Towns and Towers: A New Land Read online

  Towns and Towers:

  A New Land

  By Shawn Kass

  Copyright © 2016 by Shawn Kass

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or organizations, is either entirely coincidental or done so honorifically.

  Copyright © 2016 Shawn Kass All rights reserved.

  ISBN-10: 1533476071 ISBN-13: 978-1533476074

  Dedication

  To my wonderful wife Elizabeth, my true partner in this reality and all others.

  Special thanks to LM for all your time and effort put in to helping my stories reach the rest of the world.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 …………………………………………………….. 5 Chapter 2 …………………………………………………….. 14 Chapter 3 …………………………………………………….. 28 Chapter 4 …………………………………………………….. 38 Chapter 5 …………………………………………………….. 47 Chapter 6 …………………………………………………….. 74 Chapter 7 …………………………………………………….. 101 Chapter 8 …………………………………………………….. 112 Chapter 9 …………………………………………………….. 131 Chapter 10 …………………………………………………….. 138 Chapter 11 …………………………………………………….. 146 Chapter 12 …………………………………………………….. 160 Chapter 13 …………………………………………………….. 170 Chapter 14 …………………………………………………….. 189 Chapter 15 …………………………………………………….. 201 Chapter 16 …………………………………………………….. 219 Chapter 17 …………………………………………………….. 261 Chapter 18 …………………………………………………….. 283 Chapter 19 …………………………………………………….. 323 Epilogue 1 …………………………………………………….. 362 Epilogue 2 …………………………………………………….. 363

  Chapter 1

  “No, Babe, I’m just getting in now,” said Sam into his cell phone as he walked through the door of his apartment. “Why don’t you come over?”

  “I can do that, but can we go out for dinner? I’m starving.”

  Putting his keys on the wall hook, Sam closed the door behind him and said, “Sure, Quinn. What are you thinking: burgers, pizza, or something else?”

  “I don’t know. You can decide.”

  “Oookay,” said Sam, drawing out the word as he tried to think of something else, clearly understanding that his first few options weren’t what she was interested in having for dinner. “I’ll come up with something. When do you think you’ll be here?”

  “Probably about ten minutes.”

  Doing the math in his head, Sam figured that ten minutes to her normally meant about thirty in real time, but with her previous comment that she was starving, he could knock off at least a little and estimate that she would be over in about twenty or twenty-five minutes. Accepting this, he said, “All right, see you then.”

  After Quinn hung up on her end, Sam sat down on the couch and put his cell phone on the coffee table. Seeing his Pita Dual Screen gaming system sitting there on top of his latest copy of Gamerz magazine, he figured he might as well kill the time by trying to beat the final boss in his most recent Japanese roll playing game, or JRPG for short.

  Sam had played first-person shooter games, also known as FPS games, and racing games in the past. He even tried a few fighting games with friends, but his real passion was for role playing games where he could develop a character, level them up, and save the world. He didn’t know exactly what it was, but something about them spoke to his inner hero complex and allowed him to feel the things that were happening in the game, like there was some actual progress going on rather than just beating up or shooting some random enemies which in the end simply advanced the plot but didn’t do much else. The other benefit, which he was all too happy to point out, was the fact that most games cost between thirty and sixty dollars, and those other games usually only lasted between ten and twenty hours before a player finished the main story line. JRPGs, on the other hand, tended to last for a hundred hours or more, especially when the player was a completionist, like himself, who tried to make sure he got every possible weapon, artifact, and item available as well as went out of their way to face off against every boss, including the secret hidden ones. When you did the math, it meant that he was only paying fifty cents or less per hour of play time, versus the three to six dollars an hour the other games offered.

  Pressing the power button, he let the game system run through its startup procedure, and then selected the Alter World game he wanted from the menu. Once loaded, he picked up with his character standing at his most recent save spot, which happened to be the last one in the game, just outside the Dark Lord’s Temple.

  Opening the menu, he checked his character’s stats and confirmed that Kyoshi, the name he typically called all of his characters, was a level eighty-nine Cleric who had already maxed out his strength and health meters. His intelligence was doing pretty well, as was his dexterity, and he was equipped with several legendary items, which were some of the best gear available in the game. He had thought about getting the other two pieces to complete the ensemble and grinding out the last ten levels to hit the character’s level cap, but that would require him to trudge his way back to the closest town and talk to the guild master who would end up sending him off on yet another side quest. Knowing from past experience that all of that would take hours and that Quinn would be here long before he could get all of that accomplished, he decided to just go for it as is, see what the boss was like, and take his chances. Whether he made it or not, he knew he would end up reloading the game later so that he could get those last items and levels anyway.

  Pushing forward on the left analog stick, he walked his character up to the front doors and entered the temple. Once inside, several creatures attempted to attack him, but he defended himself with a few sword strikes and a well-placed spell. Continuing on, he made his way deeper and deeper into the structure, clearing room after room until he finally came to an ornately decorated wooden door which was four times taller than his pixilated avatar. It didn’t make any sense why the door was so large, but it had become a staple for most JRPGs, and so players accepted its grandiose appearance along with the game logic which dictated that elaborate puzzles always needed to be completed while a player made their way through a dungeon full of monsters. It didn’t make sense, but these things had been around for so long, they were now expected to be in most games.

  Taking a second to prepare himself, Sam opened the game menu, selected one of his three remaining healing potions along with his second to last herb which replenished his magic supply and had his character consume them. Looking at the clock on his cable box, he saw that he had been playing for fifteen minutes already and had somewhere between five to fifteen minutes remaining before Quinn arrived. Determined to do what he could, he used the Master Key he had picked up from a monster guarding one of the previous rooms and entered the Dark Lord’s inner sanctum.

  The Dark Lord’s wretched voice began to ramble on with a string of speech bu
bbles running at the bottom of the screen, but Sam didn’t care about the boss’s reasoning nor his transparent attempt to convince Sam to join the forces of evil and to serve him. Instead of sitting through all of it and waiting for the Dark Lord’s monologue to finish, Sam held down the right trigger button on the Pita Dual Screen and watched as the screen skipped through to the final fight.

  Sam spent several minutes attempting to dodge the Dark Lord’s bolts of lightning, each time physically shifting himself side to side on the couch along with his character until he thought he understood the pattern. Only then did he make his move. His plan was to dodge twice, step closer, dodge again, and then stab his sword into the Dark Lord’s chest. Unfortunately, it was just as he was trying to dodge the second time that there was a knock on his front door, and he lost his focus just long enough to get struck by a bolt of purple energy which took his character’s hit points down to half.

  Frustrated, he cursed aloud, and then called out, “Door’s open!”

  Coming in more hesitantly than normal, Quinn eased the door open and looked around the corner to the couch to find Sam deeply engrossed in his game. Smirking, she said, “For a second I thought something was actually wrong when I heard you cursing.”

  Physically moving with his character to the right, Sam continued smashing the buttons and torquing the analog stick as he said, “Something is wrong. This guy is going to kill me.”

  “Well, once you’re dead, maybe you can tell me where we’re going to eat.”

  Taking a second to hide his character behind a pillar, he used the last of his potions and healed his character one final time before he suggested, “How about Panera?”

  “I guess. I could get a ‘you pick two’ with a sandwich and some soup.”

  Pushing his character forward once again, reinvigorated by the sight of the Dark Lord’s health bar being down to less than half, he said, “Well, I’m pretty open if you want something else. Just give me a second to finish this guy off.”

  “Sure thing,” said Quinn before she sat on the couch next to him. She knew when he was playing a game that one second usually meant more like twenty minutes, so she pulled out her phone and began thumbing through her social media feeds.

  Sam continued to work his pattern, dodging his way in closer and closer to the Dark Lord and then stabbing him with his sword before he quickly backed up and hid from the boss’s retaliatory blow. Each time his stab was successful, Sam talked some nonsensical smack or yelled things like, “America!” at the screen as if the Dark Lord could hear him or cared about his gloating.

  Quickly glancing up at the health bars, he figured he just needed two or maybe three more hits and the Dark Lord would be done, provided, of course, that the Dark Lord didn’t have a second form like many of the bad guys in other video games. If he did, Sam knew that there would be no way he would have enough health to continue, and he would be looking at game over.

  Just as he was thinking this, however, the Dark Lord rose up from his spot on the screen and began flying around in a chaotic pattern, calling in black clouds from the sky for a new and previously unseen technique. As he did this, the name of this new massive attack appeared at the bottom of the screen, and Sam read it aloud, “Nightmare Storm? What the heck is this?” A moment later all of the clouds let loose simultaneously by lighting up the screen with what appeared to be a hundred bolts of violet energy.

  “No way!” Sam yelled at the game just as his character’s health dropped to zero, and in frustration, he pressed the ‘pause’ button extra hard before he tossed the handheld gaming system onto the throw pillow next to him.

  “Did he get you, Babe?” asked Quinn sympathetically.

  “Yeah, he pulled out some super attack. There was no way to block it and I ran out of hit points.”

  Smiling, Quinn said, “It’s all right. You’ll get him next time. Now let’s go get some food.”

  Grunting, Sam rose from the couch, grabbed his keys and cell phone, and headed out with her for dinner.

  * * * The two of them ended up eating at Sensational Saturdays, which was really a knock-off TGI Fridays with a little Ruby Tuesday’s thrown in the menu for flavor. Despite initially

  saying that she didn’t want to order anything fried, Quinn helped herself to at least fifty percent of Sam’s sweet potato fries, a fact that he noticed but wisely said nothing about.

  When they returned to his place, Quinn asked, “You want to watch something?”

  Shrugging, Sam picked up the remote and said, “Sure. What’d you have in mind?”

  Dropping onto the couch with her phone already in hand, Quinn replied, “I don’t know. You could just put on some Netflix, and we can chill.” Then looking up from her phone, she caught his smile, and she amended, “I meant that we could have it on, and you could give your game another shot. I know you said you wanted to try to beat it.”

  Accepting the plan for now, while figuring he might be able to turn things his way later, Sam powered on his TV and selected Netflix from the drop down box. After accessing his computer, the TV displayed his Netflix profile and the most recent shows he had been watching.

  From the couch, Quinn asked, “What is the Knights of Badassdom?”

  Smirking, Sam answered, “It’s a movie about a group of guys who go LARPing, and find a magic book. One thing leads to another and they accidentally conjure up some bloodthirsty demon that wants to destroy the world. You want to watch it?”

  “What’s LARPing?”

  “Its long name is Live Action Roll Playing, but basically it’s where people go around dressed up as medieval characters and duel with fake swords and stuff. All of the participants have to physically act out their characters' actions while they pursue whatever goals are established within the fictional setting they are imagining. They also have to stay in character at all times so when they interact with each other, they have to respond as their character would. You see a lot of it at the Renaissance festivals.”

  Lifting an eyebrow, Quinn asked, “And you watched it?”

  Defensively, Sam pointed out the cover art of the movie as it was displayed on the screen and said, “It had the guy from Game of Thrones.”

  Not looking up from her phone which had just chirped, she asked, “You mean Jaime Lannister?”

  “No, his brother, the midget dude, Peter Dinklage.”

  Not buying into it, Quinn asked, “What else do you have?”

  “Well I was working my way through the new Marvel stuff. They just came out with season two of Dare Devil, and I heard that the Jessica Jones series was good.”

  “Who’s Jessica Jones?”

  “She’s a hero who used to help out with the Avengers or something, but then she got out of the hero business after some really nasty guy kidnapped her. Now she works as a private investigator with an attitude.”

  Looking up from her phone, Quinn said, “Oh, I like strong females in roles. Let’s watch that.”

  Selecting the first episode, Sam pressed play and then strode over to the couch to sit next to her, picking up his game system on the way. Pressing the start button on his Pita Duel Screen to unfreeze the game, he sat down and watched the game screen to see where it would have him start off from, hoping that it would just be outside the last boss’s door and not all the way back at his previous save point. Unfortunately, neither of these happened. The screen just stayed frozen with Sam’s character lying face down on the lightning charred floor.

  Sighing deeply, Sam said, “Great.”

  Already watching and smiling as Jessica Jones threw a guy through the window of her office door, Quinn took a second to realize something was wrong with her boyfriend. When she did, however, she asked, “What’s up?”

  “The system doesn’t want to un-pause. I pressed the button a couple times, even tried a few others, but it’s stuck.”

  “Just restart it. That’s what they always do at work when the computers go down.”

  “Yeah, I was going to, but th
at means I’ll lose my progress, and I was trying to avoid that.”

  After pressing the usual buttons again, Sam blew out a lungful of air and accepted his loss before holding down the power button for ten seconds and forcing it to restart. As expected, the game screen winked out, but before the system’s familiar logo could come up, the whole screen changed to show three thick lines, one red, another green, and the last one blue. Across the middle of these bands of color was a strange looking symbol that looked almost like the outline of Saturn.

  “What the heck?” commented Sam.

  Looking away from the tv, Quinn noticed the colors and asked with concern, “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. The stupid thing won’t restart now.”

  “Maybe someone has a fix online,” Quinn suggested helpfully.

  Shaking his head, Sam pulled out his phone and started looking up the issue on the internet. A moment later, he cussed and said, “Well, that’s just great.”

  Pausing the show, Quinn asked, “What’s it say?”

  Reading from his phone, Sam began, “According to this Redit article, the RGB, otherwise known as the Rainbow Death error, echoes the XBox 360’s Red Ring of Death and the PC Windows Blue Screen of Death errors. It indicates that a technical glitch has occurred and that the system will no longer initiate. There is no easy fix for this, and users are encouraged to contact the closest game system service center to see if they are still covered by their warranty.”

  “I’m sorry, Babe.”

  Grumbling, Sam said, “It’s not your fault,” before he tossed the now useless handheld device back onto the throw pillow. “I’ll just have to deal with it tomorrow.”

  Deciding to try to help take his mind off the broken game system, Quinn wrapped an arm around her boyfriend and pulled him in closer for a kiss before saying, “Well, you can still finish this show with me.”

  Chapter 2

  During Sam’s lunch the next day, he called the game system’s service center using a number he found online and explained his situation. The service center operator assured him that this was a rare occurrence and after checking his purchase history, confirmed that his system was still under warranty. Relieved, he inquired about what needed to be done, and when he got home that day, he packed up the broken system and went directly to the post office. In his haste to get the system fixed, however, Sam neglected to eject the game cartridge from the unit and accidentally sent it off as well.