Chapter 40 The Developer Zone

‘For what it’s worth. I get it. Doesn’t mean I like it.’

I had returned, not quite to the Komo village, but to its outskirts. I told myself…actually I don’t know what I told myself. I just knew that if I stepped foot back in that village, if I heard the laughter, saw the campfires, I might never leave.

Ayla.

Instead Miggy and Larry met me on a crest half a mile from the village. We had finally worked out the chat function in the party. At least Miggy had, but it was either broken or lacking an update. We were unable to send one another full typed messages as I would have expected. Instead, there was a horrendous limit, like texting in the 90s. The best we could do was incredibly compressed messages.

Wasn’t much, but it was something.

‘I wanted to be honest,’ I said. ‘I owe you that much.’ Larry nudged me gently. Well, gently for him, I actually stumbled a few steps to the side. I grinned. ‘You too, boy.’ He purred, appreciatively.

It was hard to believe the little thief I’d met in the jungle was now chief of his own tribe here in the Stone Epoch. But he had proven himself in ways no one could take away from him. He’d led the strategy for the Komo tribe, had bested their best warrior in single combat.

That probably mattered more than anything else in this place. He stood a little taller, broader in the shoulders. Like me, like all avatars, a rise in his stats led directly to a change in physical appearance. It was more than that though. He carried himself differently. Before he’d been wild, carefree, impish. Now there was real weight on him. People who counted on him.

I didn’t envy it.

‘And you really think I should be the next Warlord?’ I had thought he would be taken aback by this, but to be fair to my friend, he had taken it all in his stride. Kaleo’s true nature. That there must always be a Warlord, or else the system would create one, far worse presumably.

‘If it isn’t an avatar, it’ll be an NPC. You’ll be hated, would be my guess. Every avatar who comes through will challenge you, but the alternative…’

‘Yeah,’ he said. He stared far back at the village. His hands were still. ‘Yeah.’ Then he looked to me, bracingly. ‘Is this the last time I’ll see you? What about Ayla?’

‘I’ll see you again,’ I said, ‘and yeah, her. I won’t leave without saying goodbye. That would be…wrong.’

‘Do you really think you can trust him?’ said Miggy. Larry gave a low growl. ‘He lied to you once. What if he doesn’t let you through?’

I shrugged. ‘He has no reason to betray me. Why would he keep me here? If I stay, it has to be my choice. I know that’s important to him.’ I glanced at Miggy, ‘you know, if we do this. If Kaleo succeeds and destroys the Gate, there might not be any way home for you.’

There again. The flicker of his eyes to the village. ‘You’ll come back.’ It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even really a statement to me. ‘I’ll make my decision then.’

I smiled, placing a hand on my friend’s shoulder. He might not know it, but I did. Just like me, Miggy had made his decision a long time ago.

‘Take care of Larry for me, won’t you?’ I knelt down, scratching the sovereign beast beneath his chin, watching as his eyes closed in clear feline delight. ‘Make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble. Sprinkle some sabretooth vegetables between his Warren beast meals.’

Larry’s eyes popped open, his mouth forming a perfect O.

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I thought that would be it, that with me now on-board we would advance to wherever the second Gate was, and destroy it, but when I met with Ironclad and Kaleo, it was far from any mountain or obvious place where an epic end of quest Gate would be.

Instead, we were closer to the starter zone than anywhere else. A dozen meters from the invisible barrier that separated us from the lands of the jungle and Adrian’s old war band. Nowhere near any of his Skybreaker camps, not a single one of his warriors in sight.

Whatever happened next, it would be avatars only.

Ironclad was kitted entirely in bone armour. His was more ashen grey than anything I’d ever seen before. It would provide a greater armour class, at the cost of mobility. Judging by its colour, though, this was an upgraded version. I had seen Adrian upgrade his armour and weaponry too, but I had no idea how much things could be improved.

Kaleo, as always, seemed to wear no armour at all, just his simple travelling furs. But he was a shaman, so my guess is he had some form of Stone Epoch mage armour.