Infinity Legends

Chapter 8: Over Infinity

Takol Scaleback was laying on his back on top of the Infinity, his very own ship and home in the stars, a magnificent freighter with a silver hull covered in blue flaming patterns. Night had fallen over the small village by the mountain’s base and the bucolic community had been blessed with a perfect starry sky. The constellations, obviously, were all off, considering one of the tiny dots on the sky was the Sun and perspective was entirely twisted, but it was, nevertheless, quite the sight.

The smell of cooking Bluehorn meat made the scene that much more pleasant.

A buzz came from bellow Takol, signaling someone had just pressed the Infinity’s doorbell. The reptile pushed himself to his feet and casually walked to the edge of the hull. A quick glance down revealed a short bald human male in a brown trench coat. Takol whistled and the visitor looked up, Barry’s eyes inbuild in a wider, more muscular face.

“Ladder’s on starboard side,” Takol indicated, and saw as the man walked around. He had been waiting about twenty minutes for Barry to arrive at the planet, and all along he had tried picturing his character. He had guessed correctly that it would be a human in discreet clothing, but he had now been surprised by the various technological implants infused into the back of his characters neck and head.

In a moment, Kramen Blacksky was standing on top of the Infinity too, awkwardly looking around.

“So… that’s you…” Kramen said studying Takol. “Big lizard.”

“The tail can be pretty useful,” Takol waved his big alligator tail as if saying hello. “Takes some practice though. How does it feel, being back?”

“Odd…” Kramen looked at his hands, still not quite feeling in his body. “Yes, odd says pretty much it all. And you have a personal ship. Means you’re one of the Top 500 players.”

Takol nodded as he paced around and sat with his back to a missile battery. Just in front of him, two swords hanged over an exhaust port with cuts of Bluehorn meat hanging from them over the heat of the ship’s engine.

“I am, but I’m not one of the strongest players,” Takol said spinning the swords slowly to even the point of the meat. “Got here for causing too much of an impact to the game’s story.”

“You’ve piqued my interest,” Kramen sat across from him.

“Remember that Chimeras/Solar League war eight or nine years ago?”

“Of course!” Kramen said. “Biggest Player-versus-Player event in Fantasy Stars history.”

“A bit before it started, I sniped the leader of a major Solar League guild.”

“Permadeath?”

“He was on a consensual permadeath Arena match,” Takol explained. “So yeah. Permadeath. Caused all kinds of repercussions in the Solar League, arguably started the war itself, so I got a spot in the Top 500 for pulling that trigger.”

Kramen hummed something that sounded like a sign of admiration, then allowed his gaze to drift off to the small village nearby. The only sounds around were the eventual song of a nightly bird and the constant roar of the exhaust port roasting the alien steaks.

“Think it’s ready,” Takol pulled the two cuts of meat out of the ‘fire’ before enough time passed to qualify that as an awkward silence. He extended one of the swords to Kramen, keeping the other for himself. “Careful, they’re hot.”

“Did you just make barbecue on your ship’s exhaust port?” Kramen asked, hesitating before grabbing the stake.

“No need to be sanitary here,” Takol said as his sharp yellow teeth burrowed into the meat and ripped out a bloody chunk of it. He chewed for a bit, then closed his eyes and let out a pleasured moan. “Hmm… Freaking delicious! I’ll never get how you can taste, smell and feel in this game, but it’s gotta be my favorite part!”

“It’s just like how you see and hear,” Kramen explained. “Not through lenses and speakers, but neurological feedback…”

“Shhhh!” Takol raised a long green finger to silence his companion. “Don’t spoil the magic. Just eat your Bluehorn.”

Kramen eyed the slice of meat with a degree of suspicion, then took a bite himself. The reaction was almost a perfect mirror of Takol’s, and the man seemed like he would melt there and then.

“It really is tender!” Kramen said, mouth still full.

“Totally worth dying almost forty times,” Takol said between bites. “You know, I slightly resent you for knowing exactly what to do the first time around.”

“I did spend years studying the behavior and weaknesses of every creature in the game,” Kramen replied, a hint of a proud smile on his face. “I knew Bluehorns, just like Greenhorns, are frightened by explosions, and the concentration of metals on the Bluehorn’s skeletons would make it susceptible to a discharge should it crash against an energy source.”

“You know, no offense,” Takol pointed the barbecue-sword at Kramen, “but you don’t look very… strong. What’s your thing?”

“My thing?” Kramen raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you know… Guns? Hacks? Dark-matter?”

“Oh, I see… Nothing, really. Survival, I’d say.”

“Survival?”

Kramen nodded. “See, I am… was a Spawn-Master. I stay in the fort, behind all possible defenses, managing the strategy and spawning support units for my players. I don’t need to fight.”

“Like a king in chess…” Takol muttered.

“Somehow, yes. If the fight ever gets to me, things are already lost. The best we can hope for is buying time, so I specialize in hiding, running and… getting shot at. It never came down to it, but some of my skills may buy me enough seconds for a last spawn before I go down.”

“A team loses if their Spawn-Master dies?” Takol asked.

“Depends on the match settings. Some matches end when either Spawn-Master dies, but not all. Some end when all the players of a given team are dead. Other only when the last unit of a team is dead!”

“Sorry, units and players…?” Takol scratched his head.

“Each team is composed of one Spawn-Master and eight combat players, who will be on the frontlines. The Spawn-Master can spawn NPC units. Be it those silly bunnies from Winner City, a soldier, a Blue Horn…” Kramen waved the steak he held, “or even… bigger things. If a game is set to end when all the units of a given side are dead, all player in both sides can die and the match will go on between the NPC armies spawned by each side.”

“Sounds like a weird situation.”

“Very rare,” Kramen said. “Never experienced it myself. But the point is… If a team loses their Spawn Master, they might not theoretically lose the match, but they will face serious complications.”

“Because the other team can spawn armies while they can’t…” Takol concluded.

“Exactly. So, in any scenario, protecting the Spawn Master is key.”

“So, your position is basically the most important!” Takol grinned with his tiny sharp fangs. “Like a quarterback!”

“Get all the glory and all the blame,” Kramen’s tone got a bit darker.

Takol gave a brief moment for the silence to hang between them, not wanting to interrupt Kramen’s sudden contemplation. Once he considered enough time had passed, Takol asked:

“That’s why you stopped playing? Took all the blame?”

“I deserved all the blame,” Kramen said.

“Tell me about it.”

“It’d bore you,” Kramen whispered.

“I can’t be bored while eating this!” Takol said, his mouth full. “Besides, I wanna understand more about the competitions.”

“Well, to spawn units you need Spawn-Points. You get them whenever a player in your team kills an enemy or whenever an enemy player dies, no matter how,” Kramen explained, eyes lost in the sky, not sure if Takol was paying attention. “The stronger the unit, the more points they cost and the more points they award when killed. Our opponent was hoarding points and I was dumb enough to spawn suicide units!”

Kramen punched the Infinity’s hull, the metallic thud echoing over the night. Takol waited another second before speaking again.

“Suicide units?” Takol asked.

“To keep things fair, units killed by friendly fire give more points to the other team,” Kramen said. “You know, so people wouldn’t kill their own units to stop rivals from doing so.”

“I see.”

“And I spawned units that killed themselves, so I gave the other SM enough points to spawn the Choker.”

“Oof!”

“Yeah. Oof.”

“Still don’t get it, though,” Takol immediately replied. “One mistake and you decide to walk away from it all?”

“It was a terrible mistake!” Kramen raised his voice. “Terrible! A reputation I spent years building was suddenly flushed down the toilet!”

Luca’s eyes, built into Takol’s face, stared the cyborg down with utter indifference. The reptile shook his head dropping the remainder of his dinner and standing up.

“Sounds to me,” Takol said looking out to the mountains, “you’ve grown too used to respawns and checkpoints. Remember those older games? The ones you had to restart from level one if you died three times?”

“That is probably the worst metaphor I have ever heard,” Kramen said, still sitting down. “I told you in real life, I’ll tell you here too: Fantasy Stars is in the past, and that’s where I’ll leave it.”

“That’s why you keep your rig under your bed?”

Kramen didn’t reply.

Takol continued: “And don’t you dare say you didn’t love finding the solution to my Bluehorn problem!”

“What do you want?!” Kramen jumped to his feet screaming. “Why the hell do you care what I do with my life?!”

Takol did not flinch at the outburst, but simply studied the smaller man. His face had grown red, a vein bulging on his forehead.

“Talking as Luca, not Takol,” the reptile said in its deep voice. “One of the people I am most thankful for in my whole life is my coach. Swimming coach. No one ever pushed me as hard as he does. Last year, he was riding me so hard I wanted to quit, but he just didn’t let me. Said if I as much as said the word ‘quit’ to him, he would kick me from the team.”

“That isn’t logical,” Kramen frowned deep in thought. “The end result would’ve been the same…”

“But after he told me that I never thought about quitting again. And that year I had my best results ever,” Takol sat back on the missile batteries. “Nothing is sadder than wasted talent and potential. My talent is swimming. Your talent is this.”

“I would have believed that six years ago,” Kramen chuckled and shook his head.

“Okay…” Takol raised his hands in surrender. “Last resort. Are you busy tomorrow in the afternoon?”

“Why?” Kramen squinted, untrustful.

“I want you to come with me to practice and talk to my coach,” Takol walked up to where Kramen was sitting and placed a hand on his shoulder. “And I won’t take no for an answer. I’m not letting you waste the potential I know you have.”