by Jakob Tanner
“But I had one shot left!”
I shook my head. “I told you that you had ten, but you really only ever had nine. You forgot the dumb pigeon you killed the other day.”
Bertwald screamed in anguish as his whole body disintegrated. His eyes bulged, the curse eating away at his neck. He laughed one last psychopathic cackle. “You Chosen won’t survive this world. Us NPCs or whatever you call us. We’ve been planning on your arrival since the earliest of you ever showed up here. Look at Arethkar. You may have defeated me, but even still your time remains short here in—”
But he didn’t finish his sentence. The corruption got to his mouth first. Then his nose. Then his eyes. Then the top of his demonic head. He was nothing but black dust gusting away in the wind.
The fate of those who overused the Prophetic Seal.
Was this mark a power or a curse?
I shook my head. No time for such questions. I took a quick breath and ran over to Mari and Fen, still lying on the floor on the very outer perimeter of the docking pad. Their cold and lifeless bodies lay in a pool of purple liquid mana.
I picked Fen off the ground.
“Fen!” I yelled. I shook his shoulders, hoping to wake him up. Hoping he was only unconscious, but shaking his cold corpse told me he wasn’t there.
I pounded the floor, drenching my hand in the puddle of mana.
“This isn’t fair!” I yelled, tears falling down my cheeks. “They didn’t do anything. Why the fuck are they dead?”
Little Fen’s eyes were faded and stared out towards me. His voice pierced through my head. You’ll come back and play with me?
My heart sank. Shit. We never came back. I’m sorry. I didn’t get here in time. I should’ve taken Bertwald’s deal. He would’ve spared you. The quest prompt had said so. Why didn’t I take the goddamn deal?
But wait. There was still hope.
The phoenix feathers!
I materialized them in my hand and placed Fen back down on the ground. I placed a phoenix feather on each of their chests, an orange glow overtaking their bodies. Ashes of life floated upward from their small child frames. It was doing it. The feathers were bringing them back to life. Except the glowing ash disappeared and the orange warming light faded away. The two kids laid on the ground lifeless as ever.
Two messages stacked in my HUD.
Phoenix Feather failed. NPCs cannot be raised this way.
Phoenix Feather failed. NPCs cannot be raised this way.
43
No. It can’t be.
I fell to my knees. I had been so close to saving them.
Bertwald was dead but I didn’t even care. I wanted to save Mari and Fen more than I had wanted to take the evil bastard out. Was this really it? Was this the end of the whole horrible quest line?
The swirling dark mark of the Prophetic Seal burned on my arm. There was still one last thing I hadn’t tried.
I pressed down on the Prophetic Seal at my wrist. The command center window opened in my HUD.
Command_Center_UI
Please issue a command
_
There must be an undo command but I didn’t know the phrasing. Most of the Prophetic Seal’s spells began with “//run:” so I got the first part down. What phrase would bring these two back?. I didn’t know anything about coding or programming. How was I supposed to guess? And what if I put in the wrong thing and accidentally deleted myself?
A voice pierced my mind.
I can tell you the spell you wish to use.
It was the voice of the little girl. The one from my dreams.
Tell me!
Are you sure? The power needed to bring back a life costs as much as taking one. You would be three powerful spells away from destroying yourself.
I don’t care.
You want to use the spell on these two? They’re nothing but children. You’ll need this magic later on for more powerful and important foes. This is an unnecessary and dangerous use of your ability.
I gritted my teeth and continued my telepathic conversation.
What did I say? I. Don’t. Care.
So be it. The spell you wish to use is: “//run: Undo_LastCommand.”
I wasted no time and held up my wrist towards Fen and unleashed the spell. A shadowy beam blasted from my palm. The inky tendrils of the dark mark swirled from my wrist and up towards my shoulder. This was the price I was paying to save this child.
When the spell concluded, I pointed my wrist to little Mari and did it again. The mark swirled further across my body, the spiraling darkness hovering over my chest.
After the second spell, I fell face first in exhaustion. I scrambled to my knees.
Did it work?
The two kids on the floor coughed and squirmed on the ground. They rubbed their eyes like they’d woken up from a dream.
I smiled down at them.
Mari looked around, frightened. “Where are we?”
I moved towards them and wrapped my arms around both of their little bodies. Their warm healthy bodies.
“You’re safe now,” I said, tears in my eyes. “You’re safe.”
44
One Week Later
Fen approached me, dribbling the ball with his feet. He feinted left then kicked right, maneuvering past me towards my makeshift goalpost. He threw back his right leg before slamming his foot into the ball, launching it through the air into Shade’s face. The Lirana’s head jerked backwards from the hit. His cheeks were red with pain and embarrassment.
“Who likes balls in the face now,” I laughed.
Shade picked up the ball and threw it at me.
“Hey—that’s against the rules!”
“Um, guys,” said Fen, cutting us off from our tomfoolery.
We stopped and looked over. Behind Fen was a group of young Aeri. Boys and girls. They had a ball of their own. We had faced them a few days earlier and had totally crushed them. Not that I should feel proud beating a bunch of little kids at soccer, but it was satisfying for Fen’s sake. He had improved over the days of practice and I’d heard the other kids clamoring to have him on their team now.
Had these kids returned for a rematch?
They looked to Fen, then Fen looked awkwardly to us. “Clay, Shade—do you mind if I play with my friends this evening? I can ask if you two can play as well if you want?”
The ungrateful bastard. He was bailing on our soccer plans!
I smiled.
“Go on,” I said. “Shade and I have stuff to catch up on anyways.”
The kids ran off with both balls and Shade clapped me on the back. “We’ve done well by our homie.”
We strolled along the streets of the Aeri District, catching each other up on our days.
“Are you going to the king’s coronation tonight?” Shade asked.
“Nah. It’s mostly going to be nobles and politicians. We’re not needed there. Edward said the king wants to have a meeting with us tomorrow, though. What about you?”
Shade smirked. “The free wine and food is tempting but when Kari finishes at the magic university, me and her are going to read bedtime stories to the kids.”
When he said kids, he meant the children at the Haeren Church of the Nine’s Orphanage. Shade had been spending a lot of time there after our battle with Bertwald. He was supposedly helping look after the kids but I suspected he may have been training an adorable gang of street thieves.
“Speaking of which,” said Shade. “I’m going to head there now. See you tomorrow.”
The Lirana hurried off down the street, leaving me alone on the street corner beneath the setting sun and the shadows of passing airships. I better get back too.
I found Serena in our bedchambers, perched on the stone balcony reading a book. The sky was a dark nighttime blue. The stars twinkled while the two moons of Illyria shone down on the city like watchful caring eyes.
Serena shut her book. “I still can’t believe it. We were this close to getting all the answers we wa
nted.”
“Frustrating, isn’t it?”
I shrugged.
“You know, I used to be obsessed with knowing everything,” I said. “As if such a thing is even achievable, right? I remember sitting at the hostel’s lobby in Paris thinking I was out there on the frontier of life. Really, I was just sad and lonely. Knowledge—some ideal version of the ‘truth’—isn’t worth anything in and of itself. Really, it’s all about who you share knowledge with, who you discover the secrets of life with along the way.”
Serena’s lips frowned. “It would still be nice to know what happened out there. On Earth, I mean. Others may have survived.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll meet someone or hear something. We’re in this world for a long time now. There’s a lot of work to be done here as well.”
Serena wrapped her arms around my neck. “Okay but we’ve done enough for today, no?”
A beautiful blast of fireworks exploded beyond my balcony window, a flicker of crimson light shining out. Splashes of colorful ash cascaded across the starry canvas.
We kissed.
Serena pulled her face away from mine and drew me towards the bedroom. “Shall we discover more secrets of life then?”
At noon the next day we met King Fergus in his royal chamber.
Our party of four stood before Fergus at the steps to his throne. He wore gold armor and kept his back straight. He had a regal air to him. Unlike his older brother, who slouched and smirked on the king’s throne, Fergus sat with a serious look full of attention.
On either side of him stood his two new advisors. Sir Archades and Sir Edward Silver.
“Thank you for coming to see me,” said the king. “I worried after your busy first days here, you would be eager to leave.”
“Not to speak for us all,” I said. “But we’ve grown to like it here.”
“I’m happy to hear,” said Fergus, his face lighting up with a smile. “It pleases me to know you’ve come to enjoy this city and that you’ve stuck around long enough for me to properly reward you for all your good deeds.”
A message appeared in my HUD.
You have successfully completed a hidden quest: Rid Corruption from the Royal House of Ravenmour!
+10,000 EXP!
Congratulations you have leveled up! (Level 13)
You gain +4 HP
You gain +1 MP
You have (3) unused attribute points that can be applied to any of your five base stats.
You have (5) unused class skill points that can be applied to you class skill tree to unlock new moves or level up existing ones.
Everyone around me smiled. Looks like everyone had hit their experience thresholds and was feeling the satisfying glow of leveling up.
“Thank you,” I said. The others nodded and offered similar thanks.
Fergus swatted his hand in the air. “It’s nothing. You deserve more. In fact, I have something to show you—”
Edward Silver coughed. “I’d like to make it known I don’t agree with this plan of yours.”
Archades jumped in as well. “I agree my lord. This is a bad idea.”
Fergus smiled at his advisors. He then turned to Sir Archades.
“Thank you for being candid with me. You’re stepping into your new role as advisor perfectly. But, forgive me, for I’m now going to ignore you.”
Both advisors’ shoulders slumped at the cheerful defiance of the new king.
“Follow me please,” said Fergus, walking across the hall.
As we walked behind him, Fergus continued speaking to us.
“My generals tell me the Arethkarian armada moves closer every day to launching a full scale attack on our city and country,” said Fergus. “Our reserves were able to take on the initial scouting fleet they sent but we’ll need more able-bodied fighters in the days and weeks to come.”
I put my hand out and placed it on Fergus’ shoulder.
To other Laergardian’s this may have appeared as an offensive gesture for a subject to make to his king. But we had fought alongside each other and I was beginning to understand such a thing brought people closer together.
“If you’re asking us to fight for you,” I said. “There’s a few things we have to agree upon. Arethkar has been enslaving its Chosen. People who spawned on its continent out of fear, hoping to seek refuge. Arethkar turned on them. I need you to promise you will be a ruler who looks after all his subjects.”
Fergus nodded seriously. “Of course. Having Chosen on our side is one of the greatest assets of our nation. Arethkar has squandered their own out of petty fear and resentment. I promise you Laergard will not behave in such a manner. You have my word, Clay Hopewell.”
The king turned back around and continued walking through the keep. We accompanied him out the tower and onto the very airship landing pad where we had fought Bertwald. At the end of the runway on the docking pad was a large frigate made of beautiful carved wood, etched with shining runes of Aeri magic.
Standing in front of the magnificent airship, Fergus turned around and smiled at us.
“As I said before, the Arethkarian warships move across the rift and are getting closer and closer to Land’s Shield every day. I need my best fighters by my side in this moment of crisis. So, for all your hard work in Land’s Shield already, I gift you this.”
A prompt appeared in my HUD.
You are the now the proud owner of an airship!
Expand window prompts to see a detailed analysis of mechanics and captain’s logs.
I stood, flabbergasted in front of the ship. This magical aircraft was going to be mine?
“Take it for a ride, learn the ropes of piloting it,” said Fergus. “Do so quickly. We need to be ready, for we have a war to fight.”
To Be Continued in A.K.O. Book 3!
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading my book from start to finish! I hope you enjoyed Clay’s further adventures in book 2 of Arcane Kingdom Online. If you did, please consider leaving a review. As an indie author, reviews go a long way to achieving success, so please leave one if you can!
If you’re craving some more A.K.O. goodness while you wait for book 3, get a FREE short story set in Illyria by signing up to my mailing list in the link below. It’s also a great way to hear about new releases and updates from me.
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Thanks again for reading and see you soon!
-Jakob Tanner
www.jakobtanner.com
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