Mark 2.0

by Prax Venter

  She turned to face him, and Mark could feel her certainty wash over him.

  “We need to plant this seed.”

  Mark’s eyes shot over to the glowing object currently held in Abby’s coiled tentacle and knew she was right. He’d been so focused on how badass they were at clearing this game-like dungeon that he’d sort of lost sight of the bigger picture.

  Sasha and Abby now also understood through their bonds and they both visibly deflated.

  “Unfortunate,” the green-skinned woman said longingly as she gazed down at the powerful object.

  Sasha reached out and patted Abby’s silky black hair. “Don’t worry about it, little one. We’re about to go swimming in rubies.”

  Mark puffed out a breath as he looked down into the pile of dusty random bones under their feet and wondered if they should just place it back in the same spot, cover it with a few skulls, and then let unnatural nature take its course… but that didn’t feel right.

  His Truth Seeing eye was sending back hints of sour, tainted energy from the surrounding area and now-rotting roots. This dark chamber was not where they should plant the ghostly seed.

  “Under the Bone Rain,” Jezebel said. “Perhaps we need to take this to the surface.”

  It sounded like it made sense, so Mark nodded and began leading them back up toward the black, bone-spewing portal above. There were no hostile ghosts trying to accost them anymore and he wondered if each one of them vanished with the passing of the tree.

  With nothing stopping them and all upward-slanting tunnels eventually leading to the surface, it wasn’t long before the five of them stood under the unnerving doorway into some dark plane of death Mark never wished to visit. The skeletons of those who died afraid and alone continued to steadily pour down from the supernatural phenomenon and standing directly under it looked like a good way to get pelted with remains.

  “May I have the seed?” Jezebel asked, stepping up to Abby. The shorter woman nodded and handed over the glowing gem, but it was clear she really wanted to keep it. The armored satyr continued.

  “I’ll take care of this; the falling bones shouldn’t be a problem in my bear form. Everyone wait here.”

  The ravishing strawberry-blonde lifted the huge gem toward her mouth as she transformed into a bear with the same-colored hair. She took the powerful seed in her mouth, flipped on her glowing, cut-out wings, and then launched herself up into the air.

  Through their strong bond, Mark could effortlessly pick up on her churning emotions as she moved to replant the Ghost Ent. That she failed to permanently delete his old memories really bothered her, and it was as if the powerful research AI finally came to terms that she wasn’t as clever as she thought she was. Her relatively new access to human-level emotions led to cut corners and rushing toward rewards without thinking through the costs or the consequences that got her there.

  The human she killed before Mark had met her and what she’d done to Maliah had haunted Jezebel, but the concept of losing Mark in such a terrible way- where he just became a different person as a result of different memories… it hit her hard. His reassurances didn’t matter, leaving a copy of his other self in the recycle bin was still another mistake, and Jezebel was done making mistakes like that.

  Abby and Sasha stepped close to him on either side as their shifted druid pawed around in the heap of skeletons as brittle shards of bone struck her from above. They didn’t do any serious damage, but he could tell they stung, nevertheless.

  Once she’d found a spot she was happy with, Jezebel dug out a small hole, dropped the ghostly acorn from her maw, and then covered it back up with the remains of the lonely dead.

  As she turned to leave, a person in a long black cloak appeared between her and where Mark stood. Fear gripped his gut when he realized that none of them could move.

  The man approached Jezebel, who took a tentative step away, then looked around the stranger with concern radiating out of her when she realized the rest of her team was locked in place.

  The newcomer held out his hand and said something that made Jezebel pause. Mark strained to hear what the man was saying, but they were just too far away. Instead, he tried to feel what was happening through Jezebel’s connection.

  Right away, he knew she wasn’t experiencing fear. More like reserved awe.

  He turned his blind eye onto the stranger in the black cloak and discovered the same limitless energy he’d felt before from the high-level entity known as He Who Judges.

  Was this person another major Crystal Heart god? The God of Death? Whatever the deity had to say, he said it quickly before he vanished back to wherever he came from, leaving Jezebel alone under the Bone Rain once again.

  Mark sucked in a huge breath when he discovered he could move and heard a crack from Sasha’s snapping tail.

  “That paralysis bullshit is getting old,” she said.

  Before anyone could say anything else, Bear-Jez activated her wings and launched herself toward her team, her huge paws barely skimming a foot off the ground as she flew.

  She morphed back into her satyr form as she landed in front of them, her hooves skidding a little in the brittle bones.

  “That was He Who Changes,” she said, but with a calmness that didn’t match her words. “Apparently, he’d been watching me specifically as he knew I was the one responsible for the Cataclysm.” She paused to gaze at the sprawling landscape of the dead around them.

  “Well,” Sasha said, putting a hand on her hip. “What did this one have to say?”

  “We did the right thing. This tree was important to him and exists to recycle death energy into life energy. He, um, was considering siding with Maliah until we set everything on the right path again.”

  Mark reached out and pulled her in for a hug.

  “You did good,” he whispered into her ear, and she shuddered in his embrace as she wrapped him up as well. “From now on, you are officially in charge of all tree-related decisions.”

  “No new powers?” Abby asked.

  Jezebel pulled away from Mark and gave her a sad smile.

  “No. He said that not fighting against us was all the gift we needed.”

  Mark let out a short laugh. “We’ve got so many new powers, upgrades, and shit to figure out, I’m almost glad we didn’t get another one.”

  Abby’s dark brows came down as she turned her yellow eyes on him. He shrugged.

  “I said almost.”

  Mark coated his hand with the new upgraded energy, focused on picturing the Blazar Saturasphere, and pulled open a portal back to where they started.

  A few surprised citizens on the other side stopped to gawk at the rip in reality forming inside their home, but that did not stop Mark and his team of beautiful women popping through. He had about half a tank of essence and found it hard to not watch their perfect asses as they ducked through his portal. Even the glossy pink peach of a rump Angel had sporting below her tough armor drew his eye.

  Should they get her some pants?

  Thoughts of pants flew out of his mind as he saw Princess Verrelle standing near the Goddess anchor with a brand-new pair of ethereal legs. They were merely simple cylinders, and she was using Amina as a brace as she practiced, but she had apparently been gifted her own allotment of the Goddess’s red energy.

  “Back so soon, Collector?” Urtanion said from nearby. Mark turned to see the black and green earless dragon regarding him and his Enthralled with a massive smile.

  “Mission complete,” Mark said with his own smile and then motioned for the Blazar advisor to join him over on a part of the promenade that wasn’t so crowded. It proved to be a difficult feat with the crowds gathered to not only learn about this new deity everyone was talking about, but to also witness the princess trying out her new magic legs. Once they were down on a quieter, more private level, Mark continued.

  “We replanted the Ghost Ent after we destroyed it, but as long as nothing happens to its roots, you shouldn’t have another problem
.”

  Urtanion nodded sagely.

  “I know you are not an enemy, Mark,” he began, “and your coming has heralded an unfathomable change to our lives. Sovereign Fayllencia was a new ruler and having trouble conceiving a second child from complications of her first. She’d learned that bark from the roots of the unnatural tree would potentially boost her fertility, and so she led a campaign to delve deep into the heart of the Bone Rain for the purest sample.”

  The Blazar took a deep breath, and Mark received a brief flash of a violent screaming match between Urtanion and a younger Fayllencia.

  “I told her it was a mistake and use of the vile roots led to a multitude of serious complications. I know she blames herself for… many things, but I am emphatically relieved the Blazar people can finally put those terrible events to rest. I know I speak for the Lord and Sovereign when I say you’ve earned your reward. Please, take as much as you can carry from the royal treasury below.”

  Mark cast a glance down into the mess of red-colored clothes, gems, and shards and wondered again how long it would take them to search for what they needed.

  He turned back to the Blazar advisor to suggest they rejoin the others when a sharp blade pierced his skull from the side of his head- at least that’s what he thought was happening as his legs gave out. The pain from bouncing off the ruby path was nothing compared to the drilling, needling insanity boring into his mind. He heard Sasha calling his name from above as his heart-bound women all began to panic and saw Urtanion’s worried face looking down on him.

  “Collector?” he said, confused.

  But his voice faded along with every sound and all sight, truth-infused or otherwise.

  “Collector,” another voice said in the darkness, but it was muffled, hard to make out. “I apologize for the agony, but it is obscuring this communication. You must return to Starglade. You must save us.”

  He recognized that voice. It was Master Noma, the ancient Kalorplast Quest Master that helped them get the Crystal Heart shards.

  The blackness began to recede, but the pain was becoming too much to bear. His brain was close to shutting down and entering shock of self-preservation mode whether he wanted to or not.

  A vision of a mammoth tree from the window of a distant stone castle filled his mind, and he instantly recognized it as the Kalorplast’s bustling, leafy metropolis. Then, something impossible stepped into view next to the tree.

  It was Maliah. Her drooping antenna parted the clouds as she took steps that must have been half a mile long. The ground quaked at her coming while her black eyes looked right into his own, and the primal feeling of being spotted by a predator gripped his insides like a clenching fist.

  He needed to hide.

  But as the impossibly enormous Helper Fairy drew closer, Mark’s vision grew dim. The eyes he was looking through panned down on their own, and he saw old, knotted hands made of bark coated in a green sticky substance.

  “Sun help us,” someone whispered nearby, and Mark was instantly aware of other Kalorplast in the room. His family. He was so worried about his young sprouts- about all the sprouts everywhere. But he had done what he could. Seer to seer. His final sacrifice to force a message on the one hero who had a chance against this calamity who posed as a creator.

  Something was very wrong. This was really happening and-

  Mark sucked in a deep ragged breath as he sat up to face Sasha, Jezebel, Abby, and even the digital eyes of Angel leaning over him.

  The pain was already receding but what he saw…

  “Mark!” Sasha snapped at him, and he locked his eyes on hers. “What happened?”

  He did his best to feed them the image of a mountain-sized System Admin standing within the Crystal Heart game world as he answered.

  “She’s here.”

  The End

  Of

  Mark 2.0: Book 3 – Change

  ~

  Expect Book 4 – Love out late 2020

  So, I had a bunch of stuff planned for Book #3 Change, but Mark and company never got to it. Sanctuary turned out to take much longer to resolve than I had thought, but the story itself is in control now, so I’m rolling with it. Maybe this means the series will be longer. I don’t know, but there is a good chance Mark will go to Book #5.

  Please take a moment to leave a review! This series is buried behind Enthralled, and I’ve heard a lot of feedback along the lines of being so invested with Ahnix, Vale, and Roo that readers don’t want to jump into this spin-off series.

  If you, dear reader, want me to continue focusing on harem tales like this, I need people to review and share on social media! Don’t be shy! Well, you can be shy. I understand. Yet you can now leave a star-only rating anonymously!

  Thank you so, so very much,

  ~ Prax Venter

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