Endless Online: Oblivion's Blade

by M. H. Johnson

  Halvar blinked in this, lips widening in a feral grin. "On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for independent study, especially if it's grant-funded."

  Gregor chuckled. "Isn't it, though? Prestige, immunity, and what amounts to free advertising of the tinctures and potions that will soon be ours!"

  Sten smirked. "Just don't go blowing up our ship. What can you tell us about the other tome Val uncovered?"

  Gregor shrugged. "Not nearly so interesting or valuable, I'm afraid. It is a tome dealing with personal resonance magics, an internal discipline that was funded by the Dominion itself, in order to encourage wizards to master a discipline that allowed them to channel in a way that didn't disrupt our tech."

  Sten blinked. "The ability to embrace all the advantages of technology and still cast spells? I would think that would have really caught on."

  "Not really," Gregor sighed. "It is an extremely intensive school of study. In the time it takes to master it, one could achieve elemental mastery over a given form, possibly learning spells that would allow one to devastate entire cities. I won't say the discipline was completely ignored, at least one school of mages here sought to live in harmony with the Dominion. But even today, most Jordian wizards think their ability to wipe out tech is a boon, and fear that the discipline is somehow a trick to make them weak."

  Sten nodded. "Their concerns weren't without merit after the uprising."

  Gregor shrugged. "PRM training was devised worlds away. Since it involves harnessing internal magics and balancing magical energies tapped into and expressed, it has universal application, no matter your world of origin. But yes, the original masters brought to Jordia tended to be pacifists, and the original push was in the hopes of basically domesticating these wizards."

  Sten pointedly looked all around. "It seems obvious that at least a few wizards valued these techniques."

  Gregor smiled. "True. For all we know, there are any number of wizards in the capital at this very moment disguised as traders, merchants, businessmen, administrators. Whether it's due to dedicated PRM training, or just forbearing the use of their magics in the city, as long as they don't flash hot and disrupt everything, no one is going to bother them."

  Elise nodded. "We've found one prize and one curiosity. Now what remains is to find what's hidden behind this slab."

  Halvar nodded, peering intently at the block of stone, and Val could somehow sense the energies released by his infrared eye beam as he scanned the slab. He turned away with a frown. "Strange, Captain. It's not comprised of any altersian crystal matrices, but I can't peer through it at all. I have no idea if traps, treasure, or empty space lies beyond."

  Sten frowned, closing his eyes, putting his palm upon the stone. He backed away, frowning. "Nothing. Whatever's beyond has nothing to do with me." He swallowed as if something had gotten stuck in his craw. Unhappy, no doubt, to find he wasn't the center of every story he found himself in.

  Gregor frowned. "These two tomes would suggest that a true prize lies beyond. I vote we try to find a way through."

  Sten nodded. "We'll give it a shot. Halvar? Can you try to move it aside?"

  Halvar grunted and Val gazed in awe at the incredible power he sensed within the cyborg's powerful form, his face turning deep red as veins bulged in his face, lips curled in an awful rictus of effort as he heaved with every iota of his enhanced strength. Val was certain the man could crush skulls with his massive fist.

  "No good, Captain," a heaving Halvar conceded several moments later. "Let's try the prybar." And even with the mechanical leverage, the specially treated steel/tungsten alloy did nothing to pry the massive stone free, Halvar's terrible strength only serving to warp the claw end out of true.

  "Fire and Fury, if only we had the proper machinery!"

  Val continued to stare at the stone slab, suddenly imagining it to be a massive magnet, near impossible to separate, so great was the pull, as Halvar was aptly demonstrating.

  He blinked then, struck by the oddest of insights. "Captain?"

  Cool eyes gazed into his own. "Yes, Val?"

  "May I give it a shot?"

  Sten frowned before shrugging his shoulders. "Why not? You certainly couldn't make this any worse."

  Val smiled. "Thanks, Captain."

  Half in trance, he approached the sizable slab even as Halvar chuckled. "Good luck, lad. Just don't burst a vessel straining yourself, alright?

  Absently Val nodded, but really, it was all so simple! It had to do with polarity. The flux of charge from both Psionic and Arcane origins. If he were to place his hands just so... and change the flow, much like spinning a lock right to the sweet spot so the tumbler just popped open...

  And there it was. Val jumped back, reflexes as sharp as ever, as the slab's psionic and arcane orientations were shifted with a surge of Val's will, the massive stone suddenly crashing down so hard that floor tiles cracked.

  Val blinked, coming out of his daze, the entire group favoring him with the strangest of stares.

  Val swallowed and backed up, heart racing under the combined weight of those gazes. He held up his hands, fearing he had managed to offend Sten once more, gazing down at the stone. "I should have warned you all. I'm sorry. I just had a hunch..."

  Sten pinned Val with his gaze, cold as ice, before slowly smiling, dipping his head slowly. "You did good, kid." He said not another word as he peered down to investigate, though Val found himself grinning like a sap, pleased to earn the captain's smile.

  Sten straightened once more, expression as strange as Val had ever seen. "Did you know what would be back here?" He asked.

  Val blinked and stepped back, having no idea what to make of the captain's odd gaze. "No, sir. I was just following my hunch. Something gave off a tingle. I sensed that when I was meditating, and the lock was easy to pop if you have the knack for it, which I guess I do."

  Sten dipped his head, turning to Elise. "He's telling the truth, Sten," she said. "He has yet to lie to us, awkward as he is."

  Without another word, Sten lifted what looked to be a flat box of shimmering obsidian, putting it on the ground before them as if afraid even he might drop it, before lifting the lid to the box. The entire crew gasped and whistled, Val blinking, curious as to what the prize was, seeing only what looked to be two exotic longsword hilts each slightly over a foot long, and two silver-gold handles attached to nothing.

  Elise lurched back, caught by Sten before she stumbled. "Fire and Fury. Psiblades and shields. And the style, it's so old..."

  Val swallowed, feeling a cold shiver caress his spine, recalling all too well Solena's serene smile, droplets of blood splashed upon her exquisite features as she lifted up the decapitated head of Yuri, blinking in the endless agony of undeath after he and close to a dozen other men were cleaved into pieces by the terrible blackness defined only by the crackling energies outlining the three foot long stream of oblivion emanating from her sword hilt. Exotic and strange, much like the pair in that obsidian box, though the hilt of Solena's weapon had been considerably shorter. More delicate, somehow. Perfectly suited for one-handed use. Yet it had torn through steel and flesh as if they gave no more resistance than the softest of breezes. As if the technology had somehow tamed black holes, cutting through the fundaments of reality itself.

  "Ancester's mercy, those toys are worth more than all the liquid Silbium we found!" Gregor then frowned. "That is, if they work."

  Elise's gaze hardened as she peered intently at the weapons. "Even broken, returning them to the dreadnought hovering above would earn us considerable favor, if we dared to take that path." She trembled and looked away. "I will stay down here, though, if you actually want to treat with them directly."

  Sten grimaced. "They would be worth several million credits, even after a middleman's commission, if only they worked. And how likely is that, exposed to all the arcane radiations no doubt resonating through this place, once the home of wizards?"

  Elise nodded. "But perhaps the entire pu
rpose of this strange vault was to shield them?" She swallowed, gazing at Sten. "With your permission?"

  He shrugged and nodded. With tender reverence, Elise gathered up one of the blades, holding it several feet away from them, slipping into a basic warding stance with strange solemnity, holding out the hilt as if she were holding the blade in Ochs, hypothetical point held straight in line for an imaginary opponent's throat before frowning in sudden concentration.

  Endless breathless moments, before she sighed and shook her head. "It's dead, Sten. Let me try the others." And though Val held his breath in anticipation each time, all four artifacts were nonfunctional.

  Sten sighed. "Such is the way with most artifacts like this. Oh well, we'll still make a pretty penny and some goodwill selling these remnants, once we manage to free ourselves." He turned to Val, this time favoring him with a nod of respect. "Well done, Val. There just might be steel worth forging in there somewhere."

  Val grinned. "Then I will strive to strike, sharp and true, my blade forged by discipline and wisdom both."

  Sten blinked and Val winced, afraid he had said just the wrong thing yet again, but Sten only smiled. "I don't suppose your nose has picked up the scent of any other lost treasures?"

  "I'm afraid not, Captain."

  Sten nodded once. "Then we'll be off. Come, Val. Have a sip of water, and let's be on our way."

  Val smiled at that, shivering as an all too familiar voice spoke in his brain.

  Arcane Perception Rank 2 achieved.

  Psionic Perception Rank 2 Achieved.

  Meditation Rank 3 successfully quantized.

  - Thanks to your skill in meditation and your restless, wandering mind, you've managed to pick up the reverberations of potent artifacts trembling in the ether. Both arcane and psionic tools once called this library home, and you've found telltale signs of both.

  Val blinked, realizing the words had once again imprinted themselves upon his psyche in an instant. He took a deep breath, grateful the strange psychic popups weren't overly distracting.

  Val picked up his pace, having had enough of disappointing his boon companions. He was happy to hear all of them conversing animatedly, their spirits as high as he had ever seen them, now occasionally gazing his way with congratulatory nods, a refreshing change from their former pity or disdain.

  He smiled and nodded back, footsteps already lighter, finding himself increasingly excited about what lay ahead. A whole world to explore, his body as strong and healthy as ever, and for the first time in half a year, completely free of pain. With sword and shield at his hip, Halvar's warm cloak once more wrapped about his frame, he was keenly aware of just how lucky he was at that moment, grateful simply to be alive.

  Considering the odd properties of this universe, it seemed only proper to start his new life off with a dungeon delve, which he was dead certain was exactly what they faced, the five of them stopping before a bolted door of dead gray metal, radiating warning even Halvar seemed to sense, grimacing and shaking his head.

  The giant sighed. "Do we really have to head through there, Captain?"

  Sten smirked. "Why ask questions you already know the answers to?" He turned to Val. "Unless you magically sense some other way out of here?"

  Val swallowed, about to shake his head, but then stilled himself. The captain's gaze was dead serious. "Give me a moment." He closed his eyes, feeling acutely embarrassed, but did his best to meditate, to feel himself float free.

  Pinned by multiple gazes, acutely conscious of himself, the fugue that had come over him so easily before had been utterly ripped away. He grimaced and shrugged.

  "There's your answer," Sten said to the giant among them, Halvar shrugging, gripping the handle of the door before them, easily pulling it open even as stone grated against stone.

  Sten smirked. "At least that's one door we don't have to worry about closing behind us." His smirk turned to a grim stare as he beheld the dark passageway beyond.

  Halvar turned to Gregor. "That settles it. When the luckiest Jack I know looks like he wants to be anywhere but where he is, I know it's time to start running and not look back."

  Elise shrugged. "But there is nowhere else to go, Halvar. We can either face whatever horrors may or may not lay in wait, or we can sit here and gaze at each other as we slowly die of dehydration."

  Halvar chuckled grimly. "When you put it like that, staring at your ugly mugs is not how I want to spend my last days." He then set foot down the corridor, piercing the gloom with a red light bobbing in front of him much like a lantern, all of them following closely behind.

  11

  "Val, how are your feet?"

  Val flashed Elise a grateful smile, commanding his brain to forget how beautiful she looked with her locks knotted up in a tight bun, showing off her soft cheeks and the sensual curve of her throat, protected as it was by the shimmering mesh collar that made up the odd cross between a cloak and robe that she wore, similar to the one article of clothing Val himself wore, though hers looked far more graceful hugging her fully clothed curves than Halvar's cloak did hugging his frame, and thank goodness the sword and buckler belt Sten had loaned him along with his blade kept everything in place.

  "My feet are actually okay. This corridor may be of dead black stone, but it is just as smooth as the marble-like stone chambers we just left. I used to train barefoot in both wrestling and swordplay, so my callouses are tougher than most peoples'. As long as we're not walking over jagged or slimy rock, I should be fine. At least, I hope so." He tried not to dwell too deeply on the brooding dark stone tunnel they presently traversed, lit only by dim red light seeming to emanate from the ether itself that Halvar was emitting to show the way.

  Val frowned, somehow certain that some fundamental law of physics was at least being bent if not outright broken, before finally shrugging. Who was he to judge another reality's physics? Not after Highlords or Darklords or whatever those psion masters wanted to call themselves had poked inside his brain. That, Val, thought, was a definite no-no in any reality he understood. Then his cheeks flushed as he remembered the ten gallons of Liquid Silbion he, for all intents and purposes, had made vanish inside his own personal pocket universe, still able to feel it safely snug in some metaphoric ten by ten grid.

  Elise's smile grew. "What in the world are you thinking about, Val?"

  Val shrugged. "Certainly not on how dark and deep this tunnel is, or the tons of stone above us, or the fact that any game I've played where the heroes are adventuring underground, there's always something nasty waiting for them just ahead."

  Gregor frowned. "You just had to say it, didn't you, Valor?" He sighed. "This is about as high a mana world as any in the Dominion. Quite frankly, I'd be surprised if we didn't run into any sentient manifestations of such. I mean, in addition to you, Val." He smirked, short feet windmilling at a rapid pace, keeping up with his larger friends.

  Val chuckled softly. "Well, if I fade back to the ether and wake up back home once we leave this place entirely, I guess I'll be okay with that." He shrugged. "At least I got to enjoy a day utterly free of pain in my dream."

  Soft violet eyes peered sadly into his own. "Even your dreams plague you with pain, Val?"

  Val shrugged and nodded. "I'm afraid so, Elise. Those I'm aware of, anyway, but then it's almost a distant thing. As long as I accept it, I can enjoy the dream, one step removed from the pain still." He grimaced. "If I forget the trick of it, if I just focus on the pain, I wake up, hurting twice as bad as if I had just let myself flow with it."

  Sten shook his head. "Sprung from the ether and the life imprinted was one of torment. You're a sorry case, Val. Good thing you fell in with us."

  Val smiled. "You know what? All in all, I think it was. I hope you'll feel the same by the time we get out of here."

  "If we get out of here in one piece, I'll consider you a well-met luck charm indeed."

  Halvar abruptly stopped, his light growing deeper and dimmer. Val's eyes itched and burned. It w
as now all but dark, yet somehow he could still see. The ex-soldier raised his hand in a sign Val found strangely familiar, immediately flowing to his side. The man gave him a strange look before speaking. "Tunnels opening up into a natural chamber. Odd structure against the far wall of the chamber. And I'm picking up strange fluctuations. My blaster's equipped with surge breakers, civilian blasters are not. Gregor, you should hang back."

  The gnome-like Gregor nodded his head of shaggy white hair, swallowing and patting his belt nervously. Val frowned.

  The captain's voice, curt and cold washed over him. "He's an excellent shot. Wipe that look off your face."

  Val grimaced. Somehow he always managed to piss Sten off. "Understood, sir."

  "Better. We don't know what you're capable of, Val, but if you want to prove yourself, you'll take point with Elise. Halvar, Gregor, and I will stay out of surge range, lining up a bead with whatever may or may not be responsible for the fluctuations. We won't be firing like in the stories you see, but careful shots aimed only when we have clear line of sight. And if we say 'duck' you know to duck and roll away, we're blasting all out."

  Val nodded, feeling a cold chill of apprehension mixed with exhilaration, acutely aware of the fine pebbling underneath his feet, the way his borrowed attire rubbed against his skin, the sword at his hip. Every sense was suddenly tingling and alive as the vast chamber ahead seemed to snap into focus, for all that Halvar's light was ridiculously dim.

  Val blinked, seeing the vast chamber carved out of bedrock in its entirety, though dimly, even as the temple, for what else could it be? Seemed almost to glow with its own dark resonance, radiating potency in the ether so vibrantly he could see it like a glow, one that seemed to light up the entire chamber.

  Immediately in front of that ancient structure stood several ghostly apparitions also radiating a white-crimson potency, hovering just in front of what truly seemed to be a massive cathedral complete with windows radiating a shimmering corona of energy, doors fit for giants complete with byzantine arches serving as portals to whatever secrets lay within.