Ready Player Two

First, I heard the insistent squeaking of a bat as Carcharoth snarled and closed in on me. I caught a brief glimpse of the bat’s wings, flittering across the edge of my peripheral vision. Then I heard a familiar transformation sound effect—one I knew had been lifted from the old Super Friends cartoon—and a split second later, Art3mis made a superhero landing on the rocky ground directly between me and Carcharoth. Then she rose to her full height and faced off against the Wolf-warden of the Gates of Hell, her long black cloak whipping out behind her in the wind like a cape.

Carcharoth froze in midstep and cocked his head sideways to regard her like a curious dog. Art3mis took a step forward and raised both of her hands toward the giant wolf, as if to embrace him. Then she began to sing, and as she did, music arose out of nowhere to accompany her.

“O woe-begotten spirit,” Art3mis sang to Carcharoth, her amplified voice echoing off the high stone walls of Thangorodrim, “fall now into dark oblivion, and forget for a while the dreadful doom of life.”

The giant wolf’s eyelids fluttered, briefly obscuring the fiery-red coals burning at the center of each of his pupils. Then his eyes slammed shut, and the mighty Carcharoth dropped to the ground in front of Art3mis, causing a small earthquake. When the tremors subsided, the only sound in that desolate place was that of the giant beast snoring.

But even before Carcharoth hit the ground, Art3mis was already rushing to my side.

She laid her hands on the bite wound on my shoulder, which had already begun to fester, turning the skin and veins around it black. Then she began to sing another song. This one had Elvish lyrics that I didn’t understand, and my translator subtitles were obscured by my hit-point counter, which now filled my entire HUD. It was also flashing red, to ensure that I knew my avatar now only had five hit points remaining….

Then Art3mis finished her brief song, and my hit-point counter jumped back up to maximum. And it stayed there—an indication that I had also been cured of the ongoing effects of the wolf’s deadly venom.

I just lay there on the ground, shaking. Then I felt Art3mis take my hand, and I opened my eyes to see her staring down at me.

“Thank you!” I said, throwing my arms around her. My voice came out as a whisper. “Thank you for saving me. Thank you for coming back.”

I forced myself to let go of her.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said. “But what were you thinking?” She shook her head. “That you could just roll up to the Gates of Angband completely unprepared, and half-ass your way through the Quest of the Silmaril?”

“I was not ‘completely unprepared’!” I replied indignantly. “Did you happen to notice that I’m wielding both Andúril and Glamdring right now?” I pointed up the road. “And I rode in here on Shadowfax! I’m doing my best. So don’t treat me like I’m some blockheaded Bracegirdle from Hardbottle!”

That made her lose her composure and snort-laugh several times in a row. When she recovered, her demeanor had considerably softened.

“You almost bought the farm, ace,” she said. “Close call.”

“We didn’t know if you’d get here in time, so I did the best I could. I’m sorry I got Aech killed—” My voice caught, and I choked down a sob. “And I’m sorry I never finished reading The Silmarillion, even after I promised you I would. I’m so sorry….”

“It’s all right,” she said. “Pull it together, Z.” She motioned toward the open gates of Angband. “Right now we have a quest to complete. Aech and Shoto are counting on us.”

“OK,” I said, getting to my feet. “Just give me a second. I want to call Faisal and confirm that Aech’s vital signs are OK, and check on Shoto’s status again too.”

She nodded and I placed the call to Faisal. But he didn’t answer. I let it ring until the call rolled to voicemail, then I hung up and turned back around to face Art3mis. She had her avatar’s inventory open on her HUD and was scrolling through a long list of magic items.

“Do you have Angrist in your inventory?” she asked. “Or Angainor?”

She produced a long, curved Elven knife from her inventory. Then she took out a chain made of some sort of glowing metal and held it up too.

I shook my head. A second later, my HUD helpfully informed me that Angrist was a knife that could cleave iron “as if it were green wood.” And I learned that Angainor was a chain forged by “Aulë to be stronger than all other chains.” It was made of an unbreakable alloy known as tilkal.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t have time to pick either of them up on my way here.”

Art3mis handed me the knife, then equipped the chain on her belt.

“Can I see the Fifth Shard?” she asked.

I held it out, and we both reread the inscription:

Win her hand through a feat of dark renown

The last two shards are set in Morgoth’s Crown

“It’s a trick, Z,” she said. “Don’t try to cut more than one Silmaril from Morgoth’s Crown—no matter how easy it looks. If you do, the knife will break, and you’ll awaken Morgoth and all of his minions. Then we’ll have Gothmog and Glaurung coming down on us, along with a host of Orcs, wargs, werewolves, vampires, and Balrogs, all led by Ancalagon the Black. Beren makes the same mistake in The Silmarillion.”

I let out a sigh of frustration.

“I did try to read it, you know,” I said. “But I couldn’t. It reminded me too much of you.”

She studied my face for a moment, then she smiled.

“What’s your avatar’s alignment these days, ace?” she asked me.

“It’s still Chaotic Good,” I replied. “Why?”

“Because if your alignment is any brand of evil, the Silmaril will burn your hand and you won’t be able to pick it up.”

“Good to know,” I said, locking eyes with her. “I’m really glad you’re here, Arty. Thank you for coming.”

She raised her chin up at the towering peaks of Angband looming above us. “Og and Kira were the ones who originally re-created Beren and Lúthien’s adventures here on Arda. They designed and coded this quest together. It’s insanely difficult. No one has ever managed to complete it. Including me. In fact, it’s the only quest on this planet that I haven’t completed. I’ve never even attempted it.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because it’s a two-person quest, Z,” she said. “And I always wanted to complete it with you….”

“Then I ruined everything,” I said. “I know. I’m sorry. It was my fault. This is all my fault.”

“It’s gonna be OK,” she said, grinning at me. “We’re going to complete this quest now, Watts. You and me.”

“All right,” I said. “Just tell me what to do, and what not to do. I’ll follow your lead.”

She started to smile—but then it morphed into a worried frown.

“You’re starting to twitch, Z,” she said. “Are you feeling OK?”

She reached out and took both of my hands in hers. That was when I noticed that they were trembling. And that I couldn’t make them stop. I also realized that I was grinding my teeth, and I was starting to feel like I had a migraine headache coming on….

“Synaptic Overload Syndrome,” I said. “The symptoms are starting to set in. And it’s only going to get worse, so let’s keep moving. No one else can collect the last two shards except me, Arty.”

She stared at me in silence for a moment, then nodded.

“You sure you’re ready?”

“I feel fantastic!” I lied. “Now that you’re here, I have a very positive attitude about all this.”

She smiled. Then she opened her inventory again and took out a beautiful Mithril helmet cast in the shape of a dragon’s head, and covered with jewels and precious gems.

“Here,” she said, handing the helm to me. “Put this on. It’s the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin. It will protect you in combat and prevent you from being poisoned by the cursed weapons of the Great Enemy. And here—put this on too.”

She handed me some sort of magic fur coat called the Wolf-hame of Draugluin. As soon as I pulled it on, my avatar began transforming into a giant wolf, forcing me to drop down on all fours. Transforming into another animal when you were wearing an ONI headset was a strange experience, because you no longer felt like you were inside a human body. It took some getting used to. But I’d transformed into plenty of other four-legged creatures during quests, so I was already used to the sensation and had plenty of experience getting around on four legs.

After she finished disguising me, Art3mis removed some sort of magic cloak from her inventory and put it on. My HUD’s image-recognition software identified it as the Bat-fell of Thuringwethil. When she lifted its hood and pulled it over her head, she transformed back into a large bat and took flight, flapping her dark wings and fluttering forward through the wide-open Gates of Angband.

It took me a few seconds before I realized I should follow her. Then I bounded forward, running after her on all fours.

Art3mis led me through the massive black Gates of Angband, then down a steep stone staircase that led down into the cavernous depths below. At the bottom, we found ourselves standing at the entrance to a maze of dark corridors and passageways, all of them leading farther belowground.

I was about to continue straight forward, toward the widest and most well-lit passageway. But Art3mis flew into my path and changed back into her human form.

“If we continued this way, we’d be forced to navigate our way down through the Labyrinthine Pyramid,” she said. “It’s a massive subterranean dungeon maze, made up of one hundred procedurally generated levels of increasing size and deadliness. It’s a re-creation of the old roguelike game based on Angband.” She pointed off to her right. “Luckily, I know a shortcut that leads directly down to the Nethermost Hall, which is where Morgoth’s throne is located. Follow me, Bracegirdle.”

I followed her down the adjacent corridor a short distance. Then she stopped and pressed her palm gently against a nondescript section of the corridor wall. With a grinding of stone, that section of the wall slid back, revealing the entrance to a secret passageway. Art3mis stepped into it, then motioned for me to follow. Once I was by her side, she pressed her hand to the wall again and the stone slid shut. After only a few minutes, we emerged from another secret door, just yards from Morgoth’s throne room.

Art3mis threw back the hood of her cloak. “OK, Z,” she said. “Here’s the plan. Normal magic doesn’t work on Morgoth, but I’m hoping a Middle-earth song spell should knock him out, just like it did Carcharoth. I’ve got a ninety-ninth-level one that should be impossible for him to resist. Let’s just hope my Quenya pronunciation is up to it.”

Then she strode forward, walking boldly through the open doors of Morgoth’s throne room as if she were visiting royalty, while I remained in the form of a wolf, trotting close by her heel.

The Nethermost Hall was a large, cavernous chamber, with a floor made of polished bronze. Torture racks and iron maidens lined the walls, along with statues of writhing black serpents. A massive iron throne dominated the other end of the hall, and a dark giant sat upon it. Morgoth was even more terrifying than I’d imagined. He was a towering demonic figure covered in black plate armor who looked like he belonged on the cover of every hardcore heavy-metal album ever made. His only fashion accessory was a seven-foot-long melee weapon laid across his lap, which, my HUD helpfully informed me, was named Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, and was capable of killing any avatar with a single blow.

The moment we laid eyes on Morgoth, Art3mis began to sing. Her voice echoed off the black chamber walls, and as she finished her song, all of the Orcs, Balrogs, and other fearsome creatures that stood guard in Morgoth’s court were lulled to sleep. A few terrifying seconds later, Morgoth himself tipped forward out of his throne, unconscious, and crashed face-first onto the bronze floor with a thundering clang that sounded like an avalanche of iron. His crown rolled off his head and came to rest on the floor directly in front of me, with three shining Silmarils set into the band of black iron.

When I glanced over at Morgoth’s face, all I saw was a whirling mass of formless darkness. It was utterly terrifying, so I averted my eyes. That was when I noticed that both his hands were covered in scar tissue, as if they had been badly burned, and that part of his massive right foot was missing, as if it had been hacked off in battle.

Art3mis motioned me forward, toward the crown, as she began to sing the same song spell again. She’d have to keep casting it continuously to keep everyone asleep.

I removed the Wolf-hame and transformed back into my human form. Then I drew Angrist and used it to pry one of the glowing Silmarils free of its setting in Morgoth’s iron crown. But when I took the glowing jewel in my hand, nothing happened. No burst of light, no flashback. No transformation into the Sixth Shard. It was still just a Silmaril.

The Silmaril was emanating a great deal of light, like a shining beacon, so I stored it in my inventory. Then I looked back at the crown. I was tempted to pry a second jewel loose from it. And a third, too, just for the hell of it. They were right there in front of me! But with great effort, I heeded Arty’s warning, hoping she was right. If this was indeed the jewel we needed, maybe it would transform into the shard once we’d escaped the confines of Angband.

Once she saw that I had obtained our prize, Art3mis stopped singing. Then we both donned our magical disguises once again and headed for the surface, following the same secret route by which we’d come in.

When we reached the top of the stairs and spied the great iron gates, we found our way blocked once again. The giant wolf Carcharoth had awoken from his slumber.

In this same moment, the Silmaril suddenly appeared in my right hand. I tried to store it back in my inventory, but found that I couldn’t. The jewel was stuck to the palm of my right hand. I couldn’t let go of it.

“If you try to get past Carcharoth, he’ll bite off your hand and swallow it along with the Silmaril,” Art3mis said. “Just like he did to Beren. And if that happens, the Silmaril will burn Carcharoth from the inside and drive him mad with pain, and he’ll go tearing across the countryside. We’ll have to chase him down, and that would cost us even more time. Time we no longer have to spare.”

“OK,” I said. “Then why don’t you just put him to sleep again?”

“I can’t,” she replied. “Lúthien was only able to enchant him once, on their way in.”

“Then how are we going to get past that thing?”

“With a little help from a friend,” Art3mis replied. “There’s only one creature who can put Carcharoth out of his misery….”

She removed a small glass figurine from her inventory. It looked like a large dog with shaggy white hair. I realized that it must be another Figurine of Wondrous Power, like the ones I possessed of Shadowfax and Felaróf. But I’d never seen one in the form of a dog before.

Art3mis set the figurine on the ground in front of us. Then she put two fingers in her mouth and let out a long, shrill whistle, before shouting, “Huan!”

The figurine began to grow and morph into an enormous Irish wolfhound with a coat of long white hair. He was the size of a small horse. The wolfhound bowed his head to Art3mis, then sniffed the air and turned around. When he spotted Carcharoth, he immediately bared his razor-sharp teeth.

Art3mis leaned over and whispered something in Sindarin to Huan, and he bounded forward and lunged at Carcharoth, snapping his mighty jaw closed around the wolf’s neck. The impact knocked Carcharoth aside, clearing our path to the exit.

Art3mis and I ran forward while the wolfhound distracted the wolf long enough for us to escape through the open gates.

As soon as I crossed the threshold and emerged from the dark fortress of Angband, the Silmaril in my right hand transformed into the Sixth Shard—and another flashback began.

For the first second or two, I couldn’t see anything. Then someone removed the blindfold I was wearing, and I found myself staring at the waterfalls of Rivendell, with a familiar-looking mansion nestled among them. Og was showing Kira the house he’d constructed for her for the very first time. The place where they would spend the rest of their lives together.

Kira turned a full circle, and I could feel her heart pounding as she took in her beautiful surroundings. Then she looked into her husband’s eyes and said, “Oh, Og—I never want to leave.”

Then it was over, and I found myself back on Arda, standing next to Art3mis outside the Gates of Angband, clutching the Sixth Shard in my right hand. I glanced down at it. There was an ornate, calligraphic letter L etched into its crystalline surface. I immediately recognized it as Leucosia’s character symbol—the one that had adorned her Dungeons & Dragons character sheet. I’d seen that same letter L in Kira’s notebook, in her illustration of the Shrine of Leucosia. Her character symbol was etched into the stone altar’s surface, and it matched the symbol etched into the Sixth Shard exactly.

I pinpointed the shrine’s location on Chthonia in my OASIS atlas, and attempted to teleport us both there. But I couldn’t. We weren’t in a designated departure zone.

Suddenly, thunder rumbled from the gray sky overhead, and bolts of red lightning began to arc upward from the ground around us as the earth itself began to shake. What sounded like a series of explosions boomed from above, and we both looked up to see fire and smoke erupting from the three volcanic peaks of Thangorodrim. A moment later, a hail of flaming rock and molten metal began to rain down on the landscape below.

“Angband is awakened!” Art3mis shouted, pulling me away from the gate. I could already hear all sorts of foul creatures screaming and roaring and growling as they made their way to the surface. Morgoth’s minions began to pour out of the secret gate behind us. And we could hear even more of them approaching the main gate directly ahead of us. We were trapped in the middle of two dark armies, both of which were rapidly closing in on us.

There didn’t appear to be any way for us to escape. When I turned to Art3mis for guidance, she pointed toward the sky.

A pair of giant eagles were descending toward us, with their claws out. But Art3mis didn’t move, so neither did I, and a split second later, the eagles scooped both of us up and spirited us away.

Once we were safe and soaring high above in the clouds, we climbed up onto their backs and Art3mis introduced me to our new friends. She was riding on Gwaihir and I was astride Landroval.

“These are the eagles who rescued Beren and Lúthien when they were fleeing Angband,” Art3mis said. Then she pointed toward the three volcanic peaks that still loomed behind us, spitting fire and lightning into the darkening sky. “The Great Eagles used to roost back there, on the peaks of Thangorodrim. But now their eyrie is in the Crissaegrim mountain range in southern Echoriath.”

For some reason, her calm tour-guide demeanor made me laugh out loud.

“Sorry,” I said, when she looked over at me. “I just love listening to you geek out, Arty. I always have.”

She gave me a sad smile and then looked away. But I kept right on staring at her. In that moment, she looked more beautiful than ever. Like some warrior goddess, riding across the skies of Arda on the back of a Great Eagle, with her dark hair trailing out behind her in the wind.

Aech was right. I was still in love with her. And I always would be. I just wanted to live long enough to correct my mistakes and redeem myself in her eyes, if I could.

Looking at Art3mis, I felt a wave of pity for Anorak. In his warped mind, he was doing all this because he believed he was in love, too, with Kira, and longed to bring her back to life. And somewhere in his deluded soul, he was sure that he could convince her to return his feelings and end his loneliness.

But Anorak was crazy—not stupid. Surely, he didn’t really think we’d leave him to blissfully roam the OASIS forever, after everything he’d done. What was his endgame?

I shivered as I thought again of that “Ship in a Bottle” scenario—the standalone simulation where he could have Kira alone in his mad clutches, forever.

Maybe Anorak had built a server farm in a subterranean bunker somewhere, fed by solar panels up on the surface? Or maybe he intended to use a solar-powered satellite up in orbit?

I didn’t think Anorak would have constructed a virtual jail cell for himself. He’d need processors powerful enough to create a simulation he could spread out in, and roam for centuries. An OASIS of his own.

Except that Anorak didn’t have to create his own ship in a bottle, did he? I had already created the perfect one for him, aboard the Vonnegut. Its onboard computer held our own private simulated universe. ARC@DIA. And there wasn’t a single human-controlled avatar inside it yet. It was populated solely by NPCs. All Anorak would have to do was upload himself and Leucosia, using the same data uplink I already had in place for uploading new OASIS content. Then both AIs could hide inside the onboard computer unnoticed until after the ship left Earth.

Unless Anorak figured out a way to take control of the ship and launch it prematurely. And that probably wouldn’t be too difficult for him to pull off, since I had taken great pains to ensure that we would be able to control all of the ship’s functions and service telebots while we were logged in to ARC@DIA.

That had to be it. Once he had Leucosia, Anorak was planning to steal our interstellar spacecraft and flee Earth.

I considered sharing my new theory with Art3mis, but I decided it was better to keep quiet while we were still in the presence of NPCs. It didn’t seem at all paranoid to think that Anorak might have figured out a way to spy on us through them.

Soaring on their great feathery wings, Gwaihir and Landroval carried us over the scorched wasteland of Anfauglith, and over Taur-nu-Fuin, to the valley of Tumalden in the Encircling Mountains, where the hidden Elven city of Gondolin was located. They set us down in an open field just outside the city, and just inside a designated teleportation departure zone. We gave the eagles our thanks and then bade them farewell, just before they flew off into the brilliant red-and-purple sunrise.

As soon as they were gone, I told Art3mis my new theory about Anorak’s plan for the Vonnegut. I thought she might shoot holes in it, but she didn’t. Instead she simply nodded in agreement.

“As soon as I log out, I’ll relay all of this to Miles and our security team,” she said. “We’ll take it into account and formulate a plan while you go after the final shard. Sound good?”

I nodded. Art3mis took a small object out of her inventory and handed it to me. It looked like a miniature haptic rig, about two inches tall. The item description said it was a Tactical Telebot Control Station.

“This will allow you to sync with one of the telebots we’re going to deploy at Og’s old mansion,” Art3mis explained. “I’ll signal you to activate.”

“Thanks, Arty,” I said, adding the item to my own inventory. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied, smiling. Then, to my surprise, Art3mis leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“For luck,” she said, a split second before she teleported away and her avatar vanished.

I stood there for a moment, touching the spot on my cheek where she had kissed me. Then I noticed that my hands were starting to tremble a little. I was running out of time fast.

I took a deep breath and teleported myself to Chthonia, to obtain the last of the Seven Shards.