Quest for Justice. Sean Wolfe Fay

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СКАЧАТЬ brain did not have time to process this horrific turn of events. He grabbed Crazy Steve’s iron axe and looked at the murderer just in time to see him send another arrow flying towards Stan’s head. He deflected it with the axe and then charged his assailant.

      The murderer was now on the run. He had pulled out a piece of flint and an iron ring, and he was striking them together to create showers of sparks, setting fire to anything in his reach. The melons, the fence around the pigpen and the logs of cocoa beans were instantly set ablaze, and the fire was spreading fast, quickly blocking off Stan’s pursuit of the murderer.

      Stan’s brain went into emergency mode. Without hesitating, he shoved all of Crazy Steve’s items into his own inventory, grabbed the old farmer’s body, and bolted towards the exit, yelling for Jayden. Stan burst through the hedge archway, which was already burning, and saw Jayden running back, a look of horror on his face, closely tailed by Kat and Charlie.

      The second Jayden saw the burning farm his eyes widened in shock, but it was the sight of his dead brother that made him go completely berserk. He grabbed Stan by the shoulders and shook him back and forth, yelling, “What happened?”

      “A player with a ski mask killed Steve, tried to kill me and then set the farm on fire!” choked out Stan. He found it hard to breathe due to the smoke and his horror at Crazy Steve’s untimely demise.

      A flash of recognition showed momentarily in Jayden’s eyes, and Stan could tell that this … this … Griefer, with the ski mask, had struck before. Jayden yelled at the top of his lungs at the sky, cursing the Griefer, his eyes and veins bulging. Stan, Kat and Charlie stood beside him, looking terrified.

      Stan stood there numb for the longest time. He was vaguely aware of Jayden breaking down sobbing next to him, of Adoria’s voice yelling, of people running past him with water buckets. He realized that the inferno was gradually dying down. Before long, there was no more fire to brighten the dark night that had fallen in the midst of the firefight.

      Stan snapped out of his trance when he heard Sally’s voice next to him. “You all right, noob?” she asked gently.

      Stan looked at her. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t all right, and that Crazy Steve could never return to the server due to his banishment, and that he couldn’t understand why someone would kill another player if they knew that eternal banishment was the consequence … but instead he looked her in the eye and said, “I’ll be all right.” Her eyes were full of tears, and he didn’t want to seem weak to her, not after she had believed in him.

      “Sally, we have a big problem!” Adoria exclaimed as she rushed over to them, panic in her voice. “I think that there’s a possibility that this attack may not be isolated. We need to get all the lower-levels into the mine, but there won’t be room for all of them down there. The mine wasn’t meant to hold the number of people we have now. Any more than two-thirds of the current population would make it too susceptible to accidents. I’m out of ideas, Jayden’s still distraught, and Archie and G are still busy preparing to evacuate the lower-levels. What do you think we should do?”

      The panic in her voice led Stan to speak. “We’ll leave,” he said. Sally and Adoria both stared at him. “We’ll leave, Charlie, Kat and I. If there’s any chance at all that there are more Griefers coming, we’d stand the best chance of survival. We’ve finished the programme. Send us out, ask for other volunteers to leave, and you can stay and defend everyone left in the village.”

      Adoria opened her mouth to protest, but Sally cut her off. “That’s actually not bad thinking. Those who’ve completed the programme will have the best shot at surviving, and we upper-levels will have to stay here and defend the village. We can send volunteers who have completed the programme into the forest, towards the city.”

      Adoria protested, “But what if they run into Griefers along the way?”

      “They won’t,” Sally responded. “The Griefers avoid the main road in case they come across well-armed travellers. They’re cowards, all of them. And besides,” she added, smiling at Stan, “that Griefer didn’t run away for no reason. Am I right in thinking that you fought him off?” Stan nodded.

      “OK,” Adoria said, and she ran off towards the mine, skirt billowing in the wind, to make the announcement.

      Stan looked at Sally and said, “Sally, I—” but he was cut off by Sally kissing him on the cheek.

      “Come back and visit someday,” she said, and she ran off to join Adoria. “Oh, and take some weapons and food from the storehouse!”

       CHAPTER 7

       THE THUNDERSTORM

      I knew it! I knew it! I knew she likes me! Oh, man, I am definitely coming back to this village as soon as I can! Wow, I don’t know what I expected from this game, but that was not at the top of my list! Wow …

      These were the thoughts that filled Stan’s head as he sprinted out of the Adorian Village, tailed by Kat and Charlie, as the rain started to fall. They had not been thrilled when he told them that they had to leave, but they were very excited at the prospect of new weapons.

      Kat now ran right behind Stan with a bow slung over her back, a quiver of twelve arrows and a gleaming iron sword dangling at her side. Rex was dashing along at her heels. Charlie was close behind the dog, with an iron pickaxe in his hand, and a whole mess of watermelons in his inventory. He held the group’s food. Stan was in the lead, holding an iron axe in his hand and a crafting table, furnace and some coal in his inventory. They were well trained and on the move. In their minds, any enemies that they encountered out here, in the light rain that had started, were dead meat.

      In due time, they stopped to take a breather. While they caught their breath, Charlie said, “Wow, what a day, right?”

      “Yeah,” replied Kat. They certainly were in no mood for laughter, but they had recovered from the initial shock of Crazy Steve’s death.

      “I still don’t get it, though,” she said. “Why did that guy pick Crazy Steve out as a target? He was a farmer! He helped lower-levels!”

      Something connected in Stan’s mind as she said this. Crazy Steve’s last words came back to him. Them in Element City, that run the government, they don’t like people like you. Freshies. Beginners. Noobs.

      “You don’t think that the assassin was with the government, do you?” asked Stan.

      Charlie and Kat looked at him in shock. “Why would the government send out assassins to kill people that gave food to their lower-level citizens?” Kat asked sceptically.

      “That’s just it, though,” said Stan, standing up. “He gave food to lower-level citizens.” He told them about his conversation with Crazy Steve and what the old farmer had said about the government.

      This left Kat looking bewildered, while Charlie asked, “Why? How does that make any sense?”

      “I don’t know,” Stan replied. “Crazy Steve was just about to tell me when …” He sighed, looked away from the other two, and sighed again. They got the message.

      “It’s certainly a weird theory,” said СКАЧАТЬ