Gilded Obsession

by Zoey Rivera

  “Braydon, up front with me. We’ll take the left. Ryan, backup Paul for the one on the right,” Lorcan gave his commands. The men nodded and proceeded into action.

  “What do you need me to do?” Braydon asked. His hands were shaking over his dashboard.

  “Whatever you can do to take him down or heal me,” Lorcan replied.

  Lorcan focused on getting as near to his opponent as quickly as he could manage. Close combat was always the most important strategy to get an advantage on magic-type fighters. The two mages covered each other’s backs. So they were working together. For now anyway.

  A fireball shot out of one of their staves.

  Fire.

  He looked over to Braydon who was already working to conjure up any water focused spells he had. Good, the kid at least had that much sense. He hadn’t had the opportunity to train each fighter individually so he was taking a big risk trusting in Braydon to fight on his own. Thankfully, he didn’t necessarily need Braydon but he was a decent asset.

  He banked right to dodge another fireball. He needed to pick up the pace. Get in close. Braydon shot jets of water toward the hooded mage. It was a very weak attack. Was that he best he had? Lorcan shot him a glance. Braydon met his eyes apologetically. It was time to fight fire with fire then.

  Lorcan lunged at the man as he summoned another fireball with his staff. He swung to propel the flame toward Lorcan but missed as he rolled beneath the ball of flame practically right up next to him. As he regained his footing Lorcan landed a right hook straight to the mage’s face, knocking him off balance onto the ground.

  Braydon entraps him in a water capsule, snatching up their opponent’s staff from the ground. Lorcan walked up, panting. He unsheathed his machetes and decapitated their hostage. His head bounced once on the ground upon impact and then rolled to Braydon’s feet.

  He let go of his spell and the rest of the body crumbled to the ground as well. Watering the grass with blood. Braydon stared down at the bodiless head. Its open eyes staring back up at him. He could feel his heart throbbing in his chest. He had experienced many different kinds of deaths so far in his short time in Eden but this was the first time he had actually seen someone’s decapitated head inches away from his feet.

  Lorcan ran past him to go assist Ryan and Paul with the other attacker. Braydon stood there paralyzed for a long moment. Just staring. Lorcan looked back to see why the boy wasn’t following and noticed the head.

  “It’s not you. Come on,” he yanked the boy back to reality. He was dragged in the direction of the other men who were locked in combat with the other mage.

  Ryan and Paul were hurting. Ryan was doing the brunt of the work, slashing and thrusting his steel sword at the remaining mage. Meanwhile, Paul hung back trying to keep up with healing Ryan and enhancing his attacks as best he could. Lorcan slammed into the mage straight on, knocking him toward Ryan’s blade. Ryan stabbed his sword clean through the mage’s chest.

  The man let out a scream of anguish. Ryan shoved the man off his blade. Letting him bleed out on the ground. Panting and drenched in sweat Ryan looked over to Lorcan and thanked him.

  “With a team this small, this should be the end of them. We should regroup with the others,” Lorcan said. The others nodded and followed Lorcan toward Chris’s group. Only Chris was there though.

  “What happened?” Lorcan looked around for the bodies of the other men who were supposed to be with Chris.

  “They’re dead. We got hit pretty hard on this end,” Chris swallowed hard. Trying to regain his breath. The tree line must have obscured Lorcan’s vision and made him unable to see Chris’s group needing aid. He swore at his incompetence.

  “It’s not your fault. We weren’t ready but I managed to take the last of them out. Do you have any potions, I’m about ready to drop dead,” Chris coughed hard. The cough sounded so painful that Lorcan was afraid it alone would take the last hit of his health points. He materialized an elixir from his inventory and handed it over to Chris. He chugged it down in seconds.

  “Ooze, really?” Chris groaned.

  “Takes your mind off the pain,” Lorcan pat his friend on the shoulder. He grimaced at the gesture, clearly still in pain.

  They reconnected with the western group which only lost one man to their battle. Then the whole crew went back to Hallifax together.

  “You should have seen Lorcan out there! He was getting fireballs shot at him and he passed to the right then sailed to the left, rolling in underneath him and —” Braydon was clearly more enthused than the rest of the group about what had just transpired. He quickly shut his mouth as soon as he realized nobody was paying attention to him.

  “We can’t keep at this much longer, Chris. We’re running out of manpower,” Lorcan said.

  The other men nodded in agreement with Lorcan. It was a harsh reality but going numbers upward of the fifties down to eight. It was a reality check, if there was one.

  “Doubt they’ll be a problem anymore. Should be the last of them,” Chris said.

  “We can’t know that,” Ryan said.

  “I do, the posting has been paid. There’s no point to prolonging this without payment,” Chris said confidently.

  Lorcan squinted his eyes in confusion. Was he watching the listing? Was a there a date on it that signified when it needed to be completed and paid out?

  “How do you know?” Lorcan asked.

  Chris smiled and gestured to open his inventory. He tapped on the monitor and a materialized his cutlass into his grip. He sighed and shook his head at Lorcan.

  “They made it really hard for me, you know? I just wanted to get my payment, leading the both of you into your deaths in Lamia, but then they wanted me to kill her myself. Right after I started liking her too. It’s a shame. She really did remind me of Anna,” Chris said as he stood to face Lorcan.

  “She? Catherine? You killed Catherine?” Lorcan couldn’t process the words coming from Chris’s lips. It all sounded so unreal and foreign. It made no sense. “Why?”

  “They paid me to, I don’t think I can make that any more clear, Lorcan. We do what we have to so that we may survive. That’s the life of a pirate. That’s just life in Eden,” Chris grinned. For the first time, it was not a warm friendly smile but that of a brooding villain. “Oh come off your high horse. You’re no better than me. You know how many kids you slaughtered on The Willow?”

  “She was logged out,” Lorcan stared him dead in the eyes.

  “No fight. No struggle. Less mess,” Chris shrugged. “It’s just easier.”

  The other men looked to each other confused. Not quite sure what was going on. Braydon stood from the group and backed up Lorcan. The others followed suit and wielded their weapons against Chris.

  “Seven against one? Seems fair, although I think the odds are more in my favor at this point,” Chris allowed himself a little chuckle.

  Lorcan unsheathed his machete and pressed its blade against the side of Chris’s cutlass. The two men stared at each other in silence. The others stood in wait for Lorcan’s instructions. They really did rally behind him. He had no clue why they would though.

  Their swords clanged as they slid against each other. Separating and returning to the sides of their masters.

  “What happened to you?” Lorcan asked. “What about being a decent human being? Why are you revealing yourself now? Why not just let time pass and let me have believed that it was that kid we took down and murdered back at the marketplace who did it?”

  “Because they’re tired of you, Lorcan. They think it would be more entertaining for me to kill you as well I guess. Hey, better at the hand of your best friend than a troll in the Mir or a random warrior from Lamia,” Chris really seemed to believe himself.

  He thought that what he was doing was not only sane and reasonable, but right. Yes, they did a lot of evil deeds for money but turning on each other was a line they never crossed, as far as Lorcan knew. Maybe he had been the only one offered the opportun
ity.

  “Tired of me? Ha, and here I was thinking that mindless slaughter was what they wanted. Watch out, Chris. They’re going to get bored of you right quick as well then. After all, who wants to watch the man that’s two gold coins tall get slain repeatedly?” Lorcan sneered at Chris. He trusted this man as more than a friend, but as a brother in arms. He was willing to lay down his life for this man not moments earlier but now he would rather lay waste to him.

  What a cowardly thing to do, attacking Catherine’s character while she was logged out. Lorcan was nauseous thinking of how powerless Catherine was against whatever Chris planned. He could have slowly suffocated her. He could have slit her throat and made it quick. No, he chose to stab her body over and over until she keeled over in real life and died.

  “You knew she would be distracted talking with me in the cafeteria,” Lorcan observed.

  “And that you would be busy with her. No one to worry about defending her. Clear path to her because of the short time we spent together. The girl was just asking to be killed.“

  “She was asking to be protected, Chris,” Lorcan growled. “She trusted you.”

  “A lot of people trust me. Most of the ones who don’t are dead. That’s how I survive,” Chris said. With that, Chris lunged at him. Plunging his blade just barely too far off to the left of Lorcan’s head, just grazing a hair on the side of his head. Lorcan shifted right and swung his arm up, nicking the tip of Chris’s ear.

  Their weapons clashed and sparked off of each other from the sheer brute force at which they were both swinging. They trained together for years. Both more than familiar with the other’s tactics. They blocked and baited each other. Scratching and slicing scars into each other but neither able to administer a killing blow. They were too well matched.

  Lorcan felt sweat beading down his body. His throat tightening, fighting to steal air to his lungs. His voice became hoarse as he wailed on Chris. Screaming out his anguish and betrayal. His emotions flowing through him and into his sword. He pounded his machete into Chris’s sword. Trying to will the blade to break his in half as it cut through the air and created sparks.

  “I don’t get what you’re getting so worked up for. She was Elite. There are plenty like her,” Chris said.

  “No, there isn’t,” Lorcan argued over the sound of clashing swords. “She was unique enough to not only care about Eden as a place but she genuinely cared about us too, Chris. That’s not something that many, if any more, Elite will ever be able to say.”

  Chris shook his head, disappointed in Lorcan. “You think that she cared about us? Ha! She was using us for her dream pirate adventure. That’s why she tried to fight with us. That was why she hung around. That was why she had that dumb hat. It was all pretend for her, it’s just game over now.”

  “She met me in the real world. She wanted to meet you too. She tried to make real connections and friendships. She was just trying to find her place in Eden,” Lorcan yelled.

  “She has no place in Eden. She is Elite. Her place is on the other end of the oculi,” Chris grunted as he attempted once more to thrust his sword into Lorcan’s chest. He missed. Lorcan secured the man’s blade under his arm and slammed his wrist into the small man’s arm, causing him to lose his grip on the handle. Lorcan spun around and kicked Chris toward the others. Not looking back at Chris as he walked away.

  The group caught Chris and pinned him down to subdue him.

  “What do you want us to do with him?” the cleric asked.

  “Do what you want. I don’t care. Just make sure he’s dead after,” Lorcan said. Paul’s lip curled as he looked down to the helpless fighter.

  Chapter 8

  Lorcan didn’t know who to trust anymore. It wasn’t just that he had spent nearly the whole of his time in Eden with Chris. It was that he couldn’t find it in his heart to trust himself either. His mind was all over the place and his heart was getting caught up in other people too easily.

  He laid sprawled out on his bed in the upstairs of the pub. He was too stressed to log out just yet. Too much had happened and there was no way he could feel safe leaving his character unguarded.

  He rolled over on the mattress to face the window. He could see why Catherine had chosen this room. It was relaxing and the breeze came in just right to keep the room cool at all times of the day. He’d have to figure out what to do about the pub. As much as he wanted to keep the place open in memory of Catherine, he couldn’t run a pub and work fulltime in the town’s guard.

  It was already a handful rotating between leading training of the new recruits that spawned into the town and planned on staying and running the front line himself. He could technically just designate his shifts to someone else beneath him but he felt responsible to do everything that he could for this town.

  He was working himself to the bone. It was worth it though. It felt almost like penance for all the pain he had caused for the last few years. He walked down to the pub. It was fairly empty, as it had been since the day Catherine died. Probably mostly in part to him holding the patrons hostage for information and stabbing one in cold blood for a cynical comment.

  So much senseless killing.

  The last barmaid stood behind the counter and smiled gently at Lorcan. She was a very attractive woman in Lorcan’s eyes. She was tall with knee length raven black hair and pale blue eyes. She wasn’t around for Lorcan on his rampage but she had heard the stories. She decided to hang around regardless. He smiled back at her.

  “Coming back downstairs for this?” she picked up Catherine’s hat and handed it to him. “I noticed that you keep taking it with you every night after closing and putting it back here by the time I come in to work.”

  “Yeah, part of the routine. Can’t have this going missing,” Lorcan said.

  “Oh? Is it really that valuable? What are the stats on it? Is it a rare item? It just looked like a pirate hat to me. Does it give you any defense or proficiency increases?” she asked. She looked so genuinely interested in the useless cloth now, it was almost sad. Unfortunately though, it was only a sentimental value he could explain to her. Which wouldn’t do to much for keeping anyone alive.

  Lorcan allowed himself a small laugh. He shook his head at the tiny hat in his hands. “It actually lowers your defenses if you get too attached to it. But it looks nice.”

  “It is cute,” she smiled.

  Her face both amused and confused at the accessory. Of course she would be. It had no significance to her. None of this world had any significance to her yet. She was young and just arrived in Eden. She had so much to learn.

  “Where did you get it?” she tilted her head as she asked.

  “A friend, she was only a month or so older than you at best, actually,” Lorcan said. He leaned on his arms which were rested on the bar. The girl came around and sat next to him after the last of the customers trickled out.

  “Really? My age? Who was she? What was she like? How did she die? You keep speaking about her in past tense. So I assume in Eden, she probably died,” she said.

  The barmaid was wise and mature for her age. Lorcan didn’t know whether to feel sad, good, relieved, or all of the above. This girl would survive. She understood the inevitability of death in Eden. That was good. That would be important to her survival. He nodded at her.

  “She was stabbed by a greedy man who was paid off by the Elite to kill her,” he responded.

  She slammed her fists into the bar with an impassioned rage.

  “Those damn Elite scum! Toying with our lives for their game. This world was made to be a new world for the poor not a plaything for the Elite,” she said through gritted teeth. Her fists were practically white with how hard she was tensing them. “If they knew what we were going through then they would understand and start treating us like people instead of things.”

  “Exactly, Emily. She did,” Lorcan added calmly. His cool demeanor and the use of her name threw off the girl’s angry rant. She looked at the hat in Lorcan’s
hand. An Elite gave him that hat?

  “Wait, what? But you said she died in game. Why did she enter Eden?”

  “It looked fun, maybe? To start this pub. I don’t know how Eden is portrayed to the world but it was enough to get her captivated. Entranced enough with the promise of adventure or maybe just change from her life as it was, that she was actually foolish enough to agree to live amongst us,” Lorcan’s voice seemed to be lost in thought as he spoke.

  He realized for as much as she ranted and prattled on, Catherine had only ever had one real honest conversation about their thoughts together. Maybe it was the connection with Anna that made him feel more open and protective over her. Or maybe it really was the money driving his actions. Possibly a combination of all of the above, even. He didn’t know. And he couldn’t get an answer now anyway.

  “I think I have to let you go,” he said. Emily was confused for a second. Then she realized that sentence was directed at her.

  “Let me go?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, you’re fine. I think I just have to focus my energies toward the guard and I can’t be running this establishment on my own. Unless you want it?” he smiled as he offered her the place.

  “Sorry, Hallifax is a stepping stone in the beginning of my life journey, not my final destination. I can’t be making roots that deep,” she said. He nodded.

  “I understand, and I wish you the best of luck in your travels,” he said. He gestured to pull up his inventory and handed her a bag of gold coins.

  “This is too much!” she said, wide-eyed gazing into the bag of coin. It was at least three months salary in the bag. “I’ve been here for barely three days not three months!”

  “Take what generosity you are given in Eden. It doesn’t happen often and can be rethought at the drop of a pin,” Lorcan snapped as if imitating a needle lightly colliding with the ground.