by Dawn Chapman
Kyllan chuckled at my side, and I looked down to him. “You need a lift, little lady?”
Little lady. Uggh. He really had to go there. But I looked up at the size of where we were going once more and conceded. “I’d like the help, please.”
With one fell swoop, he pulled me up and onto his back. I wrapped my arms around the thick muscle of his neck and just held on while he negotiated up the stairs. I thought about how high we were and how quick he was taking them, but then again, I just enjoyed the ride.
The ships are pulling in near the outer reaches of the portal, my sister’s voice came across to me.
That’s quick! I said back to her, and it really was. We were about half way up the centre of the column now, and there, indeed, I could see the portal from here.
A few minutes more, and we were cresting the surface and out into a lighthouse type tower. I moved to stand before the window looking toward the portal. I could see it because it was huge and pulsated under the water. Something else to enjoy. I could see the fish and the life around it.
“Why is it like that?” I asked Kyllan.
“It’s a portal. It has a lot of energy, both in and out of it. The creatures here can and will feed off it, and feed it when it activates. It’s an exchange of sorts that they don’t mind.”
“And it will still work even if it’s on the shore?”
He nodded.
I now understood why the big one wanted to have it’s young here. They were well protected, indeed, and would be well fed.
The ships approached much more carefully than I’d imagined, and Macie and my sister joined up in one main command voice chat.
“I’m going to contact the Volit now,” Macie said. “We’ve got somewhere it can move to, and a plan to keep it’s young safe. I think it will go for it without any questions, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.
“Then all I can do is have my fingers crossed,” I said.
“Me too,” Dahlia added.
I noticed the glow start around the lead ship in front of us and knew it was Alia taking the lead. They all needed this, but she was really trying for it and needed the creature to take them up on their offer.
It was a strong creature. I could almost feel the mass of it under the water, and the glow increased. Then I heard Macie as she started to talk to it in a language I didn’t understand. The sound of the creature as it came back to her was interesting, not so much words but musical, touching and deep. I listened to it for a while and then relaxed as there was a large glow moving out from behind the portal.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“That’s her,” Kyllan said and moved in closer to me, “and she’s pregnant. Not given birth or had her young yet, she’s willing to move.”
I let out a sigh, and Kyllan smiled at me. “She’s moving. I can see it.”
I grinned back. they’d done one part of the job. Next stage…
One ship escorted the creature away, with twenty mages onboard. And then another ship moved toward the portal. This one had double on it, and they started to pool together their energies and colours as they placed a shield before the portal’s event horizon.
This was exciting, but I felt sick. They’d soon be able to start to move it. I hoped it would work out okay, that they could. But my heart and head worried about the amount of power they’d need because it was under the ocean. It wasn’t like moving one on land with no other exceptions to its load. This had tonnes of water to also move. This would sting like a bitch I was sure of it.
The sky around them pulsated with energy. I watched as it danced and moved, like the most beautiful display of dancers.
I managed to hear some of what was going on through my sister, but I could clearly see the struggle they were taking on. This was a huge thing to try to do.
I listened to the ships groan beneath us, and as I almost fell again, Kyllan moved behind to support me. I didn’t think anything of his large frame behind me, making sure I wasn’t going to end up in the drink, and he wrapped strong arms about me as I just watched out into the waters.
That was when I had an idea. I patted his arm slightly and looked up and behind me to see his deep glinting eyes and raised an eyebrow.
“We’d get a much better view from up there.” I pointed to the sky above us.
He frowned at me. “You want another ride? So soon? This will cost you…” There was a playfulness to his tone with the word cost, and I just laughed. Before I knew it, the words fell out, “Sure anything you want.”
When he winked at me. “I’ll hold you to that,” my stomach flip-flopped. He held onto me tighter, pulled me in even closer, and whispered in my ear. “I will hold you to that.”
We left the side of the ship and soared higher and higher into the air. Below us, the ships spread out in formation, and the portal could be seen as it seemed to sway with the very waters it was in.
I could see the water around it was thinning out. It didn’t seem to be as dark, as deep. Then I realised it was because the portal was indeed rising out of the oceans.
“It’s working!” I said slapping the huge arms that were holding onto me. I wondered how I was staying warm up here, but then I saw the slight glow around us and realised Kyllan was using some kind of magic.
“Don’t ask. I am not capable of giving anything to the cause below. I barely have the ability to keep you warm.”
I found his strength and warmth amazing. And I pushed back into him just a little more. “Thank you.”
He seemed to relish in this. Letting go of me with one of his arms, he moved my hair out of my face, moving his in closer to mine, and then wrapped me back up. “You can hear me better,” he whispered, his breath tickling my ear.
“Yes.” I laughed. “That’s much better.”
I looked back to the portal as they raised it higher. The magic surrounding everyone seemed to dip drastically, then it blinked out.
Kyllan held me tighter, but I gasped as the portal dropped.
“Wait, they’re okay. They pulled it back,” he said.
But on the inside, I could hear my sister cursing. They weren’t going to be able to do it.
“Kyllan,” I said, “we need something else. Is there anything, anything at all you can do, we can do?”
It was as if he placed his lips to my ear when he whispered, “There’s nothing I can do. There may be something we can do together.” He pulled away from me. He seemed distant.
As the portal raised up. Dahlia’s voice in my head was screaming. She was under such pressure that I could feel the tension through her mind. The strain on her was so intense, and her health was failing rapidly.
Alia’s voice then came to me as well. Lila, we can’t do it. We can’t move it. There’s too much water. There’s too much pressure.
I patted Kyllan’s arm once more. “Please, if there’s something, anything, tell me.”
The lead ship’s energy faltered completely, and I witnessed as it did so. The nose went underwater with the rising wave off the portal. I saw people being washed overboard, and sudden pangs of life being lost flooded me.
“Kyllan!” I demanded, “Whatever it is. Fucking do it.”
“Will you accept me?” he asked, his eyes locked with mine. “Accept me, and I will add my life force through you to your sister.”
“What?” I looked away as the ship started to sink. I didn’t have time for the details. “I accept,” I shouted at him. “I accept. Do it. Do whatever you must. Now!”
There were a notification and a box to agree to whatever it was he was asking of me, and I clicked the Y, dismissing the rest of the details.
The air around me electrified all the more, the energy he possessed far more powerful than what I’d experienced before through Maddie’s ring and through the Tromoal.
What he’d done, I had no idea, and I wondered only for a brief moment as I felt energy flooding my system. Out here in the rain and the wind, I felt sudden chills and the cold spreading through me on a lev
el I was sure wasn’t for me.
“Dahlia,” I said to her. “Incoming! Use it, abuse it! But get that fucking portal out of the damned ocean!”
Her mind faltered but for one second. Then I saw the ships were growing in energy once more. Alia’s wasn’t sinking now, and there were floating people who were being fished out of the waters. I sighed with relief and managed to look the other way as the portal rose once again.
Alia cried out with a, “Hell yes!” I worried I had done too little too late when the energy dipped. I realised at the last moment it was because it had actually come out of the water, and it was indeed floating in the air above the sea.
Kyllan squeezed me, and I noticed the energy and his colours fade, his wings which had been beating steady now weren’t.
“You need to get us to land,” I said. “Please, before you drown us both.”
He seemed to nuzzle into my neck with a breath in, “Yes, yes, demand after demand. These will change soon enough.” And he nipped me. I mean his teeth connected with skin, and as they did, I felt shivers run through me.
What the fuck did I agree to?
As the ocean started to vanish once more and land blasted past us, I shuddered with more than knowledge and pain.
Chapter 26
The landing was a soft dump into the sands below me, and Kyllan’s legs gave way. I didn’t know what to do, but I turned quickly to try to aid him.
He held up a hand to stop me, pride, something, I wasn’t sure. But I stopped as his health status blinked before me.
KYLLAN DRE
DEMON LORD – HEALTH 22%
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked on tenterhooks as it dropped another couple of points.
“No, wait for the ships to come in. Talk to your sister.”
I looked back out to the ocean. There was obviously still great strain as they moved in closer to the shore, the portal dipping in and out, even though they were moving in at quite a pace.
Dahl?
They’re weak. It’s working. We’re coming in. But we’re going to lose some.
Lose?
When my heart sank with the realisation some of them had actually taken their lives to the brink of death, to that pivotal point where maybe not even the best healers could help, I swallowed. The souls that were out there, lost, were on me.
Kyllan moaned behind me, and I moved to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have, any of you.”
I wiped the moisture from my eyes, and he looked up at me, his breathing erratic and yet calming down.
“If you hadn’t, then the deeds about to happen in Maicreol would be forever burned in your memory as a mistake.”
I glanced back to the oceans, and the swirling mass of colours as they floated inland. He was right. I don’t think I could have forgiven myself for not doing the best I could.
The ships reached the shore, and there I saw some of the other demon mages with their own wings leave the ship and help guide the portal over to the sands.
Kyllan’s eyes were dull, but his facial features shined in the mixing of colours. I liked seeing him on his knees, and with that, I walked away from him.
Macie, how many did we lose?
Seventeen. She paused. Lila, Noc’s mother, was one of them.
Pain ripped into me, and my heart ached for him. I wanted to go to him, to do anything. But then I looked back to Kyllan, and I felt a tug of something else.
I moved to kneel before him, eyes locking with his. “What did you do up there?”
My notifications were still there, but I didn’t want to read them, I wanted him to say it.
He met my eyes with his, cool steely, no emotion with his reply. “You made your choice on what side you were staying. I made a claim for you. I won.”
I took a step back, clicked on the notifications.
GAME SYSTEM STATS, AFFILIATIONS
PROMPTS, ACCEPTANCE, REWARDS, CHOICES.
I turned around as I could hear someone shout out near the portal. It looked as if it were going to fall forward and crush those guiding it. Macie was the one in the front, arm held high.
Kyllan pushed himself off from the sand and dove into the air. As weak as he was, I could see he also had to follow my orders to get the portal somewhere safe.
I watched as the strong demon commander hurtled toward the portal as the mages lost control, and it fell forward.
One of the mages near Macie and my sister screamed and turned to run. They actually fled the scene. I was mortified that they would even do this, but also saw as Kyllan’s energy and flight capabilities met the portal’s tip. He pushed, and I personally felt the strain.
A red box flashed up.
SPOUSAL REQUEST FOR ACCESS TO YOUR ENERGY
ARE YOU WILLING TO ALLOW HIM ACCESS TO YOUR LIFE FORCE?
Y/N
Spouse?
I watched as he struggled with the portal, large wings beating against the gravity that he faced, and the mages no longer helping.
I wondered if I could die just like the others had, but then I knew I could give everything. This was a game, I’d be back.
I had nothing to lose by giving him access to me. So I mentally clicked the Y.
The drain was instant, and I had no idea how much I had because this was too new to me. To command those that I had.. Had it given me something everyone would want?
I watched as my own health started to plummet, but Kyllan seemed to be getting somewhere.
If I could have willed the damned portal into place by sheer willpower alone, I would have. But it wasn’t for me to do.
With one last push and screaming at him to complete the fucking thing, I fell to my knees.
Splotch 27
Fuck….
Ping. “YOU HAVE DIED!”
Double fuck.
I came around to a different face in the pods’ room. The AI disconnected from me, and I opened my eyes to look into another guy’s face. I hadn’t seen him before, and I could only smile and then laugh.
“This game ever give you an inch?”
He laughed with me. “Stop throwing yourself away, Lila, and maybe it will.”
He offered me a hand. “I’m Dresel in the game.”
“Mom’s boss?”
He smiled again as I took his hand, and he aided me over to a seating area. I sat down, and he gave me a drink.
“I had a visitor while you were playing.”
It was his use of playing that bugged me here, grated against my nerves. “I’m not playing,” I scoffed.
The man was in his late fifties, greying hair and beard, but seemed distinguished and very well spoken. I think he’d been tanned at one point because his skin had those kinds of wrinkles that you had from too much sun, but he’d not seen any for a while.
“No, you’re really not playing. I can see that.” His demeanour changed, and I could see his shoulders sag with it. “I can’t do anything for your sister. Your mother’s been trying to get me to help with research and treatment for the last few months.”
“How did you?”
“Tibex came to see me. He asked what was ailing Dahlia.”
“And he can’t fix it?” I don’t know why I thought the game and the goings on in there would be able to work, to do something to help her, anything. I think I got my hopes up because of the weird things going on with my own blood. But as I looked at him, he shook his head.
“Dahlia has a rare form of leukaemia. While she’s been here in the past, we picked up on some genetic markers, and the disease triggered a few months ago. While she’s been coming here, we’ve been treating her with new drugs, but they’ve not been successful. Now while she’s been under the new AI and the system in Puatera, we’ve seen some improvement.” He saw my heart skip a beat, I am sure, and his face changed, turned softer. “There’s no known cure, just treatment so far. And up to now, it’s pausing the progression more than usual treatments, but there’s still no known cure.”
I
tried to turn the conversation back to something a little less sad. Puatera. “What did you and Tibex discuss besides my sister?”
“Maddie, and where they came from.”
I nodded. “We can’t turn that game off. You know that now, right.”
He smiled at me, the sadness from before gone. “I would never turn the game off despite what anyone is telling you. The game will be safe. It’s just a matter of who enters it to keep it from a stalemate now. I was actually considering just making it a private investment only game, but there have been some developments.”
“Akillia’s…” I didn’t get to finish it.
“How did you know?”
I motioned the door. “A friendly ear told me, and I got a message to her through my sister.”
Dresel sighed. “I couldn’t send one. It was too close to me being discovered. They need to see this develop properly. She needs to survive this and win those bets. There’s more serious money involved than just hers, and that could support the system on its own for a very long time.”
“What can I do?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Nothing. You and your sisters are doing a lot of good. I’m just here to keep you inspired. Give you hope. Tell you no matter what, the game is safe. I need Maddie and the others to get that information from the source, not listen to anyone inside who is saying otherwise.”
“Okay, thank you.”
Dresel smiled at me. “You only ate a few hours ago, and there’s not much else we need from you.” He pointed back to the system. “I’ll bypass it. You can get back in straight away.”
I stood with a little wobble. “The transitions aren’t so easy when you die so often,” I said.
He frowned. “You’re not really meant to die that quick, but there are some formulas and tweaks I’m making based on the information which has been coming in from all the beta and all three of you. Despite there being these glitches, there’s a lot of good stuff. The game…” His train of thought stopped, and I turned to face him. “The game couldn’t be anything better. I’ve been working on this for a long time. It’s more than I ever dreamed it could be.”
