Awaken Online: Inferno (Tarot #3)

by Travis Bagwell

  Another fan of light mana arced through the room, sweeping across the flaming orb. The Supervisor didn’t react at first, staying still and its body pulsing with energy as the sphere neared. But as the orb began to circle just behind the mech, it suddenly lashed forward. Metal panels whipped out from its body, suspended by a thick lattice of the neurogem material. Those panels seemed to catch Finn’s sphere, entrapping it in a dome of metal and crystal and stopping it short, a dent forming in one of the thick layers of metal where it collided.

  With a twitch of his fingers, Finn tried to break free of the cage, expanding the sphere explosively. The Supervisor immediately compensated, and the enclosing shell enlarged, keeping the sphere trapped. Tendrils of crystal wormed their way into the interior of the cage and touched against the still-flaming surface of the sphere. In an instant, the fire mana began to drain along those conduits and flow into the bright core lingering in the Supervisor’s chest before flickering out completely. At the same time, the creature reheated the metal and reshaped it into a new panel composed entirely of the hyper-dense material. That new barrier drifted into place along the semi-circular wall of metal that encircled its torso.

  Damn it. Not only had the Supervisor stopped Finn’s attack, but it had learned from the destruction of its turrets, compensating for Finn’s manipulation of the metal. On top of that, it had drained the mana, restored some of its own energy in the process, and then incorporated the metal into its defenses.

  Okay, so directly striking at the Najima is out. If the Supervisor sensed Finn’s attack coming, it could easily stop him, and the attack would only serve to strengthen its defenses.

  His eyes drifted to Julia, where she fought off the security mechs.

  Could they attack it without being seen then? Perhaps avoiding the fan of light mana with some sort of distraction? Except his daughter was busy holding off the mechs, her body a blur as her lance broke apart their bodies with each savage blow. Kyyle wasn’t much better off – the earth mage’s shoulder was slowly healing, the top end of his humerus shifting back into place with a gut-wrenching pop. But he still wasn’t fully able to use that left arm, and it was all he could do to aid Julia.

  No, he’d need to handle this himself.

  His attention shifted back to Daniel’s display beside him.

  He didn’t have an answer for how to get an orb within range… but even if he could, he’d likely only get one shot at this. He needed to make it count.

  “Let’s say I manage to get within range… then what?” Finn growled to himself, his heart thumping wildly in his chest and his fire mana simmering in his veins.

  He’d already concluded that there were only two ways to beat the Supervisor. They either needed to destroy that primary fire mana core in its chest or destroy its Najima and let it gradually run out of energy.

  Although destroying the cores probably wouldn’t be a good idea. The original mech they had encountered outside the Forge had a built-in self-destruct sequence. And Kalisha’s mechanized suit had exploded when the primary core was damaged. They had barely survived the blast last time, and the ruined temple in the Abyss had been much larger. In the tight quarters of the pylon chamber, fracturing the Supervisor’s primary mana core would likely kill them all – assuming Finn could even manage the feat.

  His thoughts raced. Perhaps he could cut the circuits around the primary mana core instead of damaging the core itself… Although, if the Najima were still operational, the creature would easily be able to repair those connections. And besides, after his failed attack, he doubted the Supervisor would give him the time for that sort of precision work.

  If he went the other way and struck at the Najima, he couldn’t be certain how the Supervisor would react. Their mission was to defend the facility. If Finn cut off the Supervisor’s supply of mana, would it initiate a self-destruct sequence? That seemed pretty damn likely.

  So, he was screwed if he attacked the core directly and damned if he cut off the Supervisor’s supply of mana. Which left what exactly?

  The answer came to him immediately.

  He needed to take out both simultaneously… or at least within a few seconds.

  And then somehow contain the resulting blast as best he could.

  Great. So, I have a tentative goal. Now how the hell am I going to do that? The Supervisor had neatly contained his last attack. And there was no way he could get one of his orbs close enough to damage the creature before its scanner picked up on it.

  Even as that thought crossed his mind, Finn turned his attention back to the fight raging in the chamber. The security mechs were scattered through the center of the room between Finn and the Supervisor. Julia – a smudge of dark metal and carnage – smashed another mech, sending it crashing into one of the adjacent worktables that lined either side of the room. The mech struck with a resounding boom, and the mixture of rock and crystal fractured, forming a shallow crater. Only seconds later, the mech was already beginning to piece itself back together – aided by the strands of crystal that drifted upward out of the floor and the console behind it.

  I need to get closer, Finn realized. That might allow him to get one of his orbs within range before it was picked up by the Supervisor’s scanners. Finn rubbed at his left arm, at the dull ache that simmered there – distracting and unwelcome. Then he hesitated and looked down at that arm – at the blade that jutted from the stump and the dark iron ore that coiled up his bicep. His eyes jumped back to the Supervisor.

  If I was within melee range, that might give me a way to strike the cores and the Najima simultaneously. A semblance of a plan was starting to form in Finn’s mind as he compiled and processed the data in front of him.

  The Supervisor’s max mana pool was estimated at 8,000, which was based on Daniel’s initial scan of the mech. However, the light in the Supervisor’s cores had dimmed since they had first breached the blast door. It had been forced to burn some of its stored mana, likely to light up the mana cores of the security mechs fighting Julia, power the turrets, and release the other corrupted. Based on the current concentration of energy, Finn estimated that the Supervisor had less than 40% of its mana left – most of which was fire-based. The creature was also actively regenerating mana, but was using most of that energy to keep the corrupted online and fighting Julia.

  If he absorbed the Supervisor’s remaining mana, he’d take damage. But Finn had fully replenished his own health. And even with his diminished stats, his calculations indicated that he could likely handle absorbing the remainder of the Supervisor’s energy. It was just going to be tight. Really tight. But it was possible.

  He could work with that.

  Then there was the problem of getting into position. The time between each pulse of light mana – five seconds. The distance between himself and the Supervisor – 15 yards.

  Finn frowned.

  He wouldn’t have much of a window to move, and he’d need a distraction.

  Finn’s attention shifted back to the room. Julia couldn’t retreat from her eternal battle with the security mechs. Her health was still mostly topped off. Her lance was a blur, but she couldn’t win this fight of attrition; Finn could see that. The Supervisor was regenerating faster than her stamina, and she had started the battle at a disadvantage after their skirmish outside the pylon chamber. Eventually, the mechs would overwhelm her. But maybe she had enough gas in the tank left for what he had planned.

  “I need your help,” Finn said to Daniel, his fingers flying across the AI’s projected scan and pulling up a map of the room. “I need you to tell Julia to lure the mechs here, here, and here,” he said quickly, creating waypoint markers on the map. “She’ll need to stab the cores in their chests in quick succession and in this order. Pull the data from my Mana Sight and then push the highlighted targets to her. I need roughly five seconds between each blast. Have her count to five after the next pulse of light mana, then strike.”

  “Um… okay. What exactly are you planning to do?”
Daniel hesitantly asked as he processed Finn’s instructions.

  “No time,” Finn grunted. Then he glanced at the AI. “Also, she’ll need to be ready to absorb the detonations once she fractures the cores. She’ll need to be quick. You got it?”

  The AI flashed once in acknowledgment.

  “Good, then go,” Finn ordered. Daniel didn’t hesitate and shot off toward Julia.

  “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” Kyyle bit out from beside Finn. He had managed to pull himself upright, and his grip on his staff was firmer now. But dried blood was caked to his forehead, and his mana was just beginning to recover.

  “Probably. You need to build yourself a barricade with your remaining mana,” Finn said. “Move quickly.”

  He didn’t wait for a response. Finn’s hand began moving as he wound through the gestures of Haste. The searing flames soon rippled throughout his body, filling his chest with a tingling warmth – the sensation almost welcome as it blunted the ever-present ache in his left arm and chest. Suddenly, it felt difficult to remain standing still. He wanted to move – to sprint up a mountain and ride a tidal wave.

  The world around him had slowed to a crawl. A mech swung at Julia, and she stooped below the attack as Daniel darted to her shoulder, most likely shouting instructions in her ear. However, the sound was obscured by the grind of metal and the thump of Julia’s plated boots striking the ground. She nodded and then turned her attention back to the fight.

  Another mech behind her was slowly repairing, panels of metal drifting back into place. On the other end of the room, energy surged and coiled through the Supervisor’s body as it fed its mana into the floor and walls.

  Finn rummaged in his pack with his right hand. He pulled free a dark metal orb and waited for the next pulse of light mana to sweep the room before he tossed it into the air, aiming high over Julia’s head. The sphere tumbled through the air in slow motion. Simultaneously, an earthen barrier began to form around Kyyle’s body with a flash of emerald energy and his daughter shoved a mech backward with one hand before stabbing it in the chest – her aim dead center on its mana core. Her lance telescoped outward, and the diamond-studded tip soon penetrated the metallic shell, then touched the mech’s core.

  That glowing sphere began to crack…

  And then Finn moved.

  The mana core detonated in a fiery explosion that jetted outward in an expanding ring. From Finn’s perspective, he could see the metal casing of the mech’s chest buckle and then give way, metal fragments adding to the fiery inferno. The mana held in those cores was relatively weak, the Supervisor supplying most of the energy to keep the mechs online. But it was still enough to pack a punch.

  Finn was already running along the far edge of the room, his fingers dancing as he cast another spell. Five seconds, he thought, counting down in his head.

  Four. Three. Two. One.

  As another wave of ivory light swept the chamber, he ducked behind the workbench on the far end of the room – taking in the emerging explosion that blocked the mech’s line of sight on Finn’s metal sphere.

  Then he was running again.

  Julia’s lance blurred, and another sphere cracked. A second explosion began to erupt. The first was still growing, threatening to consume most of the room. But Finn was already past it, keeping those blasts between himself and the Supervisor as he circled the room. He was using the energy to mask his movements – not entirely trusting the interference from the crystal-laced counters lining the side of the chamber.

  Four. Three. Two. One.

  The final fan of ivory light swept the chamber, but this time Finn was behind the explosive cloud of fire mana, and he just kept moving. The third mech began to detonate. Julia’s body was being consumed by the flames now. Her skin rippled and turned to flame, the fires licking between the cracks in her armor. Then she was wholly consumed by a blazing wall of flame. Her absorption was likely enough to allow her to escape the detonation unscathed. At least, that’s what Finn kept telling himself as he raced forward.

  Finn’s feet pounded the floor as he barreled along the razor edge of the inferno.

  He finished casting Imbue Fire, and flames wrapped around the metal sphere that hovered in the air directly overtop the Supervisor and outside the angle of its scanners. With a nudge of his fingers, he swept it forward and down, hurtling past the Supervisor’s armored shield and coming up behind it.

  Finn wasn’t far behind, sliding the last few feet and managing to get behind the massive metal mech just as the next wave of ivory light swept the room… and missed Finn by a scant few inches.

  He didn’t pause or hesitate; his window would only last for a few seconds.

  Finn’s metal sphere smashed through one corrupted limb. Then another. And another. Faster than the Supervisor could react. The metal orb crashed through each of the Supervisor’s salvaged limbs with abandon, the medley of flesh and metal exploding outward in slow motion. Bright clusters of energy embedded in those corrupted limbs winked out one-by-one as Finn huddled behind its metallic body.

  The wave of fire struck then. It slammed into the Supervisor’s shield, and the entire mech buckled and shook, tendrils of crystal creeping forward as it attempted to re-absorb the excess mana in the air. Yet the mech’s body held firm, staying mounted solidly on top of the terminal.

  The flames swept past Finn on either side and sprayed up towards the ceiling, deflected by the Supervisor’s armored barrier. But Finn wasn’t paying attention to that any longer. His attention was focused solely on the intricate series of panels and crystalline wires that riddled the Supervisor’s back. The metal paneling was thinner here – a mere patchwork after it had reinforced its front-facing shield.

  It was beautiful. A glowing orange sun suspended among a lattice of radiant crystalline tendrils, smaller mana cores orbiting that ball of fire like a miniature sun. A marvelous synergy of engineering and evolution. A product of a time and people that no longer existed. And utterly destroying it was Finn’s only hope of saving Rachael.

  Of bringing her back…

  Finn’s sphere smashed through the last Najima, and he saw the final connection snap. His gaze focused on that massive fire mana core. This was it. This was his chance. He needed to act in this brief window before the Supervisor realized the scope of the damage and initiated the self-destruct sequence. He just hoped he could handle the energy in that core. That he had enough health. That his calculations were correct.

  He swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes closed.

  Then Finn plunged his bladed left arm into the Supervisor’s primary core. The sphere fractured in an instant, a crack appearing along that radiant sun. The energy only trickled out of that orb at first. Then the crack expanded, and the crystalline shell gave way entirely, the energy exploding forth in an unrelenting torrent.

  And Finn was waiting for it.

  He took it in. Absorbed it. Consumed it.

  He let the energy pour along his ruined arm, through the damaged and corrupted Najima before burning through the rest of his body. He drained every last drop and added it to himself, letting it pour into his Najima as fast as he could.

  His health was plummeting now. He could feel his skin redden and blister before peeling away, burnt to a crisp by the raw energy flowing from that mana core. He could feel the metal welded to his arm begin to melt, that burning ache in his arm now a searing pain that refused to be ignored. It felt like his entire arm was on fire.

  Like he was being burnt alive...

  He could feel himself dying…

  And in that moment…

  All of the pain suddenly disappeared.

  Finn was floating in light and energy and fire. And amid those flames, a face formed. Rachael’s face, framed in flame, her auburn hair drifting across her shoulders. She looked at him with a familiar compassion in her eyes.

  I tried. I’m sorry, Finn attempted to say, but no sound escaped his burnt and ravaged throat. No tears fell from his cheeks –
his eye sockets little more than scarred flesh and metal.

  He had failed. He could feel the inevitable tumble of each mental domino. He must have died – that was the only way to explain the hallucination of his wife. And death within the Forge likely meant failure. He wouldn’t be able to re-enter the facility. He wouldn’t be able to recover the technology stored inside. He wouldn’t be able to face Bilel…

  He wouldn’t be able to bring her back.

  Yet Rachael smiled and reached forward, her hand touching his face. She felt real. Solid. Warm. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’ll all be okay. You aren’t at the Finn-ish line yet.”

  Even as she spoke, Rachael began to disappear, her face and flesh breaking apart into spirals and curls of flame – the image before him being consumed by the fire and replaced with bottomless darkness.

  Finn tried to scream. To hold onto her. Tried to keep her there.

  But it was futile, like trying to catch hold of smoke.

  Soon there was only darkness, and that void swallowed him whole.

  Chapter 23 - Dire

  “Get up, we don’t have long,” a voice snapped.

  Finn blinked. The world around him was swimming, a strange multi-colored kaleidoscope. He blinked again, and his surroundings began to snap back into focus. He could understand now why he was initially disoriented. The objects around him were framed in harsh lines and filled in with normal hues – a stark contrast to the flowing, watercolor patterns of Mana Sight or the monochromatic blue of Short-Sighted.

  Which could only mean one thing.

  “Damn it,” Finn groaned.

  “I would be insulted, but this seems to be your reaction every time we meet,” the Seer replied sourly. “Now, get up,” she bit out. “As I said, we only have a moment.”

  Finn pushed himself to a sitting position, reveling for a moment in the use of his intact left hand and his working eyes – eyes which allowed him to glare at the silk-wrapped woman sitting behind the nearby table. “Maybe that’s because we only seem to speak right after I die… or almost die?” he amended more tentatively.