Endless Online: Oblivion's Blade

by M. H. Johnson

  Securing those in the small convenient pouches lining the utility strap Halvar had gifted him with, he then set to work on a second batch. With these, he very carefully increased the Elementium saturation such that it was nine-tenths that of self-evident exothermic release. He frowned, wiping a suddenly sweaty brow. Any strong concussive force would catalyze it, but he sensed he was safe from ground vibration, so long as no earth tremors shook these caverns in earnest, and Val had sensed not a one since he had arrived at this world. He swallowed and nodded. These would have to do.

  Embracing part of his old ritual in preparing for combat, he did a check of all his gear, hands knowing exactly what to do with each component, finding empty vials where he expected, should worst come to worst and he have to act like a madman on the fly. Even as he did this he felt all cares, worries, and fears leave him once more. The anxiety and uncertainty he felt in this bittersweet new life, hopes he had for friendship, growth, security, finding his place without being relegated as an illiterate cripple in a world alien and indifferent to him, even thoughts of Julia, no doubt in desperate peril even now, all this he pushed aside.

  In its place he drew in deep dark breaths of the shadowy tunnels and caverns all about. Feeling it enter him, flow into and through him, embracing him as he embraced it with a dark purity reminiscent of the ice savagery that would envelop him as he took on missions never spoken of once they were done. Horrors the government was all too eager to forget, a lifetime ago.

  Then, as now, he knew there was no going back. Not ever.

  Enemy soldiers, often drunk, stoned, or taking their pleasure with willing or unwilling women in the dead of night were nothing compared to a hideous abomination that fed on the agony and suffering of souls captured and tormented centuries ago. And more recent fools too. Sten's crew was not the first group to stake a claim on this prize, and corrupt administrators weren't going to let a small thing like previous claims and missing explorers stop them from savoring rich bribes and profitable sales.

  A part of Val flashed his cynical smile, the other simply accepted that this was the way of the world. All worlds. Predators and prey. An eternal, vicious cycle he himself had spent several bitter, glorious years reveling in with a dark, unholy satisfaction his human side could never share with another soul, not even his father. But now he was free to savor the icy cold glee of stalking his prey once more. That he was placing himself in dire peril was perhaps its own justice, for he had never quite forgiven himself for the things he was embracing even now.

  Besides, free as he now was of terror, it only added to the thrill.

  No matter that he was a tiny fleck, a single soul sensing the hideous mass of hunger and torment sliding across the cracked stone floor of the vast cavern it endlessly patrolled. Val, who was now but an echo of the cavern itself, flowed effortlessly around it, never so close that the hideous undulating tendrils of shadow and rainbows could feel out Val's form. Though seemingly blind and deaf, what the creature really hungered for was the mental vibrations of terror and alarm that so marked sentient souls gazing upon its horror.

  Val smiled, Psionic and Arcane Perception giving him an insight into his prey, a monster that could kill him near instantly, in ways he could never mirror back on Earth.

  His traps were set.

  It was time.

  "Val! Quit mucking about, and get back here! Captain's found an alternate route!"

  A horse whisper that was almost a shout. Gregor's voice, his mind open with worry and fear, hands holding his glowstick in ways he thought so clever but that to Val seemed to fill the vast chamber with light.

  The gnomish man couldn't see through the blackness. He wasn't one with the shadows, the darkness all around. He was a terrified, frightened fool, only now screaming as the horror Val stalked lit up in brilliant strobing light, instantly honing in on Gregor's terror.

  15

  For the briefest of moments, Val allowed his mind to dip out of the seas of icy intent that he swam within. "Gregor! Get back to the tunnels now! It will kill you if you stay!"

  A brilliant flash of hot crimson, an image of a flailing figure being strangled by blue tendrils instantly projected onto the back of the horror. As if the hideous blob of tentacles and slime sought to strike terror and fear in the prey it suddenly sensed behind it.

  Suddenly lively tendrils slammed down upon the jagged stone Val had stood on moments before, only smashing rock, Val's quick reflexes saving him even as his mind slipped into the darkness once more.

  Gregor screamed, and suddenly the cavern was streaked by a hot flash of light. Val could see Halvar lit up by the glow, a wild-eyed captain, buckler and blade in hand for all the good it would do him, and Elise, her own exotic sword glowing blue and humming with her own Psion gifts enhancing its arcane edge, all of them came rushing into the chamber, terror pushing them right into the trap Val had set.

  He could sense it then.

  The creature's cold gloating.

  Val had been a fool. This hideous abomination had no doubt tasted the fear and uncertainty of fresh mortal prey lurking in the nearby tunnels. And perhaps it did guard the locus point of the winding matrix of tunnels deep below the ground. But perhaps it had not been content merely to wait. Perhaps it had servants or allies of its own, intent on flushing out fresh meat.

  And Val fiercely clenched the terror some part of him desperately wanted to feel, lest he flare suddenly bright upon this being's eldritch senses and be snatched up first, only feet away. Indeed, the quivering jelly-like exterior but feet away from Val began to pulsate, even as Val let icy coldness fill him completely, flowing ever deeper into the midnight blackness of the cavern.

  "Stay to the sides, near the cavern walls!" whispered a voice from the shadows, desperate to buy his friends a few moments time.

  His companion's fast determined pace had turned to a desperate scramble, shaken with horror as the hideous creature roared, tendrils snapping through the air even as its central mass took on eerily familiar figurines. Pictures of all of them writhing and screaming. The faces were crude, but the meaning was clear. All of them save Val were displayed on the torso of the nightmare creature. Prey it would consume, savoring their suffering for eternity.

  "We can't go back!" Sten cried. "specters are coming, too many for Elise to handle! We have to make a run for it!"

  Even with those words, Halvar, veteran soldier that he was and perhaps far more savvy handling tech in high magic fields than any typical warrior had a right to be, had somehow jury-rigged his gun to fire even in this rich Elementium mine. Val allowed the tiniest part of himself to be impressed, earlier comments making it clear that this was an absurd feat indeed, and likely to blow up in Halvar's face. Val could respect that as well. For now, bright flashes of crimson light tore through the abomination flashing scenes of their upcoming deaths.

  The horror shrieked, tendrils streaking out, near decapitating Halvar before Sten slammed him to the ground, the pair instinctively rolling and racing as fast as their hunched forms could go. "Duck into another side tunnel! To stay in here is death!" Val cried, immediately darting as the words left his lips, furious coldness replacing the burst of panic as he could feel the hot breeze of death missing him by inches, the vile abomination honing in on his presence, massive tendrils slamming the ground with bone-cracking force.

  Val flowed away, one with the shadows once more.

  A cold eye noted how his companions stumbled in near darkness, the creature closing in, even as ghastly pale figures with burning coals for eyes slowly lurched into the chamber, mad whispers and cackles filling the air.

  His friends, seconds away from death. The abomination, fifty yards from where Val wanted it to be. Val could feel the nearest corridor, twenty paces from where he stood. He could make it, just. He looked towards Elise and the others, caught the naked fear underneath the cold Psion discipline she tried so desperately to project. They were only feet away from the nearest tunnel, just past where the horror was
starting to flow, tendrils lashing forward as its trunk continued pulsing images of everyone being torn apart, butchering their effigies even as it savored their horror. Its massive body blocked what would be Val's view of his friends, if he wasn't so deep into that icy sense of oneness with the cavern that his sense of its inhabitants was near absolute.

  Only the tiniest part of himself was spinning a sling of strange fabric, made up as he was of hundreds of tons of stone and priceless crystal, rock fused under terrible pressures, resonating with the essence of magic itself.

  And when that tiny glass vial filled with brilliant Elementium infused potency ruptured against the ceiling, all its arcane potential instantly catalyzed in a massive exothermic wave of energy, Val screamed with real pain as the ceiling burst in a roar and a rain of brilliantly sharp crystalline stalactites speared into the massive living nightmare below, even as the smallest part of himself had ducked into the nearby tunnel, barely avoiding being impaled by crystalline shrapnel pelting into the ground where he had stood but moments before.

  He only prayed his friends were alright. Yet even in that instant he released his fiercely clenched burst of will as he catalyzed his mana in a furious stream of fire shot from his palm, feeling the flow of magic rippling from him in a glorious fusion of will, intent, and beauteous flame that was his Firestream spell. He could sense his mana bar flash, feeling it fall some nine percent, his casting unhindered by the corner of his mind focused only upon stabilizing the traps he had yet to spring.

  He blinked, taking stock, noting the utterly empty corridor, his brilliant burst of flame a waste of mana. He nodded and took a shuddering breath. He did not mind the expenditure, feeling himself begin to recharge even as he took another deep, steadying breath. For if unseen horrors had been lying in ambush in this tunnel, his burst of fire and fury might have just saved his life.

  And wasting no more time, he spun back and gazed into the cavern, the utterly confusing blackness turning to inky comprehension as he felt himself flow so deeply into the bleak coldness of Shadowmind that he was one with the great chamber once more.

  Psi-Sense Rank 1 achieved! Adjunct skill to Shadowmind. When you are one with the terrain you have embraced, your psyche slips free of all constraint, just like a sine wave! Too slippery for enemy Psions, or regret, to pin you down. And just like a wave, your mind can interact with all points in your frame of reference. Who knew denial would be so useful for psion-wave echolocation?

  Val flowed back into the chamber. His will now no longer holding excitable vials in states of artificial calm, but he could taste exactly where they were, and was very careful where he stepped.

  The abomination screeched and howled, and Val could sense the black ichor flowing from its pierced form, scores of jagged crystalline rock having torn through its bulbous flesh, tendrils lashing out in mad frenzy, lashing out and grabbing oddly struggling forms that for one horrifying moment Val thought were his friends, dangerously close to alerting his prey as panic near disrupted his dark communion, before seeing that it was several ghostly specters the horror had snatched up, struggling futilely in the creature's grasp, howling with silent ghostly mouths stretched to inhuman proportions as their spirits were sucked into the raving monster's matrix of souls and dark fury, to be consumed as a fuel of torment, powering the abomination forward.

  Or perhaps to make repairs, as Val could somehow sense that the horror's very arcane matrix had been cleaved through by the Elementium rich crystals at multiple points. Mayhap explaining the creatures awful frenzy, and the specter's alarm, never having been preyed upon by the abomination before.

  Val felt an icy smile play across his lips, catching sight of the wispy remains of several specters that had also been pierced by scores of the crystalline shards, mana matrixes completely ruptured by the Elementium infused crystals, melting to smoke and ghostly howls even as Val gazed on, before fading to nothing.

  Of his companions, there was no sign. Val had done his desperate best to assure that the abomination absorbed the crystal shrapnel entirely, making sure his companions were in its shadow as he angled his shot at the ceiling. A fact that explained why the monstrosity was not injured even more severely. Val had been more interested in facilitating a get-away opportunity for Elise and the others than he had been in guaranteeing a successful killstrike against the abomination. He could only hope that they had made it to the shelter of the closest tunnel.

  Val then pushed all such niggling concerns out of mind, gazing down at the mortal flesh he claimed as his own, the tiniest cuts dripping blood from his leg were of minimal concern. It was time now to do what needed doing.

  Clamping his will upon the small vial he had just put in his sling, he sent it spinning even as he dashed for cover, pivoting around the roaring horror, embracing maddest risk, approaching his traps, sealing them away with his will once more before darting back the way he had come, approaching another tunnel entrance, then letting his prize slip free, sailing for the ceiling, this time just above the monstrosity.

  Val knew his next step would be unforgivably dangerous, yet he wanted his foe so frenzied it wouldn't even think of sensing a trap.

  And the second Val tumbled into the cave with the abrupt crack and raining ping of thousands of brilliantly sharp crystalline fragments crashing down behind him, his hand was already jutting out, Val slipping from deepest shadows to crimson brilliance as his mind flooded with the dream of fire, feeling his mana roar forth once more, this time spraying a pair of suddenly blazing specters, surprised ghostly faces twisting in howls of dismay.

  Surprise attack! Critical damage! Arcane matrixes are ruptured. Both your foes are critically injured!

  Val took his first military lessons to heart, not letting up for an instant, doubling down and pouring forth his fury upon the specter that tried to charge him before shriveling to a bubbling pool of silver ichor even as the other stumbled back, Val feeling his mana reserves burn as he poured ever more heat on the squealing, shriveling specter now crumpling to the ground, joining its companion in death.

  Mana 79 out of 109. Congratulations! You have killed two specters!

  Val trembled at the sudden infusion of energy pouring into his form, seeing for the briefest flash what seemed a brilliant matrix of numbers and symbols overflowing the shimmering blue line that he took to mean his leveling bar. He wanted to smile at knowing he was more than ready to level up, but all he felt was a curious pressure, and he suddenly wondered what the consequences would be if he was flooded with too much potency before he could rest.

  The slightest shiver as he remembered how close he had come to being subsumed that first night by the ghosts and memories of those to fall before him. He could only wonder how bad it would be if he had to level up multiple times in a single night. How easy it might be to become overwhelmed, consumed by madness and subsumed for all eternity by forces alien and strange.

  Abomination injured! Abomination enraged! Abomination is looking for the source of its torment. Abomination senses something hiding in the darkness. Shadowmind pierced!

  Val cried out as he flowed back into the main chamber, stumbling on suddenly clumsy feat, paralyzed by sudden terror. A thousand eyes gibbering with screams of hellfire and madness suddenly lanced into his own.

  His perfect sense of the cavern was gone.

  He was just a terrified kid stumbling in the dark; his doom, endless and eternal, before him.

  A flash of his father's concerned smile and Val blinked, in that instant that lasted for however long it did, he was free of crimson eyed madness, no longer seeing the thousand mad orbs promising endless agony as it prepared to pierce his soul in endless torment.

  Instead he was eighteen, heart racing with anxiety and excitement in equal measure. A chance to prove himself, a chance to start over with a clean slate.

  "How are you feeling Val?"

  Val smiled through his nervous excitement. "Pretty good, all things considered."

  His father nodded as
they approached the base, Val's excitement growing to a fever pitch. "I think you'll find basic to be a snap. You'll work hard at it, your muscles will burn in ways our training somehow missed, and a week from now you'll be completely in the zone. Nothing will be beyond you. That being said, I want you to keep two things in mind."

  "What's that, dad?"

  His father's smile was almost wolflike. "One. I know how hardheaded you are. You'd make an excellent scout, and you think well on your own two feet. But for now, during basic, it's not a test of how savvy you are, so much as can you take orders, endure, act as part of a cohesive unit." His father's sigh quickly turned into a nod of determined approval. "You've taken the harder path, and in truth, some of the best officers start life as enlisted men. They truly understand the men who serve under them, what's really being asked, the myriad things officers fresh out of college who never served a day before in their lives might miss. You might make a damn fine officer one day. But for now? You're a buck private, and you need to learn to follow orders and be part of the team. I know you're clever, Val, but you'd best couch any suggestions you might have damn carefully, lest you end up shooting yourself in the foot."

  Val swallowed. "Got it, dad."

  His father nodded. "We both know how things are heating up at various hot spots. You know the conversations we've had. What's the number one lesson if you find yourself getting a hot reception, and everything's FUBAR?"