Awaken Online: Inferno (Tarot #3)

by Travis Bagwell

  “Infernal Guard, advance!” Finn roared, thunder pealing overhead.

  As one, the line of flaming metal juggernauts shambled forward, their combined weight causing the ground to tremble. They soon swept past Finn, and he let them press forward, marching ahead with a terrible, ominous certainty.

  Finn’s eyes rose to the sky. The storm was continuing to worsen. A thick bank of steam now rose above the gate, adding to the powder keg that was brewing. A tornado had begun to touch down along the line of buildings beside the gate, the air mana swirling in a giant vortex and the wind whipping at his robes. A blanket of air mana was held suspended above their soldiers, as the air mages tried their best to blunt the bite of the storm and protect their own.

  Julia was soon at his side, eyeing him with a worried look. An air mage stood beside her. The woman’s robes were ripped and burnt, but no visible injuries marred her body. For his part, flames still coated Finn’s skin, and his left hand was only just beginning to revert to normal.

  “That was foolish,” she grunted.

  “I’ll need the mana for what’s coming,” was his only response, one of his orbs circling him slowly.

  Finn had a plan in mind. This battle over the gate was only one of many. They still needed to reclaim the city and defeat the demon. As that thought crossed his mind, his gaze swept to the Emir’s palace along the southern end of Lahab. The palace’s spires towered above the rest of the buildings. He expected Bilel was sitting there, where he had a natural vantage point on the rest of Lahab.

  As he watched the palace, Finn saw streamers of emerald energy curl away from the main building, rocketing across the city in a flash and striking the mound of rubble blocking the roadway. The stone and rock promptly disintegrated, bleeding back down into the sandy street. Finn’s eyes widened as he watched that massive surge of energy. It wasn’t just the amount of mana, it was the accuracy and the range that gave him pause.

  But not for long… more hounds were now racing down the street toward them.

  Finn’s eyes snapped to the nearby air mage. With a flick of his wrist, he brought up his map, showing the layout of the gate and the narrow street leading deeper into the city.

  “Signal the Khamsin.” He waved at the righthand side of the street where a tornado was forming. “Have them move forward and take up a position along the tops of those buildings. The fighters should move into position along the left side of the street. Have them flank from the rear and sides.” As he spoke, Finn’s fingers tapped at the locations on his map, adding waypoint markers.

  “Yes, sir,” the air mage replied curtly. Her mana flashed, and she began whispering instructions, relaying Finn’s orders to mages positioned further back within the main body of the army. Seconds later, she glanced back at Finn. “It’s done.”

  He nodded, his flaming eyes drifting to the gate above them. He needed a vantage point to direct his soldiers. And if Bilel was truly watching this battle – meddling from his perch atop the palace – then that would make Finn more easily visible.

  “Can you get me up there?” he asked. The air mage looked uncertain, watching lightning crackle along that terrace. Then she nodded.

  Finn glanced back at Julia. “You okay to direct the guard down here?”

  “Yes,” she answered simply. “But be careful,” she cautioned, glancing at Finn with a worried expression. “We can’t afford to lose you – not at this point.”

  “I’ll try,” Finn answered with a grim expression before waving at the air mage.

  A gust of wind erupted from beneath them, carrying the pair up toward the rampart that ran across the top of the gate. The storm blew them slightly off course, a strong gust pelting them as they sped up into the air. But Finn was ready for that. He threw another orb, grabbed hold of the air mage with one hand, and directed his remaining metallic sphere forward with the other. He swiftly combined the two orbs, flattening the metal out into an incredibly thin disc. He then rotated that disc to the side, using it to blunt the wind rushing toward them. Their course stabilized, and their feet soon touched down on solid stone.

  With another twitch of his fingers, Finn pivoted that disc, slamming it into the stone of the parapet and curling the top to create a makeshift wall to blunt the worst of the wind and rain. His eyes snapped to the air mage, noticing the way the woman now stared at him with a mixture of fear and awe.

  “Conserve your mana,” he said. “I may need you to relay directions to the others.”

  Another nod and Finn’s gaze swept back to the street below him.

  The Khamsin and fighters were already surging forward at a sprint, crossing beneath the gate and barreling up behind the line of Infernal Guard.

  With a flash of multi-colored energy, the fighters launched themselves airborne, their feet soon slamming down upon the rooftops of the buildings lining the left-hand side of the street. Air mages had been inserted into their group, the robed men and women gliding up to the rooftops with a flare of yellow mana before creating discs of golden energy that hovered protectively above the fighters as they moved.

  The Khamsin had no need for such luxuries. They raced toward the tornado without hesitating, launching themselves into the maelstrom. Their bodies rippled and converted as they absorbed the mixture of wind and water. Solid arms and legs disintegrated into gusts of air that swept up onto the rooftop. As their feet touched down on the thick tiles of the roofs, their bodies re-materialized, and they charged forward without pause. Less than a minute later, a full division of Khamsin were sprinting down the rooftops.

  As the Infernal Guard advanced on the next wave of hounds, the Khamsin pulled a series of crystals from their bags. Those gems shone with a vibrant azure light in Finn’s gaze – water mana. They promptly threw those crystals – much as Finn had seen them throw the air-based grenades when he had first arrived at the Abyss. Except these makeshift grenades weren’t designed to create a miniature vortex of air.

  As they landed, the gems fractured and then exploded, thick shards of ice spearing out in a spherical pattern. Those lances cut into the hounds, spearing dense muscle and tearing into their skin. Explosions detonated all along the line of hounds that charged down the street, the Khamsin tossing the grenades as they ran nimbly across the rooftops. The blasts weakened the hounds – even if they didn’t take them out completely – allowing the Infernal Guard to make short work of those that made it to their line. They were an unstoppable wall of flaming metal. The hounds’ claws could find no purchase on their metallic skin or the flames that curled between those iron panels.

  And then the fighters had moved into position. Finn saw the consistent flash of multi-colored energy as the soldiers attacked from the rear, using surprise to cut a large swath into the back of the pack of hounds. Their enhanced weapons – having been upgraded by undergoing the Forging – cut into the creatures with abandon. They used their warded bodies to stay just out of reach, retreating along a side street or jumping up to the safety of the rooftops where the hounds couldn’t easily reach them.

  The hounds’ numbers were quickly diminishing as their army struck at them from three sides. Fighters carved up their rear while Khamsin lobbed ice grenades into the middle of the pack from the right-hand side of the street. And the Infernal Guard was marching straight down the road, their lances impaling any hound unfortunate enough to be in the way.

  They had nearly secured the gate.

  Yet, while this fight might soon be over, there was still a war to be waged.

  Finn’s eyes shifted to the rest of the city. Despite the glowing blue and yellow haze created by the storm, he could make out dense clusters of fire mana along almost every street and cross-section. Even while a number of the hounds stalled them at the gate, many, many more of the creatures were scouring the city – likely consuming and converting any remaining residents that had been too slow or cautious to abandon Lahab.

  The Mage Guild was even worse. A bonfire of energy speared up from that structure al
ong the northern side of the city. Finn could only assume from the stories the others had told, and the videos they had found online, that Bilel was harvesting mana from the travelers as they respawned in that beginning courtyard… using the guild to grow his numbers.

  And then there was the weather…

  The tornado ripping down along the right-hand side of the street wasn’t the only one. Dozens more were scattered across the city, the storm fully consumed by chaos and creating abrupt downdrafts. Those vortexes ripped entire buildings apart, absorbing the rock and wood to create a whirling twister of shrapnel. There was no rhyme or reason to the pattern any longer. Tornadoes touched down and dissipated quickly, punctuated by the erratic flash of lightning and the intense, howling wind.

  And then there was the torrential rain that pelted the city, already flooding several low-lying streets. The wind swept down through the narrow alleys and roads, picking up speed as it was funneled between the buildings and nearly shoving the moisture into a horizontal trajectory that forced the water in between rock and stone. Even if there had been survivors left within the city, the hounds and the storm would soon ensure that this was their last day in this world.

  And as though that wasn’t enough, the repeated use of earth magic and the raw amount of water dumped down onto Lahab by the storm had begun to wreak its own havoc. The sand and underlying rock formations that held up the city were giving way, forming sinkholes along many of the streets. Several buildings had begun to collapse, listing to the side before toppling over – further blocking off streets and adding to the debris that was picked up by the tornadoes.

  Finn squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing against the acidic bite of bile at the back of his throat. He might not have started this war. But he had fucking finished it. Even if they defeated Bilel, he would have almost completely destroyed Lahab. And he had signed the death sentence of anyone still living within the city.

  Because what he was witnessing was Lahab being consumed by elemental forces, wind, air, fire, and water ripping the ground and buildings apart and slaying what few survivors might have managed to survive the hounds.

  He could only imagine what a new player might witness if they had the singular misfortune of logging into that initial starting courtyard in the midst of all of this. They would only be rolling the dice as to their manner of death – tossed into the air by a tornado, ripped apart by the hounds, buried under a slow-moving mountain of earth, or drowned beneath a river of water.

  “Finn,” Daniel said softly, hovering just beside his ear. “You have a visitor.”

  Finn’s eyes snapped open. He noticed a telltale flicker of mana below him and saw two figures launch up through the air from the base of the gate. Moments later, the group touched down next to him, and a shimmering barrier of air slid across the sky above, insulating them from the worst effects of the storm.

  He turned to find Kyyle and Abbad standing there. As they each took in the view of the city, their eyes went wide, and their mouths dropped open.

  “Holy shit,” Kyyle muttered.

  “There’s no coming back from this,” Finn murmured in reply, his eyes taking in the carnage that was unfolding below them.

  “There isn’t,” Abbad answered curtly. Finn’s eyes met the librarian’s. “The only path open to us is to move forward – to finish what we’ve started.”

  “Even if it means destroying the rest of the city?” Finn asked.

  The librarian simply nodded. “Anything. Everything,” he said simply, waving at the city below them, the wind carrying the howl of the hounds and the wails of the dying, the sounds only adding to the monstrous cacophony of the storm.

  Finn ground his teeth. Abbad was right. He knew he was right – even if he was having second thoughts in the face of the carnage that he had helped to create.

  His eyes centered on one location along the far end of the city – that area having been largely spared the destructive effects of the storm. Bilel’s palace. That entire structure shone with a multi-colored hue. Although Finn couldn’t be certain whether that was due to the demon’s spellcasting or something else… something worse.

  Not that it mattered. They still had a goal – one that they hadn’t yet completed.

  They were going to kill a demon.

  Chapter 42 - Chaotic

  Karen sighed and sat down on one of the barstools that ringed her kitchen island. She waved a hand at the nearby wall panel beside her. The sensors registered her movement, and the drone floating beside her picked up the laundry basket resting on the floor. Its rotors whirred softly as it lifted the weight and then began drifting to the washing machine on the other end of the house.

  The kids were off to school. The laundry was done – or in progress, she supposed – and she had straightened the house and ordered groceries. And it was only early afternoon. Not too shabby. She’d still have a few hours of downtime to herself before the kids returned, and she needed to help them with homework and cook dinner. And then Dustin would be getting home, and he’d likely want to talk about his day…

  Stop it, she snapped herself. This was supposed to be her time to relax – one of the few moments where she got a respite from the usual chaos of dealing with everyone else’s problems.

  Her eyes landed on the non-descript white box resting on the counter – still sitting where she had left it the night before. A logo of a rising sun was emblazoned on the side, and the company’s name printed in black lettering. Cerillion Entertainment.

  Dustin had brought the box home last night – a gift for her. He’d told her it seemed like she needed an escape from the never-ending list of chores and dealing with their kids. And so, of course, her husband had decided to buy her a videogame.

  “It’s state of the art,” he had said. “Really, there’s nothing like it out there. It’s supposed to be so realistic that it’s almost indistinguishable from real life.”

  To say she was skeptical might have been the understatement of a century. Karen had played a few simple games on her Core over the years but hadn’t found that they offered much of an escape. They were mostly a distraction while she was waiting to pick up the kids or standing in line at the store, or…

  Okay. Maybe there’s something to what Dustin had been saying, she admitted to herself grudgingly.

  Still… a game?

  Although, what could it hurt to give it a try?

  Her fingers gingerly tugged at the box, and she soon pulled out a solid black headset and a standalone onyx obelisk. The plastic felt heavy and thick in her hands. Dustin had told her she should find a comfortable place to sit or lie down before she tried it, so she moved to the couch – setting the obelisk on the coffee table and connecting it to the headset with a thin cable. Then she tugged the helmet over her head, her vision suddenly engulfed in darkness.

  A glowing prompt appeared in that dark void, the edges of the frame ringed in brilliant sapphire.

  System Initializing

  New User Detected.

  Scanning User... Please Wait.

  Dustin had mentioned that the startup might take a second, so she forced herself to remain still, waiting patiently.

  System Initialized

  Scanning complete. Initiating boot sequence.

  Our records indicate that you have opted to bypass the introductory tutorial.

  Welcome to Awaken Online!

  Dustin must have set up an account for me, she realized. Of course, he took off the training wheels already. She wasn’t exactly surprised. Hell, she half expected he’d tried the game himself and skipped the tutorial. The prompt disappeared, and her vision went dark once more.

  Although she didn’t have long to mull on that. A blinding white light suddenly flooded her vision, filling that black expanse like a rising sun. The glow was so intense that she squinted against the brightness, blinking rapidly as tears formed at the corners of her eyes.

  And then that white light abruptly disintegrated.

  In the next insta
nt, Karen found herself standing in a stone courtyard.

  Her living room was gone. Instead, she was surrounded by a thick sandstone wall, and more sand crunched underfoot – feet that were now adorned in simplistic leather sandals, the straps twining up her calves. Her shoes weren’t the only thing that had changed. Her clothing was gone and replaced with coarse, beige cotton that scraped against her skin.

  She felt a cold splatter along her cheek, and she reached up in surprise, her fingers coming away wet. It felt so real. If she hadn’t just been sitting in her living room, she could have sworn that she had been transported to another world.

  More rain splashed against her cheeks. Her hair. Her shoulder and arms. Soaking into the fabric of her tunic. Wind whipped at the fabric, a gust so intense that it sent her stumbling forward. She looked up, and her eyes widened. She must have logged in during a thunderstorm. Rolling black clouds spanned the sky, and a peal of thunder boomed, shaking the walls and ground around her.

  Okay… this is sort of incredible.

  There was another flash of blinding light – but this time, it wasn’t the headset.

  Lightning slammed into the ground beside her, burning the air in an instant and creating a miniature vacuum. The force of the strike sent her flying backward, where she landed in the sand with a soft thump, the breath escaping her lungs with a whoosh, and her ears ringing from the concussive blast. Stray fragments of molten sand dotted her skin, leaving searing points of pain where they swiftly burned through her tunic.

  “What the fuck?” she croaked, forcing herself upright. A crater had been carved in the nearby sand, black forks radiating out from the center.

  Luckily, she had landed on something soft.

  She rolled off whatever had cushioned her fall, only to let out a gasp. Dead, vacant eyes stared back at her. The corpse’s skin was pale and cool to the touch. It looked like the man’s stomach had been ripped open, his entrails leaking into the sand. They were still warm, tendrils of steam drifting upward into the frigid air.