Chaos Rising: The Realms Book Six: (An Epic LitRPG Series)

by C. M. Carney

  For the briefest of moments, an expression of fear crossed the boy’s face, but then Nahrman hesitated, realizing that the threat of violence was an ineffective weapon. The tension hummed as everyone realized he would not, could not, attack.

  “I can't, not unless I'm in physical contact with the kid,” Seraphine said, easing back into a battle-ready stance. “And I'm the only one who can initiate the transfer, which I will not do unless you agree to let me go.”

  “You know I can’t.” The muscles in Nahrman’s jaw clenched as loyalty battled honor. Nahrman was nearing his wit’s end. As the leader of this town, he’d taken too heavy a burden onto his shoulders. He was a strong man, both physically and emotionally, but all men had their breaking point, and the Constable was nearing his.

  "Switch with me and give Furrick back his body.”

  "It doesn't work that way. If we switched now, you'd be in Furrick and I'd be in you. Furrick would still be in my body. Once that happens, things get very complicated. Plus, the device has a limited number of charges. Even I don't know how many are left."

  "Are you saying the next time you switch, it might be permanent?" Lex asked. "Who would make that kind of thing?"

  "No clue," Seraphine said with a shrug. "Someone with a real dickish sense of humor."

  Lex gave a sideways glance to Vonn. The rogue smirked, then shook his head slightly. Nahrman's grumble drew Lex's attention and fury poured from the large man. Lex stepped between the two, making the unwise decision to turn his back on Seraphine. But for all their sakes the man needed some hope. “Nahrman, Furrick is fine, for now.”

  Nahrman’s eyes blazed down on Lex. "How can you say that? She is a murderer, an assassin who works for anyone, including the people responsible for this." He waved his hand to encompass his chaos ravaged town. "Trusting her is the mark of a fool."

  “I agree,” Lex said, "I do not trust her word nor her morals, but I do trust in her selfishness.”

  “Explain.”

  “She has spent her entire life being desired by both men and women. It is her main weapon. Not her daggers, not her poisons, but her looks, her body.” Lex turned and met Seraphine’s eyes. “This was a desperate play for her, one she did not think through fully. She may think she has the upper hand, but we have her real body, so we hold as many cards as she does.”

  Seraphine glared at Lex and a small, wry smile curled his lips. He turned back to the Constable. The man’s eyes never left Seraphine. “So, we are at an impasse.”

  “It seems we are,” Seraphine said. “Please tell me we're not gonna stand around glaring at each other until more chaos freaks show up to kill us all.”

  “No,” Lex said. “I have a plan.”

  “The Source help us,” Vonn muttered under his breath, drawing an annoyed glance from Lex.

  “I’m listening,” Nahrman said and a moment later Seraphine nodded.

  “We’ll take the kid inside the tower with us. He’ll, she’ll be safer there than anywhere else in town, except the jail. We'll find Gryph, he'll stop this chaos bullshit, we get bodies switched back and happy days are here again.”

  “It is a stupid plan,” the Constable said with venom, but then eased. “But it’s the best we have.”

  “Trust me, Constable, Furrick is more than fine. In fact, he’s in the middle of a wet dream version of 13 Going On 30.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Nahrman asked.

  “Yeah, what does that mean?” Simon asked, eyes wide, his interest edging far too close to the amorous.

  “Um … never mind. Damn Earth references. If I explain it, it'll get creepy."

  "Get creepy?" Vonn said.

  "Suffice to say, the kid is keeping himself busy," Lex said, ignoring Vonn's comment.

  The eyes of all the men present, except Errat, widened as understanding filled them.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Seraphine said.

  “Good, it’s the least you deserve,” Nahrman said, then turned to Lex. “Furrick’s life is in your hands. Do not let me down.”

  Lex nodded and then turned to his crew. It was the most motley group of rejects he’d ever seen, and apart from Vonn no leader in their right mind would ever choose them. You work with what you got, Lex thought.

  Lex leaned close to Vonn and whispered. “You’ve got my back here, right?”

  “Not by choice, I assure you, but yes, I will do my best to prevent your foolishness from getting us all killed.”

  “Good, I knew I could count on you. Let’s go find Gryph.” He turned to Nahrman. “Good luck Constable.”

  “To us all,” Nahrman said and gave Seraphine a last angry look. She held his gaze for a moment and Lex almost thought he saw regret cross her face. Then she scowled, turned and walked towards the shimmering crystal wall of the tower. The others followed, Simon edging Errat aside to walk next to Seraphine.

  “So, once we're through with all this,” Simon asked. “Can we … uh … you know, would you maybe consider switching bodies with me?” He grinned a hopeful, pathetic grin.

  “No,” Seraphine said in disgust and gazed up as Errat smiled down on her, his expression odd. “What?”

  “Hi, I am Errat. We have not yet met, officially. But Errat was once inside Seraphine as Furrick is now in Seraphine, and it was a most invigorating experience. You have quite many odd feelings moving through your body, especially in the parts between your…”

  “Okay, enough of that!” Lex yelped in alarm, pushing himself between Seraphine and the others. “Focus on the mission.” He sent withering gazes at both the massive automaton and the teenage lich lord trapped in the slowly decomposing corpse.

  Seraphine eyed them both for a long moment before turning her ire on Lex. “Is all of your gender like this?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.” He paused, barely able to hold her gaze. “Sorry?”

  “Errat has a very important question.” Lex cringed but nodded. “Since Seraphine is a girl, but is inside Furrick’s body, do we call him Seraphine or her Furrick or him her or she he?”

  “Trust me bud, do not go down that rabbit hole. It will make your brain hurt.” Lex looked at the body of the boy containing the soul and mind of a woman and made a snap decision. “For now, we’re calling you Seraphine, but don’t get bent out of shape if people slip up and call you boy.”

  “Fine,” Seraphine said with a sigh.

  Lex made an after you motion, more from suspicion than any gentlemanly manners. They walked to the wall of the tower. As he got close, low harmonic tones tinkled and hummed inside the crystalline walls. The amount of energy moving through the lance was staggering, and the true nature of the battle being waged in Harlan’s Watch filled him with dread.

  He placed a hand on the wall, half expecting it to shock him, but there was nothing but a low, distant rumble. He looked towards the top of the tower and yelled. “Sean! It’s Lex, can you open up? We need your help.”

  For a moment nothing happened, but then a forty-foot high section of the wall illuminated like a holo-vis come to life and a huge Sean head peered down upon them.

  “Lex? I don’t have a lot of time. What do you want?”

  “Good to see you too, pal.” There was more irritation in his tone than he intended, and he wondered how much the stress was getting to him. Before Lex could continue, Sean glanced at the others.

  “Where’s Gryph?”

  “Yeah, that’s kinda why we’re here.”

  “Shit, I always feared this might happen.” Sean rubbed his temples. He turned off-screen and nodded, before turning back. “You better come up. Things are about to get really unstable around here.”

  “About to get?” Lex asked, his voice overflowing with fear.

  The wall in front of them pulsed like the surface of a pond disturbed by a tossed rock. The crystal peeled back revealing a circular opening. Lex glanced back at the town’s defenders. He wanted to give Nahrman a warning or rush back to aid the townsfolk. But his mission lay els
ewhere. He needed to find Gryph, then they could save the town.

  The group stepped through and the wall shimmered again, closing the gap behind them.

  12

  The crystal solidified behind them, and the world went silent. Lex hadn’t realized how loud the intermittent sounds of battle had been until he could no longer hear them. Guilt flowed through him as if he were huddling inside the relative safety of the Order Lance while Nahrman and the citizens of Harlan’s Watch fought and died outside. He said as much to Vonn.

  “If it comforts you, the chaos spawn’s goal is this tower,” Vonn responded. “So neither our safety nor your guilt will last long.”

  “Thanks, man, you are a font of positive energy.”

  “I aim to please.” He made an 'after you' gesture. Lex chuckled wryly and made his way to the closest Port Circle. The Nimmerians had invented these devices as short-range teleportation devices and they were the quickest way to move through the massive interior of the tower. They stepped inside the circle of platinum metal and Lex willed it to take them to the control center at the top for the tower. Nothing happened and Lex scowled and tried again.

  “It has no power,” Errat said. The warborn possessed an odd connection to the Aether and could sense ambient energy in many forms.

  “Well, why not?” Lex looked up, dreading the implication.

  “Errat suspects, there are more pressing needs.”

  “Dammit. Looks like we’re walking.”

  “Up there?” Simon asked with stereotypical teenage affront.

  “Quit whining,” Lex said. “You’re the youngest of us, and you’re not even in your own body.”

  “Neither is she,” he retorted, pointing at Seraphine. Judgmental gazes fell on him and he hung his head. He scratched idly at his ear, which fell from the side of his head and plopped onto the crystal floor with a dry thwack. Simon’s eyes widened and his mouth hung open. A barely audible squeak of alarm came from him and then he slapped his hand to the side of his head. “Oh man, the Barrow warned me this might happen.”

  “That what might happen?” Vonn asked, nudging the fallen ear with his boot.

  “It said we'd reanimated the Dirge body too many times and it wouldn’t last long outside the Barrow.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell us this slightly important factoid?” Lex glared but then shook his head. “You know what, never mind. I don't have time for this. For some reason all you jackholes made me your fearless leader, so now I need to make up some bullshit plan and hope it doesn't get us all killed.” He stopped, glaring at the others. Only Vonn held his gaze.

  Lex threw his hands up and walked to the spiral stairs twining up the inside of the tower. A wave of unease flowed over him and with it came doubt. I am the wrong man for this job. As his foot hit the first step a deep desire to cede the leadership role to Vonn or even Errat, filled him. I’m less suited to leading than these damn stumpy legs are to climbing these stairs.

  The shuddering boom of something smashing against the tower made Lex flinch. He scowled at the others, and then at the stairs. He sighed and took the first step, and then another and then another. Behind him, the others followed as quiet as patrons in a library.

  Ten minutes later, lathered in a froth of sweat, Lex reached the landing atop the tower. It was a massive circular room larger than the outside dimensions of the tower could contain. The walls displayed a 360-degree view of the town. Lex watched as Nahrman and his forces fought off another mad rush of chaos spawn. Many of the townsfolk did not get back to their feet.

  “Took you long enough,” Sean said, poking his head around the edge of a wall. Lex and the others rushed to him. Both Sean and the archon, the automaton made of energy and crystal, worked a panel of controls with furious intensity.

  “We woulda been here forever ago if you hadn’t turned off the damn Port Circles,” Simon whined.

  Sean ignored the comment but stared at the undead teen and then at Seraphine. “Going with the replacement squad I see.”

  “Didn’t have much choice man,” Lex said, and then nodded at the archon. “Sup, Bishop?”

  The Archon cocked his head quizzically at Lex. “I am not the archon you named Bishop. His spirit did not return to the Realm of Order. His fate remains a disturbing curiosity.”

  Learning that the archon who’d helped them save Brynn had not survived his encounter with Aluran came as a blow to Lex. Bishop had assured them the Lords of Order would remake him in another archon body if his borrowed physical one perished. To learn that had not happened was troubling and far too coincidental.

  “That can’t be good,” Lex muttered.

  “My calculations deem that there is only a 1.6% chance that we could define the situation involving my brother archon as ‘good.’ But it is a low priority issue for the Lords of Order at the moment.”

  “Okay then,” Lex said. Abandoning Bishop churned Lex's guts, but he knew the stoic archon was right. He turned to Sean, but before he could speak, another shudder impacted the walls of the tower. His eyes snapped to the screen but saw nothing. “Uh, what was that?”

  “Chaos singularities impacting the surface of the Order Lance’s crystalline surface,” Sean answered. He glanced at the archon. “The Princes are trying to tear down the lance.”

  The archon turned his robotic gaze on Lex. “And before you make another gormless inquiry, this also falls into the ‘not good’ category.”

  Lex opened his mouth to complain and then scowled at himself for doing the very thing the archon had warned him not to do. This guy’s a dick. I miss Bishop. He composed himself and turned to Sean. “How can we help?”

  “Stay out of the way,” Sean said, not bothering to look up.

  Several more shudders impacted the walls, one after another. Sean returned his attention to the archon. The mechanical man’s fingers raced over the runic controls. Behind them, the whirring of the Order Engine increased. The sound drew Lex’s attention and his gaze fell on the temporal engine.

  You have found an Order Engine.

  Order Engines are complicated mathematical structures created by the Lords of Order to combat the infection of Chaos across the Realms. They are vastly powerful artificial intelligences capable of manipulating the flow of time, restructuring matter and a wide variety of other functions. Be warned using an Order Engine will task even the strongest of minds.

  As it had the first time he’d laid eyes upon it, the matrix of pure order awed Lex. The device was an intricate, multi-hued sphere of energy that pulled and tugged at reality. An array of crystal-metallic struts spun around the shifting globe of energy. Colors rippled in a cascade reminding Lex of an oil spill floating atop a puddle. The energy expanded upwards nearly touching the undersides of the spinning arms before retreating back into itself. The maelstrom of energy made Lex’s head hurt and Vonn’s description of the device and the reason for its existence came rushing back to him.

  “Chaos is the most virulent, invasive and destructive force in the Realms. It adapts quicker than any sane and ordered mind can comprehend. Those that try, eventually go mad, becoming agents of chaos. The Lords of Order knew they could never hold back chaos in a straight-up fight, so they use Order Engines to increase the flow of time, enabling them to react and counteract chaos’ destructive influence.”

  Lex had joked then that the Lords of Order were cheating. Now he wished they would cheat more.

  As if answering his wish, the shuddering booms reduced and then stopped altogether. Sean’s shoulders relaxed, and the archon turned to the Order Engine. The inscrutable look on the crystalline mechanical man’s face did not ease Lex’s worry.

  "Is it over?" he blurted. “Please tell me it is over.”

  “The engine has achieved an effective counterbalance for now.”

  “That sounds like a no pretending to be a yes,” Simon said. Lex found he agreed with the lich teen

  “We have some time,” Sean said. “But I cannot say how much, and the eng
ine is already operating at full power. So be brief. Where is Gryph?”

  Lex told his tale, with occasional interruptions from Vonn to keep Lex on topic. After hearing the tale, Sean scowled. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

  “Yeah, no shit. That’s what we thought, but I got a big, red prompt blaring all angry like in my face saying my player was being logged off. I tried grabbing him, but it was like trying to grab fog. He just faded away. So apparently the impossible is possible, again. I’m not sure folks in the Realms understand what that word means.”

  “Okay, calm down,” Sean said, hand to chin in thought. “I think we need to analyze this as a programmer would.”

  “Why in the hell would we wanna do that?”

  “Because, you git, reality is nothing more than a massive program running on a universe sized computer. All of reality, including the Realms and Earth’s universe, is information, an unfathomable, near-infinite amount of information. That was how Bechard, or Aluran or Morrigan or whatever the hell that asshat is calling himself these days, pierced the veils between the universes. He wrote the proper code.”

  “Are you telling me that his High Douchiness is a computer nerd?”

  “He is a computer god,” Sean countered, his voice bordering on reverence. “Don’t get me wrong, his evil asshole quotient is off the charts, but he is without a doubt the best programmer in history. I spent years back on Earth analyzing his work when I was with the Resistance. It was pure artistry, light years ahead of anyone.”

  “So, this code is some kind of Earth magic?” Errat asked.

  “Yes,” Sean said.

  “Earth has no magic,” Lex countered.

  “Of course, it does. What do you think magic is?”

  “I dunno,” Lex said, realizing that he’d wandered into a logical trap. In an attempt to recover some face, he raised his hands and made random zapping noises. Sean eyeballed him.

  "Magic is the ability to rewrite the underlying code of reality," Sean said, ignoring Lex's idiot performance. "Alter the code, alter reality."