One Minute to Midnight (3 page)

"Yeah man, plus he's got herbalism and
can create some mad potions for us to heal up, and get some mana!"
Tony replied. "I'll call him."

"I'm gonna' go craft some leather gear
for my night elf rogue while we wait." Tony said.

Scott lived two blocks
from Willy, in the opposite direction of Tony, and although the
three of them knew exactly what
they
were talking about, every time
they opened their mouths about Planet Orc War, what they were doing
in it, and the specifics of any of their characters
leveling
,
around anyone not in the know, such as their
parents, or any other friends at school, they received puzzled
looks, like they had sprouted second heads. Minutes later, Scott
turned on his gaming mic, and joined in on the fun.

"Alright, losers. What's on the
agenda?" Scott asked.

"We're heading to the Dakda dungeon,
in Miralase, and we need you to tank it." Tony said.

"OK, let me go get some hot pockets
before this begins. That dungeon takes two hours minimum,
especially if you only have three players." Scott said.

"You're geared to the teeth bro; you
should be able to run through it! I got you on heals." Tony said.
Tony would typically heal each player as they ran through the
dungeon, and Scott's character would absorb the most amount of
damage, while holding the attention of the end level bosses as
Willy and Tony would hit them with their weapons and magic.
"You should really have five players for this dungeon guys. Let's
throw a shout out in trade chat to see if anyone wants to join our
party for damage dealing." Scott said.

"Where are you guys?" Willy
asked.

"I'm flying out to Miralase on my bat.
Hey, there must be some kind of a glitch in the game though. I was
just flying over a graveyard full of zombies and they vanished."
Tony said.

The evening news was playing on a
television behind Willy, and although he was concentrating on the
digital world in front of him, he heard some of what they were
saying.

"This just in. It has just been
brought to our attention that the dead have risen from the grave in
at least one graveyard on the south side of town. If you can
believe this, the walking dead are wearing chain mail armor, and
appear to be medieval warriors." A male newscaster said.

"It must be a Halloween
prank or something. Kids will do anything for attention." A female
newscaster commented.
"It is October first, so you may be right, Sheila. It sounds like
we're off to a
spooktacular
start." The male anchor said. They both laughed
in that fake, tin can way, that news anchors sometimes do when they
think they’re being clever.

"Hey Tony, I think your zombies ended
up in the south side graveyard. Ha ha ha!" Willy joked. The other
two dismissed him.

"OK, it looks like we're on our own.
You guys ready to hit this dungeon?" Tony said.

"Let's do it. I got nothin' better to
do anyway." Scott replied.

"Almost there, give me a
minute." Said Willy.
In about five minutes, the three electronic avatars were standing
before the large black gates of a massive castle. Dragons soared
and swooped far above as black clouds swirled in a purple sky. The
dead lay strewn all around, piles of forever rotting and forgotten
non-player characters that had met their match at the gates of
Sworn Castle. Before they went in, a player from an opposing
faction called
The Swarm
landed next to them and emoted a friendly
gesture.

"Should we gank this guy?" Tony asked.
He wanted to know whether they should kill the opposing faction
character simply for being in their space.

"Leave him, he's probably got friends
hanging around somewhere and we don't need to start trouble with
the swarm." Willy said.

The Swarm was the supposed underworld,
or evil faction and the affiliation faction were the good guys,
white knights, but in reality, all players fought against the game
bosses and monsters. Although the factions were a type of
fabricated brotherhood system in the game, Willy always marveled at
how Planet Orc War players carried their allegiance outside the
game to real life social situations. If you were Swarm in POW, and
revealed that information to an affiliation member, you were seen
as opposition to players who were aligned affiliation faction in
real life. The game makers became ever wealthier as people sought
increasingly elaborate ways to separate themselves from one
another. It was a perfect money making scheme in the digital age,
and people by the millions were hooked on POW.

"I'm clicking the gate and going in."
Scott said. He waved and bowed to the opposing faction player and
vanished from view as the others followed him in.

Once inside the dungeon, they grouped
together and began to run through like they had a hundred times
before. The difference with this run was that every monster they
battled disappeared before they could kill it.

"What's going on? This game is
glitching all over the place. We have to put in a ticket with game
support, because this is BS." Scott growled.
"I don't pay twenty bucks a month to have the game freak out on me
when I'm trying to play, man!" Tony yelled.

A minute later, as Tony
was in another window, lodging a complaint with game support, the
black castle faded around their characters and vanished. The
newscast was still on behind Willy. He turned and saw a young guy
with a tie and Members Only jacket standing in the street holding a
microphone.
"I don't know how to say this, but in the center of Baldwin Park, a
massive black castle has just appeared out of nowhere. There
are
dragons
flying around it, and there is a large monster in battle
armor standing at the front gate. He's got a scroll in his hands
and is beginning to read from it now. We'll try and get a closer
look."

"Kal-El2, Abraxas, and DrDetroit! You
have been summoned to battle by the Lady Kalindora! She is goddess
of the spiders, heiress to the Kingdom of Pain, and will roast your
souls in eternal fire as you dangle from her iron web." The
creature speaking was a large pig-faced orc garbed in black chain
mail and steel plated armor. He rolled the scroll up, turned
around, and walked back inside the castle.
"Holy crap you guys!" Willy screamed. "Turn on the news…
now!"

They each did as they were told, and
were just as dumbfounded as Willy. Real fear began to spread over
them, like the shadow of doom. They couldn’t believe what they were
seeing. Large black dragons soared above the city, and one came in
for a landing, perching nimbly on a tall winding spire. It reared
back its large spiked head and with a loud roar, belched out a long
column of flames, toasting the trees in Baldwin Park. Several
people burst into flames as the dragon aimed his fury at the
ground. Screams of terror rang out as the town people, now dressed
in medieval peasant garb, ran for their lives.

"What's going on?" Tony
asked.

"I have no idea, but I think we're all
experiencing the same hallucination." Scott said.

"We need to meet up, and since Willy,
I mean Abraxas, is in the middle. We should group up there." Scott
said.

"Alright Kel-El2, I mean Tony. I'll
see you over there in a few minutes." Scott said.

"Listen guys, I have no idea what's
happening to us right now, but we have to refrain from calling each
other by our character’s names. It's creeping me out, and it makes
us look like even bigger nerds." Willy said.
"I don't know why I did it. Something compelled me to use your
username. Uh guys… look down at your clothes. Has anything
changed?" Scott said.

"Like what? Oh wow! This is
incredible! I look like my in-game character!" Scott
yelled.

He was surprised to find himself
garbed in plate armor, but it felt lightweight considering the
thickness of the metal. The spaulders on his left and right
shoulders had been fashioned into the skulls of rams when they were
crafted, and wicked purple gems were inlaid in the eyes of each
skull. He could feel the wiry chain mail of the hauberk under his
chest plate, and when he stood and looked down he saw that his
plate boots were spiked at the toe.

"Guys, I'm a tank… in real life! I
have a whole suit of armor on, just like in game." Scott
said.

He felt his pulse quicken and the
blood rushing through him as his excitement grew. Scott's change
was not merely external. He could feel his strength increase as
well, as if he could run through solid stone walls. He turned and
saw a large double-sided axe and leaning against the wall next to
his bedroom. It had gleaming twin blades, and a handle that had
been constructed to look like a long, winding serpent stretching
from leather grip to tip.

"My axe showed up, and now I have a
long red beard, too. What about you guys?"

"I'm in a maroon robe with power
jewels around the shoulders and wrists, and running down the front
in a straight line. They're glowing, and I can feel a weird energy
running through me, like electricity. Seriously, this is weird. A
plant that was dead on my windowsill a few minutes ago just came
back to life. It stood straight up, and bloomed a pretty red
flower." Tony said.

"Well, it looks like we have heals for
this dungeon! What do you have, Willy?" Scott asked.

"I'm wearing a leather armor vest, a
cloth shirt, leather pants and boots, and a minute ago I jumped at
my wall, kicked off of it, and did a double back flip. My eyesight
feels way better. I can see a bird sitting on a fence post a mile
from my house through the bedroom window. It just took flight. Oh
yeah, my in-game crossbow and quiver of bolts is also sitting in
the corner of the room." Willy said.

He picked up his crossbow, and hefted
the weight as he turned it in his hands. It felt more magnificent
in real life than he ever would have anticipated. The crossbow was
crafted from elderberry tree wood, and was decorated with ornate
iron plates on each side. This crossbow could fire three shots at
once, and although he had a quiver of bolts, Willy knew
instinctively that his shots would never run out, and he would
never need to reload. Just like in the game.

"One second, I’ll be right back."
Willy put down the phone, aiming his weapon at a telephone pole
outside. Without nocking a single bolt, the weapon fired three
straight shots, each of them sinking into their target in a neat
vertical line, one atop the other.
"Boys, we are experiencing real magic in our time, and I appear to
be my hunter now. I say we roll with it and go take down this big
spider bitch!" Willy said.

In twenty minutes, the three were in
front of Willy's house looking at each other in amazement, grinning
like little children in front of a large pile of Christmas
presents.

"So, how do we get there? The park is
like six miles away, and if we walk it'll take until after dark."
Willy asked.

As if on command, a huge black
warhorse with glowing red eyes, and breath that reeked of sulfur,
trotted around the corner to stand by Scott. As he nodded and
mounted up, a large jade green dragon landed next to Willy, and
then a white and black striped tiger with plate armor padded up
next to Tony. It had orange eyes that glowed like a Halloween jack
o' lantern. He purred at them, and bowed so that Tony could mount
his massive back.

"Transportation! Let's go do this!"
Willy said, and they all high fived each other. Will took to the
sky following above them as he surveyed the land.

On the horizon, where the park used to
be, was a large dark storm cloud stirring above the black castle.
The sky was turning purple as this cloud spread for miles in a huge
radius outside Baldwin Park. Lightning flashed as they drew closer.
People in the city had run inside, and now peered out their windows
like timid rabbits as the three warriors passed.
"Hey Scott, do you think we can die in real life by doing this? I
think we have the powers we do in the game right now, I can feel
it. But if we get killed by the end boss or her hordes, do you
think we’ll respawn, like in POW?" Tony asked.

"I don't know, but I suspect you
better be on your A game with heals. Willy and I will keep them off
you, but don't stop healing us. There's no damage meter out here to
show you how bad we've been hit like in the game." Scott said. He
glanced over at Tony with raised eyebrows.

"Gotcha, don’t worry, I've never let
you down yet." Tony said. "We must be getting close."
A shambling ghoul stumbled up the street toward them, lurching and
jerking. Scott rode up next to it and with one cleave, knocked its
head into the gutter as its body fell limp in the street. Five more
of his friends joined him, and within a minute they were surrounded
by a crowd of undead, all of them grunting and groaning as they
reached out for the two riders. Scott dismantled them with ease and
the two picked up their pace as Willy flew above, reporting on the
changing landscape ahead.

"They've got two dragons, one of them
at least twice the size of mine, and I'm sort of hoping they won't
attack." Willy yelled down.

"Even if they do, we've fought this
dungeon before, and won more times than we’ve wiped. Those dragons
aren't the ones I'm worried about, it's Lady Kalindora. Just watch
out for the golden orbs on each side of the castle gate. If you
touch those we'll have to battle the dragons for sure. The orbs
will activate them." Scott said.