Awaken Online: Inferno (Tarot #3)

by Travis Bagwell

  Malik nodded in acknowledgment. “Since this afternoon, they’ve been permitted to rest and recuperate in anticipation of the upcoming battle.”

  “The merchants set up makeshift forges in the Flagship, and we’ve managed to supply and equip all of our soldiers, guildsmen and Khamsin alike,” Kalisha explained. A grimace flitted across her face. “Although, as Malik mentioned, consumables are in short supply. We don’t have the ingredients needed to prepare many potions or access to a market.”

  “We’ll just have to make do,” Finn said tiredly, rubbing at his temple with one hand.

  “There’s also still the matter of the unbonded merchants and mages… mostly healers,” Kalisha continued, arching an eyebrow at Finn. Her tiny mech had turned its domelike head toward Finn, its cores flashing with energy – possibly echoing Kalisha’s dour opinion of the situation.

  He shook his head. “As I said, we just don’t have the time. These are primarily support troops, so they won’t be fighting on the frontlines.”

  “Which is little solace when trying to explain why they were excluded from the Forging,” Kalisha snapped in irritation.

  “And there’s not much I can do about that. Let them grumble,” Finn shot back, his frustration getting the better of him, and his eyes flashing with a pulse of orange energy.

  As he noticed surprise and indignation flash across the merchant’s face, Finn forcefully tamped down on his frustration. They were all on edge after days of preparation, and there was no sense alienating the merchant… even if he often found himself wanting to strangle her.

  “Reassure them that they will be protected. They will all be positioned in the interior ranks of the army when we lay siege to Lahab,” he explained in a more conciliatory tone. Kalisha just sniffed in response, breaking eye contact with Finn.

  “Speaking of which, it looks like the situation in Lahab has definitely worsened,” Kyyle piped up, his eyes staring at an invisible display.

  All eyes turned to the earth mage, who promptly swiped at the air.

  A moment later, a screen appeared beside him, showing a first-person video that must have been recorded by one of the travelers back in Lahab – the sandstone structures a dead giveaway. Finn even recognized some of those buildings…

  The traveler rushed down a street, his feet beating hard at the sand, and his breathing ragged and frantic. He stooped under an awning, pushing himself flat against the wall just as a pack of hellhounds raced across the intersection ahead of him – flames curling away from their bodies. Screams soon echoed from down the road.

  “We need to get out of here,” a woman spoke up from behind him.

  Another traveler came into view, her robes marking her as a water mage. “We’re almost to the gate,” the man huffed in response. “Just move quickly and stick close to the wall.”

  Then they set off again, racing down the street and into another back alley.

  The northeastern gate soon came into view, and the pair froze. It wasn’t the pack of hounds lingering along the gate that made them pause – although the hundreds of flaming creatures loitering about the gates was a terrifying sight. Nor was it the piles of corpses pushed up against the walls of the nearby buildings – their blood staining the sands a dark crimson. Likely, they were the travelers and residents who hadn’t undergone the conversion into the hounds.

  As they looked on, flames erupted from behind the towering wall that ringed Lahab, stretching up into the air. Yet these fires weren’t localized to the gate.

  The traveler shifted his view, and more flames could be seen peeking up atop the walls to the north and south, forming a solid, circular barrier that began to ring the city. That shield stretched ever farther into the sky, the camera shifting again as the traveler looked behind him. More flames were streaking up into the air from the other side of Lahab.

  And those flames were converging overtop the city, forming a massive dome of fire. The flames were so thick that the pair could no longer make out the blue sky or the position of the sun. There was now only a perpetual flickering firelight, motes of molten energy raining down upon the city.

  “What… what do we do now?” the woman behind him asked, her voice frantic. “How are we going to get through that barrier?”

  “I don’t—” The traveler’s voice cut off as the camera listed to the side, tumbling and jerking erratically as he struck the nearby wall. Once the screen settled, the snout of a hellhound drifted into view, blood still dripping from its teeth. It let out a howl, arching its back as it called to the others.

  Then those flaming eyes centered back on the traveler, a low growl erupting from the beast’s throat as it paced forward.

  “Oh god!” the traveler screamed, trying to scramble backward.

  Yet it was too late.

  The hound’s fangs flashed, and the display went dark.

  A silence hung over the chamber as the clip ended.

  “That was posted less than an hour ago,” Kyyle offered quietly. “A few more videos have also started cropping up from travelers recording what’s happening in Lahab.”

  Finn shook his head. His mind was already working on that shield of fire mana. It seemed Bilel was anticipating an attack on the city – an obvious deduction after he had discovered the guilds nearly emptied of the resident mages, merchants, and fighters. His guess was that the hellhounds were sustaining the barrier, their numbers likely having grown to the point that Bilel could afford to divert excess mana to power the shield.

  That might throw a kink in his plans.

  “These videos aren’t great,” Julia muttered, swiping at the air now as she searched the net. “And the forums are already buzzing with word of a massacre in Lahab and a possible war on the horizon. That last bit must have been leaked by the few travelers that escaped with the guilds,” she offered with a frown.

  Julia shook her head, her eyes drifting to Finn. “This is a problem. These sorts of videos might encourage travelers to come to Lahab – looking for a fight and some easy loot. And they may or may not see our army as friendly.” She winced. “Or worse, if there are still travelers among our ranks, they could post their own videos… possibly giving away our position and resources. They might even try to cut a deal with the demon.”

  “Assuming Bilel is smart enough to realize that the travelers can communicate this way,” Kyyle retorted, his brow furrowed.

  “Do you really want to bet on that?” Julia replied. “In any other ga—” She stopped herself short, glancing at the other members of the council around the table. “Let’s just say, that this world isn’t normal – at least compared to others of its kind,” she said with a meaningful look at Kyyle.

  Julia was trying to be circumspect, but her intent was clear.

  Could they really assume the NPCs wouldn’t figure this out?

  After witnessing firsthand just how real the residents of this world acted, Finn didn’t feel comfortable making assumptions there.

  And even if Bilel didn’t figure out a way to snoop on the travelers, her point still stood. If they didn’t do something about this, they might have a miniature army of travelers to contend with on top of Bilel – idiots looking for gear and glory.

  “I think I need to shut this down,” Julia said, meeting Finn’s gaze. “I could pull these videos off a few sites and bury some of the forum posts. It’s still early, so I could probably stop this from going viral if I move quickly.”

  Finn grimaced. What she really meant was that she planned to hack a few servers.

  And yet he also didn’t see a better alternative. With everything riding on this battle, they couldn’t afford any last-minute surprises. He gave her a reluctant nod. “Just this once,” he cautioned, raising a finger.

  “Yeah, yeah… sure,” Julia muttered, already tapping at her in-game console.

  “It seems the number of hounds has only continued to increase,” Abbad spoke up, his eyes still on the screen, the short video replaying on a loop.

&
nbsp; Aerys shook her head. “And we were already looking at 4,000 to 5,000 of our own against a legion of at least 10,000. By now, that might be 20,000…”

  She trailed off, rubbing at her face. The woman looked tired. Dark circles hung under her eyes, evidencing days spent herding the Khamsin. “Morale may be a problem before long. Our ‘prophet’s’ influence only goes so far. Already, the rumors are circling about what we will face. It may be due to travelers spreading images such as these,” she offered, waving at the screen.

  A frown tugged at Aerys’ lips. “Although, I suspect the rumors are more likely a result of this ‘pet’ hellhound that we’ve been forced to protect,” she added with a sharp expression at the burly fire mage.

  “Hey, don’t blame Betty,” Brutus shot back, earning him a scowl from Aerys. The fire mage had been admitted to the Hive and this meeting only at Finn’s insistence – another power struggle that the Khamsin leader had ultimately lost. It didn’t seem she’d forgotten that slight yet. “She’s an innocent in all of this!”

  Kyyle snorted out a laugh. “An innocent fire-eating monster, you mean.”

  “Well, I’ll be the first to admit that she can be a little… feisty,” Brutus replied.

  “Which is the understatement of the century,” Aerys interjected. “I’ve seen the creature with my own eyes. I can only imagine what a legion of those… those things could do to our troops. There’s a reason that her presence has put our people on edge.” Her gaze drifted back to Finn. “Even putting aside the demon that leads them.”

  “Bilel does present a problem,” Abbad said with a nod, swiping at the air to bring up a map of Lahab and the surrounding area. “Shielding the city is just a first step. Bilel will likely be able to see us coming long before we reach Lahab’s walls, and he has absorbed an enormous amount of mana over the decades – conserving his strength. We should be prepared for elaborate illusions and possibly significant changes to the city’s layout and defenses.”

  Finn nodded. “And the hounds are funneling energy to the relic, which means Bilel will likely be nearly immortal until we can slay the creatures. Our first priority should be to gather the beasts together and try to eliminate them.

  “Which is where the Infernal Guard comes in,” Finn continued, gesturing at Julia. “The hounds are attracted to dense sources of mana – particularly fire mana – and while the mages maintain Imbue Fire, the guard should attract the beasts’ attention.”

  “Assuming they don’t get overwhelmed,” Kyyle said softly, his expression worried as he watched Julia – likely envisioning her on the frontlines of this war.

  Aerys let out a sigh, her eyes jumping from the map to Finn’s eyes. “So, we face an immortal demon, a legion of hounds that allow him to heal any wound, and our lynchpin is to have a mere 100 of our own face down some unknown number of hounds? I suppose we’ll just have to place our faith in the goddess and our prophet that we manage to survive this.”

  Finn met her skepticism with a small smile. “We can do better than that. I’ve never been much for operating on blind faith anyway.”

  “You speak as though you have a plan,” Abbad said, his brow furrowing slightly.

  “Indeed, we do,” Finn replied, his smile widening.

  “We?” Julia said, glancing up from her screen with confusion rippling across her face. Finn hadn’t had a chance to update her on his little experiment or the plan that had begun to solidify over the last day in-game.

  “You guys want to show them what we’ve come up with?” Finn asked, directing this question at Kyyle and Brutus.

  “Not really…” the fire mage muttered. “I still say this is madness. This much mana has never been condensed into a single area before – at least not since the time before the gods were banished from this world. We can’t predict what will happen…” This reaction earned Brutus a few puzzled and worried looks from the group around the table.

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Kyyle offered, swiping at the air. “We’ve run and re-run the calculations repeatedly, and it should work.” This earned him a skeptical snort from the fire mage as his eyes hovered on the screen above the table.

  The display shifted, now showing a top-down view of a patch of desert located to the east, between the Hive and the Flagship and Lahab. It had taken them some time and the help of a few Khamsin scouts to find this location. They needed flat ground without as many of the rolling dunes or rock islands that normally dotted the deep desert. The natural direction of the wind was also helpful. This spot had a strong current of air that flowed from west to east, unobstructed by any natural obstacles.

  “We’re looking at a patch of sand,” Kalisha observed dryly.

  Finn just shook his head, rising from his seat and circling the table to stand at its head. He flicked at the screen with his fingers, and suddenly, a hundred yellow dots appeared along the western side of the sandy strip. “We’ll station 100 air mages at this location. They’ll be broken up into two groups of 50, so they can rotate their casting and allow the alternate group to regenerate its mana.”

  “Okay,” the merchant drawled, dragging the word out. “Now we have a bunch of mages standing in the middle of the desert. I’m still not seeing the master plan here.”

  “Just wait,” Kyyle murmured, a gleam in his eye.

  Finn swiped again. Another few hundred blue and orange dots appeared toward the eastern side of the strip. “Water and fire mages will be stationed in this area. The water mages will continuously cast Obscuring Mist, and the fire mages will work to heat that vapor. We need to seed this area with as much moist, warm air as possible.”

  Brutus noted the frown curling Kalisha’s lips and spoke up before she could say anything. “Yes, yes, it looks like we’re blowing hot air across the desert. Just wait.” The merchant’s mouth snapped shut.

  “And I will be positioned here with a group of healers,” Finn said, a glowing orange dot appearing between the line of air mages and the group of water and fire mages… positioned much more closely to the cluster of air mages. A small group of green dots encircled his position to denote the earth mage healers.

  Julia’s brow was furrowed, and Finn was watching her closely, waiting to see if she caught on to his plan. “What exactly are you planning to do here?” she murmured. “A strong current of air moving to the east. It will strike a pocket of warm, humid air. But what’s your role…” She drifted off as her eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open.

  His daughter’s eyes snapped to Finn, staring at him with an incredulous expression. “You can’t be serious!”

  He felt his smile grow wider, his eyes flaring with fire as his excitement got the better of him. “I can. And I am.”

  “You two want to share with the group?” Kalisha interjected sourly.

  Finn waved at the AI that floated beside his shoulder. “Daniel, bring up our model.”

  “Of course, sir,” the AI chirped.

  The display shifted, the camera tilting from a top-down view to an isometric angle, providing a three-dimensional re-creation of the terrain and position of the mages. Overlaying the image was a projection of the ambient mana in each region – as though the group was viewing the model through Finn’s Mana Sight. The area around the fire and water mages was swiftly enveloped in a cloud of sapphire energy, the mana turning a darker brown as it was heated by the fire mages.

  “As I mentioned, the first step is to create a cloud of moist, hot air,” Finn explained, tapping at that billowing, dark cloud.

  Then the dot denoting Finn’s location began casting, the temperature dropping swiftly and a large patch of sand beginning to turn a dark blue. The healers stationed around him flared brightly – continuously casting as they helped to keep his health topped off.

  “At the same time, I need to dramatically drop the temperature in the area in front of the air mages,” Finn explained. “At which point…”

  He trailed off as a current of yellow energy soon swept away
from the line of air mages, blasting across the sands and whipping past Finn’s location and carrying the cool air along with it. That artificial cold front soon struck the pocket of moist air, colliding and merging before separating into separate currents of hot and cold air.

  The colder current forced the heated vapor upward. As it drifted higher and higher, the mist began to cool and clouds formed, swiftly condensing and giving off a flash of heat, before expanding, rising, and repeating the process again and again and again. Within the span of only a few minutes, a billowing tower of clouds had formed, stretching several miles into the air and spreading out across the sands into a massive storm front that barreled across the dunes, picking up speed as the natural air current began to carry the storm forward.

  Rain soon poured from those clouds, beating against the sand, and the occasional flash of lightning struck the ground. The image suddenly shifted, switching back to a top-down view and tracing the projected path of the storm, a yellow line leading straight to Lahab. That line of clouds glowed with an almost overwhelming mixture of blue, yellow, and orange energy, creating a billowing storm front filled with so much mana that it would be nearly impenetrable to Finn’s sight… or, at least, he hoped it would be.

  Silence had descended upon the room, the entire group staring at the model wide-eyed and mouths agape.

  “You plan to create a storm,” Abbad said softly into that silence. The librarian glanced at Finn. “Is this really possible?”

  “It sure is,” Brutus affirmed with a grunt. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Finn tested his theory already by creating a miniature version in a cave below the Flagship. Although, we were only using a handful of mages at the time.”

  Abbad nodded, his eyes flicking back to the display. “I see your goal. The ambient mana will be so thick that even Bilel will have trouble penetrating it with his sight. And from what Brutus mentioned about the hounds, the wet and cold should dampen their strength. That’s… that’s incredible,” he murmured, staring at the model. Finn could see the air mage’s energy fluctuating wildly, tendrils of flame curling through his body.