weeks, some of our younger members, a boy and a girl maybe nineteen years old rushed over to the armed folks in front of us and grabbed them in an embrace.

  The suspicion soon melted away in a confused bewilderment, that was nonetheless tinged with empathetic joy. The people waiting for us didn’t seem like they were from the States, though with the magical translation ability that we all had we could hardly be certain, but whatever culture they were from, it was clearly one of openness and camaraderie, as even before the last of us were through the gate, groups were forming of our people and theirs, and from somewhere bottles of hard alcohol had materialized, and by the time Clarence came through only Rafael was still standing in stolid guard, still as serious as ever, and more than a little annoyed with his younger companions.

  “Alex, who are our friends here?” Clarence said, walking up to us in the now well trodden grass.

  “This is Rafael, he seems to lead the people here. Rafael, this is Clarence, one of our better rogues and administrators,” I said.

  “Last one through?” Rafael said.

  “That would be correct,” Clarence said.

  “Hundred and twenty four,” Rafael said.

  “Excuse me?” Clarence said.

  “You said there were a hundred and twenty five of you. I counted a hundred and twenty four,” Rafael said, and Will, Clarence and myself all looked behind us, our stomachs dropping.

  Clarence immediately set to taking another headcount, Will began calling for the rest of our group if anybody was missing, but I knew that Rafael had been right before it was confirmed. Someone had gotten lost in the hallway between the worlds, and I wasn’t going to bet that whoever it was we would see them again. Ten minutes later a dejected Will came up to us.

  “Dominic Small. Didn’t have many friends, so it took a while. He’s gone,” Will said.

  “Fuck. Sorry to hear it. When did it happen?” Rafael said. He’d been hand-rolling a cigarette and now lit it. At this point even he was over his paranoia and sat down on a stone nearby.

  “No idea. There shouldn’t have been a time where anyone was out of sight,” Will said, leaning against the wall of the dirt mound where the entrance to the dungeon had been buried.

  “It’s the portal. There were creatures still in there when the transformation happened. Adam warned us,” I said.

  “So, I take it it is you who took our dungeon away from us then,” Rafael said.

  “Only way out. At least only way for everyone,” I said.

  “Fucking hell, I’d have to be a total bastard to hold that against you then. Sucks though,” Rafael said. He walked up to Will and put a hand on his shoulder, “Listen, kid. You’ve been in this place long enough now. One hundred and twenty four is good. Very good.”

  “Always could be better,” Will said.

  “Then do better next time. Now, what are you all going to do now,” Rafael said.

  “I don’t know about everyone else. But I have to get my horse back,” Will said.