Absalom’s Trials

by J. D. L. Rosell

  She glared at me. “You never told me you were a voidweaver.”

  “A voidweaver?”

  The former dev jabbed a clawed finger at my hand. “Yes. Or what do you think that ring you’re wearing makes you?”

  “Oh, this old thing.” I casually held up the Void Ring. “I just forged this in Faze-Aught.”

  “You what?”

  I grinned mischievously at her.

  Then understanding lit up her eyes. “Ah. I think I know now.”

  It was my turn to be confused. “Know what, exactly?”

  “This is something that came up in earlier tests of The Everlands.” Her eyes went distant for a moment. “In those days, there was a rare phenomenon where players gained powers they didn't previously have and that the game shouldn’t have allowed. We called it ‘interplanar insight’ after it became clear the players were somehow tapping into other realms within the game for these powers.”

  It was both a relief and a letdown that I hadn't done something entirely new to the game. Still, something niggled at my thoughts. “But if that's possible, that players can get these super crazy powers, then the game is essentially broken.”

  “Exactly. We thought we’d weeded it out of the game by the open beta. But with all the changes that devil Solomon made to the code near the end…” She shook her head. “I’m not surprised it wormed its way back in.”

  Ned Solomon. That brought up a whole host of other things I needed to talk with her about.

  But before I could say anything, Brandeur boomed, “If you are done with this nonsense talk, perhaps you can give the weird woman in the chute your weapons and we can return to the dragon's castle for more looting.”

  I still hadn't looked through Jin’Thal's treasure trove, and I was itching to see what I'd find. But we had to do our due diligence. “Fine.”

  “Wait,” Farelle said softly, and Brandeur groaned. The Wilder ignored him. “Did you succeed?” she asked me. “Did you become Absalom’s Champion?”

  I nodded. I could feel Sheika’s eyes appraising me, and I wondered how much she knew. She hadn’t seemed surprised, probably because she’d seen the new title in my stats. But did she know my task?

  Farelle, meanwhile, wore a faint smile. “Good. At least all of this was for something.” She nodded as if to herself. “I assume he doesn’t just want you wear a shiny new title around. Is he asking you to do something?”

  As usual, Farelle’s arrows found their target. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. What could I say? What could I afford to keep secret? I didn’t want to deceive my friends. But even after all we’d accomplished, the task before me now seemed too absurdly impossible for me to admit to them. Even if I believed I’d find a way to do it.

  But I couldn’t lie. I would have kept the truth from them if they hadn’t asked, true. But now that Farelle had, it was time to fess up, at least to part of it.

  “He wants me to kill the three Elder Gods,” I said quietly. “Zynal of the Valyn. Omagnar of the Gnarish. And Nali of the Naiads.”

  Their reactions weren’t all what I expected. Brandeur’s roaring laugh and Sarai’s muttered prayer I could buy. But Farelle’s knowing nod? And Sheika’s searching stare? I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

  Sarai spoke first. “Why?” she breathed, her eyes wide. I guessed she had a more devout side to her than I’d guessed.

  I shrugged, and went back on my resolve to tell the truth a bit. Until I knew how they would all react to the rest, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t lose them all if I confessed it. “He didn’t say exactly. But I’d guess he’s tired of his parents telling him to clean his room.”

  “Scales tilting,” Farelle muttered. I looked sharply at her. Those words — they echoed what Absalom himself had said. I didn’t like at all what was going on with her.

  “And what do you plan to do?” Sheika inquired.

  I met her gaze with a forced smile. “Exactly as he asks.” I shrugged. “I’ve always been a bit heretical.”

  Farelle snorted and took a long pull from her flask, acting more like her usual self. “Okay,” she said, turning to the chute. “Now we can go down.”

  Brandeur shrugged his great shoulders. “Kill the most ancient and powerful of all the gods. Why not? Just something else to add to the accomplishments of Brandeur Three-Horned.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Come on. We’ve got plenty to do.”

  “The understatement of the century,” Sarai muttered, seeming to retreat into her former bitterness. Though she might not be around long, now that I thought about it. After all, I had made her goddess help us against her will.

  As we fell into the chute and plummeted into darkness, it felt very much how I proceeded forth now. Absalom had a plan, one he said would help me escape the game, and I had agreed to help him. But if it would lead where he said it would, only time would tell. I just had to trust him and hope that, in the end, it would free me.

  No matter the cost.

  I hope you enjoyed Absalom’s Trials!

  If you have a moment, I’d appreciate if you would help me out and leave an Amazon or Goodreads review!

  If you’re itching for more of Marrow and the Everlands, read on for the prologue of Book 3: Absalom’s Heretic! And sign up here to be the first to know when it comes out.

  Books by J.D.L. Rosell

  The Famine Cycle

  Secret Seller (Prequel)

  1. City of Whispers (coming soon)

  The Everlands

  1. Absalom’s Fate

  2. Absalom’s Trials

  3. Absalom’s Heretic (coming soon)

  The Sons Incarnate

  1. In the Shadow of the Rook

  Absalom’s Heretic: Prologue

  The Everlands: Book III

  Ali wished they'd just leave him out of it.

  When Ned Solomon and his corporate lackeys had demanded he ensure the boy remained stabilized in the transfer to the tycoon's estate, he'd done it. Even when he figured out they were essentially kidnapping the kid, he'd gone along with it. He hadn't known, he told himself. It had been sprung on him.

  But had he turned them down when the lackeys came around to demand he do a check-up on Sean Marrow? Ali wouldn't be in the back of a black sedan, his technician briefcase clutched in his hands, if he had, would he?

  Now, he told himself he went to make sure the boy was okay. As far as he knew, no one understood how to get him out safely anyway. What harm was there in making sure he was still stable?

  Besides. If he was brave, he’d been given a secret mission by an old friend. But as Solomon's sprawling mansion grew larger before Ali, acting on that mission seemed grew less and less likely.

  The black sedan pulled up, and the driver came around to open his door. “This way, sir,” the man said as Ali stepped out and gaped around him. The house had a thousand glittering windows, and looked made of marble and sandstone. It had to cost nine figures at least. When the driver set off for the entrance, Ali had no choice but to leave off his ogling and hurry after him.

  Once inside the atrium, the ceiling of which rose three stories high, Ali was passed from the driver to another suit-and-tie man, then from him to a conservatively dressed woman, all in different locations in the huge manor. As a fourth person took him in her care, Ali was beginning to suspect it was all smoke and mirrors, a welcome designed to keep him off-balance. If so, it was working perfectly.

  By the time Ali reached the door behind which his fifth chauffeur claimed “the patient” waited, his nerves were buzzing. Now that he had no idea where he was in this gargantuan house, he knew there was no way he was going through with his secret mission. At this point, with the pull that Ned Solomon had and the thing he'd demonstrated he'd already do, Ali wasn't sure he was completely safe himself.

  No way was he risking himself to help the boy. Even if, as the friend who had proposed the plan claimed, Ali was his only chance for help.

  Two thick, steel doors opened to reveal a ch
amber unlike anything else in the estate, cool and modern where the rest had been warm, inviting, and modeled after older architecture. Much of the room was empty space and dark, making the simulation rig with the bright spotlight on it all the more striking. Ali shivered. It was like something in a science fiction movie, and not the kind with happy endings.

  Next to the hooked-up Sean Marrow stood Ali’s host. “Ah, there you are! Ali, wasn't it? Don't be shy, come on in.” Ned Solomon had a notorious smile, one which he flashed at Ali as he ushered him inside the room with a hand on his shoulder. Curly locks of hair went down to the tycoon's shoulders, and like the last time Ali had seen him, he wore a khaki suit. He looked dressed more for a cruise in the Bahamas than a manor in the middle of the country, cooped up in metal box with a kid practically in a coma.

  “Go ahead and get set up. Once you make sure he's still doing well, there are a few things I'd like to ask you.”

  Ali nodded mutely and did as he asked. Once he'd connected his tablet and synced it, he checked over the vitals as well as in-game stats for the boy. What he saw made him scrunch up his eyes. His level, while high for how recently the game had dropped, wasn't anything astounding yet. But there were things about him they didn't make sense. Absalom's Champion, the Catalyst, Divine Aspect — what did those things mean? Ali had an inkling, but he only knew one thing for sure. Sean Marrow might be in over his head. But the kid wasn't taking his bad luck lying down.

  Maybe he wouldn't even need Ali’s help.

  “How's he doing?” Solomon prompted him.

  Ali focused back on his task, then hesitated over what he saw. “Fine. Considering the circumstances.”

  Solomon raised an eyebrow. “Which means what exactly?”

  Ali took a deep breath. “Sim rigs weren't designed to sustain someone for this long. If he stays under for much longer, his body and brain may start to… deteriorate.”

  The smile was gone from Solomon's eyes, even if it still played on his lips. “How long?”

  “Two weeks. A month.” Ali shrugged helplessly. “I'm not a doctor, I can't say for sure.”

  The tycoon nodded and stared at the unconscious boy for a long moment. Ali couldn't help but look himself. Sean’s face looked peaceful, but was showing signs of his prolonged stay, growing skeletally thin. It was painful seeing the boy waste away. Ali looked aside.

  “Speculate with me a moment,” Solomon said slowly. “Say his body were to die. Would his mind pass as well? Or could it, perhaps, linger on?”

  Ali tried to hide his surprise. “I've heard the possibility mentioned by dev teams,” he said carefully. “But I don't know anything about it.”

  “No. Of course you wouldn't.” Solomon nodded as if to himself. “But there are some who wonder if such a transfer isn't possible. If, given the right push after an appropriate amount of acclimation, the mind wouldn't be inclined to abandon its transient biological systems and exchange them for more permanent, synthetic ones.”

  Ali stared. Was the tycoon one of those fanatics that wanted to trade the possibility for a metaphysical heaven for a projected one? Infinite Realities had seen more than its fair share of people with the same belief. Not that The Everlands qualified as heaven by any stretch of the imagination. Even if it did have such a strong appeal that Ali almost constantly wished he were playing, he still knew it was a box. And even if a box had no walls and infinitely spread in every direction like the game did, it was still a box. At least, Ali thought so.

  But that didn't seem to fit Solomon exactly. Ali couldn't believe someone so successful and fabulously wealthy as him wanted to escape his life. No; an ambitious man like Solomon had to want something more.

  And Ali wanted nothing to do with it.

  “That is nearly all, Ali,” Solomon broke the silence. “Just one more thing. If you'll bring up his vitals history…”

  Ali did as the tycoon asked and presented his tablet's screen to him. Solomon scrolled along it, then jabbed a finger at one spot on a graph. “Here. There was a spike in his brain activity and a drop in his heartbeat and breathing. What could that be?”

  Ali stared at it. “I don't know. I've never seen anything like it.” Sweat crawled down his back. Why had he done it? Why had he told a lie to this man who held his life and career in his hands? Yet he had. For he had seen it before in the alpha testing of the game. Interplanary insight, they’d called it then. But the fanatics who believed in a virtual afterlife called it something else: Enlightenment.

  Solomon studied Ali for a long time. “I'll need you to come back soon. Keep an eye on him. Is that alright with you, Ali?”

  After a moment, Ali nodded. No, he wouldn't carry through with his secret mission this time. He'd done enough lying to the tycoon's face. And if he wanted him back soon, there'd be another opportunity. And maybe Ali would be braver then.

  Maybe.

  Solomon clapped him on the shoulder then. “Until next time, then.” He directed him towards the door, though the tycoon himself stayed behind.

  Until next time, Ali thought to the boy. Then I'll help you get out of the Everlands.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to:

  Kaitlyn, for her insightful feedback, careful editorial eye, and constant support;

  Rebekah, for her awesome illustration and cover work (vividcover.com);

  And, of course, you, dear reader, who encourages me on spinning fantastical tales. I couldn’t keep doing it without you.

  - Josiah

  About the Author

  J.D.L. Rosell is the author of The Famine Cycle, The Everlands, and The Sons Incarnate series. He lives, writes, reads, and hikes in Seattle, Washington.

  www.jdlrosell.com

  authorjdlrosell@gmail.com