Awaken Online: Inferno (Tarot #3)

by Travis Bagwell

  She recoiled from the body, only to shuffle into another resting a few feet away. Her eyes – wide and afraid – skimmed the courtyard with fresh interest. Dozens of corpses riddled the ground, none of them moving. Many looked like they had been completely ripped apart, leaving only fragments of skin, bone, and flesh. And among the intact bodies, she noticed the same simple beige clothing.

  “What’s going on here…” she muttered.

  She heard a low growl from behind her and whirled. What looked like a monstrous dog stepped out of the shadows. Chunks of flesh sloughed from its skin, landing in the sand with a sickening thud. The hound’s body was bathed in flame, its muscles rippling beneath its red-hued skin as it sniffed at the air. And then those glowing blood-red eyes centered on her, the growl intensifying. She saw the creature’s fangs as it stalked toward her – long teeth that could easily cut into her fragile flesh.

  Karen felt her heart hammering in her chest, her breath coming in desperate, frantic gulps now. Her eyes darted to the side. A man wearing mail armor lay along the sand, resting in a pool of his own blood. And clutched in his dead hand was a dagger.

  She looked back at the hound – their eyes meeting.

  Then the beast lunged forward, its jaws snapping at the air.

  And Karen moved, scrambling across the wet sand. With slippery fingers, she pried at the dagger – no longer concerned that she was touching a corpse. Yet the dagger wouldn’t come free, the dead man’s fingers locked in place like iron. She spared a glance behind her and saw the flaming beast approaching.

  “Damn it! Come on!” she screamed, ripping at the man’s hand more forcefully. Muscle and bone snapped, and the dagger finally came free. She clutched the blade in her right hand and spun just as the hound dove at her.

  She felt the beast’s weight land on her. The force of the blow rippled up her arm as she raised the dagger. The heat of its skin and those flames were leaving a burning trail along her skin. Its foul breath wafted across her face as those fangs gnashed just inches from her face.

  Karen squeezed her eyes shut, waiting to die.

  And yet… nothing happened.

  When she opened her eyes again, she saw that the blade had struck the creature directly in the throat, glowing orange blood leaking from the wound. The hound was frozen in place, its eyes wide and its breath still wafting feebly across her face, its jaw spasming.

  And in that moment… Karen snapped.

  She ripped the dagger free and then stabbed again. And again. And again.

  The blade plunged into the beast’s throat. And when it stopped moving, she rolled over on top of it, raising the blade high and then slamming it into the creature’s chest, striking it directly in its still-beating heart.

  Seconds later, Karen knelt above the hound – the light finally leaving its eyes. She was covered in a mixture of sand, blood, and water, her tunic soaked through, her hair wild, and the dagger still clutched in her hand, the blade embedded in the creature’s chest. In the distance, she could hear howling above the steady boom of thunder and crack of lightning – signaling more of the hounds. And they sounded close by.

  “I need to move,” she thought. “Now.”

  She ripped the blade free, her eyes already skimming the bodies around her. Her thoughts were honed to a singular focus. She wasn’t thinking about her kids. Or the damn laundry. Or anything else – only her next move.

  For example, what other useful equipment might these people have on their bodies?

  ***

  Walt’s eyes skimmed the darkened room even as he pulled another sword from the ruined display case and stuffed it into one of the many bags that were draped across his back and swung from his waist. He was lucky the bags seemed to act as some sort of extra-dimensional storage container that dramatically reduced the carrying weight of items stored inside. He expected he wouldn’t be able to move if he had been forced to physically carry the mountain of stolen loot in those seemingly flimsy leather bags.

  The shop where he was standing had nearly been tapped. The display cases were toppled and broken, and a large crack radiated through the wall of the store – courtesy of the shifting sands beneath the city. He wasn’t responsible for that damage. The place had looked like a warzone long before he entered. Although, he had certainly contributed – busting open the remaining displays to steal their contents.

  Walt felt a twinge of guilt as he looked at the carnage.

  “Why the hell should I feel bad about this?” he muttered to himself, looking away from the destruction and shoving another polished dagger into his pack.

  He’d logged in only a few hours ago to find the Mage Guild almost entirely deserted, the faculty, NPC students, and a decent chunk of the player population having up and vanished seemingly overnight. Ever since, he’d been hunted by the flaming hounds that patrolled the streets, the creatures breaking into homes and shops, and slaughtering NPCs and players alike.

  Many of those they cut down came back, but they weren’t human any longer.

  Walt had no idea what the fuck was going on in Lahab, but he had been quick to arrive at a plan. He needed to get the hell out of this city and start over somewhere else. However, to do that, he needed money. And he had a solution for that as well. If nearly everyone was dead, then they didn’t have much use for their stuff anymore, did they?

  He grimaced as he rounded the counter and found the former store owner leaning against the nearby wall, his stomach and throat torn open, and dried blood caked around the wounds. The man hadn’t converted into one of those beasts. Walt wasn’t sure why some people underwent the change and some didn’t. Although, he’d noticed that mages were much more susceptible. In this case, perhaps it was a blessing.

  NPCs didn’t respawn like the players. And they certainly couldn’t log out.

  He knelt in front of the corpse and patted its shoulder. “You’re probably better off, buddy.” Then, without hesitation, he sliced through the purse dangling from the man’s waist and then added the pouch to one of his bags.

  Walt shoved himself back to his feet, the move harder than it should have been. Even with the weight reduction, it was getting increasingly difficult to move. With a grimace, his fingers began winding through a spell. Green energy encircled him, spiraling up his legs and arms before wrapping around the bags draped across his body. An instant later, he felt that weight fade away as he maintained the channel on the gravity manipulation spell.

  His instructors had focused on using the spell to help in melee combat, allowing earth mages with a penchant for combat to wield massive hammers and swords like they were mere sticks. Walt had found another, more creative application.

  His work in the shop finished, he turned to the nearby wall, pressed his ear against the surface, and paused for several long seconds. He was listening for the telltale growl or wailing howl of the hounds. When he heard nothing, he pulled his hood over his head, checked the straps on his bags, and then began to cast.

  Green energy spiraled around him once more, but this time, the energy drifted to the nearby wall. The sandstone began to swirl in a whirling pattern, partially disintegrating. Taking a deep breath, Walt plunged straight through the wall…

  …and soon emerged on the other side.

  “Fuck that hurts,” he muttered, clutching at his chest.

  Rain now beat down upon him, and the wind whipped at his leather armor – another misappropriated addition to his armory. He wouldn’t have ever been able to afford it back in the Mage Guild.

  The stone wall behind him re-stabilized in a flash. Dissolve was yet another spell that had come in handy. Low-power variants didn’t destroy the stone. They just made it porous enough to step through – even if the experience wasn’t entirely pleasant. It felt like his entire body was being crushed, and he could only withstand the sensation for a few seconds.

  He heard a crash and a howl from his right, and his head whipped around. A spiral of wind and water was forming even as he looked
on, stabbing down from the clouds and touching down on the rooftop of a nearby building. The budding tornado was already ripping the tiles from the roof one by one… the process accelerating swiftly as the vortex began to fully take shape.

  The storm was getting worse. When he’d logged in, the weather had been the same broiling heat that always lingered across the desert city, only the threat of storm clouds on the horizon. Now the temperature had dropped – puffs of vapor forming with each breath. Even worse, the maelstrom seemed to be centered directly above Lahab, torrential rains and beating winds whipping across the rooftops and howling down through the streets and alleys. Even the ground had started to give way, leaving sinkholes and long cracks in the sand – likely the product of so much unaccustomed water.

  Regardless, it was time to get the fuck out of here.

  With a gesture, Walt pulled up his map.

  He was near the western edge of the city, his location denoted by a faint green dot. A few streets up and over, and he’d reach the northwestern gate. If he could slip out, he might be able to wade through the storm – inverting his gravity spell to increase his weight and make him more resistant to the wind and rain.

  At least, that was his working plan.

  With a grunt, he swiped away the map and shouldered his packs, starting off toward the gate. As he neared the end of the street, he heard the hounds long before he saw them coming. They let out a wailing howl that stood out over the wind and rain. He immediately slinked against a nearby wall, blending into the shadows. He saw several figures running down the street, sprinting away from the hounds. From their simple clothing, they looked like NPCs… or players unfortunate enough to have logged in or respawned into this mess.

  Walt grimaced. That path wasn’t clear.

  He glanced at the wall behind him and made a quick decision. He would have to burn most of his mana, but passing through the buildings was safer than sticking to the streets. His mind made up, his fingers wound through another series of gestures, and then he vanished into the nearby wall just as the hounds barreled down the alley behind him.

  One building. Two. Then a third.

  Walt’s chest was burning as he sucked in air, and his skin and bones ached from the unnatural compression. He slumped against the wall, squeezing his eyes closed – his health and stamina drained.

  That was when he heard it. The clang of metal. The shouts of pain. The hoarse cries of soldiers. The howl of the hounds.

  Walt’s eyes snapped open, and what he witnessed left him staring dumbstruck.

  He’d exited onto a second-story terrace – hoping to inspect the area around him before he made a final dash for the gate. The space gave him an extraordinary view of the battle that was now raging in the street below him.

  The paws of hundreds of hounds beat against the sands as they raced toward the city’s gate, tendrils of steam curling into the air where the rain pelted their bodies. The creatures were advancing on a line of metal-clad warriors that stood in the narrow gateway – their feet planted firmly, and massive tower shields raised in front of them. Flames encircled their armor, heating the metal until it glowed a bright red.

  Without warning, the ground beneath Walt lurched, and he gripped at the nearby wall, trying to maintain his balance. The line of buildings farther down the street gave way – as though a giant had simply shoved the buildings into the street. They toppled forward with a thunderous crash, burying a few hundred hounds beneath several tons of sandstone. Dust swept up into the air, only to be firmly pounded back into the ground by the rain and wind.

  Then the advancing line of hounds was upon those plated warriors. The warriors cut down the beasts in droves. The second line behind the shield wall stepped forward. They were armed with lances, which plunged between the gaps in the shields with pinpoint precision. Glowing orange blood soon stained the sands, and a mountain of bodies was forming in front of those soldiers.

  “What… what’s going on?” Walt muttered. Was someone attacking the city? Was that why the hounds were here? But then why were these soldiers fighting them?

  He saw two groups peel off in either direction behind the soldiers, one group launching on to the rooftops on the other side of the street and then racing across the tiles. Above them floated a translucent, shimmering barrier of air mana.

  To hold off the rain and wind, Walt realized belatedly.

  The other group ran straight into the base of the tornado that was forming near the gate. Walt drew in a sharp breath as he watched them swallowed up by the vortex and then released it in a surprised huff a moment later as they rematerialized on the nearby rooftops. The men and women sprinted forward with uncanny dexterity, seemingly immune to the storm.

  And who the hell are they?

  They began lobbing frozen grenades down into the street, lances of ice erupting among the surging column of hounds that streamed just below him. Those shards cut into the beasts with abandon, the icy energy severing limbs and stabbing through their bodies. A nearby hound was impaled, held aloft on an icy shard, and its paws still jerked and twisted at the air as it slowly slid down the ice, leaving a bloody orange trail in its wake.

  Then he saw a flash of fire mana closer to the gate. Someone was fighting the hounds in front of the shield wall. Yet the man moved so quickly that Walt could barely follow him – he was merely an orange-streaked blur as he carved his way through the beasts. A pile of bodies began to accumulate around him like a sort of macabre wall.

  “How… how is that possible?” he muttered. Walt had witnessed a few encounters with the hounds before. They were strong and fast and utterly indifferent to injury, healing swiftly if they were able to kill. Only raw luck… or a tremendous amount of skill made it possible to kill one.

  Much less dozens…

  Walt swallowed hard and pressed himself farther back into the shadows of the terrace. He didn’t have a clue what was going on – why the hounds were attacking or why this advancing army stood in the mouth of the gate. But he knew for damned sure that he didn’t want to be discovered by either.

  All thoughts of escape were gone. His only goal now was survival. If he died, they could strip him of all his hard-earned – or at least, hard-stolen – loot.

  As the hounds began to thin out, Walt saw movement by the gate.

  That man – the one that had stood down the advancing line of hounds – drifted up into the air, floating on a column of air mana as he rocketed up into the sky. Only a moment later, he touched down on the rampart atop the gate, another mage coming to rest beside him.

  She’s an air mage. But who is he?

  Walt’s eyes centered on that man, taking a cautious step forward to get a better look.

  He was wearing robes, the cloth wrapped tightly around his skin. His eyes were two flaming orange embers as they took in the street below him. An inferno seemed to be raging in the man’s left arm, the fires visible and reflecting through what appeared to be translucent skin… or something else entirely. That limb seemingly couldn’t contain the flames, fiery ropes of energy winding up his shoulder and around his body. And atop his head floated a crown made entirely of fire.

  Walt’s mouth dropped open as he watched this scene – as that man turned those strange glowing eyes to the city below him. He didn’t look alarmed. Or scared. He looked like a conquering king. A god of fire and flame.

  Not knowing what else to do, Walt tried to open his system UI, struggling to pull up the in-game recording menu. His fingers fumbled at the UI, his eyes darting back to that man standing on the ramparts. And then he had it. He snapped a quick picture, recording the image before him. A fiery god standing above an army of flaming metal soldiers. A legion of dead hounds sprawled out before him and a hurricane at his back.

  And that’s when Walt felt it… an icy stab at the side of his neck.

  He tried to jerk but felt his arm pivoted up and behind him – locked in place. The dagger in his neck twisted and then was ripped free in a shower of blood. Wal
t slumped to the ground, unable to move… his vision listing to the side. He barely even felt himself hit the stone tile of the terrace or the pitter-patter of rain striking his face. And he barely glanced at the cloth-robed man beside him, his limbs shifting into streamers of air and water as he twisted and leapt back up onto the roof in a single fluid motion. Even his loot was forgotten, despite the crushing weight that descended upon him as his channel ended abruptly, and his fingers slowed to a halt.

  Walt only had eyes on that point of light above the gate.

  On that creature of flame and destruction that looked down upon the ruins of Lahab.

  “Who are you?” Walt croaked. “What… are you?”

  And then there was only darkness.

  Chapter 43 - Suicidal

  Finn’s feet touched down on the rain-slick and wind-swept sands at the base of the gate. Streamers of amber energy coiled around him as the air mage’s spell dissipated, sending up a spray of water and sand. Abbad and Kyyle landed with soft thumps beside him. A massive stone wall stood just outside the gate, ringing the entrance to the city. The earth mages had continued to reinforce the barrier, creating a semi-circular ring of rock and stone that nearly surpassed the walls of Lahab.

  As his eyes skimmed down the street, he could see the heaping piles of sickly orange bodies, many of the hounds having been shoved up against the nearby buildings to make a narrow path. Beyond that, more earth mages were at work on the far end of the road. Bilel had dissolved most of the buildings that had toppled down into the street, but there were still plenty of debris. The mages were repurposing those materials, breaking apart the sandstone bricks and reassembling them into a thick wall that neatly cordoned off the area around the gate to secure their foothold into Lahab.