2.7 The Glitch

“Savage beasts? Hordes of treasure?” murmured Olgred.

“Probable death? My favourite!” said Silven, and he hopped into the glowing mist.

There was that unnerving moment of condensed nothingness again, as if minutes had passed in a second. Then, Silven opened his eyes and took in the view. It was not what he was expecting.

The monsters and gold were conspicuously absent. So were the winding stairs illuminated by impossibly long-lived torches, the cave with dramatic stepping stones across a silent pool, and the crumbling remains of a long-forgotten shrine to a bloodthirsty god. All that could have just to say passed for a buried quarry, Silven supposed, but not the little huddle of cottages on a windswept, desolate plain that greeted him. It all seemed strangely unthreatening.

“Where is this?” he mumbled as Olgred appeared at his side. All around the settlement, the flat grass rolled on and on as far as the eye could see.

“It must be the Unfinished Plain,” replied Olgred, raising his hand to block out the rising sun. “Legend has it that the gods got bored of playing with our ancestors before they ever got round to decorating the eastern borders. A variation assures us that they would have liked to, but they were under pressure from the strict deadlines of the High Creator and decided to cut content. There’s still an underground cult around here that hopes and prays for the day that content is restored. Maybe Folborn had something to do with them.” He blinked as a cloaked figure detached from the silhouettes of the village and started towards them.

They watched in silence as it hobbled on. A minute later, it had left the shadows of the last house. Silven turned uneasily to his companion. “Don’t you just hate these awkward moments when you can see someone from too far away?” He stared as the figure took another step. “This is killing me.”

“I concur,” agreed Olgred with a frantic nod. “I propose we meet our fate half- err, three-quarters- way.”

Studying the foliage for all they were worth, the travellers approached the approacher. It turned out to be a rather friendly-looking, clean-shaven old man. He looked alarmingly akin to Folborn. “Greetings, Master Olgred. Greetings, Master Gary,” he croaked solemnly. Olgred eyed Silven suspiciously. “Why did-“

“-You know our names?” interrupted Silven with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

The man regarded his visitors with strikingly keen eyes. “We of the fellowship see all, and we can do much to keep the threat at bay. Yet, the world is growing forever darker. You have journeyed to us, and we need your help.”

Silven raised an eyebrow. “What threat? The Terrorknights?”

The man threw back his head and laughed heartily. “I see, Gary, that you are too focused on worldly affairs. The denizens of this existence bicker and squabble over their place and power in trivial things. They care little that the very fabric of that existence is coming apart. They know nothing of the Glitch.”

“What’s the Glitch?” asked Olgred, anxiously scanning the featureless landscape.

The man grew stern. “It is the force of chaos incarnate, born with the world, destined to destroy it. My brothers and I have kept it at bay for years, but there has been an unexpected turn of fortunes. Now, we are stretched too thin, and the threat continues to grow. Come, fight for your right to exist!” The man doubled over in a fit of coughing. “Sorry, out of... breath....”

Silven patted him hard on the back. “You belong to a fellowship? The Fellowship of...?”

“The Glitch,” puffed the red-faced elder.

Silven shrugged. “Makes sense. But I can’t be joining anyway. I’ve got my own concerns.”

The man straightened. “Don’t be absurd. The Fellowship of the Glitch is a non-joinable faction. Our powers are too unique. Once we are gone, we are gone, unless the Creator be willing to replenish our numbers. But, Master Gary, I beg you to continue the journey you have started. You chose to enter the emergency portal. Now fight the Glitch!” He turned and shuffled back towards the village. Olgred looked expectantly at his master. Silven shrugged again. “If this is as powerful as he says, it could even affect private sector business,” he conceded. “We’ll take a look. But let’s give that buffoon a head start.”

A few minutes later, the pair joined the brother at the edge of the cottages. They drew their swords expectantly, yet all seemed silent. The mysterious man held up a hand in warning. “Prepare. Our foe has possessed the entire population!” he whispered. A sudden clatter resounded from across the green. “Restrain! Contain! But do not kill. We may save them yet.” Movement in the shadows. “Do you have any questions, kind strangers?”

“Yes!” Silven snapped. “What was the bloody solution to Folborn’s riddle? The petunias on the counter? The sodding meat? I can’t concentrate until I know. It didn’t make any sense, for Poggle’s sake!”

The man glared. “Is this really the time? And no, I can’t give you an answer. There’s whole journals dedicated to things like that back at the cathedral. Portal opening’s so obscure that we can only speculate based on group experience. But general consensus is that it has something to do with melons in passages.”

“The passage no longer existed in Folborn’s cottage,” countered Silven. “And there was no sign of melons anywhere.”

The man frowned. “Well, that throws a spanner in the works. Back to the drawing board with that. And now, for us, back to the battle!”

A door across the street rattled open. A sudden sobbing started from the cottage beside them. A woman staggered from the porch and fell headlong into the road. With a cry, Silven and Olgred raced forward, but then, the woman turned into a goose and sunk slowly into the ground, and they decided it best to retreat. “It’s the plague!” wailed Olgred. “We’re doomed!”

“There is no plague!” roared the man as he wrestled away a headless man. He grabbed at the eyeballs floating in front of his own and stuffed them in the victim’s pocket. “Only the Glitch! Watch out!”

With a squawk, a robust baker with the head of a cat wobbled out of a nearby shed and fumbled its way towards Silven. He prodded his sword at the ample belly, and the creature flickered away to the closest rooftop with a howl of pain. Silven held his head and groaned. Something about the jaunty escape hurt his head. It wasn’t fast-travel, it wasn’t teleportation. It was just wrong. He ducked beneath the tentacle of an attacking ostrich and barrelled aside a bearded boy that had beset the robed stranger. “Have a coin? Have a coin? Have a coin? Supper’s ready!” chortled the boy as he casually strode up the wall of the stable. Wincing, Silven helped the old man up and rescued Olgred from an advancing warrior. He wheeled the man around, and gazed straight into his own face. With a gibber of mindless fear, he ran the being through with his sword and stumbled away into the arms of the man. “No, get it away! It killed Master!” shrieked Olgred from the floor. The man responded by advancing and rapping him smartly on the forehead. “Pull yourself together, you two!” he roared. They blinked up at him, tears rolling unfelt down cheeks. “That’s a bad case of asset replacement, a little duplication, and a bit of removal. But we’ve beat them back. Now, it’s time to see what’s really going on in this village.”

He dragged the pair up and shuffled along the deserted street. Silven looked at Olgred, and on impulse, sprang forward and embraced him. He felt like a child, unable to comprehend what he had just seen. Whatever it was, this Glitch was not his usual foe.

Together, the three visitors plunged into the nearest cottage. No-one spoke in greeting. Silven peered around the corner of the living room. There was a Silverview map lying unfurled on the coffee table. He shuddered and moved on, desperate to distance this remote place from his own reality. He heard the old man muttering quietly in the kitchen. There, he found Olgred hunched over the motionless corpse of a fair-haired young woman. She was lying face down in a pool of blood, a butcher’s knife just out of reach of her grasping hand. The old man was sighing. “So, they’ve been turned hostile against their own group. This is serious indeed. Let’s move on.”

Olgred shrieked and sprang back as a sudden flurry of legs clattered on the floorboards. “Can I help you?” said the woman, her face unmoving, as her torso rose stiffly above the floor. “I hear Sandview Castle is lovely this time of year.”

“I said, let’s move on!” repeated the man urgently. Horrified, the businessmen scurried after the robed brother.

The next house contained little of note to Silven. The man creaked down onto one knee, pressed a thumb to the floor, muttered something incomprehensible, and exited as quickly as he had entered. There, under an Expertminerium amplifying mast, a hideous sight greeted them. “Help me!” squealed a man, his hands pressed tightly to his head as his ears snaked between his fingers and pooled on the earth. Already, they were almost five feet long, and the lobes had long gone seeking a sunnier destination in which to recline around the corner. The brother of the Fellowship knelt and met the man’s eyes, taking care not to get within touching distance. “What happened? Have you had any unexpected visitors? Any sudden changes? Any strange impulses?”

“Join the twenty-third annual Doomleaper race, next week in Bluebay, ten copper a bet!” beamed Long-ears. Silven’s guide groaned and rose. “We’re getting nowhere, and I sense the dangerous ones are already regrouping. It’s time to admit defeat. We kill them all.”

Olgred gazed into space. “But- but they’re people! Just people....”

“People who carry the seed of the Glitch within them,” replied the man. “There’s no hope, not without calling on my brothers . But there’s no time.”

Silven regarded the man thoughtfully. “Wait.” He rummaged in his pockets for a moment, and held out a crumbling mass of soil. The man said nothing. “It’s a block of polarised earth. You can dig it up, of course, but I always carry one for emergency messing around.” He pointed to the edge of the village. “We can buy you some time to save them.”

It took all afternoon for Silven and Olgred to encircle the village in a rectangular moat, but when it was done, even the bearded boy failed to ascend from the prison. The ditch was fully twenty blocks deep and twelve wide, and the robed man nodded his approval just as the sun was setting once more. Silven turned gladly from the freaks calling out on the far side and shook the outstretched hand of the brother. “Our work here is done, Gary,” the man confirmed. “I am merely a scout, an emergency responder, and it is time to scour the kingdom once more for signs of the enemy.” He waved his hand and conjured the swirling mists of a portal above the grass. “But not before I call on my family to study our evidence. I must go to them, and I would ask you to present your side of the story for further analysis.” He held out a hand and gazed sternly at his companions. Silven and Olgred stood motionless and exchanged uneasy glances.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure there’ll be some sweet loot in it for your cooperation.”

They relaxed. “Oh well, pleased to be of service, mister,” laughed Silven, stepping up to the portal.

“Wilborn; call me Wilborn. Now, off to the Cathedral!”